is revealed in the particular customs that went with it, and which are found, almost identically the same, in the most ancient legislations. It is then most probable that during the first centuries of Rome, the manus mariti was the inevitable result of marriage. From the day the newly married couple had offered a joint sacrifice to the divinities in the nuptial chamber, the wife had no other family agnates or heirs than her husband and his relatives. What became of the wife's former family ties, the rights of the agnates to her guardianship and to her inheritance? Marriage had destroyed them forever. But in this there was a danger to which the legislators had soon to give their attention. The guardians of the wife cannot have been very ready to consent to a marriage which deprived them of all their rights, and without their consent marriage was impossible. Could they have been compelled to give up their rights? But these rights were sacred to the guardians of the family interest; for them it was a duty to prevent the patrimony of their ancestors from passing into the hands of strangers. To satisfy all conflicting claims, the ancient principle had to be entirely altered. Two things had to be separated which until then had seemed inseparable-marriage and the manus, that is to say, the change of family. Side by side with the ancient marriage accompanied by the regular formalities, a new marriage was devised which was contracted simply by consent and left the wife in her family under the guardianship of her agnates. The consent of the guardians was always necessary for the ancient marriage with manus; but it was not required for the marriage pure and simple, which left the rights of the agnates intact. This revolution in the family usage was already accomplished, or nearly so, at the time of the laws of the Twelve Tables.

For the rest, the introduction of a new form of marriage did not insure the abandonment of the old, for both could in diverse cases in turn satisfy the same need. If the wife, at the time of her marriage, was not under a guardian, but under the parental authority, that is to say without patrimony, the conventio in manum could only benefit the agnates; for it was equivalent to the compact of renunciation, which, in ancient French law, so often accompanied marriage contracts. Thus, the same interest, that of preserving the patrimonial wealth, caused the introduction for the heiress of the marriage without manus, and maintained the marriage with manus for the daughter who had not already inherited.d

RELIGION

The religion of Rome was, as the legends show, of Sabine origin. Much of its ceremonial, the names of many of its gods, were Etruscan; and Hellenic mythology began, at an early time, to mingle itself in the simple religious faith of the Sabine countrymen. The important question in the history of all religions is, how far they exert power over the lives of their professors. That the old faith of Rome was not without such power in the times of which we speak is unquestionable. The simple Roman husbandman lived and died, like his Sabine ancestors, in the fear of the gods; he believed that there was something in the universe higher and better than himself; that by these higher powers his life and actions were watched; that to these powers good deeds and an honest life were pleasing, evil deeds and bad faith hateful. The principles thus established remained, as is confirmed by the weighty testimony of Polybius, delivered in a later and more corrupt age. "If," says he, "you lend a single talent to a Greek, binding him by all

possible securities, yet he will break faith. But Roman magistrates, accustomed to have immense sums of money pass through their hands, are restrained from fraud simply by respect for the sanctity of an oath."b

The primitive religion of the Italians, in its essential or fundamental beliefs resembled that of other Indo-European nations. They adored the forces of nature, favourable or otherwise, and imagined them animated living beings, of different sexes, their rivality producing the struggles of the elements, and their union explaining the external fecundity of the world. This was also the basis of the Greek religion, but the Italian religion bore the impression of the nations who had made it. These nations were as a rule grave, sensible, prudent, and much absorbed by the miseries of this life and the dangers of the future. As they were inclined rather more towards fear than hope, they respected their gods a great deal, but feared them more, and their worship consisted more especially of humble petitions and rigorous mortifications.

Their imaginations wanted in richness and brilliance, they never therefore created anything like the rich development of the poetic legends so much admired in the Greeks. Their legends are poor and simple; springing from the hard life of agricultural labour, their character is often strangely prosaic ; they are especially wanting in variety; in different times the same stories are found applied to different gods. The hero who founded or was the benefactor of the town was as a rule a child of marvellous birth, son of the god Lar, and begotten near the family hearth, sometimes by a spark from the fire. When he is young a miracle reveals his future greatness. This miracle is everywhere the same; it is a flame which burns around his head without consuming him. During his life he is wise, pious, and good; he makes good laws and teaches men to respect the gods and justice. After a few useful deeds he disappears suddenly, "he ceases to be seen," without it being possible to say how he vanished. Doubtless he has gone to lose himself in the bosom of the great divinity from which everything emanates here below, he becomes part of this divinity, he loses his mortal name and from henceforth takes the one of the god with which he is absorbed. Thus Æneas, after his disappearance, was honoured under the name of Jupiter Indiges and Latinus as Jupiter Latinus.

