Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/230

 224 THE CITY. BOOK IIL necessary to have the head veiled; in addressing an- other, the head was uncovered ; for a third, the skirt of the toga was thrown over the shoulder. In certain acts the feet had to be naked. There were certain prayers which were without effect unless the man, after pronouncing them, pirouetted on one foot from left to right. The nature of the victim, the color of the hair, the manner of slaying it, even the shape of the knife, and the kind of wood employed to roast the flesh — all was fi.xed for every god by the religion of each family, or of each city. In vain the most fervent heart offered to the gods the fattest victims: if one of the innumer- able rites of the sacrifice was neglected, the sacrifice was without effect; the least failure made of the sacred act an act of impiety. The slightest alteration dis- turbed and confused the religion of a country, and changed the protecting gods into so many cruel ene- mies. It was for this reason that Athens was so severe against the priest who made some change in the ancient rites. ^ It was for the same reason that the Roman senate degraded its consuls and its dictators who had committed any error in a sacrifice. All these formulas and practices had been handed dowi. by ancestors who had proved their efficacy. There was no occasion for innovation. It was a duty to rest upon what the ancestors had done, and the highest piety consisted in imitating them. It mattered little that a belief changed ; it might be freely modified from age to age, and take a thousand diverse forms, in accordance with the reflection of sagos, or with the popular imagination. But it was of the greatest im- portance that the formulas should not fall into oblivion,
 * Demosthenes, in Nearam, UG, 117.