passage_ in which a transition is made from one state of
things to another, without any definite religious idea being attached to
it. There is no doubt some mystical element in the primitive idea of the
beginning and ending of periods of time, which has not as yet been
thoroughly investigated.[934]

Now it is easy to see how exactly a rite of this kind, with suitable
modifications, would fit in with Augustus' purposes as we have explained
them. Fortunately too Varro had in 42 B.C. published a book in which the
mystic or Pythagorean doctrine was set forth of the palingenesis of All
Souls after four saecula of 110 years each; the fourth _Eclogue_ of
Virgil may have been influenced by this, among other mystical ideas, as
it was written only three years later; and in any case the doctrine was
well known.[935] But Augustus had to wait a while, until peace and
confidence were restored. Why eventually he chose the year 17 is quite
uncertain; it does not exactly fit in with any calculation of four
saecula of 110 years starting from any known date. But a saeculum, as we
have seen, might begin at any moment; and in any case it was easy to
manufacture a calculation, which was now duly accomplished by trusty
persons, chief among them being the great lawyer, Ateius Capito, an
ardent adherent of Augustus and his projects.[936] Probably too it was
necessary to take advantage of the popular feeling of the moment, that a
better time had come, and that it should be started on its way in some
fitting outward form.

So an elaborate programme was drawn up, the main features of which I
must now explain. On 26th May and the two following days (for the mystic
numbers three, nine, and twenty-seven are noticeable throughout the
ritual)[937] the means of purification (_suffimenta_)--torches, sulphur,
bitumen[938]--were distributed by the priests to all free persons,
whether citizens or not; for this once, all in Rome at the time, with
the exception of slaves, were to give an imperial meaning to the
ceremony by their share in it. Even bachelors, though forbidden to
attend public shows under a recent law _de maritandis ordinibus_, were
allowed to do so on this occasion. No doubt the idea was that the whole
people were to be purified from all pollution of the past; it is what M.
van Gennep calls a _rite de separation_, the first step in a _rite de
passage_. The next three days all the people came to the Quindecemviri
at certain stated places, and m