by the priests, clad in their strange, stiff, antique vestments, and
bearing ears of green corn upon their heads, secured by flowing bands
of white, the procession moved in absolute stillness, all persons,
even the children, abstaining from [8] speech after the utterance of
the pontifical formula, Favete linguis!--Silence! Propitious
Silence!--lest any words save those proper to the occasion should
hinder the religious efficacy of the rite.

With the lad Marius, who, as the head of his house, took a leading
part in the ceremonies of the day, there was a devout effort to
complete this impressive outward silence by that inward tacitness of
mind, esteemed so important by religious Romans in the performance of
these sacred functions. To him the sustained stillness without
seemed really but to be waiting upon that interior, mental condition
of preparation or expectancy, for which he was just then intently
striving. The persons about him, certainly, had never been
challenged by those prayers and ceremonies to any ponderings on the
divine nature: they conceived them rather to be the appointed means
of setting such troublesome movements at rest. By them, "the
religion of Numa," so staid, ideal and comely, the object of so much
jealous conservatism, though of direct service as lending sanction to
a sort of high scrupulosity, especially in the chief points of
domestic conduct, was mainly prized as being, through its hereditary
character, something like a personal distinction--as contributing,
among the other accessories of an ancient house, to the production of
that aristocratic atmosphere which separated them from newly-made
people. But [9] in the young Marius, the very absence from those
venerable usages of all definite history and dogmatic interpretation,
had already awakened much speculative activity; and to-day, starting
from the actual details of the divine service, some very lively