Against the Pagans 7

'What then,' someone will say, 'do you hold that no sacrifices at all ought to be made?' — That we may answer you not with our own opinion, but with that of your own Varro: 'None.' 'Why so?' 'Because,' he says, 'the true gods neither desire nor demand them; while those made of bronze, earthenware, gypsum, or marble care for these far less, for they lack sense; and no fault is incurred if you fail to offer them, nor any favor gained if you offer them.' — No opinion sounder or truer can be found, nor one which anyone — however perverse and difficult he be — could better seize upon.

For who is of so dull a heart as either to slay victims and sacrifices to things having no sense, or to think that they must be given to those who are far separated from these by nature and by blessedness? 'Who,' you ask, 'are the true gods?' — That we may answer you with a common and simple word: we do not know. For how can we know who those are whom we have never seen? From you we have been accustomed to hear that the gods are very many and are reckoned in a series of divinities:

If they exist, as you say, somewhere, and are true, as Terence believes, it follows that they are consistent with their own name — that is, such as we all perceive they ought to be, and worthy to be called by the appellation of this name; or rather, to conclude briefly, such as is the Lord of all things and the Almighty himself, whom we all know and understand to be the true God when we come to the mention of his name. For God differs in no respect from another in that whereby he is God; nor, being one in kind, can he be less or more in his parts, the uniformity of his proper quality being preserved.

And since this is not doubtful, it follows that they must be unbegotten and everlasting, seeking nothing from outside nor plucking any earthly pleasures from the resources of matter. Therefore, if these things are so, first we desire to learn from you what is the cause, what the reason, that you perform these sacrifices; and next, what profit from this reaches the gods themselves and settles into their advantage. For whatever is done ought to have a cause of itself, and not be so severed from reason that it is carried on in empty works and sports in the vain errors of emptiness. Are the heavenly gods perchance fed by these rites, and is there need of some supply of matter to maintain their frame?

And who among men is so utterly ignorant of God as to suppose that they are sustained by some kind of nourishment, and that it is the gift of food which makes them live and endure through boundless eternity? For whatever is propped up by external causes and things must needs be mortal and have a ready road to peril, when something whereby life is sustained begins to fail. Then, too, because we see nothing from these things that are brought to the altars pass over and reach the substances of the divinities. For either incense is offered and, melted upon the coals, vanishes; or the victim is an animal, and its blood is licked up by dogs; or if some entrail has been delivered to the altars, it burns in like manner and, dissolved, sinks into ash.

Unless perchance the god devours the souls of the victims, or from the burning altars pursues the savour and the smoke, and feeds upon the reeking fumes which the blazing entrails vomit forth, still wet with blood and moist with their former juices. But if God, as is said, is of no body and untouched by any contact, how can it come to pass that the incorporeal is nourished by corporeal things — that what is mortal should sustain what is immortal, and confer welfare upon a thing it cannot even touch, and supply it with the motions of life? This reasoning for the rites therefore falls away, as is plain; nor can it be said by anyone that sacrifices are celebrated for this cause, that the divinities are fed by them and sustained by their nourishment.

But if perhaps this is not so, are victims slain for the gods and cast upon the kindled altars for the sake of some pleasure of mind, as is said? And is there any man who would persuade himself that the gods grow soft with the outpouring of pleasures, exult in the joy of lust, and, like some base animal, are affected by soothing sensations and stroked by the flitting titillation of fleeting sweetness? For what is relaxed by pleasure must needs be contracted by its opposite, sadness; nor can that be free from the anxiety of grief which trembles with joy and is lifted up by the fickleness of delights. But the gods ought to be free from both affections, if we would have them everlasting and deprived of mortal frailty.

Moreover, since every pleasure is, as it were, a certain flattery of the body, and is taken in through those five well-known senses — if the gods above feel it, they too must needs partake of bodies, through which is the way for the senses and the door for receiving pleasures. Finally, what joy is it to delight in the slaughter of harmless creatures, often to hear their piteous lowings, to behold streams of blood, and souls fleeing with the gore, and, the hidden parts laid open, the entrails rolling out with the dung, and the hearts still throbbing with the remnant of breath, and the veins quivering in the palpitating flesh?

We half-savage men — nay rather, to declare more openly what is truer and fitter to say, savage men — whom unhappy necessity and evil custom have taught to take these creatures for food, are yet at times moved with pity for them; we ourselves find fault, and, when the deed has been seen and examined to the depths, we condemn it, because, having laid aside the law of humanity, we have broken the fellowship of our natural origin. Will anyone believe that the gods, pious, beneficent, and gentle, delight in the slaughter of cattle and are filled with gladness, whenever the beasts fall beneath the knife and piteously yield up their breath? And so, as we perceive, there is no cause of pleasure in sacrifices, nor is there any reason why they should be made, since there is none at all; and if perchance there be some, it has been shown that by no reasoning can it fall upon the gods.

