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A purificatory rite and some allied rites de passage

S. Eitrem
Version of record first published: 22 Jul 2008.

To cite this article: S. Eitrem (1947): A purificatory rite and some allied rites de passage , Symbolae Osloenses: Norwegian
Journal of Greek and Latin Studies, 25:1, 36-53
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A PURIFICATORY RITE AND SOME

ALLIED RITES DE PASSAGE
BY
S. ElTREM

We read in the Old Testament that when Abraham made a

covenant with God victims were divided, and God, typified by a
smoking oven or a burning torch, passed between the parts of
the victims, Gen. 15,9-10, cf. Jerem. 34, 18-19. The primary significance of this symbolic sacrifice has been, a subject of much
discussion, but the probability is that such a passage between the
parts of an animal originally meant a purification of the performer
or performers, cf. my discussion of the problems in Beitrge zur
griech. Relig.geschichte 2, 5 ff. This explanation accounts for a
custom, once apparently widespread, in Boeotia and Macedonia,
viz. the passing of the army between the pieces of a sacrificial
victim (Hesych s. . ; Suid. s. . ; Plut. qu. Rom.
p. 290 D; Nilsson, Gr. Feste, p. 405). On this occasion the victim
was a dog, and by way of explanation we may refer to the rle
of dogs in the ritual of Hecate i. e. of the Boeotian omnipotent
goddess celebrated and, probably, rehabilitated by Hesiod, theog.
v. 431 sqq.:
' '
, . , '
.1
(For all that, "Hecate" may be the original name of the Carian
goddess, identified with the corresponding Boeotian and Thessalian
deity, cf. Wilamowitz, Hesiods Erga, p. 131.) 2 The ceremony performed 182 B. C. by the Macedonian army is described in much
1

Symb. Osl. 24 p. 105. On the relation of Hecate to the goddess Enodia in

Asia Minor, see Symb. Osl. 18, p. 27 sqq. On Plut. qu. Rom. 111, see H. J.
Rose, Roman Questions of Plutarch, ad loc. Frazer, G. B.3 I. p. 289.
Cp. Paula Philippson, Thessalische Mythologie (1944), p. 72 sq.

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A Purificatory

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37

detail by Livy (whose authority is Polybius), XL, 6: caput mediae

canis praecisae et prior pars ad dextram, cum extis posterior ad
laevam viae ponitur; inter hanc divisam hostiam copiae armatae
traducuntur. It is quite natural that the head of the dog is placed
on the right, the rest of the body on the left side of the place,
th right side being the most active, the lucky part of the body.1
Head and entrails are the most vital and therefore specially tabood
parts of the slain dog, both full of magical power, loaded with
dynamis. The importance of the head in sacrificial rites of the
Greeks is too familiar to need illustration; it is, however, a very
noteworthy fact that heads of sacrificed animals frequently occur
on Mycenaean gems (cf., e. g., Nilsson, Minoan-Mycenaean Religion
[1927], p. 196 sqq., with illustrations and further references). We
may therefore, perhaps, be entitled to take Mycenaean or, better,
pre-Greek tradition into account when dealing with purificatory
rites like the lustration of the people or the army here mentioned.2
As for the use of purificatory sacrifices of dogs in the cult of
Hecate, we may emphasize the mysteries of the goddess celebrated
on Samothrace, where dogs sacrificed by the mystae have
guaranteed the conciliation of the goddess and the ritual purity of
the iniate (cf. schol. Aristoph. pac, v. 276).3 Even the passage of
the Macedonian army may be considered a regular .
The Macedonian rite with the severed dog was a very practical
way to purify a whole army at one time, just by marching so to
1

H. J. Rose, Primitive Culture in Greece, p. 148, explains this conception

of the right as partly due to the Greeks generally facing north to reckon
the points of the compass, "the right was to the east, the quarter
whence dawn comes". This is hardly correct, the notion of the right as
the stronger and better side of the body existing nearly everywhere on
the earth.
For a more detailed discussion of primitive ideas and superstitious usages
concerning the head, see Beitr. zur gr. Rel. 2, 34 sqq. To illustrate the
belief in a magical effect of a head severed from the body, I might also
have referred to the head of Medusa being hidden under a mound on
the marketplace of Argos (Paus. 11, 21,5), and to the "deathless" head of
the Lernaean hydra being buried under a block of stone in the neighbourhood (Apollod. II, 5, 2). By the bye, Heracles had a special leaning
to cutting off the heads of his enemies, Eur. Here. fur. 567. 939.
Literature concerning dogs in Greek religion and folklore is stated by
Gruppe, Bursian vol. 186 (1921). p. 146 sq.

