Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/39

 K-iUAP. III. THE SACEED FIRB. 3? Especially were the meals of the family religious acts. The god presided there. He had cooked the bread, and prepared the food ; ' a prayer, therefore, was due at the beginning and end of the repast. Before eating, they placed upon the altar the first fruits of the food ; before drinking, they poured out a libation of wine. This was the god's portion. No one doubted that he was present, that he ate and drank ; for did they not see the flame increase as if it had been nourished by the provisions offered ? Thus the meal was divided between the man and the god. It was a sacred cere- mony, by which they held communion with each other.* This is an old belief, which, in the course of time, faded from the minds of men, but which left behind it, for many an age, rites, usages, and forms of language of which even the incredulous could not free themselves. Horace, Ovid, and Petronius still supped before their fires, and poured out libations, and addressed prayers to them.' This worship of the sacred fire did not belong ex- clusively to the populations of Greece and Italy. We find it in the East. The Laws of Manu, as they have come to us, show us the religion of Brahma completely established, and even verging towards its decline; but they have preserved vestiges and remains of a religion still more ancient, — that of the sacred fire, — which the worship of Brahma had reduced to a secondary rank, but could not destroy. The Brahmin has hia fire to keep night and day; every morning and every evening he feeds it with wood ; but, as with the Greeks, this • Ovid, Fast., VI. 315. ^ FlutSLTch, Rom. Quest., Gi', Comm. on JTesiod, ii. Homerit Hymns, 29. =• Horace, Sat., II. 6, 6G. Ovid, Fast., II. G31. Petronius, 60. 3