oll., and Dr. Wissowa
criticised my criticism in his _Gesammelte
Abhandlungen_, p. 222. It is dealt with at length in
_R.F._ p. 111 foll. See below, p. 321 foll.

[211] This is not exactly the view expressed in _R.F._
p. 315 foll., where I was inclined to adopt that of
Mannhardt that the laughing symbolised the return to
life after sacrificial death. I am now disposed to think
of it as parallel with the ecstasy of the Pythoness and
other inspired priests, or the shivering and convulsive
movements which denote that a human being is "possessed"
by a god or spirit. See Jevons, _Introduction_, p. 174.
Mannhardt's view seems, however, to gain support from
Pausanias' description of the ordeal he underwent
himself at the cave of Trophonius, after which he could
laugh again: Paus. ix. 39. See also Miss Harrison,
_Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_, p. 580.
Deubner in _Archiv_, 1910, p. 501.

[212] _R.F._ p. 109; Ov. _Fasti_, v. 421 foll. Ovid's
account is of a private rite in the house, as elsewhere
he tells us of things done by private persons on
festival days. We do not know whether there was any
public ritual for these days. For further discussion of
the contrast between the two festivals of the dead, see
below, Lect. XVII. p. 393.

[213] _G.B._ iii. 138 foll. The attempt to connect the
so-called Saturnalia of the army of the Danube in the
third century A.D. with the early practice of Roman
Saturnalia seems to me to fail entirely, even after
reading Prof. Cumont's paper in the _Revue de
philologie_, 1897, p. 133 foll. I should imagine that
Cumont would now admit that the Saturn who was
sacrificed on the Danube as described in the _Martyrdom
of St. Dasius_ must have been of Oriental origin, and
that the soldiers concerned were in no sense Roman or
Italian. For the hellenisation of the Saturnalia, see
Wissowa in Roscher's _Lexicon_, _s.v._ "Saturnus," p.
432. Wissowa, I may note, does not believe in the
accuracy of the account of the "Martyrdom."

[214] Nothing, that is, in the regular ritual of the
Roman State--except in so far as the killing of a
criminal who was _sacer_ to a god can be so regarded;
and the only instance of any kind that can be quoted is
that of the two pairs of Gaulish and Greek men and women
who in the stress of t