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38

. 5. it re m

spak through the dog in full military order. Ritual purification

like this "might be effected in two ways. Either the animal sacrificed
imparts its holy and purifying quality to the bystanders, the passers
or directly to the persons touching it with their hands, weapons
etc. (cf. ceremonies on taking an oath), or it absorbs the impurity
of those present. At any rate the effect is dependent on' what is
called contact magic. Where there is question of the dogs used
in the above mentioned manner, we do not doubt that the dogs;
impure in themselves, in this way were loaded with further impurity
and finally got rid of as other . The effect is the same
when you pass through some aperture. All the unseen injurious
substances are stripped off just as thoroughly as if you forced
yourself through a hole which robs you of your clothes. Diseases
conceived as something physical are removed from the patient in
this way.1
It is noteworthy that Plato in the Laws recommends a very
similar rite for a particularly solemn form of voting (leg. VI.
p. 753 D). Thrice the voters have^ to choose the "guardians of
the laws" () among the best. The second round brings
the number of candidates down to a hundred, and out of these
the voters now have to elect 37 guardians, the final number.
The election takes place in a most venerable temple, and the
tablets used for voting are placed on the altar. At the third
round the voters have to pass "through the " 2 the
entrails or, better, the genitalia of the animal (a male) slaughtered. Plato greatly valued the oath for the administration of
1

Frazer, G.B.3 XI. 170 ff. The old Indians shared the same view; Rigveda '
(VIII. LXXX. 7) tells of Indra that he cured the girl Apl, who suffered
from skin disease, by drawing her through an opening in a car (Oldenberg,
Rel. des Veda3, p. 493, cf. Scheftelowitz, RGVV, vol. XII. 2. p. 36 on passing
through a sling). Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science,
II. 483 ' quotes from a representative of thirteenth century medicine,
Gilbert of England, a magical procedure, used for epilepsy (edition of
Lyons, 1510, fol. I l l v.h a long white thorn is to be split and the patient
dragged feet first through the cleft as far as his middle (the thorn should
then be cut into small bits and wrapped up in a cloth together with the
nail parings and clippings of his hair, the whole later to be buried
underground). I. Reichborn-Kjennerud, Vr garnie folkemedisin (Oslo) 1,
p. 155 sqq. (smygjing").

Stengel, Opferbruche der Griechen, p. 78 sqq.

A Purificatory

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39

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justice, though banishing it from the lawsuits (ibid., p. 948D),

and it seemed to him a very practical and very impressive ceremony thus to administer the oath to all voters, making use of
an old and foreign practice of purification. This voting was, after
all, a religious affair.
II.
. If we now pass to the Romans, we find similar, but more
concrete expedients for. removing infection of any kind; they are
not characterized by sacrifices to the same extent as the corresponding Greek purificatory rites. The Romans after battle sent
the vanquished "under the yoke", sub Jugum. To the Romans of
classical times the original meaning of this rite (cf. the rites at
the introduction of new slaves into the house, of the bride into
the new home, also rites on the market-place, like Ovid., fast. V.
675 sqq.) was quite obscure. Livy, III. 28. 10 explains the ceremony
as a flagrant degradation of the enemy: ut exprimatur tandem
confessio subactam domitamque esse gentem. The Roman host
marching to a campaign, passed through the passage of Janus
(Domaszewski's explanation), and after victory won it marched under
the porta triumphalis. These three rites have been connected and
their magical (apotropaeic) meaning demonstrated by differentscholars.1
Commonly they include under the same category of apotropea the
Tigillum- sororium.2 This archway not far from the place of Colosseum commemorated according to the legend the crime of Horatius
who murdered his sister, and his-acquittal by the Roman people.
In this case the expiatio of the culprit who had to pass under
the "Sister Beam", was strengthened by sacrifices to Janus Curiatius
and Juno Sororia (the altars were in proximity to the archway).
That Horatius really was a culprit was made clear by his head
being covered, but here the beam, which was an object of worship
to the Arval brethren, 3 combined two sides of a street, crossed
1

Frazer, G.B. 3 XI, p. 193 sqq. W. W. Fowler, Roman Essays and Interpretations, p. 70 sqq. Wissowa, Rel. und Kultus der Rmer2, p. 104.
Wissowa . c. W. F. Otto, Philol. LXIV, p. 213; Rhein. Mus. LXIV, p. 466 sqq.
Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 238 sq.
Mommsen's remark, see Henzen, Acta Fratrum Arvalium, p. CCXXXVIII
(Oct. 1).

