Quaestiones Romanae

Why was it that when they gave a public banquet for men who had celebrated a triumph, they formally invited the consuls and then sent word to them requesting them not to come to the dinner?[*](Cf. Valerius Maximus, ii. 8. 6.)

Was it because it was imperative that the place of honour at table and an escort home after dinner should be assigned to the man who had triumphed? But these honours can be given to no one else when the consuls are present, but only to them.

Why does not the tribune wear a garment with the purple border,[*](The toga praetexta.) although the other magistrates wear it?

Is it because he is not a magistrate at all? For tribunes have no lictore, nor do they transact business

Or one might expound these matters and others like them, if one were to indulge in the faculty of invention: but since the tribunate derives its origin from the people, the popular element in it is strong: and of much importance is the fact that the tribune does not pride himself above the rest of the people, but conforms in appearance, dress, and manner of life to ordinary citizens. Pomp and circumstance become the consul and the praetor: but the tribune, as Gaius Curio used to say, must allow himself to be trodden upon: he must not be proud of mien, nor difficult of access nor harsh to the multitude, but indefatigable on behalf of others and easy for the multitude to deal with. Wherefore it is the custom that not even the door of his house shall be closed, but it remains open both night and day as a haven of refuge for such as need it. The more humble he is

Why are the rods of the praetors carried in bundles with axes attached?

Is it because this is a symbolic indication that the temper of the official should not be too quick or unrestrained? Or does the deliberate unfastening of the rods, which creates delay and postponement of his iit of temper, oftentimes cause him to change his mind about the punishment? Now since some badness is curable, but other badness is past remedy, the rods correct that which may be amended and the axes cut off the incorrigible.

When the Romans learned that the people called Bletonesii,[*](Of Bletisa in Spain, according to Cichorius, Römische Studien (Berlin, 1922).) a barbarian tribe, had sacrificed a man to the gods, why did they send for the tribal rulers with intent to punish them, but, when it was made plain that they had done thus in accordance with a certain custom, why did the Romans set them at liberty, but forbid the practice for the future? Yet they themselves, not many years before, had buried alive two men and two women, two of them Greeks, two Gauls, in the place called the Forum Boarium. It certainly

Did they think it impious to sacrifice men to the gods, but necessary to sacrifice them to the spirits? Or did they believe that men who did this by tradition and custom were sinning, whereas they themselves did it by command of the Sibylline books? For the tale is told that a certain maiden, Helvia, was struck by lightning while she was riding on horseback, and her horse was found lying stripped of its trappings: and she herself was naked, for her tunic had been pulled far up as if purposely: and her shoes, her rings, and her head-dress were scattered apart here and there, and her open mouth allowed the tongue to protrude. The soothsayers declared that it was a terrible disgrace for the Vestal Virgins, that it would be bruited far and wide, and that some wanton outrage would be found touching the knights also. Thereupon a barbarian slave of a certain knight gave information against three Vestal Virgins, Aemilia, Licinia, and Marcia, that they had all been corrupted at about the same time, and that they had long entertained lovers, one of whom was Vetutius Barrus,[*](Cf. Cicero, Brutus, 46 (169); Horace, Satires, i. 6. 30, if the emendation is right.) the informer’s master. The Vestals, accordingly, were convicted and punished: but, since the deed was plainly atrocious, it was resolved that the priests should consult the Sibylline books. They say that oracles were found foretelling that these events would come to pass for the bane of the Romans, and enjoining on them that, to avert the impending disaster, they should offer as a sacrifice to certain

Why do they reckon the beginning of the day from midnight?[*](Cf. Pliny, Natural History, ii. 77 (188); Aulus Gellius, iii. 2; Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 3.)

Is it because the Roman State was based originally on a military organization and most of the matters that are of use on campaigns are taken up beforehand at night? Or did they make sunrise the beginning of activity, and night the beginning of preparation? For men should be prepared when they act, and not be making their preparations during the action, as Myson,[*](Similar foresight, regarding a plough instead of a fork is reported by Diogenes Laertius, i. 106.) who was fashioning a grain-fork in wintertime, is reported to have remarked to Chilon the Wise.

Or, just as noon is for most people the end of their transaction of public or serious business, even so did it seem good to make midnight the beginning? A weighty testimony to this is the fact that a Roman official does not make treaties or agreements after midday.

