Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/219

 CHAP. YII, THE KELIGION OF THE CITY. 213 3. The Census. Among the most important ceremonies of the city religion there was one known as the purification. It took place at Athens every year ; at Rome it occurred once in five years.' The rites which were then ob- served, and the very name which it bore, indicate that the object of this ceremony was to eflface the faults committed by the citizens against the Avorship. In- deed, this religion, with its complicated forms, was a source of terror for the ancients: as faith and purity of intention went for very little, and the religion con- ^sted entirely in the minute practice of innumerable rules, they were always in fear of having been guilty of some negligence, some omission, or some error, and were never sure of being free from the anger or malice of some god. An expiatory sacrifice was necessary, therefore, to reassure the heart of man. The magis- trate whose duty it was to offer it (at Rome it was the censor; before the censor, it was the consul, and before the consul, the king) commenced by assuring himself^ by the aid of the auspices, that the gods accepted the ceremony. He then convoked the peo- ple by means of a herald, who, for this purpose, made use of a certain sacramental formula. All the citizens, on the appointed day, collected outside the walls ; there, all being silent, the magistrate walked three times around the assembly, driving before him three vic- tims, a sheep, a hog, a bull (suovetaurile) ; these three animals together constituted, among the Greeks, as ' Diogenes Laertius, Life of Socrates, 23. Ilarpocration, 0oiQfiux6g. They also purified the domestic hearth every year. .Slschylus, CJiQeph., 9G6.