already been gathered; it may help to fill out that notion if
we can put together a sketch of the normal process of a sacrifice to
the gods. Before the sacrifice began the animal to be offered was
selected and tested: if it had any blemish or showed any reluctance, it
was rejected. If it were whole and willing, it was bound with fillets
(_infulae_) around its forehead, and long ribbons (_vittae_) depending
from them. It was then brought to the altar (_ara_) by the side of
which stood a portable brazier (_foculus_). The celebrant--magistrate
or priest--next approached dressed in the _toga_, girt about him in a
peculiar manner (_cinctus Gabinus_), and carried up at the back so as
to form a hood (_velato capite_): the herald proclaimed silence, and
the flute-player began to play his instrument. The first part of the
offering was then made by the pouring of wine and scattering of incense
on the brazier: it was followed by the ceremonial slaughter
(_immolatio_) of the animal. The celebrant sprinkled the victim with
wine and salted cake, and made a symbolic gesture with the knife. The
victim was then taken aside by the attendants (_victimarii_), and
actually slaughtered by them: from it they extracted the sacred parts
(_exta_), liver, heart, gall, lungs, and midriff, and after inspecting
them to see that they had no abnormality--but not in the earlier period
for purposes of augury--wrapped them in pieces of flesh (_augmenta_),
cooked them, and brought them back to the celebrant, who laid them as
an offering upon the altar, where they were burnt. The rest of the
flesh (_viscera_) was divided as a sacred meal between the celebrant
and his friends--or in a state-offering among the priests, and
probably the magistrate. We cannot refrain from remarking here the
extreme precision of ritual, the scrupulous care with which the human
side of the contract was fulfilled and the--almost legal--division of
the victim between gods and men. But though the ritual was so exact,
one must not be led away by modern analogies to suppose that there was
ever anything like a rigid constraint on the private citizen for the
observance of festivals. The state-festivals were in the strictest
sense offerings made to the gods by the representative magistrates or
priests, and if they were present, all was done that was required: the
whole people had been, by a legal fiction, present in their persons. No
doubt the private citizen would often attend in large n