Or is it impossible to reckon the beginning and end of the day by sunset and sunrise? For if we follow the method by which most people formulate their definitions, by their perceptions, reckoning the first peep of the sun above the horizon as the beginning of day, and the cutting off of its last rays as the beginning of night, we shall have no equinox: but that night which we think is most nearly equal to the day will plainly be less than that day by the diameter of

Why in the early days did they not allow their wives to grind grain or to cook?[*](Cf.Life of Romulus, chap. xv. (26 d), xix. (30 a).)

Was it in memory of the treaty which they made with the Sabines? For when they had carried off the Sabines’ daughters, and later, after warring with the Sabines, had made peace, it was specified among the other articles of agreement that no Sabine woman should grind grain for a Roman or cook for him.

Why do men not marry during the month of May?[*](Cf. Ovid, Fasti, v. 489.)

Is it because this month comes between April and June, of which they regard April as sacred to Venus and June as sacred to Juno, both of them divinities of marriage: and so they put the wedding a little earlier or wait until later?

Or is it because in this month they hold their most important ceremony of purification, in which they now throw images from the bridge into the river,[*](Cf. 272 b, supra.) but in days of old they used to throw human beings? Wherefore it is the custom that the Flaminica, reputed to be consecrate to Juno, shall wear a stern face, and refrain from bathing and wearing ornaments at this time.

Or is it because many of the Latins make offerings to the departed in this month? And it is for this reason, perhaps, that they worship Mercury in this month and that the month derives its name from Maia.[*](The mother of Mercury.)

Or is May, as some relate, named after the older (maior) and June after the younger generation (iunior)? For youth is better fitted for marriage, as Euripides[*](From the Aeolus of Euripides; Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 369, Euripides, no. 23; Cf.Moralia, 786 a, 1094 f.) also says:

1. Old age bids Love to take her leave for aye
2. And Aphrodite wearies of the old.

Why do they part the hair of brides with the point of a spear?[*](Cf.Life of Romulus, chap. xv. (26 e).)

Does this symbolize the marriage of the first Roman wives[*](The Sabine women.) by violence with attendant war, or do the wives thus learn, now that they are mated to brave and warlike men, to welcome an unaffected, unfeminine, and simple mode of beautification? Even as Lycurgus,[*](Cf.Moralia, 189 e, 227 c, 997 c; and the Life of Lycurgus, chap. xiii. (47 c); Cf. also Comment. on Hesiod, 42 (Bernardakis, vol. vii. p. 72).) by giving orders to make the

Or does this procedure hint at the manner of their separation, that with steel alone can their marriage be dissolved?

Or is it that most of the marriage customs were connected with Juno?[*](See Roscher, Lexikon der gr.und.röm. Mythologie, ii. coll. 588-592.) Now the spear is commonly held to be sacred to Juno, and most of her statues represent her leaning on a spear, and the goddess herself is surnamed Quirite; for the men of old used to call the spear curis; wherefore they further relate that Enyalius is called Quirinus by the Romans.[*](Cf.Life of Romulus, chap. xxix. (36 b); Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, ii. 48; Ovid, Fasti, ii. 475 ff.)

Why do they call the money expended upon public spectacles Lucar?

Is it because round about the city there are, consecrated to gods, many groves which they call luci, and they used to spend the revenue from these on the public spectacles?

Why do they call the Quirinalia the Feast of Fools?[*](Cf. Ovid, Fasti, ii. 513 ff.)

Is it because, as Juba[*](Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iii. p. 470.) states, they apportioned that day to men who did not know their own kith and kin?[*](Curiae) Or was it granted to those who, because of some business, or absence from Rome, or ignorance, had not sacrificed with the rest of their tribe on the Fornacalia, that, on this day, they might take their due enjoyment of that festival?

Why is it that, when the sacrifice to Hercules takes place, they mention by name no other god, and why is a dog never seen within his enclosure,[*](Cf. Pliny, Natural History, x. 29 (79).) as Varro has recorded?

