Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/805

Rh History of Mankind, ii. 287) rightly dismisses the idea that the Kaffirs borrowed the rite from Mahometan nations, though the progress of Islam will help to account for its prevalence in other parts of Africa.

III. Very different views were held in antiquity as to the meaning of the rite of circumcision. There was a myth common to Egypt and Phoenicia, though not of very ancient date in its extant Egyptian form, which seems to bring circumcision into connection with the Sun-god. In the Book of the Dead, chap, xvii., we read of &quot; the blood which proceeded from the limb of the god Ra, when he wished to cut himself/ which the late Vicomte de Rouge&quot; interpreted, with much plausibility, of circumcision (Revue archeologique, nouv. se&quot;rie, i. 244). And in a fragment of the Philonian Sanchoniathou (Fragmenia Historicorum G-rcecorum, ed. Miiller, iii. 568, 569), we find a similar tale of El cir cumcising his father Uranos, or, according to another version, himself, and the blood flowing into the springs and rivers. Space forbids us to discuss the bearings of this myth. Herodotus (ii. 37) ascribes the Egyptian custom to the motive of cleanliness (KaOapLo-nrros etvtKa). This is also one of the four causes reported on the authority of tradition by Philo the Jew (Opera, ed. Mangey, ii. 210), the three others being the avoidance of carbuncle, the symbolizing of purity of heart, and the attainment of a numerous offspring. Mere cleanliness, however, seems hardly an adequate motive for the practice. Sanitary reasons seem much more probable, judging from the well-ascertained physical advantages of circumcision to the Jewish race. But even this is not a complete explanation. Why was the practice adopted by some nations and not by others ] The most scientific theory is that which refers it to a religious instinct common to all nations, though not always expressing itself in the same way, and this seems even to be at least obscurely indicated by the tradition of the Israelities. The prophet Jeremiah (ix. 25, 26), too, puts it in the same class with cutting off the hair (comp. Herod, iii. 8), which, like other bodily mutilations, has been shown to be of the nature of a representative sacrifice (Tylor s Primitive Culture, ii. 363, 364). The principle of substitution was familiar to all ancient nations, and not least to the Israelites. Witness the story of Gen.xxii., the paschal lamb, and the redemption of the first-born by an offering (Exod. xiii. 11-16), and compare the singular phrase ascribed to Saul in 1 Sam. xviii. 25. On this principle circumcision was an economical recognition of the divine ownership of human life, a part of the body being sacrificed to preserve the remainder. But it was more than this ; otherwise it would scarcely have asserted its claim to existence among the Jews, when all other mutilations were strictly forbidden as heathenish (Lev. xix. 27, xxi. 5). It can scarcely be doubted that it was a sacrifice to the awful power upon whom the fruit of the womb depended, and having once fixed itself in the minds of the people, neither priest nor prophet could eradicate it. All that these could do was to spiritualize it into a symbol of devotion to a high religious ideal (comp. Jer. iv. 4 ; Deut. x. 16; Jer. ix. 25). In conclusion, we must briefly refer to an analogous rite, of which women are in many countries the subjects. It is said to consist in mutilation of the clitoris, which is sometimes connected with the degrading practice of infibu- lation. It was prevalent in the time of Strabo (pp. 771, 824) in Arabia and in Egypt, and, as Mr Lane attests, is still native to those regions (Modern Egyptians, i. 73, Arabic Lexicon, s. v. hafada ), Carsten Niebuhr heard that it was practised on both shores of the Persian Gulf, and at Baghdad (Description de I Arabic, p. 70). It ap pears in some parts of West Africa, e.g., Dahomey, but is said to be still more common in the eastern part of that continent.

1em  CIRCUS, in Roman Antiquity, was a building for the exhibition of horse and chariot racing. It consisted of tiers of seats running parallel with the sides of the course, and forming a crescent round one of the ends. The other end was straight and at right angles to the course, so that the plan of the whole had nearly the form of an ellipse cut in half at its vertical axis. Along the transverse axis ran a fence (spina) separating the return course from the starting one. The straight end had no seats, but was occupied by the stalls (carceres) where the chariots and horses were held in readiness. This end constituted also the front of the building with the main entrance. At each end of the course were conical pillars (metce) to mark its limits.

The oldest building of this kind in Rome was the, in the valley between the Palatine and Aventine hills, where previous to any permanent structure races ap pear to have been held beside the altar of the god Consus. The first building is assigned to Tarquin the younger, but for a long time little seems to have been done to complete its accommodation, since it is not till 329 B.C. that we hear of stalls being erected for the chariots and horses. It was not in fact till under the empire that the circus became a conspicuous public resort. Caesar enlarged it to some extent, and also made a canal 10 feet broad between the lowest tier of seats and the course as a precaution for the spec tators safety when exhibitions of fighting with wild beasts, such as were afterwards confined to the amphitheatre, took place. W hen these exhibitions were removed, and the canal (euripus) was no longer necessary, Nero filled it up. Augus tus is said to have placed an obelisk between the metae or goals, and to have built a new pulvinar, or state box ; but if this is taken in connection with the fact that the circus had been partially destroyed by fire in 31 B.C., it may be supposed that besides this he had restored it altogether. Only the lower tiers of seats were of stone, the others being of wood, and this, from the liability to fire, may account for the frequent restorations to which it was subject; it would also explain the falling of the seats by which a crowd of people were killed in the time of Antoninus Pius. In the reign of Claudius, apparently after a fire, the car ceres of stone (tufa) were replaced by marble, and the metea of wood by bronze gilt. Under Domitian, again, after a fire, the circus was rebuilt and the carceres increased to 12 instead of 8 as before. The work was finished by Trajan. The number of people it could seat is given at 150,000 and at 250,000, the latter being supposed to be the more cor rect. This was the only public spectacle at which men and women were not assigned to separate places. The lower seats were reserved for persons of rank ; the state box, sv.g- gestus or cubiculum, was midway in the range of seats. The principal object of attraction apart from the racing must have been the spina or low wall which ran down the middle of the course, with its obelisks, images, and ornamental shrines. On it also were seven figures of dolphins and seven oval objects, one of which was taken down at every round made in a race, so that spectators might see readily how the contest proceeded. The chariot race consisted of seven rounds of the course. The chariots started abreast, but in an oblique line, so that the outer chariot might b3 compensated for the wider circle it had to make at the other end. Such a race was called a missus, and as many as 24 of these would take place in a day. The competitors 