The Roman Questions (30-34)

Why do they, as they conduct the bride to her home, bid her say, Where you are Gaius, there am I Gaia [*]?

Is her entrance into the house upon fixed terms, as it were, at once to share everything and to control jointly the household, and is the meaning, then, Wherever you are lord and master, there am I lady and mistress? These names are in common use also in other connexions, just as jurists speak of Gaius Seius and Lucius Titius,[*] and philosophers of Dion and Theon.[*]

Or do they use these names because of Gaia Caecilia,[*] consort of one of Tarquini sons, a fair and virtuous woman, whose statue in bronze stands in the temple of Sanctus?[*] And both her sandals and her spindle were, in ancient days, dedicated there as tokens of her love of home and of her industry respectively.

Why is the far-famed Talassio [*] sung at the marriage ceremony?[*]

Is it derived from talasia (spinning)? For they call the wool-basket (talaros) talasus. When they lead in the bride, they spread a fleece beneath her: she herself brings with her a distaff and her spindle, and wreaths her husband’s door with wool.

Or is the statement of the historians true? They relate that there was a certain young man, brilliant in military achievements and valuable in other wTays, whose name was Talasius: and when the Romans were carrying off the daughters of the Sabines who had come to see the games, a maiden of particularly beautiful appearance was being carried off for him by some plebeian retainers of his. To protect their enterprise and to prevent anyone from approaching and trying to wrest the maiden from them, they shouted continually that she was being brought as a wife for Talasius (Talasio). Since, therefore, everyone honoured Talasius, they followed along and provided escort, joining in the good wishes and acclamations. Wherefore since Talasius’s marriage was happy, they became accustomed to invoke Talasius in other marriages also, even as the Greeks invoke Hymen.

Why is it that in the month of May at the time of the full moon they throw into the river from the Pons Sublicius figures of men, calling the images thrown Argives?[*]

Is it because in ancient days the barbarians who

lived in these parts used to destroy thus the Greeks whom they captured? But Hercules, who was much admired by them, put an end to their murder of strangers and taught them to throw figures into the river, in imitation of their superstitious custom. The men of old used to call all Greeks alike Argives: unless it be, indeed, since the Arcadians regarded the Argives also as their enemies because of their immediate proximity, that, when Evander and his men[*] fled from Greece and settled here, they continued to preserve their ancient feud and enmity.

Why in ancient days did they never dine out without their sons, even when these were still but children?

Did Lycurgus introduce this custom also, and bring boys to the common meals that they might become accustomed to conduct themselves toward their pleasures, not in a brutish or disorderly way, but with discretion, since they had their elders as supervisors and spectators, as it were? No less important is the fact that the fathers themselves would also be more decorous and prudent in the presence of their sons: for where the old are shameless, as Plato[*] remarks, there the young also must needs be lost to all sense of shame.

Why is it that while the other Romans make libations and offerings to the dead in the month of February, Decimus Brutus, as Cicero[*] has recorded, used to do so in the month of December? This was

the Brutus who invaded Lusitania, and was the first to visit those remote places, and cross the river Lethê with an army.[*]

Since most peoples are accustomed to make offerings to the dead at the close of the day and at the end of the month, is it not reasonable also to honour the dead in the last month[*] at the turn of the year? And December is the last month.

Or do these honours belong to deities beneath the earth, and is it the proper season to honour these deities when all the crops have attained consummation?

Or is it most fitting to remember those below when men are stirring the earth at the beginning of seed-time?

Or is it because this month has been consecrated to Saturn by the Romans, and they regard Saturn as an infernal, not a celestial god?

Or is it that then their greatest festival, the Saturnalia, is set: and it is reputed to contain the most numerous social gatherings and enjoyments, and therefore Brutus deemed it proper to bestow upon the dead first-fruits, as it were, of this festival also?

Or is this statement, that Brutus alone sacrificed to the dead in this month, altogether a falsehood? For it is in December that they make offerings to Larentia and bring libations to her sepulchre.