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40

5. Eitrem

by another street. It seems therefore more likely that here the

beam originally symbolized the formal conjunction of two districts
of the city, i. e. of two rival vici. This intimate conjunction was
placed under the protection of Juno Sororia for whose cult the
gens Horatia of old was responsible, and so the legend of the
"sister" murdered by Horatius suggested itself as a fitting
for the impressive beam. The cult of Janus was inaugurated as
soon as the beam was taken for part of an archway. The cult
and the taboo of a doorway or gateway have through the cult of
Janus been extended to the entrances of the city. Moreover, the
cults of Janus and Juno were both associated with the Kalends
(cf. Fowler, /. c), and this fact may also have contributed to their
joint cult at the Tigillum Sororium, on the same day.
III.
Let us now examine anew the Greek rite already mentioned.
Probably an agricultural rite used at Methana near Trozen will
place us on the right track.1 To keep off the winds blowing up
from the Saronic gulf, noxious to the budding vineyards, the
peasants used to cut cock with white wings in two halves. Two
men took either of them a half of the (bleeding) cock and ran
round., the vineyard in opposite direction. When they met at the
starting point, they buried the cock in the ground. The effect is the
same as in the case where the host marched through the severed
dog. The vineyard has so to speak passed through the bleeding
cock. This must be white coloured to symbolize complete purity
(cf. the relation of cocks to the Sun and the sunlight); the more '
fitted it is to imbibe all the impurity of the place (or to strengthen
the apotropaeic force of the praxis). The magic circle drawn around
the vineyard increases the apotropaeic value (the dynamis) of the
procedure. This finished, the cock' is an abominable thing, no
more a valuable gift to a kindly disposed god. But gifts of this
kind are welcome to the powers of. the underworld and the ghosts
who will hold tight the impurity presented to them.
On the other hand, an animal split into pieces makes the impression of an order disturbed, a natural unity miserably disunited.
1

Paus. II. 34.2.

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41

Just so it has been considered the worst of punishments, a token

of the utmost barbarity, to tear to pieces the corpse of the culprit
still living. Greek tradition not only told of Xerxes having the
son of the mighty Lydian, Pythius, parted in two and the whole
Persian army marching between the halves,1 but also of the
mythical Peleus committing similar atrocity (Apollod. III. 13. 7).
According to Plutarch, Alexander kept the tradition alive having
Bessus, the Persian satrap, traitor to Darius, dismembered much
on the model of Sinis-Pityokamptes in the saga of Theseus.2 Now
on one side the whole magical energy of an animal sacrificed or
an animal tabood may be' set free if it is dismembered, on the
other side (cf. supra)"as we learn from folklore, the severed parts
try to meet again. We read in Aristot., de mir. ausc. 117 that
at Skotussa in Thessaly there was a small spring which made a
billet of wood, split up, again whole, if the pieces were thrown
into the water. Frazer3. reproduces a funeral custom witnessed on
1

Herod. VII. 39. It h a s been a Persian as well a s Macedonian military

rite of purification (perhaps of Aryan origin?), on the supposition that
Xerxes did not consult Greek seers following his army.
2
Plut. Alex. 4 3 . Compare A. Reinach, Rev. et. gr. 26 (1913), p. 359 sq. On
Pityokamptes see Robert, Heldensage II. p. 714, note 3. C. Robert quotes
Flav. Vop. 7.4 (Aurelian was said to have made u s e of the same execution)
and the Albanian fairy-story, told by Leskien, Balkanmrchen, p. 231, but
forgets the apocryphal story, told by Plutarch, I. c. Compare, moreover,
the Thracian king, Kotys, who was said to have split up his wife with
his own hands, Harpocr., S. V.: ,
;. Val. Max. IX. 2. ext. 4 mentions the crudelity of the
Thracian people: cui (genti, sc) neque vivos homines medios secure
neque parentes liberorum vesci corporibus (!) nefas fuit. We may refer
to a fairy-tale, published by Kretschmer i n his Neugriechische Mrchen,
nr. 55, p. 2 3 8 : an ape is split "from the tail up to t h e head" in two equal
parts, and we a r e also reminded of ancient modes of punishment in
oldtime China. There is something about this savage atrocity, imputed
to the Thracians, reminiscent of the savagery of the Maenads, as these
sometimes behave in the myths. We may also refer to the end of Apsyrtus
and that of Actaeon (Callim. hym. V. 115). O n the dismembering of corpses
cfr. Herodia, IV. 3.8 (Julia Domna!) and, for the history of the relics of
saints, Migne, P. L., L. 649 and LXXXIII. 1012 (V. Schultze, Altchr.
Stdte,.III. 272).
3

Frazer, G.B. 3 XI. p. 175 (his source is C. Hose, The Geographical Journal,
XVI. p. 45 sq.).

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42

S. Eitrem

Borneo where the attendents pass through a cleft stick climbing"