Do they make mention of no other god because they regard Hercules as a demigod? But, as some[*](Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, i. 40. Livy, i. 7. 12.) relate, even while he was still on earth, Evander erected an altar to him and brought him sacrifice. And of all animals he contended most with a dog, for it is a fact that this beast always gave him much trouble, Cerberus, for instance. And, to crown all, when Oeonus, Licymnius’s son, had been murdered by the sons of Hippocoön[*](Cf. Apollodorus, ii. 7. 3 with Frazer’s note (L.C.L. vol. i. p. 251).) because of a dog, Hercules was compelled to engage in battle with them, and lost many of his friends and his brother Iphicles.

Why was it not permitted the patricians to dwell about the Capitoline?

Was it because Marcus Manlius,[*](Cf.Life of Camillus, chap. xxxvi. (148 d); Livy, vi. 20. 13-14.) while he was dwelling there, tried to make himself king? They say that because of him the house of Manlius was bound by an oath that none of them should ever bear the name of Marcus.

Or does this fear date from early times? At any rate, although Publicola[*](Cf. Life of Publicola, chap. x. (102 c-d).) was a most democratic man, the nobles did not cease traducing him nor the commoners fearing him, until he himself razed his house, the situation of which was thought to be a threat to the Forum.

Why do they give a chaplet of oak leaves to the man who has saved the life of a citizen in time of war?[*](Cf.Life of Coriolanus, chap. iii. (214 e-f); Pliny, Natural History, xvi. 4 (11-14); Polybius, vi. 39. 6; Aulus Gellius, v. 6.)

Is it because it is easy to find an abundance of oak leaves everywhere on a campaign?

Or is it because the chaplet is sacred to Jupiter and Juno, whom they regard as guardians of the city?

Or is the custom an ancient inheritance from the Arcadians, who have a certain kinship with the oak? For they are thought to have been the first men sprung from the earth, even as the oak was the first plant.

Why do they make most use of vultures in augury?

Is it because twelve vultures appeared to Romulus at the time of the founding of Rome? Or is it because this is the least frequent and familiar of birds? For it is not easy to find a vulture’s nest, but these birds suddenly swoop down from afar; wherefore the sight of them is portentous.

Or did they learn this also from Hercules? If Herodorus[*](Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec. ii. p. 31; Cf.Life of Romulus, ix. (23 a-b); Pliny, Natural History, x. 6 (19); Aelian, De Natura Animalium, ii. 46.) tells the truth, Hercules delighted in the appearance of vultures beyond that of all other birds at the beginning of any undertaking, since he believed that the vulture was the most righteous of all flesh-eating creatures: for, in the first place, it touches no living thing, nor does it kill any animate creature, as do eagles and hawks and the birds that fly by night: but it lives upon that which has been killed in some other way. Then again, even of these

How can a bird that feeds on birds be pure?

Why is the shrine of Aesculapius[*](Cf. Pliny, Natural History, xxix. 1 (16); 4 (72); Livy, x. 47, Epitome, xi.) outside the city?

Is it because they considered it more healthful to spend their time outside the city than within its walls? In fact the Greeks, as might be expected, have their shrines of Asclepius situated in places which are both clean and high.

Or is it because they believe that the god carne at their summons from Epidaurus, and the Epidauria. have their shrine of Asclepius not in the city, but at some distance?

Or is it because the serpent carne out from the trireme into the island,[*](The Insula Tiberina.) and there disappeared, and thus they thought that the god himself was indicating to them the site for building?

Why is it the customary rule that those who are practising holy living must abstain from legumes?[*](Cf. Pliny, Natural History, xviii. 12 (118-119); Aulus Gellius, x. 15. 12.)

Did they, like the followers of Pythagoras,[*](Cf., for example, Juvenal, xv. 9 porrum et caepe nefas violare et frangere morsu; Horace, Satires, ii. 6. 63; Epistles, i. 12. 21.) religiously abstain from beans for the reasons which are commonly offered,[*](The numerous reasons suggested may be found in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopadie, vol. iii. coll. 619-620.) and from vetch and chickpea, because their names (lathyros and erebinthos) suggest Lethê and Erebus?

Or is it because they make particular use of legumes for funeral feasts and invocations of the dead?

Or is it rather because one must keep the body clean and light for purposes of holy living and lustration? Now legumes are a flatulent food and produce surplus matter that requires much purgation.

Or is it because the windy and flatulent quality of the food stimulates desire?

