n company of youths, and
striking women on their way with strips, known as _februae_ or _Iunonis
amicula_, cut from the goats' hides. Here we have a summary of many of
the important points which we have noticed in the rustic festivals:
from the pre-Roman stratum comes the idea of communion with the
sacrificed animal in the smearing of the blood and the wearing of the
skin, and also the magic charm involved in the striking of the women to
procure fertility: it is typical of the true feeling of Roman religion
that we cannot with any certainty tell what deity was associated with
the rite, though probably it was Faunus: the rustic character of the
ceremony is indicated by the bowl of milk in which the wool was dipped
and the sacrifice of goats: the idea of lustration is clearly marked
in the course round the boundaries: the original Palatine settlement
stands out in the limits of that course and the site of the Lupercal,
and the later synoecismus is seen in the, presumably subsequent,
addition of the second college of Luperci. A careful study of the
Lupercalia as an epitome of the character and development of the Roman
agricultural festivals, though it would not show the brighter aspect of
some of the spring and summer celebrations, would yet give a true
notion of the history and spirit of the whole.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Ov., _Fast._, iv. 735.

CHAPTER VII

WORSHIP OF THE STATE

Since, in the matter of religion, the Roman state is in the main but
the agricultural household magnified, we shall not, in considering its
worship, be entering on a new stratum of ideas, but rather looking at
the development of notions and sentiments already familiar. To deal,
however, with the state-worship in full would not only far exceed the
limits of this sketch, but would lead us away from religious ideas into
the region of what we might now call 'ecclesiastical management.' I
propose therefore to confine myself to two points, firstly, the
broadening of the old conceptions of the household and the fields and
their adaptation to the life of the state, and secondly--to be treated
very shortly and as an indication of the Roman character--the
organisation of religion.

=1. Development of the Worship of House and Fields.=--Here we shall
find two main characteristics. The state in the first place, as we
have several times hinted in anticipation, establishes its own
counterpart of the household and rustic cults and adapts to its own use