Italy was thus not very rich in religious stories; the mixture of Italian races, that gave birth to Rome, was poorer still. Rome was content to accept the beliefs of the different nations which composed her by trying to unite them and making them agree; it did not seem necessary to create new ones. The only innovation which was made was inscribing on kinds of registers, called Indigitamenta, the list of gods that are affected by each event in a man's life, from his conception until his death, and those that look after his most indispensable needs, such as food, dwelling, and clothing. They were placed in regular order, with a few explanations as to their names and the prayers which had to be offered up to them. The gods of the Indigitamenta have an exclusive and entire Roman character. Without doubt in other countries the need has been felt of placing the principal acts of life under divine protection, but as a rule gods are chosen for this purpose who are known, powerful, and tried, in order to be sure that their help will be efficacious. In Greece, the great Athene, or the wise Hermes, is invoked in order that a child may be clever and learned. In Rome, special gods were preferred, created for that purpose and for no other use; there is one who makes a child utter his first cry, and one who makes him speak his first word, neither have another use, and are only invoked for this occasion.

They seldom have another name but the one their special functions give them, as if to show that they had no real existence besides the act over which they preside.

Their competency is very limited; the simplest action gives birth to several divinities. When a child is weaned there is one who teaches him how to eat, another to teach him to drink, a third makes him lie still in his little bed. When he commences to walk, four goddesses protect his first steps, two accompany him when he leaves his home, and two bring him back when he returns. The lists were thus endless and the names became indefinitely multiplied.

The fathers of the Catholic Church were much amused at "this population of little gods condemned to such small uses," and compare them to workmen who divide the work amongst themselves in order that it may be more quickly done. For all this it is curious to study them; they are, after all, the original gods of Rome. Rome had not yet undergone the sovereign influence of Greece when the pontiffs drew up the Indigitamenta, and the remains that are left to us of the sacred registers can alone teach us what idea the Romans had of divinity and how they understood religious sentiment. What is most striking at first is how all these gods seem without life. They have no history attached to them and not even a legend has been given them. All that is known of them is that at a certain crisis they must be prayed to and they can then render service. Once that moment passes, they are forgotten. They do not possess real names; those given to them do not distinguish them individually, but only indicate the function they fulfil. As a rule this name is in the form of an epithet; from this it is probable that it was not always employed alone, and that at first it was a simple emblem. It can be concluded with a great deal of apparent truth that originally the name described a powerful divinity, or even the divinity in general, the father all-powerful, as he was called so long as he limited his action to a special purpose. Thus the two gods Vaticanus and Fabulinas would be no other than the divinity itself, even when it watches over the first cries and first steps of the child.

The gods were not quite so numerous in the first ages, and it was then necessary to give each of them many more functions. These attributes were expressed, as in Christian litanies, by epithets, the list of which, more or less lengthy according to the importance of the god, followed after his name. As each invocation appealed to one of the faculties, and not to the power of the god, the epithet was practically much more important than the name and was employed alone. Soon the relationship between the name and the qualifications which existed primitively was forgotten or lost and then the epithets became divine. Thus the different functions of one god ended by being attached to independent gods. It was at the time of these changes that the Indigitamenta were drawn up. They are interesting to us, as they make us grasp Roman polytheism just when it is being formed, but they also show us that it is an unfinished polytheism. After creating all these gods, Rome did not know how to make them life-like. They remained vague, undecided, floating; they never attained, as the Greek gods, precise forms with distinct features. This, besides, is the general character of the Roman religion, and the gods of Rome always resembled those of the Indigitamenta.

The Italian religion was always more respectful and timid than the Greek. The Roman remained at a farther distance from his gods, he dared not approach them, he would have been afraid to look at them. If the Roman veiled his face when accomplishing religious duties, it was not, as Virgil says,

because he was afraid of having his attention taken off what he was doing, but in order not to risk seeing the god he is praying to. He solicits his presence, he likes to know that he is near him, listening to his vows in order to grant them, but he would have been frightened if he had seen him. "Deliver us," says Ovid in his prayer to Pallas, "from seeing the dryads or Diana's bath, or Faunus when he runs across the fields in the daytime"; and until the end of paganism the Roman peasant was very afraid, when returning home in the evening, of meeting a Faun in his path. The result of this timidity of the Italians, who did not dare look at the gods in the face, is that they saw them vaguely. They have not got clear outlines, and are represented rather by symbols than by images; here Mars is adored under the form of a lance struck in the ground, in another place a simple stone represents the great Jupiter.

