of these fossils should be found attached to the
priesthood of Jupiter, I must ask him to let me postpone that question,
which would at this moment lead us too far afield.

I may, however, mention here that the Flaminica Dialis, who was not
priestess of Juno as is commonly supposed, but assisted her husband in
the cult of Jupiter, was also subject to certain taboos. On three
occasions in the religious year she might not appear in public with her
hair "done up," viz. the moving of the _ancilia_ in March, the festival
of the Argei in March and May, and during the cleansing of the _penus
Vestae_ in June. Also she might not wear shoes made from the skin of a
beast that had died a natural death, but only from that of a sacrificial
victim. There are traces of a _religio_ about shoe-leather, I may
remark, both in the Roman and in other religious systems. Varro tells us
that "in aliquot sacris et sacellis scriptum habemus, Ne quid scorteum
adhibeatur: ideo _ne morticinum_ quid adsit." Leather was taboo in the
worship of the almost unknown deity Carmenta. Petronius describes women
in the cult of Jupiter Elicius walking barefoot; and we are reminded of
the well-known rule which still survives in Mahommedan mosques.[60] The
original idea may have been that the skin of an animal not made sacred
by sacrifice might destroy the efficacy of the worship contemplated. On
the other hand, the skin of a duly sacrificed animal had potency of a
useful kind--a fact or belief so widespread as to need no illustration
here; but we shall come upon an example of it in my next lecture.

Certain _places_ were also affected by the idea of taboo. In the later
religious law of the City-state the sites of all temples, _i.e._ all
places in which deities had consented to take up their abode, were of
course holy; but this is a much more mature development, though it
unquestionably had its root in the same idea that we are now discussing.
Such sites, as we shall see in a later lecture, were _loca sacra_, and
_sacer_ is a word of legal ritual, meaning that the place has been made
over to the deity by certain formulae, accompanied with favourable
auspices, under the authority of the State.[61] But there were other
holy places which were not _sacra_ but _religiosa_; and the word
_religiosum_ here might almost be translated "affected by taboo."
Wissowa provides us with a list of these places, and this and the
quotations he supplies with it are of the utmost valu