._ 180; Lusilius fragm.
143; Nonius, 341, 28 has "versibus."

[384] It may possibly be objected that some of the
deities were powerful for evil as well as good, _e.g._
Robigus, the spirit of the red mildew, and that the
power of such a deity was not to be encouraged or
increased. But all such deities (and I cannot mention
another besides Robigus) were of course conceived as
able to restrain their own harmful function; they were
not invoked to go away and leave the ager Romanus in
peace, but to limit their activity in the land where
they had been settled for worship. We have no prayer to
Robigus (or Robigo, feminine, as Ovid has it) except
that which Ovid somewhat fancifully versified after
hearing the Flamen Quirinalis say it (_Fasti_, iv. 911
foll.), in which of course the word _macte_ does not
occur. As the victim was a dog, an uneatable one, it is
possible that the ritual was not quite the usual one.
But the language of the prayer is interesting and brings
out my point:

aspera Robigo, parcas Cerialibus herbis.
vis tua non levis est;...
parce precor, scabrasque manus a messibus aufer
neve noce cultis: posse nocere sat est.

It concludes by praying Robigo to direct her strength
and attention to other objects, _gladios et tela
nocentia_; but this is the poet's fancy.

[385] _Evolution of Religion_, p. 212, quoting _Vedic
Hymns_, pt. ii. pp. 259 and 391.

[386] _Origin and Development of Moral Ideas_, vol. ii.
p. 585 foll.; cp. 657. See also Farnell, _Evolution of
Religion_, p. 195.

[387] See above, p. 9. _Religio_ in the sense of an
obligation to perform certain ritualistic acts is in my
view a secondary and later use of the word. See
_Transactions of the Congress of Historical Religion for
1908_, vol. ii. p. 169 foll.

[388] Henzen, _Acta Fratr. Arv._ p. 26 foll.; _C.I.L._
vi. 2104, 32 foll.; Buecheler und Riese, _Carmina Lat._,
epigr. pars ii., no. 1. All surviving Roman prayers are
collected in Appel's _De Romanorum precationibus_,
Giessen, 1909.

[389] Pliny, _N.H._ xxviii. 10 foll.

[390] In _Anthropology and the Classics_, p. 94.

[391] Cp. Tibullus ii. 1. 84, "vos celebrem cantate deum
pecorique vocate, Voce palam pecori, clam sibi quisque
vocet." This murmuring was certainly characteristic of
R