It follows that we should also examine that view which we hear commonly bandied about and current in popular belief: that these sacrifices are made to the gods above for this cause, that they may lay aside their wrath and anger and be rendered gentle and calm, the indignation of their seething breasts being appeased. But if we hold to that definition which it behoves us ever steadfastly to remember — that all affections of the mind are unknown to the gods — it is consistent to believe that the gods never grow angry; nay rather, that no affection is farther from them than that which, being next to wild beasts and brutes, disturbs those who suffer it with storms and leads them to the danger of destruction. For whatever is troubled by the motion of anything is agreed to be passible and frail;

and what is subject to passion and frailty must needs be mortal; but anger troubles, and dissolves those who suffer it; therefore what is subject to the passions of anger must be called mortal. And yet we know that the gods must be everlasting and hold the nature of immortality; and if this is agreed and clear, anger is far from them and disjoined from their condition. By no reasoning, then, is it fitting to wish to appease in the gods above that which you cannot see to accord with their blessedness. But let us grant, as you will, that a disturbance of this kind is familiar to the gods, and that for the sake of appeasing it divine rites are performed and the solemn sacrifices celebrated: when, then, is it fitting to apply these offices, or at what time to present them?

Before they are angered and roused, or when they have been stirred and set in the very midst of their indignation? If it is that they may not take on anger, and we must forestall them beforehand, you are setting before us wild beasts, not gods — beasts before whom, lest they rage when incited and shatter the bars of their cages, it is the custom to throw food upon which they may savagely vent their rage and turn aside their craving to torment. But if this satisfaction of sacrifices is offered when they are already seething and blazing with indignation, I do not ask, I do not demand, whether that happy and lofty magnanimity of the divinities is moved by the offence of poor little men, and counts it as a wound if some blind creature, ever walking in the clouds of ignorance, has committed or said something whereby their authority might be diminished.

But neither do I demand that it be said or heard what causes of anger against men the gods have, that they should need to be soothed by sacrifices when offence has been incurred. Have they ever sanctioned any laws for mortals, or was it ever laid down by them what it befitted men to do or not to do, what to pursue, what to shun, or at least by what modes they wished to be worshipped — so that they should pursue with the vengeance of their wrath deeds done otherwise than they had commanded, and, being held in contempt, should wish to avenge themselves on the bold and the transgressors? In my opinion, nothing has ever been either established or sanctioned by them, since they have never been seen, nor, if any exist, could they be discerned by any clear knowledge.

What justice, then, is it that the heavenly gods should be angry, for any causes, with those to whom they have never deigned to show themselves, nor given nor imposed any laws which they wished to be observed by them and kept with inviolable obedience? But this, as I said, I pass over, and suffer to depart, granted in silence. This one thing above all I ask: what is the cause that, if I slay a pig, the god should change his disposition and mind and lay aside his fury; and if I burn up a little hen or a calf before his eyes and upon his altars, he should be brought to forgetfulness of the injury and wholly withdraw from all sense of offence?

What passes over to his grief from this deed, or of what healing is a goose, a he-goat, or a peacock, that by their blood a medicine should be applied to the angry god? Do the gods, then, sell their injuries, and, like tiny babes who, to spare their tempers and to refrain from wailing, are given little sparrows, dolls, toy horses, and cakes with which to be distracted — do the immortal gods thus take these appeasements, whereby they may lay aside their wrath and anger and return into favour with those who have offended them? And yet I supposed that the gods — if indeed it is right to believe that they are stirred by the motions of anger — would lay aside their wrath and anger without any rewards and without any fees, and pardon sinners their offences. For this is proper to divinities: to grant liberal pardons and gratuitous indulgences.

But if that cannot be, it is far wiser for them to persist stubbornly in their offence than to grow gentle through the corruption of gifts. For the multitude of sinners grows when hope of redeeming sin is given, and men go readily to their faults where the favour of those who pardon is for sale. Behold, if some ox, or any of those animals that are slain to appease and soften the fury of the divinities, should take on a human voice and speak in these words: 'So then, O Jupiter, or whoever else you are that are a god, is this a human and righteous thing, or to be reckoned in the estimation of any equity — that when another has sinned, I should be slain, and you should suffer satisfaction to be made to you from my blood,

I who have never harmed you, never knowingly or unknowingly violated your divinity and majesty — a dumb animal, as you know, following the simplicity of my nature and not slippery with the varieties of manifold manners? Have I ever performed your games less reverently and diligently? Have I ever paraded forth some presiding officer who offended your divinity? Have I sworn falsely by you? Have I by sacrilegious thefts seized and despoiled your offerings? Have I torn up your most sacred groves, or profaned and defiled certain hallowed places with private buildings? What cause is there, then, that another's crime should be atoned by my blood, and that my life and innocence should be brought forth for a stranger's wickedness?

