¹ Livy 33.44.1–2, 34.44.1–2. This paper is indebted to Professor W. S. Ferguson for the notes which appear with his initials, and for other friendly aid.

² 8.10.12.

³ Macrob. Sat. 3.9.11: cf. G. Wissowa, RE. 5, 279, 6, 1153, and Wessner, ibid. 14.185.

⁴ Liv. 36.2.5.

⁵ Liv. 31.8.3.

⁶ C. I. L. IX 3513 = I (ed. 2), 756 = Dessau Inscr. lat. sel. 4906.

⁷ R. S. Conway, The Italic Dialects, 1, 267 f., no. 252: J. Whatmough, Foundations of Roman Italy, 387. On the other interpretation developed by Fr. Skutsch, Kleine Schriften, 435 ff., the text states the conditions under which a votive offering may be removed without impiety.

⁸ C. I. L. XII 4333 = Dessau 112.

⁹ C. I. L. III 1933 = Dessau 4907.

¹⁰ Cf. C. I. L. XI 944 (near Carpi = Dessau 4909) uti sine scelere sine fraude lic[et] (lic[eat], Skutsch, op. cit., 441, n. 2, probably rightly: but there is a plain licet earlier).

¹¹ titulisque seems to be lacking on the Salonae altar (for the first half of each line of which we depend on transcripts made before its mutilation). C. I. L. XI4766 (= Dessau 4911) at Spoleto provides for cutting timber in a sacred grove on the day of the annual sacrifice: on other days such an act entails a piaclum and, if done in deliberate guilt, a fine as well. They are not strictly parallel to the dispensations under discussion: for they state a specific annual exception, (in fact, the Spoleto text says sine dolo, not sine piaclo). C. I. L. VIII 11796 (= Dessau 4908) states the conditions of the dedication by an Imperial procurator of an image of Diana: it may be moved only for cleaning and repair. It is fragmentary, but in what is preserved there is none of our language of definition from the standpoint of potential religious guilt.

¹² C. I. L. I (ed. 2) 365 = Dessau 3124.

¹³ K. Latte, Die Religion der Römer (in A. Bertholet, Religionsgeschichtliches Lesebuch, ed. 2) 6 renders ‘Da es geweiht ist, soll es als recht gelobt gelten,’ and suggests that there may have been some uncertainty whether there had been an error in the form of the vow. (Mommsen interpreted as aliquando, i.e. suo tempore, datum; recte conceptum.)

¹⁴ F. Buecheler, Umbrica, 79 f. (cf. 4): I. Rosenzweig, Ritual and Cults of pre-Roman Iguvium, 131 (cf. 145).

¹⁵ Buecheler 81: Rosenzweig 132.

¹⁶ Cf. Hagerström, A., Das magistratische Ius in seinem Zusammenhang mit dem römischen Sakralrechte (Uppsala Univ. Årsskr., 1929, 8Google Scholar), 25, n. 1.

¹⁷ So 2.20 quaeque quoique diuo decorae grataeque sint hostiae, prouidento: 2.24 caste iubet lex adire ad deos, animo uidelicet, in quo sunt omnia; nec tollit castimoniam corporis: 2.28 araque uetusta in Palatio Febris et altera Esquiliis Malae Fortunae detestataque omnia eius modi repudianda sunt: 2.28 recte etiam Spes a Calatino consecrata est: 58 statuit enim collegium locum publicum non potuisse priuata religione obligari.

¹⁸ Cf. G. Appel, De Romanorum precationibus (Relg. Vers. Vorarb. 7.2), 148 f. The fact that esto is thus used in religious texts (which are sure to be characterized by conservatism in language) to define the character of a situation, deserves to be set against Fr. Leifer's doubts whether paricidas esto in lex Numae ap. Fest. p. 221 M. (p. 247 Lindsay) can be taken to mean parricida habeatur (Studi in onore di G. Riccobono, 2, 1936, 101 ff. I naturally express no opinion on the original meaning of the phrase).

¹⁹ E.g., C. I. L. XII 4321, iussu ipsius. (References in private dedications to commands of Oriental and other deities are not pertinent.)

²⁰ C. I. L. VI 32326.8 (p. 3249): for another possible reference to the Sibyl in this document cf. ibid., 1. 20. (The preamble of the account of the Augustan celebration is lost.)

²¹ Mommsen, Ephemeris Epigraphica, 8, 263.

²² Ibid., 244 f. Under Septimius the senate's rôle seems to be simply that of asking the emperors that the games be celebrated: the magister, in purifying the Tarentum, says that he acts quorum (sc. imperatorum) iussu mandatuque (ibid., 292, C. I. L. VI 32328.19).

