s had before they came under the influence of Greek ideas. Their
earliest religion is to be traced in the calendar of their sacred
year, in the lists of gods preserved for us in the writings of the
fathers, and in numberless usages and institutions descended from
early times.

The sacred year of early Rome is that of an agricultural community.
The festivals have to do with sowing and reaping and storing corn,
with vintage, with flocks and herds, with wolves, with spirits of the
woods, with boundaries, with fountains, with changes of the sun and
of the moon. There are festivals of domestic life, of the household
fire, and of the spirits of the storeroom, of the spirits of the
departed, and of the household ghosts. There are also festivals
connected with warlike matters, some connected with the river and the
harbour at its mouth, and some having to do with the arts of a simple
population. The calendar, taken by itself, would create the
impression that the community using it began with agriculture and
added to it afterwards various other activities; there is nothing in
it to contradict the supposition that Roman religion had its
beginnings in the fields and in the woods.

The earliest gods of Rome also agree with this. They are, however, a
very peculiar set of gods. Leaving the great gods in the meantime, we
notice two of the agricultural deities; there is a Saturnus, god of
sowing, and a Terminus, god of boundaries. These are what are called
functional deities, such as we met with in Greece, see chapter xvi.;
they take their name from the act or province over which they
preside. Saturnus means one who has to do with sowing; Terminus is a
boundary pure and simple. The god then, in these examples, is not a
great being who has come to have these functions placed under him as
well as others. He and the particular function belong together; he
owes all his deity to it. Now these are only examples; the same is
found to be the case with all or nearly all the distinctively Roman
gods; they are, broadly speaking, all functional beings. Each bears
the name of an object or a process; and on the other hand there is no
object and no act which has not its god. It is astounding to observe
how far the principle of the division of labour is carried among
these beings. Silvanus is the god of the wood, Lympha of the stream,
each wood and each stream having its own Silvanus or Lympha. Seia has
to do with the corn before it sprouts, Segetia