the mound of the cemetery and return through the same stick,
whereupon the cleft ends of the stick are tied together (we may
perhaps interpret this as a precaution that all impurity imported
to'the stick remains enclosed in it). 1 Again it is one of the
"adynata" achieved by magicians to make a serpent cut to pieces
reknit, Lucan, VI. 490 (of the sorceress Erichtho): viperei coeunt
abrupto corpore nodi. Every coil of the serpent has got a life of
its own, every part of it is dangerous. A good illustration of this
superstition is afforded by pictures of the terrible serpent of the
Egyptian Underworld,, the Apop-(apep-)snake which is destroyed
by Re, by the Suncat. On some mumycas'es every coil of the
serpent is cut over by a sharp knife.2 It must once have been
a widespread belief that what is by nature solidary, even inanimate
things (cf. the billet of wood* mentioned supra) wants to be restored
to its original shape and existence. The belief applies especially
to reptiles (this is in some way dependent on correct observation)
and was also known to the old Egyptians, as we just pointed out.
Here the magician divides the serpent in two, and then throws
sand between the parts to prevent them from joining together.3
The same explanation holds good for another wide-spread superstition. You. pass between two friends or a couple of persons
walking (or standing) together, and you separate them for ever.
One may easily collect instances of the occurrence of such primitive
features of thought even in present Greek tradition and folklore.4
1 For other interpretations, also that of the natives, see Frazer, l. c.
2
Prof. W. B. Kristensen in a letter to the author refers, inter alia, to a
sarcophagus in Leiden. M 5,' pi. 6; cf. the Book of the Dead, ch. 17 (Naville,
Totenbuch I, pl. 30, where the cat of Re cuts off the head of the serpent
with a knife).
3
Lexa, La magie dans l'Egypte antique, II. p. 194, cf. Griffith, Stories of
the High Priests of Memphis (tale of Setna Khamous).
4 W. H. D. Rouse, Folklore X (1899), p. 158 sq., gives an interesting instance
of such a passage "for loosing of a married couple" ( ).
The wedding ceremonies are copied, the priest joins the hands of the
couple, but thereupon he goes between man and wife, saying: vv
, . Then he once more joins the pair. Such a
. procedure a magician of olden times might call a regular (cf., e. g.,
PGM VII, 429, and ib. Index s. v.).

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A Purificatory

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43

It is not irrelevant that the person passing through the couple

possesses some magic power of its own (e. g., a child).
The reverse* influence is exercized by things mutually interdependent, as, e. g., lock and key.1 From old Icelandic (Norwegian)
folklore we may mention the following superstition. If a pregnant
woman has walked between the cut-off head and the trunk of
some animal, she cannot give birth to her child unless she walks
in the same way, between a head and a trunk, on the day of her
delivery.2 This superstition belongs to the very large category of
rites here discussed. Or we might prefer to say that ritual and
superstition alike should be referred to the same old wide-spread
belief that an original unity is not to be destroyed. It wants to
be repaired, if you will escape disastrous magic effects. Recurring
to the Macedonian, rite of purifying the host we may perhaps
suggest that the two separate parts of the slaughtered dog through
which the warriors march appeal to an ideal unity of the whole
army. From Curtius, X, 9. n, we learn that Perdiccas. pretended
that the army had to be purified because of the dissension that
had grown up between the phalanx and the cavalry, which dissension
now had happily come to an end: placet exercitum patrio more
lustrari et probabiUs causa videbatur praeterita discordia. At least
a fellow-feeling was the natural .result of having gone through the
same religious ceremony. We may compare the congregational
feeling of the mystae who during the night had partaken of. the
same initiations into the mysteries. The totality for which the
severed animal called had thus been restored in the army.
1

Hdwtb. d. d. Abergl. s. "Schloss", col. 1221 sq. Lock and key, used as a
preventive, see Ploss-Bartels, Das Weib I. 760 (and p. 762, supra).
islenzkar Pjsgur og fventyri . ed. Jn rnason (transi. Powell and
Magnusson), IL 560. For other references, see Frazer, loc. cit., General
Index s. "passing between "; Fr. S. Kraus, Slavische Forschungen (1908),
p. 165. 167. 169; Sartori, Sitte und Brauch II. 136.2.

44

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IV
. To the totality of an object or more objects combined, of an
action ' or more actions combined, corresponds the totality of time
or of any period of time..1 A minute, an hour, day, may be
just as much a totality as a month, a year, a century a saecalum.
The entirety of all these totalities taken together is the Greek
Ain, or still more, the "Ain of Ains* (cf. ;
6- , PGM XII 74).

According to Plato God holds

in his hand the beginning, the end, and the middle of everything

the

God, the

Demiurgus, makes Time (Chronos), when he starts

creation of

the

Universe (Tim. p. 37 D), and

Time is

the

"moving image of Ain" (ibid.). But Ain itself, always remaining

the same, has neither "beginning nor middle nor end", as the
dedication to Ain in Eleusis tells us (Syll.3 1125, from the time
of Augustus). On the other hand, Aristotle defined totality precisely
as that which possesses beginning, middle, and end (poet., ch. 7.3)
consequently a threefold unity or a Trinity. The number three
marks a logical conclusion and a magic dynamis as well.2 Even a
state consists, according to Lycurgus, the Athenian orator, of three
parts: the official, the judge, and the private individual (in Leocr. 79).
We have to bear this logical definition in mind when later discussing
the religious conception of "the middle* of a day in Roman religious
thought, as it manifests itself in the calendar.
The word "periodos", , gives expression to time viewed
as a circuit, a something complete in itself.