Is it because I am a base animal, sharing neither in reason nor in counsel, as those declare who call themselves men and yet in ferocity outleap the brutes? Did not the same nature beget and form me too from the same beginnings? Is there not one breath of life that governs both them and me? Do I not breathe by a like process, and see, and am affected by the other senses? They have livers, lungs, hearts, intestines, and bellies: is not the same number of members assigned to me too? They love their offspring and come together to beget children: have not I too care for progeny and for its renewal, and sweetness when it has been begotten? But they, you say, are rational and utter articulate speech.

And how is it known to them whether I too do what I do by my own reasonings, and whether these words which I utter are the speech of my kind and understood by us alone? Ask Piety whether it is more just that I should be slain and destroyed, and that man should be granted pardon and impunity for what he has committed. Who forged iron into the sword? Was it not man? Who imposed slaughter upon peoples, who servitude upon nations? Was it not man? Who administered and mingled deadly draughts for parents, for brothers, for wives, for friends? Was it not man? Who devised or contrived crimes so great that they could not be unfolded in ten thousand years of annals or of days? Was it not man?

Is this, then, not brutal, not monstrous, not cruel — does it not seem to you, O Jupiter, unjust and barbarous, that I should be slain and butchered, so that you may be made calm and impunity may fall to the wicked?' Therefore it has been established that for this cause — namely, that the angered divinities may be appeased — sacrifices are made in vain; since reason has taught us both that the gods are never angry, and that they do not wish one to be destroyed for another, nor that by the blood of the guiltless the abolition of misdeeds should be procured. But perhaps someone will say:

'For this reason we expend victims and the other gifts upon the gods, that, being made in a manner friendly to our supplications, they may grant us prosperous things and turn evils away from us, may make us pass our days ever in joys, and may drive off sorrows and the things that threaten from chance mishaps.' — This point demands no small consideration, nor is what is said so customary as to be easily heard or believed. For at once that whole chorus of the most learned will fly to the attack, who, asserting and proving that whatever happens comes to pass by fate, would snatch this opinion from our hands and convict us of trusting in empty persuasions.

'Whatever in the world has been done, is done, and shall be done,' he will say, 'was long ago defined and fixed, and has immovable causes, by which things are bound to one another and weave an unconquerable necessity, linking things past with those that impend.' — If it is defined and fixed, what evil or good ought to befall each individual is already certain. And if it is certain and fixed, all the aids of the gods are idle, idle their hatreds, idle their kindnesses. For they can no more grant that which cannot come to pass than prevent that which must needs occur; save that, if they wished, they would be able to press this opinion still more forcibly, so as even to say that the gods themselves are worshipped by you in vain and adored with superfluous supplications.

For since they can neither reverse the order of things nor change the appointments of fate, what point, what reason is there in wishing to weary and deafen the ears of those on whose aids you cannot rely in your utmost necessities? Finally, if the gods drive away sorrowful and troublesome things, if they lavish those that are glad and friendly: whence come there in the world so many and so innumerable wretched folk, whence so many unhappy people dragging out a tearful life in the extremity of their lot? Why are they not immune from calamities who at every moment, at every instant, load and heap the altars with sacrifices?

'Do we not see,' they say, 'that some of them are the dwelling-places of diseases, their eyes put out and their ears stopped, deprived of the use of their feet, living maimed and without hands; drowned, overwhelmed, and destroyed by fires, shipwrecks, and collapses; rolled out of vast patrimonies and propping themselves up by hireling toil, begging their last pittances, banished, proscribed, ever in mourning, broken by the loss of their children, and harried by all the other misfortunes whose kinds and forms no enumeration can define?' — Which surely would not happen, if the gods, bound by the merits of the sacred rites, could ward off or turn aside these evils.

But now, because there is no place for chance in these things, but all are accomplished by inescapable necessity, the prescribed order runs its course and carries out what has once been decreed. Or else the heavenly ones must be called ungrateful, if, though they have the power of prevention, they suffer the unhappy race to be entangled in so many punishments and calamities. But perhaps they may say something great, and not to be received with deceived, careless, and scornful ears.

These points, however, since the matter is one of too long and much discourse, we run past unexplained and untouched, content to have laid down only this: that you attach dishonourable reports to your gods, if you deny that they otherwise bestow what is good and turn aside what is hostile, unless they have first been bought with the blood of she-goats and sheep and the other things that are brought to the altars. For it is unworthy, first, that that power of the divinities and the sublimity of the heavenly ones should be believed to hold their benefits for sale — first to receive, and only so to bestow; and then, what is far fouler, that unless they have received, they should profit no one, and should suffer the most wretched to undergo the fortunes of their perils, when they could prevent them and come to their aid.