²³ C. I. L. X 797 = Dessau 5004: cf. C. I. L. XIV, p. 187, n. 2. In the Fasti Praenestini (Dessau 8844a) we read Mater magna ex libris Sibullinis arcessita locum mutauit ex Phrygia Romam, but this is one of a series of learned notes in that particular calendar (cf. Varro ling. Lat. 6. 15).

²⁴ Cf. Plato, Laws 865B, καθαρθεὶς κατὰ τòν ἐκ Δελϕῶν κομισθέντα περὶ τούτων νóμον ἕστω καθαρóς (a similar provision in a second century B.C. law from Lato in Crete, as restored by A. Wilhelm, Jahresb. 14, 1911, 203 may lack such a sanction: but the text is mutilated): also the designation of gods whose cult was prescribed by the oracle as πυθóχρηστοι (Dittenberger, Syll. inscr. gr. ed. 3, 1014). Many sacrifices fell in a different category (p. 94, n. 60, later).

²⁵ E.g. Xen. Mem. 1.3.1.

²⁶ L. Ziehen, Leges Graecorum sacrae, 163, no. 56.29.

²⁷ Herzog, R., Heilige Gesetze von Kos (Abh. Berlin 1927, vi) 28Google Scholar, no. 10 III 86.

²⁸ Cf. also Thuc. 2.17, Polyb. 5.106.2–3: for an exception in a civil law Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Sitzungsb. Berlin, 1927, 8.

²⁹ Ziehen, no. 93; Dittenberger 982.9 (καθαροὶ ἕστωσαν αύθημερóν).

³⁰ A. Vogliano, Riv. di filol. N. S. 6, 1928, 262 ff.: G. Olivierio, La stele dei nuovi comandamenti e dei cereali (Docum. ant. della Africa Ital. 1. 1933). The regulation of the funerals of the Labyadae at Delphi, if rightly restored by Blass (Ziehen, no. 74 C 19 f.), after forbidding the setting down of the body or the making of lamentation between the house and the tomb, adds τηνεῖ δ 〈ὲ μηδ〉 ὲν ἅγος ἕστω which defines what is permissible and uses ἕστω as Roman assertions of religions propriety do esto. Cf. μὴ μιαρὁν εἶμεν, αἰ … in the archaic inscription from Cleonae, I. G. IV 1607 (= E. Schwyzer, Dial. graec. exempla 129): but, for what is more usual, see the observations of R. Hirzel, Themis, Dike u. Verwandtes 49 ff. on θέμις as often used either with a negative or in a question.

We may note the Babylonian ‘sogenannten Sabbathvorschriften,’ which, after defining what may not be done, state that the king is to sacrifice at night: ‘seine Hander-hebung ist dann bei Gott angenehm’ (H. Gressmann, Altorientalische Texte zum alten Testament, ed. 2, 329). Translations may be misleading on such a point, but Hittite texts appear to present analogies to the Roman habit of definition: cf. J. Friedrich, Aus dem hethitischen Schrifttum 2 (Der Alte Orient, 25, 2, 1925), 13 ‘Nun essen (und) trinken sie, und sie gehen (dann) fort,’ and the formalism of other prayers cited in this work and in A. Götze, Kleinasien (in Kulturgesch. d. alten Orients, ed. W. Otto), 144. The Hittites did not, any more than the Romans (in their official ceremonies), act as though they believed in a magical compulsion of the gods (Götze 142): but they stated with great precision what a rite was intended to secure. If we look further afield, a curse defines exactly what the deity is expected to do, or even pledged to do (cf. the curse of Theseus on Hippolytus, and that of Eshmounazar at Sidon in H. Gressmann, op. cit., 447), but it is essentially a wish, even if it is a wish which implies the expectation that it will be fulfilled.

³¹ In Dittenberger 47.2 ὄσια λαγχάνειν is more likely than ὀσία λαγχάνειν: cf. J. C. Bolkestein, Ὅσιος en Εὐσεβής (Diss. Amsterdam, 1936), 70 f.

³² Herzog, op. cit., 32, no. 11. We may note that in I. G. IX ii 1109, a text of the second century B.C., the motive assigned for measures against the cutting of trees in the precinct of Apollo Koropaios is simply ‘that the precinct may be magnificent.’

³³ vv. 1231 ff.

³⁴ Cf. Medea 1327.

³⁵ Cf. the criticisms of R. J. Bonner- G. Smith, The Administration of Justice from Homer to Aristotle, 2, 192 ff. [W. S. F.]. Their theory that ‘The whole matter of pollution in homicide looks like a sort of legalized pollution which was foisted upon homicide procedure by religion for various reasons’ (200 f.) is attractive. It is a question (203 ff.) whether a man, who had done what was agreed to be justifiable homicide and who was called καθαρός, ὄσιος, or εὐαγής, required a purification. If he did not, that too may have been so determined by the Delphic oracle or by the tradition of the exegetae.

