year they perform a dance in arms, and
this is their sole function.

The augurs predict the future. The pontiffs superintend the ceremonies
of worship; they regulate the calendar and fix the festivals to be
celebrated on the various days of the year.

Neither the priests, the augurs, nor the pontiffs form a separate
class. They are chosen from among the great families and continue to
exercise all the functions of state--judging, presiding over
assemblies, and commanding armies. This is the reason that the Roman
priests, potent as they were, did not constitute, as in Egypt, a
sacerdotal caste. At Rome it was a state religion, but not a
government by the priests.

=The Dead.=--The Romans, like the Hindoos and the Greeks, believed
that the soul survived the body. If care were taken to bury the body
according to the proper rites, the soul went to the lower world and
became a god; otherwise the soul could not enter the abode of the
dead, but returned to the earth terrifying the living and tormenting
them until suitable burial was performed. Pliny the Younger[113]
relates the story of a ghost which haunted a house and terrified to
death all the inhabitants of the dwelling; a philosopher who was brave
enough to follow it discovered at the place where the spectre stopped
some bones which had not been buried in the proper manner. The shade
of the Emperor Caligula wandered in the gardens of the palace; it was
necessary to disinter the body and bury it anew in regular form.

=Cult of the Dead.=--It was of importance, therefore, to both the
living and the dead that the rites should be observed. The family of
the deceased erected a funeral pile, burned the body on it, and placed
the ashes in an urn which was deposited in the tomb, a little chapel
dedicated to the Manes,[114] _i.e._, the souls that had become gods.
On fixed days of the year the relatives came to the tomb to bring
food; doubtless they believed that the soul was in need of
nourishment, for wine and milk were poured on the earth, flesh of
victims was burned, and vessels of milk and cakes were left behind.
These funeral ceremonies were perpetuated for an indefinite period; a
family could not abandon the souls of its ancestors, but continued to
maintain their tomb and the funeral feasts. In return, these souls
which had become gods loved and protected their posterity. Each
family, therefore, had its guardian deities which they called Lares.

=Cult of the Hearth.=--E