and authority (auctoritate) of the aristocracy helps to hold the state together.” When
Cicero, speaking as a pater familias, a lawyer, and a rhetorician as well, pleaded for
his house back after it had been confiscated by Clodius, he defined the citizen’s house
in the same words as Camillus had when he was defending the Vrbs’ location three
centuries and a half earlier (Livy 5.52): “Within its circle are his altars, his hearths,
his household gods, his religion, his observances, his ritual” (Cic. De domo sua109).
And yet, when the context was a private one, and mainly within competitive situ-
ations, which are one of the biggest issues of relationships in such hierarchized soci-
eties as was the Roman one, the range of practices might be enlarged, for instance
in calling for supernatural beings as auxiliaries for action. The way these practices
worked out, however, was not that different (see infra).“Every Living Soul Trusts to Heaven” (omnes
mortales dis sunt freti) (Plautus, Casina348)
The interweaving between individuals and the civic community as a whole is obvi-
ous when considering places where ceremonies were held. They often combined
public temples and private houses. During the festivities performed by the Arval
Brethren, sacrifices took place at Dea Dia’s lucus, five miles away from Rome, where
the goddess’s sanctuary was located, and in the house of the magisterwho presided
over the priestly college (CFA55, 59– 61, in 87 ce; Scheid 1990: 506 – 8).
Two feasts illustrate perfectly this intricate relationship between individual and
collective levels. The ludi saeculares(Secular Games) and the Pariliawere periodical
festivals. They were to insure felicity for the Roman community for a more or less
distant future, from a year at the Pariliaup to a saeculumfor the Secular Games,
performed in each 100- or 110-year cycle. This festival is exceptionally well attested:
we can confront literary descriptions (mainly Zosimus Historia NovaII, 5) with epi-
graphic reports of the ceremonies (Schnegg-Köhler 2002) and monetary issues
engraved with depictions of a few sequences (Scheid 1998e). Ceremonies lasted dur-
ing three days and nights, from May 31 to June 2. They began after a few days busy
with preparatory purification that took place in private houses and in various sites
in the city. During this time prior to the feast, citizens dressed in togas received the
items required to purify their own houses: suffimentain Latin, ta katharsiain Greek.
Proceedings were the duty of the quindecemuiri sacris faciundis, the priests in charge
of sacred ceremonies performed according to a Greek rite, while seated on a podium
at the Capitol and on the Palatine, as for any public distribution. The involvement
of all members of the state in the Ludiwas also proclaimed on the first day when
public heralds (praecones, kérykes) ran throughout the city in order to call for par-
ticipation in the festival (Zosimus, Historia Nova2.5.1). During the three festive days,
the whole Roman people had a part within diverse groupings depending on the moment
or the ritual. Sacrifices were the duty of public priests. Supplications were the task
of matronae, as the guardians of the family values upon which the civic community
was built (Freyburger 1977; van Straten 1974 for gesture). Hymns were sung by
matronaeand groups of children, who symbolized the Roman people to be (Feeney
Religious Actors in Daily Life 277