³⁶ Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, ad loc., remarks that the line, which we find so striking, is never quoted in antiquity, and suggests that this is due to its wholly exceptional character. — In the Orestes 75 f., Helen explains that she is not defiled by talking to Electra because she can refer the guilt to Phoebus.

³⁷ Ziehen 109, no. 38a, 204, no. 67: W. S. Ferguson, The Treasurers of Athena, 15, 118 ff., also 85 f., 93, 107 f.

³⁸ Ziehen 113, no. 39; for the need of authorization, cf. A. Rehm, Milet. III 172, no. 32.

³⁹ Ibid., 114, n. 5, 206, n. 6.

⁴⁰ G. Hock, Griech. Weihegebräuche, 89 f.: on popular susceptibility, cf. Ferguson, op. cit., 107, n. 1.

⁴¹ M. P. Nilsson, A History of Greek Religion, 79: cf., for Rome, Varro ap. Gell. 2.10 and I. S. Ryberg, A.J.A. 1937, 102.

⁴² Cf. Rep. 427B: contrast Dessau 6087, lxiv.

⁴³ Vol. 3, 492 of his edition. Compare the Athenian reply to the Boeotian complaint about their use of the precinct at Delion (Thuc. 4, 98.2), τὸν δὲ νόμον τοῖς Ἔλλησιν εἶναι, ὧν ἂν ᾖ τὸ κράτος τῆς γῆς ἑκάστης, … τούτων καὶ τὰ ἱερὰ αἰεὶ γίγνεσθαι, τρόποις θεραπευόμενα οἷς ἂν πρὸ τοῦ εἰωθόσι καὶ δύνωνται; and Thuc. 3.58.3, ὁ δὲ νόμος τοῖς Ἔλλησι μὴ κτείνειν τούτους.

⁴⁴ Found at Iguvium as well as at Rome.

⁴⁵ Cicero Pro Caecina 95, de domo sua 106, and A. H. Greenidge, Roman Public Life, 239 (with the form preserved in Probus si quid sacri sancti (sacrosancti cod. V) est, quod non iure sit rogatum, eius hoc lege nihil rogatur: Keil, Gramm. Lat. 4.273) [W. S. F.]. The power of definition rested in the collegia and in the senate.

⁴⁶ Thucydides 4.98.

⁴⁷ J. H. Finley, Harv. Stud. Class. Phil. 49, 1938, 54 (cf. ibid., 30, 37 f., 51).

⁴⁸ As Dr. B. Einarson remarked to me.

⁴⁹ Pompon. ap. Dig. 11.7.36. Note that the Rhodians, according to Vitruv. 2.8.15, would not remove an insulting trophy set up by Artemisia, quod nefas est tropaea dedicata remoueri. Would not the Romans have found a way out of this?

⁵⁰ Pro Flacco 68. There was a religious kinship between Athenians and Boeotians which was here lacking (the Romans also drew a line in their acceptance of Italian deities: G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer, ed. 2, 49): but, even so, the contrast is striking.

⁵¹ Ferguson, op. cit., 128.

⁵² Thuc. 3.70. Herzog, Heil. Gesetze, 38 notes that on Cos it was soon necessary to repeat the prohibition on cutting trees in the sacred grove.

⁵³ Mommsen, Ges. Schr. 7, 168.

⁵⁴ On which cf. now H. Ericsson, Arch. f. Rel. 33, 1936, 294 ff.

⁵⁵ On which cf. now O. Skutsch-H. J. Rose, Cl. Quart. 32, 1938, 220 ff. (It should be noted that this formula is used not only in sacrifices to the native Roman deities, but also to the Moerae and all the other deities of the Secular Games: C. I. L. VI 32323.98, etc.)

⁵⁶ M. P. Nilsson, Röm. Mitt. 48, 1933, 245 ff.

⁵⁷ Or, at Rome, the various ways in which a blind eye was turned to unfavorable omens.

⁵⁸ For ‘the definition of the situation’ as a general phenomenon, cf. W. I. Thomas, Primitive Behavior, 8.

⁵⁹ On decreta, cf. A. S. Pease ad Cic. De diuinatione 2.73; Fr. Fürst, Die Bedeutung des auctoritas im privaten u. öffentlichen Leben des röm. Rep. (Diss. Marb. 1934), 33 f. The Athenian exegetai seem to have confined themselves to routine functions: in any case, their supposed function was to interpret traditional rules.

⁶⁰ Aul. Gell. 10.15.17–8.

