pontifices for use at the making of a new clearing, we
read: "Si deus, si dea sit cuius illud sacrum est, _ut tibi ius siet_
porco piaculo facere illiusce sacri coercendi ergo,"[341] _i.e._ "O
unknown deity, whether god or goddess, whose property this wood is, let
it be legally proper to sacrifice to thee this pig as an expiatory
offering, for the sake of cutting down trees in this wood of thine."
"Pacem deorum exposcere" (or "petere") is a standing formula, as all
readers of Virgil know;[342] and it occurs in many other authors and
religious documents. When Livy wants to express the horror of the old
patrician families at the idea of plebeians being consuls--men who had
no knowledge of the _ius divinum_ and no right to have any--he makes
Appius Claudius exclaim, "Nunc nos, tanquam iam nihil pace deorum opus
sit, omnes caerimonias polluimus."[343] How can we maintain our right
relations with the gods, if plebeians have the care of them?

Thus it is not going too far to describe the whole Roman religion of the
city-state as a _Rechtsverkehr_,[344] a legal process going on
continually. When a _colonia_ was founded, _i.e._ a military outpost
which was to be a copy in all respects of the Roman State, it was
absolutely essential that its _ius divinum_ should be laid down; it must
have a religious charter as well as a civil one. Even at the very end of
the life of the Republic, when Caesar founded a colony in Spain, he
ordained that, within ten days of its first magistrates taking office,
they should consult the Senate "quos et quot dies festos esse et quae
sacra fieri publice placeat et quos ea sacra facere placeat," _i.e._ as
to the calendar, the ritual, and the priesthood.[345] The Romans, of
course, assumed that Numa, their priest-king, had done the same thing
for Rome; Livy describes him as ordaining a pontifex to whom he
entrusted the care of all these matters, with written rules to
follow.[346] This was the imaginary religious charter of the Roman
State. Without it the citizen, or rather his official representative,
would not know with the necessary accuracy the details of the _cura_ and
_caerimonia_; without it, too, the deities could not be expected to
perform their part of advancing the interests of the State, and indeed,
as I think we shall find, could not be expected to retain the strength
and vitality which they needed for the work. Support was needed on each
side; the State needed the help of the gods, and the g