1998). Besides the whole range of actors, the arrangement of the ceremonies itself
contributed to an expression of the people’s entireness.
On April 21, the anniversary of the foundation of the city of Rome coincided with
the Pariliafestival (Ov. Fast.4.747– 82). It was an annual time for the fumigation
and purification of citizens’ houses. Just as two days earlier, when the festival in honor
of Ceres was closing (Ov. Fast.4.393– 416 on April 12–19), or when the lustratio
agri (purification of the fields) was performed (Tibullus 2.1.1–26), the whole
population, in both town (Athenaios, Deipnosophistae 8.361ef ) and country, offered
sacrifices, walked in processions, performed dances with songs (Virgil, Georgics
1.338 –50). All these rituals aimed at providing expiation in case of offense to the
gods, and calling for a life’s space and time free from troubles and life-giving for
earth and flocks. During the Parilia, the prayer addressed to Pales ended with a
formula which sums up the ordinary relationship between men and gods: “Quae
precor eueniant et nos faciamus ad annum grandia liba Pali” (“May my prayer be
granted and we will year by year make great cakes for Pales”) (Ov. Fast.4.775 – 6).
The votive relationship was the nucleus of the communication system, a contractual
relationship built on ius(the men’s right) and fas(the gods’ right) and respectful
of both.
“When the Gods are Propitious to a Man, they
Throw Money in his Way” (quoi homini di sunt
propitii lucrum ei profecto obiciunt) (Plautus,
Curculio 531)
The Romans, like the Greeks before them, conceived the superior world – we sum
it up as “the gods” – as being peopled by many beings, so numerous that they might
be infinite in number (Petronius 17.5). “The world is full of gods” (omnia quae
cernerent deorum esse plena), Cicero repeated (Leg. 2.26), many centuries after
Thales had said it. The polytheistic conception was a subtle way to share all fields
of activity between diverse extra-world referees (Scheid 1999a). Such a diffusion, rooted
in a world representation that isolated the many areas of peculiar competence, enabled
this conception to embrace the whole world, however infinite it might be. Ritual
was established as a relationship strategy with this world. According to that kind of
representation, divine beings were expected to be influential at any moment of life,
just as they were held to cause large natural phenomena. The emperor Maximinus
Daia said as much to the city of Tyre in 311 (apudEus. HE9.7.7– 8). Rationalizing
the world along these specific lines leads to many practical consequences. Religious
acts have to be performed before any activity, public and private as well, in order
to feel confident of the gods’ goodwill – what the Romans called pax deorum– or,
on the contrary, to be vigilant for any kind of hostility detected through codified
signs (Val. Max. 2.1.1). “I go out with clear auspices, with a bird on my left (aui
sinistra)” (Plautus, Epidicus183f.).
Gods are considered as supporting human projects or not. Success, sanction, or
failure being interpreted as a legitimization (or not) by the powers that had been278 Nicole Belayche