According to Varro, Rome remained 170 years without statues; the idea of placing them in the temples came from abroad. It was to imitate Etruria that a painted wooden Jupiter was placed in the Capitol; on the eve of festivals they gave him a coat of paint for him to appear in all his glory. These ancient customs were never quite lost, they were preserved in the country, where the peasants honoured the gods by covering old trunks of trees with bands, and in piously pouring oil on blocks of stone. At Rome, even whilst all the temples were being filled by Grecian masterpieces the antique Vesta would not allow a single statue in her sanctuary; she was only represented by the sacred flame which was never put out.

It is probable, then, that if Rome had not known Greece, anthropomorphism would have stopped short. The Roman has an instinctive repugnance to making his gods beings too much like us; to him they are not real persons, having an individual existence, but only divine manifestations, numina; and this name by which he calls them indicates perfectly the idea he has of them. Every time the divinity seems to reveal itself to the world in some manner (and as he is very religious, he believes he sees him everywhere), he notes with care this new revelation, gives it a name and worships it. These gods he creates every minute are nothing else but divine acts, and that is why they are so numerous.

No other nation has ever possessed such a vast Pantheon; and these words can be applied to the whole of Italy, that a writer of the imperial epoch lends to a woman of the Campania: "Our country is so peopled with divinities that it is much easier to meet a god than a man.' This is also the reason why the Romans more than any other nation had a taste for divinised abstractions. As in reality all their gods, even the greatest, are only divine qualities or attributes and as they always preserve to some extent their abstract character, it is not surprising that the habit was soon formed of introducing simple abstractions in their company. This is a custom as a rule only introduced into religions when they become old, but in Rome we notice it from the most ancient times. Tullus Hostilius built a temple to Fear and to Pallidness; and Salvation or Prosperity of the Roman nation was early a divinity much worshipped.

Later many exaggerations were made in this manner. During the empire all the ventures of the emperors were worshipped and statues were raised to the Security of the Century and to the Indulgence of the Master. These strange personifications, which would never have entered the mind of a Greek, were the result of the manner in which the Romans of all times conceived divinity. Polytheism was formed by them by way of an abstract analysis and not, as in Greece, by a kind of outburst of imagination and enthusiasm.

H. W.-VOL. v. 2 A

They always remained faithful to this method, and to the end placed in the sky abstractions rather than living beings.

This nation, so timid, scrupulous, scared, that to protect a man one felt the need of surrounding him by gods from his birth to his death, that had such a deep respect for divinity, thinking to meet it everywhere, seemed to be the prey of every superstition.

The fathers of the Catholic Church have compared the institutions of Numa, with their minute and multiplied proscriptions, to Mosaic law. The Romans, who prided themselves on following them to the letter, could be exposed to becoming absolutely like the Jews; and one asks how it is that, amongst such a devoted people, religious authority did not end by dominating over all others. What preserved them from this fate was their great political instinct.

No other nation has ever been so taken up as have the Romans with the importance of the rights of the state, and everything was sacrificed to that—their oldest customs and their dearest prejudices. It was a general belief amongst them that dead persons became gods and protected those nearest to them, and were as close as possible to those they should save; they were buried in the house and thus became good spirits. One day, however, the law ordained, by reason of hygiene, that nobody should be buried within the precincts of the towns, and everybody obeyed this law. This example shows that in Rome nothing could resist civil power; paternal authority, in spite of the extent of its rights, gave way before it.

The father of the family is the absolute master of his children; he can sell or kill his child, but if his son is in public office the father has to obey him like the others, and when he meets him on his path he must get off his horse to let him pass.

Roman religion, so powerful, so respected as it was, had to submit to the same yoke. It was thus subject to the state, or rather was blended to it. What most aided religion to attain this result was the manner in which it recruited its priests. "Our ancestors," says Cicero, "were never wiser nor more surprised by the gods than when they decided that the same persons would preside over religion and govern the republic. It was by this means that the magistrates and pontiffs fulfilling their duties with wisdom, agreed together to save the state.' In Rome, religious functions were not separated from political ones, and there was nothing incompatible between them.

Any one could act as pontiff in the same time as consul and for the same motives. Those who wished to become such were never required to possess any special knowledge; it was sufficient for attaining these duties to have served his country in the deliberating assemblies or the battle-field. Those that obtained them did not, whilst exercising them, take a narrow and exclusive attitude, so common to sacerdotal castes; they continued to mix with the world, they sat in the senate in the same time as in the great colleges of priests of which they formed a member; their new functions, far from taking them away from the government of their countries, gave them more right to take part in it.

These soldiers, politicians, men of business in Rome, gave to religious things that cold, practical sense which they gave to everything else. It is thanks to them that a laic undercurrent always circulated in Roman religion, that during the whole duration of the republic and of the empire no conflict ever broke out between it and the state; and that the government of Rome, in spite of all the demonstrations of piety which it lavished, never threatened to become a theocracy.g