The year

is to the Romans an annus we might just as well say an anulus,

1

Compare W. B. Kristensen, De godsdienstige beteekenis van de gesloten

Perioden, in "Ex oriente lux", deel II (1943), p. XV sq.; Kringlop en
totaliteit, in Mededeelingen Acad. Amsterdam, New Series, (1935), No. 4.
2
On the ternary number see H. Diels, Sibyllinische Blatter, p. 40 sqq.
As regards the number two, cp. the proverbial expression: two halves
make a whole, expressing a unity divided in two and now magically
working for a reunion of the parts. An old marriage custom in Macedonia
was to divide a bread with a stroke of a sword and to eat the halves,
Curtius, VIII, 4, 27 (Alexander marries Roxane). We are reminded of
St. Paul's teaching, 1. Cor. X. 17, on the joint participation of the body
. of Christ: "for there is one bread and we, the many, are one body, since
we all share the one bread"; compare the Teaching of the Apostles, IX. 4
(Nock, St. Paul, p. 185).

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"a ring",1 and the nundinae, e. g., likewise. As Ovid phrases it,
fast. I. 54: esi quoque (sc. dies) qui nono semper ab orbe redit. From
magic doctrine we know of Eternity as a serpent which bites its
own tail, as an "Ouroboros", often to be found on papyri and on gems.
Just from Graeco-Egyptian magic we learn that any hour of the
day or the night in the capacity of a closed period has got a
divine exponent (the series of the days of our week is just based
on the principle that every hour of day and night belongs to a
special planet). This divine exponent is in possession of a magic
energy peculiar to himself. If all the parts of day and night are
summed up under the dominance of one divinity say, the Sun,
then Helios appears in each hour in a different shape, with a
different symbol (or, better, different symbols, because he can
appear as an animal on earth or [and] in the air , a plant,
a stone). Equally he must be invoked every time with a different
"strong name", only known to the magician himself. A good
illustration of this doctrine is to be found in the Greek Papyrus
Mimaut in Paris.2 All this occult knowledge is bound up with
astrology, but the Greeks were in later times familiar with the
Ain, mentioned above. The Ain was considered a real divinity
and was worshipped as a. living god in Eleusis.3
Whatever occurs during such a closed period partakes of the
quality of the period itself. On the other hand, whatever spoils
the period, qualified as a totality, is commonly considered an alien
element disturbing the normal rounds of days, months, and years,
something extraordinary or something important, regularly to be
feared, or to be tabood. Compare the intercalary periods in Egypt,
Greece, Rome, etc.4 In so far, these intercalary days regularly
1

Cp. Opferritus und Voropfer, p. 61 sqq.

2 PGM III. 500 sqq;
3
Syll.3 1125 (time of Augustus).
4 Frazer, G. .3 IX. 328 sqq. 340 sqq. In Egypt the intercalary days Mesor,
the last month of the year, received the names of the gods, i. e., the
. five heavenborn children of Nut, just to deprive these days of their
sombre character. The first and the fifth day were especially important
that is to say, even the period of these five days was regarded as a totality,
marked by the beginning and end. See Ed. Meyer, Gesch. des Altertums
(2nd ed.), part I. 2. p. 112, and compare H. Kees in Kulturgeschichte des
alten Orients (W. Otto's Handbuch), I. p. 300 sq. The twelve days between

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46

S. Eitrem

are days tabood in conformity with the other days tabood within,
the course of the ordinary year (cf., e. g., the Athenian springfestival, the Anthesteria: at the beginning the ghosts were recalled
to their old homes, at the end of the third day they were dismissed in a very decided tone; the meantime was characterized
by the presence of the ghosts).
We do not intend here to treat upon the intercalary days of
the Roman calendar; we only want.to consider the character of
the dies intercisi, "the severed days", much discussed by students
of Roman religious rites.1 Eight days of the Caesarian Fasti had
the. mark EN attached to them ; the pre-Caesarian calendar had
three days more, marked out in the same way, if we accept the
authority of the calendar of Anzio, Fasti Antiates veteres (f. Ant.
yet.), discovered some thirty years ago.2 These three days are:
O.ctober 16th, December 15th and 18th. Wissowa does not give
credence to f. Ant. vet. on this point, because in other calendars
the days are marked with F, resp. KP (the latter mark belongs to
the two days of December). If we accept Mommsen's critrium,
that the dies intercisi always precede some official festival, we have
to reject the testimony of f. Ant. yet. Leuze, 3 however, objects to
Mommsen, that five of the .letter's dies feriati, following on the
dies intercisi, do not count, because here five . o t h e r festivals
p r e c e d e the "divided days". Be this as it may (cf. infra) at
any rate we have to take the possibility of provincial divergencies
into account, divergencies due to varying tradition of the. local
festivals. From later times we know that the religious character .
of certain days really has been altered in order to suit more
practical or actual requests.
Christmas and Epiphany, now regularly assigned to the ghosts of the dead,
the goblins sim. as formerly to the departed and the infernal deities
bear still witness to the old superstition (Frazer, loc. cit., IX. 158 sq.).
1
W. W. Fowler, The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic, p. 11,
peremptorily remarked: "we have no data for conjecturing". He joins
Mommsen who, stating that all the dies intercisi were dies pridiani,
summarily declared; "causa latet". See CIL, vol. I, part 2 (2nd edition),
p. 295. Wissowa, Hermes, LVIII (1923), p. 378 sqq.
2
Notizie degli Scavi, 1921, p. 73.sqq. (G. Mancini).
3
O. Leuze, Bursian's Jahresber., vol. CCXXVII, p. 128.

