The pontiffs superintend the ceremonies
of worship; they regulate the calendar and fix the festivals to be
celebrated on the various days of the year.
Neither the priests, the augurs, nor the pontiffs form a separate
class. They are chosen from among the great families and continue to
exercise all the functions of state--judging, presiding over
assemblies, and commanding armies. This is the reason that the Roman
priests, potent as they were, did not constitute, as in Egypt, a
sacerdotal caste. At Rome it was a state religion, but not a
government by the priests.
=The Dead.=--The Romans, like the Hindoos and the Greeks, believed
that the soul survived the body. If care were taken to bury the body
according to the proper rites, the soul went to the lower world and
became a god; otherwise the soul could not enter the abode of the
dead, but returned to the earth terrifying the living and tormenting
them until suitable burial was performed. Pliny the Younger[113]
relates the story of a ghost which haunted a house and terrified to
death all the inhabitants of the dwelling; a philosopher who was brave
enough to follow it discovered at the place where the spectre stopped
some bones which had not been buried in the proper manner.
Pages:
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298