Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 17.djvu/274

* BOMANOFF. 250 ROMAN RELIGION. revolution drove Ivan's faniUy from the throne, of which the cadet female line in the person of Elizabeth (1741-02), the daughter of Peter the Great and Catharine, now obtained possession. On her death her nephew, Peter, the son of her elder sister Anna Petrovna, who had married the Duke of Holstein-Uottorp (belonging to a cadet line of the family of Oldenburg), mounted the throne as Peter III. (1702). He was dethroned and succeeded by his wife, the Princess Sophia Augusta of Anhalt-Zerbst, who reigned from 1762 to 1796 as Catharine II. She was succeeded by Paul I., her only son by. Peter III. Paul (1796-1801) perished by assassination, leaving several sons, the eldest of whom was Alexander I. Alexander (1801-25) left no heir, and the crow'n at his death devolved by right upon his next brother, Constantine. Constantine, however, in compliance with the wish of Alexander, had pre- viously relinquished his claims to the supreme power, and the third brother, ISTicholas I., ascend- ed the throne. Nicholas (1825-55) was succeeded by his son, Alexander II. (1855-81). Alexander II. was assassinated in I8S1, and his son, Alexan- der III., succeeded him, to be followed in 1894 by his son, Nicholas II. Constant intermarriages with German princely houses have made the Romanoff strain of to-day far more Cierman than Russian. Consult Edwards, TIte Romanoffs: Tsars of Moscow and Emperors of Russia (Lon- don, 1890). ROMAN RELIGION. Tlie attitude of the Romans toward tlieir gods necessarily altered Tiiuch with the numerovis changes which accompa- nied the development of the little settlement on the Palatine into the mistress of the world. Yet the conservative nature of the Romans led to the preservation of many ancient rites, long after their origin had been forgotten and the ancient beliefs had passed away. Here, however, we are concerned less with this development than with a statement of the various elements which appear in the religion as recognized by the State, expressive of the official attitude toward the gods at the time of their adoption, and even when faith had failed, continued as essential parts of the governmental system. Such a statement is rendered extremely difficult by the absence of any natural development along discernible lines from primitive forms. The original religion of the early Romans has been so overlaid and transformed by the accretions of later times, and in particu- lar by the assimilation of the whole structure of Greek mythology, that any summary reconstruc- tion must give much that is rather probable than certain. Unfortunately, the most extensive al- terations were already accomplished long before the Roman literary tradition began, and though such writers as Varro and Verrius Flaccus had many sources from w-hich to draw, the origins were in most cases unknown to them, while Ovid in his Fasti is obviously strongly influenced by his Alexandrian models, and has frequently transformed Greek myths to fill the gaps caused by the lack of such stories in Koman tradition. The fundamental basis for the study of the early Roman religion is found in the Calendars or !Fasti, of which some thirty are known, only one of which (the Fasti ilafi'eiani) is nearly perfect. All can be dated between B.C. 31 and a.d. 46 and are the result of the revision of the calendar by Julius Coesar. These documents, however, are plainly composed of two elements, distinguished by the size of the letters, and it can scarcely be doul)ted that the large capitals represent the of- ficial' pre-Julian Calendar, as published, w'e are told, for the lirst time in B.C. 304, to make known the days when business could be legally trans- acted. The names and days of 45 public festivals (fcria- i>ublica-} of fi.xed dates were in- dicated. This calendar is supplemented by the literary tradition, which largely rests on the lost works of the great Roman antiquaries, and in the use of which it is necessary to distinguish sharply between the statements as to actual re- ligious observances and the deductions or ex- planations evolved by the writers themselves. The Roman ritual clearly distinguishes two classes of gods, the <7i iiHlii/ctcs and the di noven- sides (or noi:ensiles). Tlie latter were the new introductions, and in fact we find that all di- vinities whose cults were introduced in historical times were reckoned among them. It seems rea- sonable to see in the Iiidiijetes the original gods of the Roman State, and their names and nature are indicated by the priests of the first class, and the fixed festivals of the Calendar, supplemented by other notices; for though the Calendar was not published until B.C. 304, it had long been in existence as part of the secret knowledge of the pontifl's. and there is good reason for believing that it goes back to an early stage in the regal period. This analysis yields a list of over 30 names honored with special festivals or special priests, and showing on the whole a well-defined field of activity, which is appropriate to a dis- tinct type of community. Jloreover, there is a strong tendency to incorporate in a jiair of male and female divinities either the same function or two complementary fields of activity. So we have Jouis and .Jouino ( .Juno ), Faunus and Fauna, Janus and Vesta, etc. In most cases the female divinities have no independent cult and gradually fade away. Vesta, of course, is a marked exception, and Juno an apparent one, though here the later prominence of the goddess is due to the inde]>endent development of foreign elements. In addition to these gods, who seem to have attained a special prominence, there is evi- dence that the early Roman religion worshiped a host of 'specialist gods,' as they have well been termed. Fragments of old ritual accompanying various acts, such as plowing or sowing, show that at every stage of the operation a separate deity was invoked, whose name is regularly de- rived from the verb for the operation. Such di- vinities also may well be grouped under the general term of attendant or auxiliary gods, whom we find invoked along with greater deities. At the head of this early pantheon stand five names: .Janus. .Jove, Jlars, Quirinus, and Vesta, of whom the second, third, and fourth form an an- cient triad, while their special priests are the three greater Flamens, Diatis, Martialis, Qiiiri- nalis, and the first and fifth are said to be the proper gods to begin and end any invocation of a number of divinities; and a similar position, be- fore and after the three Flamens. is held by rep- resentative priests, the 7?c.r sacrortnn and the Pontifcx maximiis. The Indigetes and their fes- tivals show that we are dealing with an agri- « cultural comnnmity, but also one fond of fighting and much engaged in war. The gods represent distinctly the practical needs of daily life, as felt bv the Roman communitv to which.