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The days marked with ISP and FP (probably, meaning, as Mommsen

supposed, nefastus, fasius, principio) are also in a certain sense
"divided days", the religious ceremony taking place in the morning
or in the evening. Half of the day, consequently, is completely
free from civic functions and remains in the possession of the deity.
Three more days in the Roman calendar in part belong to a deity,
viz. March 24th, May 24th, and June 15th here we have to
do with morning ceremonies; the rest of these dies fissi remains
free. Originally all these days may have been devoted to the
worship of. the gods, but the growth of the citizen body, the
increase of civil and legal business have made a compromise
between religious and practical claims desirable, with all due respect
to old religious traditions. However, the dies intercisi have from
times immemorial to the end of antiquity retained their original
character;. The very oldfashioned form of the word, endotercisus =
intercisus, may indicate that we have to do with a relic of the old
agricultural calendar, appropriate to a population whose existence
mainly depended on husbandry, and who was anxious for the
attitude of the gods and all divine agencies.
Apart from a note in the calendar of Praeneste (on Jan. 10th),
Varro gives us a solid information of the religious character of
these days, viz. 1. 1. VI. 31 (ed. GoetzSchoell): intercisi dies sunt
per quos mane et vesperi est nefas, medio tempore inter hostiam
caesam et exta proiecta fas; a quo quod fas turn intercedit aut eo
intercisum nefas, intercisi. The same explanation is found in Macrobius.1 The middle of such days was fastus, i. e. the time between
the slaying of the victim and the entrails being placed on the
altar, was free for judicial business. In civic business or private
affairs this interval represented to busy people rather a short sparetime, as we conclude from Cicero's remark in a letter to Atticus,
ad Att. V. 18. 1 : ne quid inter caesa et porrecta, ut aiunt, aneris
mini addatur aut temporis. The expression meant, proverbially (as
Cicero says), "in the eleventh hour". The time necessary for the
cooking of the entrails and the preparation of the dish for the gods;
1

Macrob. I. 16.3: intercisi (dies) deorum hominumque communes

sunt...
intercisi in se, non in alia dividuntur, etc. Cp. Ovid, f. I. 49 sqq. (on
fasti and nefasti dies).

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the prosecta, may have varied,1 but it is unlikely that this performance required, say one third of the whole day. It seems
evident that the middle of the day was reserved to some business,
perhaps not always of a strictly religious character equal to the
sacrificial rites, but still requiring the shelter or frame of religion.
The business or performance in question was placed directly under
the patronage of the deity to whom the sacrifice of the day was
offered, and whose own priest regularly as we may suppose
took an active part in the said performance. From modern folklore
we may quote instances of this wide-spread superstion that every
thing performed or taking place during the divine service, the mass
being said and the like, receives a special importance. A misdeed
achieved at such a time is an outrage on heaven. We may speak
of infection caused by time on the same principle as, e. g., an
infection caused by death. The magic may be negative, equivalent
to taboo, or positive. We hear of Jacob that he drank the chalice
of the Lord, but restrained himself from eating the bread till the
risen Christ had appeared to him. 1
Analogous examples may be collected from antique folklore, but
an especially good illustration is afforded by the very "split-up
day" of the Romans. In Latium the vintage was ceremoniously
initiated by th Flamen Dialis plucking the first grape. We quote
Varro, /. I. VI. 16: Vinalia . . . huius rei cura non levis in Latio:
nam aliquot locis vindemiae primum ab sacerdotibus public fiebant,
ut Romae etiam nunc. Nam flamen Dialis auspicatur vindemiam
et, ut iussit vinum legere, agna Jovi facit, inter cuius exta caesa et
proiecta flamen -f-porus vinum legit. Tusculanis hortis est scriptum:.
"vinum novum ne vehatur in urbem ante quam Vinalia kalentur."3
According to Varro the opening ceremony, the auspicatio, took
place on August 19th rather early, it should seem, but we have
to acquisce in this information. The sacrifice of an agna opima
is well-known from agricultural Roman rites, e. g. from the ritual
1
2

See Marquardt-Wissowa, Rm. Staatsverwaltung, vol. 3, p. 183 sq.

