The Roman Questions (50-54)

Why did the priest of Jupiter (Flamen Dialis) resign his office if his wife died, as Ateius has recorded?[*]

Is it because the man who has taken a wife and then lost her is more unfortunate than one who has never taken a wife? For the house of the married man is complete, but the house of him who has married and later lost his wife is not only incomplete, but also crippled.

Or is it because the wife assists her husband in the rites, so that many of them cannot be performed without the wife’s presence, and for a man who has lost his wife to marry again immediately is neither possible perhaps nor otherwise seemly? Wherefore it was formerly illegal for the flamen to divorce his wife: and it is still, as it seems, illegal, but in my day Domitian once permitted it on petition. The priests were present at that ceremony of divorce and performed many horrible, strange, and gloomy rites.[*]

One might be less surprised at this resignation of the flamen if one should adduce also the fact that when one of the censors died, the other was obliged to resign his office[*]; but when the censor Livius Drusus died, his colleague Aemilius Scaurus was unwilling to give up his office until certain tribunes ordered him to be led away to prison.

Why is a dog placed beside the Lares that men call by the special name of praestites, and why are the Lares themselves clad in dog-skins?[*]

Is it because those that stand before are termed

praestites, and, also because it is fitting that those who stand before a house should be its guardians, terrifying to strangers, but gentle and mild to the inmates, even as a dog is?

Or is the truth rather, as some Romans affirm, that, just as the philosophic school of Chrysippus[*] think that evil spirits stalk about whom the gods use as executioners and avengers upon unholy and unjust men, even so the Lares are spirits of punishment like the Furies and supervisors of mens lives and houses? Wherefore they are clothed in the skins of dogs and have a dog as their attendant, in the belief that they are skilful in tracking down and following up evil-doers.

Why do they sacrifice a bitch to the goddess called Geneta Mana[*] and pray that none of the household shall become good?

Is it because Geneta is a spirit concerned with the generation and birth of beings that perish? Her name means some such thing as flux and birth or flowing birth. [*] Accordingly, just as the Greeks sacrifice a bitch to Hecatê,[*] even so do the Romans offer the same sacrifice to Geneta on behalf of the members of their household. But Socrates[*] says that the Argives sacrifice a bitch to Eilioneia by reason of the ease with which the bitch brings forth its young. But does the import of the prayer, that none of them shall become good, refer not to the human members of a household, but to the dogs? For dogs should be savage and terrifying.

Or, because of the fact that the dead are gracefully called the good, are they in veiled language asking in their prayer that none of their household may die? One should not be surprised at this: Aristotle,[*] in fact, says that there is written in the treaty of the Arcadians with the Spartans: No one shall be made good[*] for rendering aid to the Spartan party in Tegea: that is, no one shall be put to death.

Why do they even now, at the celebration of the Capitoline games, proclaim Sardians for sale!,[*] and why is an old man led forth in derision, wearing around his neck a child’s amulet which they call a bulla [*]?

Is it because the Etruscans called Veians fought against Romulus for a long time, and he took this city last of all[*] and sold at auction many captives together with their king, taunting him for his stupidity and folly? But since the Etruscans were originally Lydians, and Sardis was the capital city of the Lydians, they offered the Veians for sale under this name: and even to this day they preserve the custom in sport.

Why do they call the meat-markets macella and macellae?

Is this word corrupted from mageiroi (cooks) and has it prevailed, as many others have, by force of habit? For c and g have a close relationship in

Latin, and it was only after many years that they made use of g, which Spurius Carvilius[*] introduced. And l, again, is substituted lispingly for r when people make a slip in the pronunciation of r because of the indistinctness of their enunciation.

Or must this problem also be solved by history? For the story goes that there once lived in Rome a violent man, a robber, Macellus by name, who despoiled many people and was with great difficulty caught and punished: from his wealth the public meat-market was built, and it acquired its name from him.