The Roman Questions (94-97)

Why is the shrine of Aesculapius[*] 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,[*] 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?[*]

Did they, like the followers of Pythagoras,[*] religiously abstain from beans for the reasons which are commonly offered,[*] 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[*] who have been seduced, but bury them alive?[*]

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,

and some milk and water. Thereafter they covered over the top of the chamber with earth. And yet not even by this manner of avoiding the guilt have they escaped their superstitious fear, but even to this day the priests proceed to this place and make offerings to the dead.

Why is it that after the chariot-race on the Ides of December[*] 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[*] 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.[*]

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?