Gospel of the Hebrews, Kleine Texte, ed. Lietzmann, Nr. 8 (Klostermann's
edition), p. 4 = Hieron. vir. inl. 2.
Cp. Fest. s. Rustica Vinalia, p. 322 Lindsay. The peasants offered libations
of the new vine to Jupiter, Fest. p. 517 Linds. (cp. p. 57 s. calpar), referring
to Vinalia priera, April 23rd.

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of the Arval brethren.1 And the Flamen Diaiis, attached as he

was to the cult of Jupiter and, because of his perfect purity,
especially precious to family and State, had to perform this priestly
function of supreme importance to the vine-dressers.2
V
Has this flamen Dialis also taken part in other lustration-rites
of equally great importance? According to Ovid, the sacrificing
priest at the Lupercalia was just this flamen, but most scholars do
not trust this express testimony of the poet because the flamen
Dialis was strictly forbidden to. touch a* goat or a dog. The skins
of the slaughtered goats were later used to strike the women. But
at any rate the flamn Dialis may have conducted this age-old
and all-important ceremony, even if the Luperci themselves might
slaughter the animals, i. e. dog and goats.3 The legend, as Ovid
tells the story (fast. II. 267 sqq.), clearly shows traits of resemblance
between the Lupercalia and the festival just discussed. Originally,
the two companies of Luperci who ran round the Palatine Hill to
beat the bounds, to purify the localities and fertilize the women,
have made the rounds of the Hill inter caesa et porrecta.
Ovid's version is this: a goat is slaughtered to Faunus and the
invited multitude is appearing
dumque sacerdotes veribus transuta salignis
exta parant, mdias sole tenente vias,
Romulus et frater pastoralisque iuventus
solibus et campo corpora nuda dabant.
1
Acta Fratrum Arvalium, ed. Henzen, p. 28, cp. Verg. georg. I. 341 (festival
in honour of Ceres).
2

In more ancient times the Lares probably were the recipients of the first
grape. The legend of the renowned seer, Attus (Sabine name) Navius,
tells of the enormous grape that he, still a boy, auspicato discovered in
the vineyard and dedicated to the Lares, Dion. Hal. III. 70 (Dionysios Hal.
apparently imputes to Attus Navius the invention of augury altogether);
Cic. div. I. 32 (ed. Pease, p. 144, with notes). There are here clear remnants
of popular tradition; boys being ritually in an eminent degree pure, at
Praeneste the oracular lots were drawn by boys. On augury applied to
vineyards, Cic. leg. I. 21 ; on viticulture as a comparatively late import in
Italy V. Hehn, Kulturpflanzen und Haustiere (7th ed.), p. 66.
Plut. Rom: 21 ; Val. Max. II. 2, 9; etc., see Fowler, Ioc. cit., p. 310; Marquardt,
loc. cit., p. 422 sqq.; Deubner, Arch. f. Rel. XIII. p. 481 sqq.
4 Symbolae Osloenses. XXV.

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Then all of a sudden a herdsman cries out: "Robbers are stealing

the cattle!" Romulus and Remus, either of them leading his own
company, rushes away diversis partibus, i. e., from different starting
points.1 Roman antiquarians were rather troubled with ascertaining
which team of the runners was the better (cp. Dion. Hal., loc. cit.)
and how it came about that Remus, respectively Romulus, was the
victor. The two teams might start at different times or at different
places, or one party might really be stronger than the other. It
does not, however, seem probable that the teams ran in opposite
direction, thus encircling the hill sunwise and contrary to the course
of the sun (as it were a ); none of our sources
makes mention of such a double course of runners, meeting again
at the starting point. Remus and his followers are the first to
rescue the stolen cattle - Ovid continues, v. 573 sqq.:
ut rediit, veribus stridentia detrahit exta
atque ait: "Haec certe non nisi victor edet."
In other words: inter caesa et porrecta the Luperci run round the
hill, whipping the women occurring with the februa, the strips of
skin, cut from the hides of the slaughtered goats. But first they
had girt themselves with the skins of the goats, just to strengthen
their quality as "goats" (their foreheads were smeared with the
blood of the goats, probably to the same end). According to legend
the festival meal was ' connected in the closest manner with the
action performed in the meantime, and the previous action itself
was sanctified as an integral part of the festival much in the
same way as was the plucking of the grape at the Vinalia,
mentioned before.
Certainly, the day of the Lupercalia is not marked in the
calendars as a dies en(dotercisus). The following day, February 16th,
is marked in that way; perhaps the Romans, guided by practical
considerations, did not want two consecutive days of this religious
character. Or perhaps the ceremony itself was not considered so
important as it was in olden times? At any rate, if Mommsen's
thesis of the dies intercisi as dies pridiani holds good, we may
perhaps still be able to understand their important rle in the
1

H. Peter in his commentary gives a different explanation: "Jeder rckt

mit seiner nach verschiedenen Seiten hinziehenden Partei aus."

