direct the private
individual. Funerals, marriages, and other domestic occurrences into
which religious considerations entered, were under their charge; and
on the occurrence of portents and omens it was their duty to indicate
the steps to be taken in order to find out what the gods wished to
signify. They had charge of the calendar, and had to fix what days
were proper for carrying on the business of the courts (_dies
fasti_), and they were the authorities on the forms of legal process.
The chief pontiff is called the "judge and arbiter of things divine
and human," and the college had manifestly a very strong position.
The same is true of the _augurs_ or experts in signs and omens.
Though they did not consult the gods about public undertakings until
the magistrate or the general asked them to do so, they had power to
stop proceedings of which they disapproved; and this at certain
periods of Roman history they very frequently did. In Cicero's
treatise on Divination a great deal of interesting matter may be
found on this subject. Another sacred college of somewhat later date
is that of the men, at first three in number, afterwards fifteen, who
acted as expounders of the sacred Sibylline books, which King Tarquin
purchased from the old woman or Sibyl, of Cumae.

Roman Religion Legal rather than Priestly.--While some of these
priestly colleges exercised large powers, these powers were always
regarded not as inherent but deputed. The sacred offices were not
hereditary but elective; no course of training was necessary to
qualify for them; men were chosen for them by the state as for any
other public office, and those who became priests did not cease to be
citizens but continued to sit in the Senate, and, as it might happen,
to hold other offices at the same time. The growth of a priestly
caste was thus effectively prevented; religion was precluded from
having any free development of its own, and kept in the position of
an instrument for the furtherance of ends of state. There is no great
religion in which ritual is so much, doctrine and enthusiasm so
little. All these priests and colleges exist for no end but to carry
out with strict exactitude the ritual usage which is deemed necessary
to keep on good terms with the gods. They have no doctrine to teach,
no fervour to communicate, they do not even tell any stories.
Punctiliousness and anxiety attend all their proceedings. To the
Roman, Ihne says, "religion turns out to be