CONTENTS

LECTURE I

INTRODUCTORY
PAGE

Accounts of the Roman religion in recent standard works;
a hard and highly formalised system. Its interest lies
partly in this fact. How did it come to be so? This the
main question of the first epoch of Roman religious
experience. Roman religion and Roman law compared. Roman
religion a technical subject. What we mean by religion.
A useful definition applied to the plan of Lectures
I.-X.; including (1) survivals of primitive or
quasi-magical religion; (2) the religion of the
agricultural family; (3) that of the City-state, in its
simplest form, and in its first period of expansion.
Difficulties of the subject; present position of
knowledge and criticism. Help obtainable from (1)
archaeology, (2) anthropology 1-23

LECTURE II

ON THE THRESHOLD OF RELIGION: SURVIVALS

Survivals at Rome of previous eras of quasi-religious
experience. Totemism not discernible. Taboo, and the
means adopted of escaping from it; both survived at Rome
into an age of real religion. Examples: impurity (or
holiness) of new-born infants; of a corpse; of women in
certain worships; of strangers; of criminals. Almost
complete absence of blood-taboo. Iron. Strange taboos on
the priest of Jupiter and his wife. Holy or tabooed
places; holy or tabooed days; the word _religiosus_ as
applied to both of these 24-46

LECTURE III

ON THE THRESHOLD OF RELIGION: MAGIC

Magic; distinction between magic and religion. Religious
authorities seek to exclude magic, and did so at Rome.
Few survivals of magic in the State religion. The
_aquaelicium_. Vestals and runaway slaves. The magical
whipping at the Lupercalia. The throwing of puppets from
the _pons sublicius_. Magical processes surviving in
religious ritual with their meaning lost. Private magic:
_excantatio_ in the XII. Tables; other spells or
_carmina_. Amulets: the _bulla_; _oscilla_ 47-67

LECTURE IV

THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY

Continuity of the religion of the Latin agricultural
family. What the family was; its relation to the _gens_.
The _familia_ as settled on the land, an economic unit,