Roman Questions (106-110)

Question 106. Why do the Romans worship Fortuna Primigenia?

Solution. Was it because Servius, being by Fortune born of a servant-maid, came to rule king in Rome with great splendor? And this is the supposition of most Romans. Or rather is it that Fortune hath bestowed on Rome itself its very original and birth? Or may not this matter require a more natural and philosophical reason, even that Fortune is the original of all things and that Nature itself is produced out of things that come by Fortune, when events that come by chance fall into an order among themselves?

Question 107. Why do the Romans call the artists who appear in the worship of Bacchus histriones?

Solution. Is it for the reason which C. Rufus tells us? For he says, that in ancient time, C. Sulpicius and Licinius Stolo, being consuls, a pestilence raging in Rome, all the actors upon the stage were cut off; wherefore, upon the request of the Romans, many and good artists came from Etruria, among whom he that excelled in fame and had been longest experienced on the public stages was called Histrus, and from him they named all the stage-players.

Question 108. Why do not men marry women that are near akin?

Solution. Is this the reason, that they design by marriage to augment their family concerns and to procure many relations, by giving wives to strangers and marrying

wives out of other families? Or do they suspect that the contentions that would happen among relations upon marriage would destroy even natural rights? Or is it that, considering that wives by reason of weakness stand in need of many helpers, they would not have near akin marry together, that their own kindred might stand by them when their husbands wrong them?

Question 109. Why is it not lawful for the high priest of Jupiter, which they call Flamen Dialis, to touch meal or leaven?

Solution. Is it because meal is imperfect and crude nourishment? For the wheat neither hath continued what it was, neither is it made into bread as it must be; but it hath lost the faculty of seed, and hath not attained to usefulness for food. Wherefore the poet hath named meal, by a metaphor, mill-murdered (μυλήφατον), as if the corn were spoiled and destroyed by grinding. Leaven, as it is made by corruption, corrupts the mass that it is mingled with, for it is made thereby looser and weaker; and fermentation is a kind of corruption, which, if it be overmuch, makes the bread sour and spoils it.

Question 110. Why is the same high priest forbid to touch raw flesh?

Solution. Is it because custom makes them averse enough to raw flesh? Or is it that the same reason that makes them averse to meal doth also make them averse to flesh; for it is neither a living creature nor dressed food? Roasting or boiling, being an alteration and change, doth change its form; but fresh and raw flesh offers not a pure and unpolluted object to the eye, but such as is offensive to the eye, and like that of a raw wound.