e for my present
subject.[62] They comprised, of course, all holy places which the State
had not duly consecrated, and therefore some which hardly concern us
here, such as shrines belonging to families and gentes, and temple-sites
in the provinces of a later age. More to our purpose at this moment are
the spots where thunderbolts were supposed to have fallen. Such spots
were encircled with a low wall and called _puteal_ from their
resemblance to a well, or _bidental_ from the sacrifice there of a lamb
as a _piaculum_; the bolt was supposed to be thus buried, and the place
became _religiosum_.[63] So, too, all burial-grounds were not _loca
sacra_ but _loca religiosa_, technically because they were not the
property of the state or consecrated by it; in reality, I venture to
say, because the place where a corpse was deposited was of necessity
taboo. Such places were _extra commercium_, and their sanctity might not
be violated: "religiosum est," wrote the learned Roman Masurius Sabinus,
"quod propter sanctitatem aliquam _remotum et sepositum est_ a
nobis."[64] So, too, the great lawyer of Cicero's time, Servius
Sulpicius, defines _religio_ as "quae propter sanctitatem aliquam remota
ac seposita a nobis sit," where he is using _religio_ in the sense of a
thing or place to which a taboo attaches.[65] And again, another
authority, Aelius Gallus, said that _religiosum_ was properly applied to
an object in regard to which there were things which a man might not do:
"quod si faciat," he goes on, "adversus deorum voluntatem videatur
facere."[66] These last words are in the language of the City-state; if
we would go behind it to that of an earlier age, we should substitute
words which would express the feeling or scruple, the _religio_, without
reference to any special deity. Virgil has pictured admirably this
feeling as applied to places, in describing the visit of Aeneas to the
site of the future Rome under the guidance of his host Evander (_Aen._
viii. 347):--

hinc ad Tarpeiam sedem et Capitolia ducit,
aurea nunc, olim silvestribus horrida dumis.
_iam tum religio pavidos terrebat agrestis_
_dira loci_: iam tum silvam saxumque tremebant.
"hoc nemus, hunc," inquit, "frondoso vertice collem,
(quis deus, incertum est) habitat deus."

This is a passage on which I shall have to comment again: at present I
will content myself with noting how accurately the poet, who of all
others best understood the instincts of the l