vento et divino iure et humano_,
moenibus cinxerunt." But by all British writers on Roman law, and by
many foreign ones, the word _fas_ is used as equivalent to the ius
divinum, and sharply distinguished from _ius_. Thus the late Dr.
Greenidge, in his useful work on Roman public life (p. 52 and
elsewhere), makes this distinction; he writes of the _rex_ as the chief
expounder of the divine law (_fas_), and of the control exercised by
_fas_ over the citizen's life. Cp. Muirhead, ed. Goudy, p. 15 foll.,
where Mommsen is quoted thus: "Mommsen is probably near the mark when he
describes the _leges regiae_ as mostly rules of the _fas_." But Mommsen,
like Wissowa in his _Religion und Kultus_, does not use the word _fas_,
but speaks of "Sakralrecht." Sohm, on the other hand (_Roman Law_,
trans. Ledlie, p. 15, note), compares _fas_ with Sanscrit _dharma_ and
Greek _themis_, as meaning unwritten rules of divine origin, which
eventually gave way before _ius_, as in Greece before [Greek: dikaion].
(Cp. Binder, _Die Plebs_, p. 501.) But it is safer in this case to leave
etymology alone, and to try to discover what the Romans themselves
understood by _fas_, which is indeed a peculiar and puzzling word. (For
its possible connection with _fari_, _effari_ (ager effatus), _fanum_,
and _profanum_, etc., see H. Nettleship's _Contributions to Latin
Lexicography_, s.v. "Fas.")

_Fas_ was at all times indeclinable, and is rarely found even as an
accusative, as in Virg. _Aen._ ix. 96:

mortaline manu factae immortale carinae
fas habeant?

In the oldest examples of its use, _i.e._ in the ancient calendar QRCF,
on March 24 and May 24, _i.e._ "quando rex comitiavit fas" (Varro,
_L.L._ vi. 31), and QStDF on June 15, _i.e._ "Quando stercus delatum
fas" (Varro, _L.L._ vi. 32), it is hard to say whether it is a
substantive at all, and not rather an adverb like _satis_. So, too, in
the antique language of the _lex templi_ of Furfo (58 B.C.) we read,
"Utii tangere sarcire tegere devehere defigere mandare ferro oeti
promovere referre _fasque esto_" (_liceat_ should probably be inserted
before _fasque esto_). See _CIL._ i. 603, line 7; Dessau, _Inscript.
Lat. selectae_, ii. 1. 4906, p. 246. In these examples _fas_ simply
means that you may do certain acts without breaking religious law; it
does not stand for the religious law itself. To me it looks like a
technical word of the _ius divinum_, meaning that which it is lawful to
do under it; thus a