n
cases of doubt, when an act of worship was needed in order to avoid
some impending evil and they did not know to which of the gods or
with what rites it was to be performed. But Romans in search of
advice early betook themselves also to the Delphic Apollo himself.
Besides the legends relating to such an intercourse already
mentioned,(16) it is attested partly by the reception of the word
-thesaurus- so closely connected with the Delphic oracle into all
the Italian languages with which we are acquainted, and partly by
the oldest Roman form of the name of Apollo, -Aperta-, the "opener,"
an etymologizing alteration of the Doric Apellon, the antiquity of
which is betrayed by its very barbarism. The Greek Herakles was
naturalized in Italy as Herclus, Hercoles, Hercules, at an early
period and under a peculiar conception of his character, apparently
in the first instance as the god of gains of adventure and of any
extraordinary increase of wealth; for which reason the general was
wont to present the tenth of the spoil which he had procured, and
the merchant the tenth of the substance which he had obtained, to
Hercules at the chief altar (-ara maxima-) in the cattle-market.
Accordingly he became the god of mercantile covenants generally,
which in early times were frequently concluded at this altar and
confirmed by oath, and in so far was identified with the old Latin
god of good faith (-deus fidius-). The worship of Hercules was
from an early date among the most widely diffused; he was, to use
the words of an ancient author, adored in every hamlet of Italy,
and altars were everywhere erected to him in the streets of the
cities and along the country roads. The gods also of the mariner,
Castor and Polydeukes or, in Roman form, Pollux, the god of traffic
Hermes--the Roman Mercurius--and the god of healing, Asklapios or
Aesculapius, became early known to the Romans, although their public
worship only began at a later period. The name of the festival
of the "good goddess" (-bona dea-) -damium-, corresponding to the
Greek --damion-- or --deimion--, may likewise reach back as far as
this epoch. It must be the result also of ancient borrowing, that
the old -Liber pater- of the Romans was afterwards conceived as
"father deliverer" and identified with the wine-god of the Greeks,
the "releaser" (-Lyaeos-), and that the Roman god of the lower
regions was called the "dispenser of riches" (-Pluto- - -Dis pater-),
while his spouse P