Lysias 30.17 ff. (to which Professor W. S. Ferguson drew my attention) accuses Nicoinachus, one of the anagrapheis entrusted with the codification of Athenian laws in 403–1 B.C., of adding sacrifices which cost annually six talents and thereby causing ancestral sacrifices costing three talents a year to remain unoffered, ἅθυτα, for lack of funds, in the year before the trial. Probably these sacrifices were not omitted from the new calendar, but were neglected simply because there was no cash available (W. S. Ferguson, Classical Studies presented to Edward Capps, 150, n. 26). Now Lysias, in deploring this, refers to the prosperity enjoyed by the Athenians of old who performed these sacrifices in accordance with the κύρβεις (Solonian laws) and argues that their descendants should perform them, if for no other reason, at least for the good fortune which accrued from them. The basis for the city's provision of funds was the κύρβεις — as in its grant to the sacrifices of the Salaminioi (Ferguson, Hesperia, 7, 1938, 67) — not an oracle. Was there a distinction between (a) sacrifices ordered by an oracle, and offered by the hieropoioi (Aristotle, Ἀθ. Πολ. 54.6) and (b) other sacrifices, which were offered in accordance with a tradition which enjoyed the prestige of time and civic custom but which (in spite of the general Delphic sanction for civic law and the fact that law could be regarded as both a divine gift and a human invention: Demosth. 25.16) could be ignored without downright impiety? So far as I am aware, a Greek city made its thankofferings to the gods, and established festivals in perpetuity, without binding itself to such perpetuity by anything like a Roman uotum. Accordingly, any omissions in this area are in no sense parallel to relaxations of requirements of ceremonial purity, which were directly the affair of the gods. (When elderly women were substituted for virgins in priesthoods, Arch. f. Rel. 23, 1925, 30, we do not know the exact form in which it was done: Diod. Sic. 16.26.6 says of the change at Delphi ϕασὶν … τοὺς δὲ Δελϕοὺς νομοθεῆσαι. But was the oracle consulted, on such an occasion, or again when, in Plutarch's time (Q. G. 38 p. 300A), the people of Orchomenus transferred the priesthood of Dionysus from the family of Zoilus?)

⁶¹ Cf. again the action of M. Aurelius: sacra Serapidis a uulgaritate Pelusiaca (or -ia) summouit (Hist. Aug. uit. M. Ant. phil. 23.8). Claudius in 41 A.D. limited the instauratio of horseraces in ludi to one day (Cassius Dio 60.6.5: L. R. Taylor, Trans. Am. Phil. Ass. 68, 1937, 295) and in 43 abolished many sacrifices and festivals, since ‘most of the year was being spent on them and the treasury had no small loss,’ in addition to making yet other economies (Cassius Dio 60.17.1–2). Two years later he restored the fifth day which Caligula had added to the Saturnalia and which had been discontinued (60.25.8), and it is possible that Claudius mainly abolished innovations of the previous principate and in particular new festivals in honor of members of the Imperial family. According to Aelian fr. 47, after the Delphian oracle had ordained that the Locrians should send two maidens annually to the temple of Athena at Ilion, and had further explained that a pestilence which ensued was due to their failure to replace the original pair, Antigonus (which Antigonus it was, is uncertain: A. Wilhelm, Jahreshefte 14, 1911, 187) was asked to decide which Locrian city must pay this human tribute, and ordered them to settle the matter by drawing lots: but he was simply acting as arbitrator on a matter of detail. An Attalid letter in C. B. Welles, Royal Correspondence in the Hellenistic Period, 115 no. 24 determines the privileges of a newly established priesthood; but that side of religion was in the Greek world regularly a matter for civil authority, and anything concerning finance and establishment was or could be a royal interest. Kings and others recognized rights of asylum and also the establishment of new festivals for which privileges were claimed: in this again, they confirmed what was a civic claim and in Welles 197 ff. no. 49, 202 ff. no. 50, Eumenes II makes a similar request of a Carian city and Cos.

⁶² Hist. August. uita Aureliani 31.9. His action in reference to Paul of Samosata (Euseb. Hist. eccl. 7.30.19) is in some ways comparable.

⁶³ In an unpublished paper, here quoted by the kindness of its writer.

⁶⁴ Contrast the vision of Hermas, which informed him of a special forgiveness for one mortal sin, and compare the whole story of Cyprian and the lapsi (H. Lietzmann, Geschichte der alten Kirche, 2, 231 ff.).

⁶⁵ De pudicitia 1. The East was not always more rigorous (cf. Dionys. Corinth. ap. Euseb. H. E4.23.6), but was liable to take a somewhat different view of sins (K. Holl, Enthusiasmus und Bussgewalt beim griechischen Mönchtum, 226: E. Schwartz, Bussstufen und Katechumenatsklassen, 11).

On the development of the West, see now the monographs by Gmelin, U., Roethe, G. and Pewesin, W. in Geistige Grundlagen römischer Kirchenpolitik (Forsch. zur Kirchen-u. Geistesgeschichte 11, 1937Google Scholar).