I have already mentioned[[428]] that there was a procession in March, as we infer from the sacra Argeorum quoted by Varro, which went round the sacella Argeorum, or twenty-four chapels situated in the four Servian regions of the city[[429]]. What was done at these sacella we do not know; the procession and its doings had become so obscure in Ovid’s time that he could dispose of it in two lines of his Fasti, and express a doubt as to whether it took place on one day or two[[430]]. Nor do we know what the sacella really were. The best conjecture is that of Jordan, who has brought some evidence together to show that they were small chapels or sacred places where holy things were deposited until the time came round for them to be used in some religious ceremony[[431]].
But on May 15 there was another rite in which the word Argei plays a prominent part; and here the details have in part at least survived. The Argei in this case are not chapels, but a number of puppets or bundles of rushes, resembling (as Dionysius has recorded) men bound hand and foot, which were taken down to the pons sublicius by the Pontifices and magistrates, and cast into the river by the Vestal Virgins[[432]]. The Flaminica Dialis, the priestess of Jupiter, was present at the ceremony in mourning. The number of the puppets was probably the same as that of the sacella of the same name[[433]].
Explanations of these rites were invented by Roman scholars. The sacella were the graves of Greeks who had come to Italy with Hercules; and the puppets represented the followers of Hercules who had died on their journey and were to return home as it were by proxy[[434]]. Apart from the theories of the learned, it was the fact that the common people at Rome believed the puppets to be substitutes for old men, who at one time used to be thrown into the Tiber as victims. Sexagenarios de ponte was a well-known proverb which in Cicero’s time was explained by supposing that the bridges alluded to were those over which the voters passed in the Comitia[[435]]; but this view may at once be put aside. Those bridges were certainly a comparatively late invention, while the proverb was of remote antiquity.
But, given the details of the rite, and the popular belief about the old men as victims, what explanation can we hope to arrive at? We may freely admit that no satisfactory etymology of the word Argei is forthcoming; but this is perhaps, in a negative sense, an advantage to our inquiry[[436]]. The Romans derived it from the Greek Ἀργεῖοι; and to this etymology Mommsen is now disposed to return. The writer of the article ‘Argei’ in the Mythological Lexicon derived it from varka-s = ‘wolf’; others have believed it to come from a root arg = ‘white’ or ‘shining,’ and though the termination eus is hardly a Latin one, it may be that this is the true basis of the word[[437]].
Instead of prejudging the case by fanciful etymologies, or by attempting to decide the question whether the Romans ever practised the rites of human sacrifice, we will take the leading features of the ceremony, and see in what direction they may on the whole direct us. That done, it may be possible to sum up the debate, though a final and decisive verdict is not to be expected.
The features which demand attention are (1) the processional character of the rites; (2) the presence of the Pontifices and the Vestals; (3) the mourning of the Flaminica Dialis; (4) the rush-puppets and their immersion in the Tiber.
1. We can hardly doubt that there was a procession to the pons sublicius, though the fact is not expressly stated. We are tempted to believe that it visited each sacellum, and there found, or possibly made, the puppet (simulacrum), which thus represented the district of which the sacellum was the sacred centre; and that it then proceeded, bearing the puppets, probably by the Forum and Vicus Tuscus to the bridge[[438]]. Now if this feature can help us at all—if we accept the connexion of the March and May ceremonies and their processional character—it must point in the direction of the purification of land or city, on the analogy of other Italian ceremonies of the same kind. At the end of this month took place the Ambarvalia, when the priests went round the land with prayer and sacrifice to ensure the good growth of the crops; and we have a remarkable instance of the same kind of practice in the celebrated inscription of Iguvium. Not only each city, but each pagus, and even each farmer, duly purified his land in some such way, cleansing it from the powers of evil and sterility, while at the same time the boundaries were renewed in the memories of all concerned. Bearing this in mind, and also the season of the year, we may fairly guess that the Argean processions had some relation to agriculture, and to the welfare of the precarious stock of wealth of an agricultural community.
2. The presence of the Pontifices and Vestals.—The former would be present, partly as the representative sacred college of the united city[[439]], partly as having under their special care the sacred bridge from which the puppets were thrown. Whether or not the word pontifex be directly derived from pons[[440]], it is certain that the ancient bridge, with its strong religious associations, was under their care, and that the river was an object of their constant liturgical attention[[441]]. It has been suggested that the whole ceremony was one of bridge-worship[[442]]; but this view, as we shall see, will hardly explain all the facts. It leaves the March rites unexplained, and also the presence of the Vestals; nor does it seem to suit the season of the year.
The presence of the Vestals is more significant; and it was they, as it seems, who performed the act of throwing the puppets from the bridge[[443]]. In all the public duties performed by them (as we shall see more fully in dealing with the Vestalia[[444]]) a reference can be traced to one leading idea, viz. that the food and nourishment of the State, of which the sacred fire was the symbol, depended for its maintenance on the accurate performance of these duties. We have just seen that they spent the seven days preceding the Ides of May in preparing their sacred cakes from the first ripening ears of corn. We shall see them using these cakes in June, September, and at the Lupercalia. At the Parilia and the Fordicidia they also take a prominent part, both of them festivals relating to the fruitfulness of herds and flocks; so also at the harvest festivals in August of Ops Consiva and Consus. And we can hardly suppose that their presence at the rite under discussion should have a different significance from that of their public service on all other occasions. Even if we had no other evidence to go upon, we might on the facts just adduced base a fair inference that this ceremony too had some relation to the processes and perils awaiting the ripening crops.
3. The Flaminica Dialis had on this day to lay aside her usual bridal dress, and to appear in mourning[[445]]. The same rule was laid down for her during the ‘moving’ of the ancilia in March, and during the Vestalia up to the completion of the purification of the temple of Vesta. It is not easy to see what the meaning of this rule may have been. On the other two occasions there is nothing to lead us to suppose that it was some such terrible rite as human sacrifice which caused the change of costume; we need not therefore suppose that it was so on May 15. But if all three occasions are times of purification and the averting of evil influences: if they each mark the conclusion of an old season, and the necessity of great care in entering on a new one, we can better understand it. This was the case, as we saw, when in March the Salii were pervading the city, and it was so also at the Vestalia, which was preparatory to the ingathering of the crops. Some such critical moment, I think, the day we are discussing must also have been. Some light may be thrown on this aspect of the question by practices which have been collected by Dr. Mannhardt from Northern Europe[[446]], some of which still survive. I will give a single instance from Russia. At Murom on June 29 a figure of straw, dressed in female clothing, is laid on a bier and carried to the edge of a lake or river; it is eventually torn up and thrown into the river, while the spectators hide their faces and behave as though they bewailed the death of Kostroma. In another district on the same day an old man carried out of the town a puppet representing the spring, and was followed by the women singing mournful songs and expressing by their gestures grief and despair.