[351] R.F. p. 302 foll. Meals in connection with sacrifice are also found at the Parilia (R.F. p. 81, and Ovid, Fasti, iv. 743 foll.) and Terminalia (Ovid, Fasti, ii. 657); but in both cases Ovid seems to be describing rustic rites; nor is it certain that the meal was really sacramental. What does seem proved is that the old Latins and other Italians believed the deities of the house to be present at their meals—
ante focos olim scamnis considere longis mos erat et mensae credere adesse deos (Fasti, vi. 307),
and thus the idea was maintained that in some sense all meals had a sacred character, i.e. all in which the members of a familia (see above, p. 78), or of gens or curia, met together. Cp. R. Smith, op. cit. p. 261 foll. We may remember that the Penates were the spirits of the food itself, not merely of the place in which it was stored; it had therefore a sacred character, which is also shown by the sanctification of the firstfruits (R.F. pp. 151, 195). (The cenae collegiorum, dinners of collegia of priests, were in no sense sacrificial meals; see Marquardt, p. 231, note 7; Henzen, Acta Fratr. Arv. pp. 13, 39, 40.)
[352] Cic. de Legibus, ii. 8. 19.
[353] Livy i. 18. For constitutional difficulties in this passage, see, e.g., Greenidge, Roman Public Life, p. 50.
[354] For this and the augurs generally, see Lecture XII.
[355] The passages are collected by Wissowa, R.K. p. 420, note 3. There is no doubt about the inauguratio of the three great flamines and the rex sacrorum, who were all specially concerned with sacrifice, and of the augurs, who would obviously need it in order to perform the same ceremony for others—as a bishop needs consecration for the same reason. As regards the pontifices, Dionysius (ii. 73. 3) clearly thought it was needed for them, and we might a priori assume that one who might become a pontifex maximus would need it; but Wissowa discounts Dionysius' opinion, and I am unwilling to differ from him on a point of the ius divinum, of which he is our best exponent. If he is right, it may be that the three flamines maiores, who were reckoned in strict religious sense as above the pontifices, including their head (Festus, p. 185), needed "holiness" more than any pontifex, and so with the augurs. The insignia of the pontifices, as well as many historical facts, show that the pontifices were competent to perform sacrifice in a general sense (Marq. p. 248 foll.); but it is possible that they never had the right, like the flamines, actually to slay the victim. I do not feel sure that the securis was really one of their symbols, though Horace seems to say so in Ode iii. 23. 12. The whole question needs further investigation. It may be found that the essential distinction between the pontifices and magistrates cum imperio on the one hand, and the flamines on the other, is to be sought in the ideas of holiness connected with the shedding of blood in sacrifice. The flamen is permanently holy, having charge of constant sacrifices; e.g. the Dialis had duties every day. He is the duly sanctified guide for all rites within his own religious range.
[356] Wissowa, R.K. pp. 339, 410 foll.
[357] The whole subject of the preparation of the sacrificer for his work, and of the steps by which he becomes separated from the profane, is well treated by Hubert et Mauss, Mélanges d'histoire des religions, p. 23 foll. The reference to Dr. Jevons is Introduction, ch. xx. p. 270 foll.
[358] Serv. Aen. xii. 173; Virgil wrote "dant fruges manibus salsas, et tempora ferro Summa notant pecudum"; to which Servius adds that the symbolic movement was a (pretended) cut from head to tail of the victim. Wissowa, R.K. p. 352.