ctam domitamque esse
gentem";[461] and this was no doubt the idea in the minds of the
historical Romans. But it may well have been that it had its root in a
process which was supposed to deprive the conquered enemy of all
dangerous contagion--to separate them from their own land and people
before they came into peaceful contact with their conquerors.

A last word before I leave this part of my subject. Though it is
interesting to try to get at the root-idea of these processes of
_lustratio_, we must remember that in the Rome of history they had lost
not only such magical meaning as they ever had, but also much of the
religious meaning which in course of time was superimposed upon it. The
sacrifices and the prayers remained, but the latter were muttered and
unheard by the people. And except in the country districts these
ceremonies were more and more absorbed, as time went on, into the
social, military, and political life of the community, as _e.g._ the
lustration of the host became a political census; or they tended to
disappear altogether, like the _ambarvalia_ and perhaps the _amburbium_.
They grew up in the religious experience of the Romans, beginning with
its very earliest and quasi-magical forms; but they came at last to
represent that experience no longer, and when we meet with them in
historical times it is impossible to ascribe to them any real influence
on life and conduct. _Lustratio_ never in pagan Italy developed an
ethical meaning as _catharsis_ did in Greece.[462] But meaningless as
they were, the stately processions remained, and could be watched with
pride by the patriotic Roman all through the period of the Empire, until
the Roman Church adapted them to its own ritual and gave them, as we
saw, a new meaning. As the cloud-shadows still move slowly over the
hollows of the Apennines, so does the procession of the patron saint
pass still through the streets of many an Italian city.[463]

NOTES TO LECTURE IX

[406] Dill, _Roman Society in the Last Century of the
Western Empire_, p. 63.

[407] See Westermarck, _Origin and Development of Moral
Ideas_, ii. 615 foll.

[408] _C.I.L._ i. Nos. 43 foll.

[409] _C.I.L._ xiv. 2863. See _R.F._ p. 224, and
Wissowa, _R.K._ p. 209.

[410] _Op. cit._ vol. i. p. 252; cp. 271.

[411] See Sir Alfred Lyall's _Asiatic Studies_, Series
I. ch. vi. No one would call the vow of Aeneas, in
_Aen._ vi. 69, a bargain with Ap