APPENDIX V THE WORSHIP OF SACRED UTENSILS (page 436) THERE can be no doubt that some kind of worship was paid by the Arval Brethren to certain ollae, or primitive vessels of sunbaked clay used in their most ancient rites. This is attested by two inscriptions of different ages which are printed on pp. 26 and 27 of Henzen's Acta Fratrum Arvalium. After leaving their grove and entering the temple "in mensa sacrum fecerunt ollis"; and shortly afterwards, "in aedem intraverunt et ollas precati sunt." Then, to our astonishment, we read that the door of the temple was opened, and the ollae thrown down the slope in front of it. This last act seems inexplicable; but the worship finds a singular parallel in the dairy ritual of the Todas of the Nilghiri hills. Dr. Rivers, in his work on the Todas (Macmillan, 1906, p. 453), in summing up his impressions of their worship, observes that "the attitude of worship which is undoubtedly present in the Toda mind is becoming transferred from the gods themselves to the material objects used in the service of the gods." "The religious attitude of worship is being transferred from the gods themselves to the objects round which centres the ritual of the dairy." These objects are mainly the bells of the buffaloes and the dairy vessels; and an explicit account of them, the reverence in which they are held, and the prayers in which they are mentioned, will be found in the fifth, sixth, and eighth chapters of Dr. Rivers' work, which, as an account of what seems to be a religion atrophied by over-development of ritual, is in many ways of great interest to the student of Roman religious experience. The following sentence will appeal to the readers of these Lectures : "The Todas seem to show us how the over-development of the ritual aspect of religion may lead to atrophy of those ideas and beliefs through which the religion has been built up; and then how, in its turn, the ritual may suffer, and acts which are performed mechanically, with no living ideas behind them, may come to be performed carelessly and incompletely, while religious observances which involve trouble and discomfort may be evaded or completely neglected." Whether the worship of the ollae was a part of the original ritual of the Brethren, or grew up after its revival by Augustus, it is impossible to determine. But if we can allow the dairy ritual of the Todas to help us in the matter, we may conclude that in any case it was not really primitive, and that it was a result of that process of over-ritualisation to which must also be ascribed the piacula caused by the growth of a fig-tree on the roof of the temple, and the three Sondergötter Adolenda Commolenda Deferunda. (See above p. 161 foll., and Henzen, Acta Fratr. Arv. p. 147.) Aemilius Paulus, 340, 362, 433 as a means of understanding the Aesculapius, 260 Ara, meaning of, 146 Ara Maxima in the Forum Boarium, 29, 230 Ara Pacis of Augustus, 177, 437, 448 Army lustration of, 96, 100, 215, 217 Arnobius, 51, 52, 459, 461, 465 Arval Brethren: see Fratres Arvales Astrology, 396-398, 401 Attalus, king of Pergamus, 330 Augustus, 35, 133, 213, 344; revival of religion, 428-447; his connec- Aust, on religion of the family, 68; 198; on reaction against the ius Axtell, Harold L., on Fortuna, 245 Bacchic rites, introduction of, 344-348 Beans, used to get rid of ghosts, 85, Binder, Dr., on the plebs, 23, 86, 242, Birds, used in augury, 293, 296, 299, 302 Birth, spirits invoked at, 83, 84, 164 34, 82; not prominent in Roman Boissier, G., 391; on the Aeneid, 414, 427 Bona Dea, 484 Bouché-Leclercq, M., on divination, Boundary festivals: see Terminalia with blood of victims, 34, 82, 196 Caesar, Julius: belief in spells, 59: calendar, 95; pontifex maximus, man, 368, 373 Cakes: honey, 82; sacred, 83, 130, 14, 34, 38, 55, 65, 217, 225; Numa Pompilius, 108 Calpurnius Piso, L.: see Piso Camilli and camillae, 177, 195 to giousness of the Romans, 249-250; Claudius, Emperor, 309, 438 Cleanthes, hymn of, 368, 377 Clusius (or Clusivius), cult-title of Colonia, religious rites at founding of, Compitalia, 61, 78, 81, 88, 102 Conditor, 161 Confarreatio, marriage by, 83, 130, Coniuratio, 347, 348, 356 Constantius, 430 Consualia, 101, 139 Consuls, annual ceremony at the Consus, 285; connection with Ops, Conway, Professor, on Quirinus and Cook, A. B., on Jupiter, 128, 141; on Janus, 140; on Quirinus and Corn deities, Greek, 255, 259 gods, 157; on religion and Cremation, 382, 395, 398, 401 Cult-titles, invention of, 153 Cumont, Professor, on the religion of the Romans, 2; on Jupiter, 246 Cuq, on civil and religious law, 486 sion, 81, 104, 106, 108, 145, 162, Curia, 138 Cynics, the, 372 Days, lucky and unlucky, 38-41; see also Dies De Marchi, on votive offerings, 201, 202 Dea Dia, 146; description of rites, 435- Decemviri, 259, 317, 318, 326 Deities, Roman: see also Numen and Delphic oracle consulted during Hanni- Deubner, Professor, his theory of the Di Manes: see Manes Diana associated with Janus, 76, 125, 166; connection with Artemis, |