ing in various
relations to political and social life, having their heads (chief
augurs)--thus in their organization similar to the priesthood, but
standing quite apart from this. The same sort of organization was
established in the Etruscan office of _haruspex_[1714] when this was
introduced into Rome. The members of these colleges were at first
Etruscans and, as such, looked down on; but gradually Roman youth of
good family and education were trained for the duty, and in the time of
the Emperor Claudius the social difference between augurs and haruspices
seems to have been almost eliminated.[1715]

+933+. _Sibyls._ In the old Graeco-Roman world inspired women played a
great role.[1716] The belief in such personages goes back to the old
conception of the possession of human beings by a supernatural being,
which, as we have seen, was common in early forms of religion. This idea
assumed various shapes in Greece, and in the course of time the inspired
women were connected with various deities. In the Dionysus cult the
orgiastic rites (in which women took a chief part) seem to have grown up
from old agricultural ceremonies in which the spirit or god of
vegetation was invoked to give his aid. Such ceremonies naturally
coalesced here as elsewhere with the license of popular festivities. The
legends connected with the Dionysus cult introduced savage features into
the rites, as, for example, in the story of Pentheus.[1717] But whatever
may have been the case in Thrace, whence the cult came to Greece, it was
not so in historical times in Greece, where the celebrations were
controlled by the State. These exhibit then only the natural frenzy of
excited crowds without the element of divination.

+934+. The development of the role of women as representatives of
deities is illustrated by the character of the priestesses of oracular
shrines.[1718] These, like the Dionysiac devotees, are seized and
possessed by the god, and speak in a state of frenzy. But their frenzy
is controlled by civilized conditions. It exists only as a preparation
for divination; it is the movement of the god in them laboring to
express himself, and his expression is couched in intelligible human
language. The priestess is a part of an organized and humanized cult
and, as such, represents to a certain extent the ideas of a civilized
society. The Dionysiac woman yields to an excess of animal excitement,
without thought for society; the priestess feels herself r