July, the nature or function of the goddess Furrina was, as we learn
from Cicero, a pure matter of conjecture, and Varro tells us that her
name was known only to a few persons. Nor was it mere lapse of time
which tended to obscure theology and exalt ceremonial: their relative
position was the immediate and natural outcome of the underlying idea
of the relation of god and man. Devotion, piety--in our sense of the
term--and a feeling of the divine presence could not be enjoined or
even encouraged by the strictly legal conception on which religion was
based: the 'contract-notion' required not a 'right spirit' but right
performance. And so it comes about that in all the records we have left
of the old religion the salient feature which catches and retains our
attention is exactness of ritual. All must be performed not merely
'decently and in order,' but with the most scrupulous care alike for
every detail of the ceremonial itself, and for the surrounding
circumstances. The omission or misplacement of a single word in the
formulæ, the slightest sign of resistance on the part of the victim,
any disorder among the bystanders, even the accidental squeak of a
mouse, are sufficient to vitiate the whole ritual and necessitate its
repetition from the very beginning. One of the main functions of the
Roman priesthood was to preserve intact the tradition of formulæ and
ritual, and, when the magistrate offered sacrifice for the state, the
_pontifex_ stood at his side and dictated (_praeire_) the formulæ which
he must use. Almost the oldest specimen of Latin which we now possess
is the song of the Salii, the priests of Mars, handed on from
generation to generation and repeated with scrupulous care, even though
the priests themselves, as Quintilian assures us, had not the least
notion what it meant. Nor was it merely the words of ceremonial which
were of vital importance: other details must be attended to with equal
exactness. Place, as we have seen, was an essential feature even in the
conception of deity, and it must have required all the personal