1] ergo, _macte hac illace dape polucenda esto_." And again, when
the wine is offered: "Iuppiter dapalis, _macte istace dape polucenda
esto. Macte vino inferio esto_." So in the piacular sacrifice when a
clearing is made, the unknown deity is addressed in the last words of
the prayer thus: "harum rerum ergo _macte hoc porco piaculo immolando
esto_." We find this _macte esto_ again in the prayer for the ceremony
of lustratio, at the end of the formula: "_macte hisce suovetaurilibus
lactentibus immolandis esto_." In the rite of the _porca praecidanea_,
to which I have already referred, the instruction for the invocation of
Jupiter runs: "_Fertum_ (_i.e._ a kind of cake) _Iovi obmoveto et
mactato sic, Iuppiter, te hoc ferto_ obmovendo bonas preces precor, uti
sies volens propitius mihi liberisque meis domo familiaeque meae _mactus
hoc ferto_." Janus gets another kind of cake (_strues_) and a
wine-offering, and is addressed in the same way. Then we read, "Iovi
fertum obmoveto _mactatoque item_, ut prius feceris."

What is the real meaning of this phrase _macte esto_, which must surely
have been in universal use at sacrifices, not only at private rites like
those of Cato, since it came to be used in common speech of
congratulation or felicitation, e.g. _macte virtute esto_?[382] Servius
in commenting on Virgil has made it sufficiently clear. He explains it
as _magis aucte_, and connects it with _magmentum_, increase-offering,
_quasi magis augmentum_, and adds that when the victims had been slain
and their exta placed on the altar, they were said to be _mactatae_. So,
too, in another comment he seems to connect the word with the victim
rather than with the deity. But he is quite clear as to the meaning of
the word, as signifying an increase or addition of some kind; and though
his etymology is wrong, we may be sure that he was right in this
respect, for it is beyond doubt built on a base, _mac_ or _mag_, which
produced _magnus_, _maius_, _maiestas_, and so on. "Macte nova virtute
puer" means "Be thou increased, strengthened in _virtus_"; a fragment of
Lucilius (quoted by Servius) brings this out well, "_Macte inquam
virtute simulque his viribus esto_," and another from Ennius, "Livius
inde redit magno _mactatus_ triumpho."[383] We might almost translate it
in these passages by "glorified"; but it most certainly includes the
meaning of "strengthened" or "increased in might."

Now in the formulae of Cato we have seen that it is