rgeorum sacra_,
when puppets of straw were thrown into the Tiber--a symbolic wetting of
the crops to which many parallels may be found among other primitive
peoples. A sympathetic charm of a rather different character seems to
survive in the ceremony of the _augurium canarium_, at which a red dog
was sacrificed for the prosperity of the crop--a symbolic killing of
the red mildew (_robigo_); and again the slaughter of pregnant cows at
the _Fordicidia_ in the middle of April, before the sprouting of the
corn, has a clearly sympathetic connection with the fertility of the
earth. Another prominent survival--equally characteristic of primitive
peoples--is the sacredness which attaches to the person of the
priest-king, so that his every act or word may have a magic
significance or effect. This is reflected generally in the Roman
priesthood, but especially in the ceremonial surrounding the _flamen
Dialis_, the priest of Iuppiter. He must appear always in festival
garb, fire may never be taken from his hearth but for sacred purposes,
no other person may ever sleep in his bed, the cuttings of his hair and
nails must be preserved and buried beneath an _arbor felix_--no doubt a
magic charm for fertility--he must not eat or even mention a goat or a
bean, or other objects of an unlucky character.

=2. Worship of Natural Objects.=--A very common feature in the early
development of religious consciousness is the worship of natural
objects--in the first place of the objects themselves and no more, but
later of a spirit indwelling in them. The distinction is no doubt in
individual cases a difficult one to make, and we find that among the
Romans the earlier worship of the object tends to give way to the cult
of the inhabiting spirit, but examples may be found which seem to
belong to the earlier stage. We have, for instance, the sacred stone
(_silex_) which was preserved in the temple of Iuppiter on the Capitol,
and was brought out to play a prominent part in the ceremony of
treaty-making. The fetial, who on that occasion represented the Roman
people, at the solemn moment of the oath-taking, struck the sacrificial
pig with the _silex_, saying as he did so, 'Do thou, Diespiter, strike
the Roman people as I strike this pig here to-day, and strike them the
more, as thou art greater and stronger.' Here no doubt the underlying
notion is not merely symbolical, but in origin the stone is itself the
god, an idea which later religion expressed in