Why do they inflict no other punishment on those of the Holy Maidens[*](Plutarch elsewhere uses a similar expression (παρθένος ἱέρεια) for the vestal virgins, e.g. in his Life of Publicola, chap. viii. (101 b) or Moralia, 89 e.) who have been seduced, but bury them alive?[*](Cf.Life of Numa, chap. x. (67 a-c); Ovid, Fasti, vi. 457-460; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, ii. 67. 4, viii. 89. 5; Pliny, Epistles, iv. 11. 6.)

Is it because they cremate their dead, and to use fire in the burial of a woman who had not guarded the holy fire in purity was not right?

Or did they believe it to be against divine ordinance to annihilate a body that had been consecrated by the greatest of lustra! ceremonies, or to lay hands upon a holy woman? Accordingly they devised that she should die of herself; they conducted her underground into a chamber built there, in which had been placed a lighted lamp, a loaf of bread,

Why is it that after the chariot-race on the Ides of December[*](Presumably an error of Plutarch’s: he means the tenth month, October: Cf. Festus, s.v. October equus, p. 178. 5.) the right-hand trace-horse of the winning team is sacrificed to Mars, and then someone cuts off its tail, and carries it to the place called Regia and sprinkles its blood on the altar, while some come down from the street called the Via Sacra, and some from the Subura, and fight for its head?

Is it, as some[*](Such as the historian Timaeus: Cf. Polybius xii. 4b.) say, that they believe Troy to have been taken by means of a horse: and therefore they punish it, since, forsooth, they are

Noble scions of Trojans commingled with children of Latins.[*](A verse made in imitation of Homer, Il. xviii. 337 (or xxiii. 23), blended with a part of x. 424.)

Or is it because the horse is a spirited, warlike, and martial beast, and they sacrifice to the gods creatures that are particularly pleasing and appropriate for them: and the winner is sacrificed because Mars is the specific divinity of victory and prowess?

Or is it rather because the work of the god demands standing firm, and men that hold their ground defeat those that do not hold it, but flee? And is swiftness punished as being the coward’s resource, and do they learn symbolically that there is no safety for those who flee?

Why do the censors, when they take office, do nothing else before they contract for the food of the sacred geese[*](Cf. Pliny, Natural History, x. 22 (51).) and the polishing of the statue?[*](The statue of Jupiter Capitolinus: Pliny, Natural History, xxxiii. 7 (112).)

Is it that they begin with the most trivial things, matters that require little expense or trouble?

Or is this a commemoration of an old debt of gratitude owed to these creatures for their services in the Gallic wars?[*](Cf. 325 c-d, infra; Life of Camillus, xxvii. (142 d ff.): Livy, v. 47; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, xiii. 7-8; Diodorus, xiv. 116.) For when in the night the barbarians were already climbing over the rampart of the Capitol, the gee se perceived the invaders, although the dogs were asleep, and waked the guards by their clamour.

Or is it because the censors are guardians of the most important matters, and, since it is their duty to oversee and to busy themselves with sacred and State affairs and with the lives, morals, and conduct of the people, they immediately take into account the most vigilant of creatures, and at the same time by their care of the geese they urge the citizens not to be careless or indifferent about sacred matters?

But the polishing[*](The high polish of the Roman statues is very noticeable in contrast with the duller surface of Greek statues. This is one of the factors in the controversy over the genuineness of the Hermes of Praxiteles at Olympia.) of the statue is absolutely necessary: for the red pigment, with which they used to tint ancient statues, rapidly loses its freshness.

Why is it that, if any one of the other priests is condemned and exiled, they depose him and elect another, but the augur, as long as he lives, even if they find him guilty of the worst offences, they do not

Is it, as some say, because they wish no one who is not a priest to know the secrets of the holy rites?

Or, because the augur is bound by oaths to reveal the sacred matters to no one, are they unwilling to release him from his oath as would be the case if he had been reduced to private status?

Or is augur a name denoting, not a rank or office, but knowledge and skill? Then to prevent a soothsayer from being a soothsayer would be like voting that a musician shall not be a musician, nor a physician a physician: for they cannot deprive him of his ability, even if they take away his title. They naturally appoint no successor since they keep the original number of augurs.