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State Calendar since. Caesar's reform. A split-up day precedes

the Carmentalia (Jan. 11th and 15th), the Quirinalia (Feb. 17th),
the Equirria (Feb. 27th and March 14th), the Volcanalia (Sextil.
23th). It may be dependent on no mere chance that to all these
days is attached the mark N3, only the former half of the day
being reserved to the gods; we suspect that on. the preceding day
some important magico-symbolic act, intervening between the
slaughtering of the animal and the inspection and offering of the
entrails on the altar, has initiated the festival and broken the
taboos. Such days may have been a distinctive feature of the
old rustic, calendars. The plucking of the first grape (see supra)
may have been enacted in .conformity with rites connected with
the primitiae on the whole. Such first fruits were tabooed and
were to be handled with utmost care by especially "pure" persons.
We might therefore expect that all rites pertaining to the plucking
of the first ears of corn, the opening of the granaries and the like,
were condensed in a dies intercisus. But May 7th the- day on
which the three senior Vestal Virgens "placed" the first ears of
corn "in harvest baskets" (perhaps the Vestals did not pluck them
themselves?) is in the calendars marked as F, except that the
Fasti Maffeiani mark the day as nfefastus).1 This act, however,
probably did not mean that the real harvest had begun; it is
decidedly too early. The ceremony probably only aimed at promoting the growth of the corn, apart from procuring highly "pure"
corn for the mola salsa. The fact is that we do not discover any
"divided day" for the regular harvest in the State Calendar. Still
there surely was a ceremonial start and a sacrifice of the primitiae
to break all taboos. The A r y a l B r e t h r e n were very observant,
as we have remarked, about the plucking of the primitiae;2 these
first ears were presented to Dea Dia. This action was as good as
flanked by the whole solemnity of the different sacrificial per1

Serv. on Verg. ecl. VIII. 82 spicas adoreas in corbibas messuariis ponunt,

easque spicas ipsae virgines torrent, etc.
Henzen, loc. cit., p. 32. This act took place on the second day of the
three days' festival. On the first day the Brethren "touched" the old
and the new grain fruges aridas et virides (Henzen, p. 14) just to
join the old and the new harvest, say, to make no break in the lapse of
time, conceived as an uninterrupted unity. Fowler, loc. cit., p. 240, compares

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formances. But why, e. g., the Consualia are not initiated in this
manner, is difficult to understand. On a closer inspection, however,
we notice the special arrangement of the festivals bearing on the
crops in December where f. Ant. vet. mark three days as dies
intercisi. The State Calendar rests satisfied with the 12th day as
EN on this day a sacrifice was offered to Consus (by his flamen,
the Flamen Quirinalis, as we may'add) on the Aventine Hill ;
on the following day Tellus and Ceres (in Carinis) received sacrifices.
On Dec. 15th the Consualia follow, on the 17th the Saturnalia
both days marked as intercisi in f. Ant. vet. , on the 19th th
Opalia. In the State Calendar all these three days are marked
with hP; we may therefore suspect that here the split-up day, the
12th of December, compensated the taboos and other special claims
of all the said festivals. In this respect the provincial calendar
of Anzio strikes one as being more true to old rustic customs.
In some cases the arrangement of the divided day to all seeming
favours the hypothesis that the divided days are dies postriduani
(cp. Leuze, loc. cit.). So Oct. 14th is marked as EN and follows
on the Fontinalia, Oct. 13th; Oct. 15th, however, is the date for
sacrificing the "October horse" (Festus, p. 190 Linds.),1 and this
may have caused the dropping of a special divided day initiating
the Fontinalia. The Consualia on Sextilis 21st were separated from
the Volcanalia on Sextilis 23rd by a divided day; apparently the
State Calendar only admits one dies intercisus and attributes it to
the festival of Volcanus. Conflicting interests and practical regards
may have made such an arrangement necessary. The Tubilustrium
(Mart. 23rd and Maius 23rd) is not initiated by any lustral ceremony
on the preceding day, itself being appointed for that object2
as is also the Armilustrium, Oct. 19th, N 3 , neither is the Tubilustrium a divided day, though preceding the day on which the
king has to dissolve the Comitia (curiata) before the courts can .
the Meditrinalia on Oct. 11th, on which the new and the old wine were
tasted (Varro, 1. 1. VI. 21). Very oldfashioned is also the ceremony of the
handing round of the newly plucked ears of corn. The Arval Brethren
"gave with the right and received with the left" (Henzen, p. 32). In this way
they might be said symbolically to be fused in a higher unity or a .
1
Cf. Beitrge zur gr. Rel.gesch. II. p. 19 sqq.
2 Cp. J u n e 15th : Q. ST. D. F (Fowler, loc. cit., p. 146 sq.).

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start the proceedings, i. e. the very day on which the fresh purified
tubae have to be used.1
As we have seen, the problem of the dies iatercisi raises new
questions and brings on a reconsideration of the many baffling
obscurities occurring in the Roman calendar.
1

The day has got the mark Q. R. C. F., see Mommsen, Staatsrecht, II.
p. 375.