gines_, together with other persons
to be mentioned directly.[39] Unfortunately we are not told what those
sacrifices were; but it seems clear enough that there had been at one
time a scruple (_religio_) about admitting women of any age to certain
sacred rites. If so, it is remarkable how the good sense of the Roman
people overcame any serious disabilities which might have been produced
by such ideas; the Roman woman gained for herself a position of dignity,
and even of authority, in her household, which had very important
results on the formation of the character of the people.[40] Traces of
the old superstition doubtless continued to survive in folklore; an
example, interesting because it seems to illustrate the positive aspect
of taboo (_mana_), may be found by the curious in Pliny's _Natural
History_, xxviii. 78.

Another widely-spread example of the class of ideas we are discussing is
the belief that _strangers_ are dangerous. Dr. Frazer tells us that "to
guard against the baneful influence exerted voluntarily or involuntarily
by strangers is an elementary dictate of savage prudence." You have to
disarm them of their magical powers, to counteract "the baneful
influence which is believed to emanate from them."[41] Of this feeling
he has collected a great number of convincing illustrations. We find it
also surviving in Roman ritual. A note, referred to above, which has
come down to us from the learned Verrius Flaccus, informs us that at
certain sacrifices the lictor proclaimed "_hostis vinctus mulier virgo
exesto_," where _hostis_ has its old meaning of stranger.[42] This is,
of course, merely the old feeling of taboo surviving in the religious
ritual of the City-state, and is also no doubt connected with the belief
that the recognised deities of a community could not be approached by
any but the members of that community; but its taproot is probably to be
found in the ideas described by Dr. Frazer. We can illustrate it well
from the ritual of another Italian city, Iguvium in Umbria, which, as I
mentioned in a note to my last lecture, has come down to us in a very
elaborate form. In the ordinance for the _lustratio populi_ of that city
the magistrate is directed to expel all members of certain neighbouring
communities by a thrice-repeated proclamation.[43] Such fear of
strangers is not even yet extinct in Italy. Professor von Duhn told me
that once when approaching an Italian village in search of inscriptions
he was