Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/231

 CHAT. VIII. THE RITUALS AND THE ANIfALS. 225 and that the rites should not be modified. Every city, therefore, had a book in which these were preserved. The use of sacred books was universal among the Greeks, the Romans, and the Etruscans.' Sometimes the ritual was written on tablets of wood, sometimes on cloth ; Athens engraved its rites upon tablets of copper, that they miglit be imperishable. Rome had its books of the pontiffs, its books of the augurs, its book of ceremonies, and its collection o? Indigitamen- ta. There was not a city which had not also its col- lection of ancient hymns in lionorof its gods.' In vain did language change with manners and beliefs; the words and the rhythm remained unchangeable, and on the festivals men continued to sing these hymns after they no longer understood them. These books and songs, written by the itriests, were preserved by them with the greatest care. They were never revealed to strangers. To reveal a rite, or a formula, would have been to betray the religion of the city, and to deliver its gods to the enemy. For greater precaution they were concealed from the citizens themselves, and the priests alone were allowed to know them. In the minds of the people, all that was ancient was venerable and sacred. When a Roman wished to say that anything was dear to him, he said, "That is an- cient for me." The Greeks had the same expression. The cities clung strongly to their past, because they found in the past all the motives as well as all the rules > Pausanias, IV. 27. Plutarch, Cont. Colot., 17. Pollux, VIII. 128. Pliny, N. H., XIII. 21. Val. Max., I. 1, 3. Var- ro, L. L., VI. IG. Ccnsorlnus, 17. Pestus, v. Ritiialcs. ' Plutarch, Theseus. IG. Tac, Ann., IV. 43. iElian, H. V., II. 89. 15