Roman Questions (111-113)

Question 111. Why do they require the priest to abstain from a dog and a goat, and neither to touch or name them?

Solution. Was it that they abominated the lasciviousness

and stink of a goat, or that they suspected it to be a diseased creature? For it seems this animal is more seized with the falling sickness than other creatures, and is contagious to them that eat or touch it while it hath this disease; they say, the cause is the straightness of the windpipe, often intercepting the breath, a sign of which they make the smallness of their voice to be; for it happens to men that are epileptical, that they utter a voice sounding much like the bleat of a goat. Now in a dog there may be less of lasciviousness and of an ill scent; although some say that dogs are not permitted to go into the high streets of Athens—no, not into the island Delos—by reason of their open coition; as if kine, swine, and horses did use coition in bed-chambers, and not openly and lawlessly. They do not know the true reason,—that, because a dog is a quarrelsome creature, they therefore expel dogs out of sanctuaries and sacred temples, giving safe access to suppliants for refuge. Wherefore it is very likely that the priest of Jupiter, being (as it were) an animated and sacred image, granted for refuge to petitioners and suppliants, doth banish or fright away none. For which cause a couch was set for him in the porch of the house, and they that fell on their knees before him had indemnity from stripes or punishment that day; and if one in fetters came and addressed him, he was unloosed, and his fetters were not laid down by the door but thrown from the roof. It would be therefore no advantage that he should carry himself so mild and courteous, if there were a dog at the door, scaring and frighting them that petitioned for sanctuary. Neither did the ancients at all repute this creature clean; for he is offered in sacrifice to none of the celestial Gods, but being sent to Hecate, an infernal Goddess, at the three cross-ways for a supper, takes a share in averting calamities and in expiations. In Lacedaemon they cut puppies in pieces to Mars, that most cruel God. In Boeotia public expiation is made by passing between the parts of a dog divided in twain. But the Romans sacrifice a dog in the cleansing month, on the festival which they call Lupercalia. Hence it was not without cause, to prohibit them whose charge it was to worship the highest and holiest God from making a dog familiar and customed to them.

Question 112. What is the reason that the priest of Jupiter is forbid to touch an ivy, or to pass over that way that is overspread with vine branches?

Solution. Is it not of the like nature with those precepts of Pythagoras, not to eat in a chair, not to sit upon a measure called a choenix, and not to step over a broom? For the Pythagoreans do not dread and refrain from these things, but they prohibit other things by these. Now to go under a vine hath reference to wine, because it is not lawful for a priest to be drunk. For the wine is above the heads of those that are drunk, and they are depraved and debased thereby; whereas it is requisite that they should be above pleasure and conquer it, but not be subdued by it. As for the ivy,—it being unfruitful and useless to men, as also infirm, and by reason of its infirmity standing in need of other trees to climb upon, though by its shadow and sight of its greenness it doth bewitch the vulgar,—what if they judge it not convenient to nourish it about a house because it bringeth no profit, or to suffer it to clasp about any thing, seeing it is so hurtful to plants that bear it up, while it sticketh fast in the ground? Hence ivy is forbidden at the Olympic festivals, and neither at Athens in Juno’s sacrifices, nor at Thebes in those belonging to Venus, can any wild ivy be seen; though in the Agrionia and Nyctelia (which are services to Bacchus for the most part performed in the dark) it is to be found. Or was this a symbol of the prohibition of revels and sports of Bacchus? For women that were addicted to Bacchanal

sports presently ran to the ivy and plucked it off, tearing it in pieces with their hands and gnawing it with their mouths, so that they are not altogether to be disbelieved that say it hath a spirit in it that stirreth and moveth to madness, transporting and bereaving of the senses, and that alone by itself it introduceth drunkenness without wine to those that have an easy inclination to enthusiasm.

Question 113. Why are not these priests allowed to take upon them or attempt civil authority, while they have a lictor and a curule chair for honor’s sake, and in some sort of consolation for their being excluded from magistracies?

Solution. Was it because in some places of Greece the dignity of priesthood was equal with kingship, and therefore they designated not ordinary persons to be priests? Or was it rather,—since they have appointed office-employments, whereas the charge of kings is unmethodical and indefinite,—that it would not be possible, if both fell out at the same time, that he should be able to attend both, but he must of necessity neglect one (both pressing together upon him), sometimes neglecting the worship of God, and sometimes injuring the subjects? Or else, seeing that there is no less necessity than power attending the administration of civil government, and that the ruler of the people (as Hippocrates saith of the physician) doth see weighty matters and hath to do with weighty matters, and from other men’s calamities procures troubles peculiar to himself, did they think ’him not sacred enough to sacrifice to the Gods and manage the sacrifices who had been present at the condemnation and execution of citizens, and often of some of his own kindred and family, as happened to Brutus?