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| Which of the Gods Can the Romans Suppose Presided Over the Increase and Preservation of Their Empire, When They Have Believed that Even the Care of Single Things Could Scarcely Be Committed to Single Gods.
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Chapter 8.—Which of the Gods Can
the Romans Suppose Presided Over the Increase and Preservation of
Their Empire, When They Have Believed that Even the Care of Single
Things Could Scarcely Be Committed to Single Gods.
Next let us ask, if they please,
out of so great a crowd of gods which the Romans worship, whom in
especial, or what gods they believe to have extended and preserved
that empire. Now, surely of this work, which is so excellent and
so very full of the highest dignity, they dare not ascribe any part
to the goddess Cloacina;166
| 166 Cloacina, supposed by Lactantius
(De falsa relig. i. 20), Cyprian (De Idol. vanit.),
and Augustin (infra, c. 23) to be the goddess of the
cloaca, or sewage of Rome. Others, however, suppose it to be
equivalent to Cluacina, a title given to Venus, because the Romans
after the end of the Sabine war purified themselves (cluere)
in the vicinity of her statue. | or to Volupia, who has her
appellation from voluptuousness; or to Libentina, who has her name
from lust; or to Vaticanus, who presides over the screaming of
infants; or to Cunina, who rules over their cradles. But how is
it possible to recount in one part of this book all the names of
gods or goddesses, which they could scarcely comprise in great
volumes, distributing among these divinities their peculiar offices
about single things? They have not even thought that the charge
of their lands should be committed to any one god: but they have
entrusted their farms to Rusina; the ridges of the mountains to
Jugatinus; over the downs they have set the goddess Collatina; over
the valleys, Vallonia. Nor could they even find one Segetia so
competent, that they could commend to her care all their corn crops
at once; but so long as their seed-corn was still under the ground,
they would have the goddess Seia set over it; then, whenever it was
above ground and formed straw, they set over it the goddess
Segetia; and when the grain was collected and stored, they set over
it the goddess Tutilina, that it might be kept safe. Who would
not have thought that goddess Segetia sufficient to take care of
the standing corn until it had passed from the first green blades
to the dry ears? Yet she was not enough for men, who loved a
multitude of gods, that the miserable soul, despising the chaste
embrace of the one true God, should be prostituted to a crowd of
demons. Therefore they set Proserpina over the germinating seeds;
over the joints and knots of the stems, the god Nodotus; over the
sheaths enfolding the ears, the goddess Voluntina; when the sheaths
opened that the spike might shoot forth, it was ascribed to the
goddess Patelana; when the stems stood all equal with new ears,
because the ancients described this equalizing by the term
hostire, it was ascribed to the goddess Hostilina; when the
grain was in flower, it was dedicated to the goddess Flora; when
full of milk, to the god Lacturnus; when maturing, to the goddess
Matuta; when the crop was runcated,—that is, removed from the
soil,—to the goddess Runcina. Nor do I yet recount them all,
for I am sick of all this, though it gives them no shame. Only, I
have said these very few things, in order that it may be understood
they dare by no means say that the Roman empire has been
established, increased, and preserved by their deities, who had all
their own functions assigned to them in such a way, that no general
oversight was entrusted to any one of them. When, therefore,
could Segetia take care of the empire, who was not allowed to take
care of the corn and the trees? When could Cunina take thought
about war, whose oversight was not allowed to go beyond the cradles
of the babies? When could Nodotus give help in battle, who had
nothing to do even with the sheath of the ear, but only with the
knots of the joints? Every one sets a porter at the
door of his
house, and because he is a man, he is quite sufficient; but these
people have set three gods, Forculus to the doors, Cardea to the
hinge, Limentinus to the threshold.167
| 167 Forculum foribus, Cardeam
cardini, Limentinum limini. | Thus Forculus could not at the
same time take care also of the hinge and the
threshold.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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