If, of two men performing sacred rites, one is guilty and rich, the other of a narrow household but praiseworthy for innocence and probity; if the former slays a hundred oxen and as many mother-ewes with their little lambs, while the poor man burns a little incense and one small lump of some perfume: will it not follow that we must believe — if indeed the divinities bestow nothing except upon antecedent rewards — that they lend their favour to the rich man and turn their eyes away from the poor little one, whom not his disposition but the necessity of his household means has made frugal?

For where the giver is venal and mercenary, there favour must needs be granted in proportion to the greatness of the gift, and the vote must incline to that side from which far more of reward and unseemly corruption has flowed to him who bestows it. 'What then? If again two peoples, at variance in hostile arms, should enrich the altars of the gods above with equal sacrifices, and each should demand that strength and aid be lent to itself against the other: is it not again necessary to believe — if they are solicited by rewards to give help — that they must waver between the two sides, be at a standstill and unable to find what to do, since they perceive their favours bound by the acceptance of the sacred offerings? For either they will grant aid on this side and on that, which cannot be done;

for they will then be fighting against their very selves, and striving against their own favours and wills; or else they will cease to furnish help to both peoples — which, after the outlay and acceptance of the fee, is a great crime.' Therefore this whole infamy is to be driven far from the gods, nor is it at all to be said that they are enticed by rewards and fees to confer good things and remove their contraries — if indeed they are true gods and to be placed within the reserve of this name. For either whatever happens comes to pass by fate, and there is no place among the gods for canvassing and favour; or, if fate is shut out and cast forth, it is not consistent with their supernal dignity to put up for sale the favours of a good deed and the bounties they bestow.

We have, I think, sufficiently shown that in vain are victims, together with the things that accompany them, brought to the immortal gods; since they are neither fed by them, nor receive any pleasure, nor lay aside wrath or anger, nor grant favourable things, nor drive away and avert their contraries. It follows that we should also examine that view which is wont to be asserted by some and applied to the causes of the ceremonies. For they say that these rites were instituted for the honouring of the heavenly ones, and that what they do, they do for honour's sake, and thereby increase the powers of the divinities. — What then? If they should likewise say that they wake and sleep, walk about and stand still, write something and read, in order to render honour to the gods and make them ampler in their dignities?

For what is added to these beings from the blood of cattle, what from the rest of the performance of the rites — what power is set upon them and superadded? For all honour that is said to be paid to anyone and attributed as a mark of higher reverence is of a relative kind, referred to another, and consists of two parts: the yielding of the one who gives, and the aggrandizement of the one who receives. As when someone, at the sight of a man of most powerful name and authority, steps aside from the road, presses close, bares his head and leaps down from his carriage, and then, bowing low, salutes him, imitating the trembling servility of a little slave: I see what is done in an act of honouring of this kind:

by the submission of the one, much is given to the other, and it is brought about that he seems great whom the deference of the lesser has exalted and set above his own concerns. But all this yielding, and the attribution of honour of which we speak, has its seat in men alone, whom natural weakness and the love of standing above others teach to rejoice in eminences and to be preferred in comparison with others. But I ask, among the gods above, where is there place for honour, or what pre-eminences are found to be added to them by these performances of the rites? Do they become more august, more powerful, when cattle are slain? Is anything of this added to them, or do they begin to be gods more amply in divinity?

And yet I judge it to be next to an insult — nay rather, to be a full insult — when a god is said to be honoured by a man and gratified by the offering of some gift. For if honour increases and heaps up the dignity of him to whom it has been attributed, it follows that a god is made greater by a man, from whom he has received the gift and the conferral of honour; and thus the matter is brought to this pass, that he is the inferior god who is regaled with human honours, while the man is the more sublime who increases the power of the divinity. 'What then,' someone will say, 'do you hold that no honour at all is to be given to the gods?' — If you set before us gods such as, if they exist, they ought to be, and such as we all mean in the utterance of this name:

how can we fail to hold them in honour, even the greatest honour, since we have received it as a duty to reverence even men set in more powerful commands, of whatever rank they may be, of whatever fortune? 'Who then is this greatest one?' — One far more dutiful than is reckoned by you, and established in a more powerful kind. 'Tell us,' you say, 'what opinion about the gods is worthy, right, and honourable, and not blameworthy through the deformity of any baseness.'

— First, that you believe them to have nothing resembling a man, nor to expect anything that comes to them from without and from outside; then — as has been said more than once — that they do not blaze with the flames of anger, do not exult in bodily pleasure, are not canvassed with rewards to do good nor provoked to do harm, do not hold their kindness and favour for sale, do not rejoice in honour conferred nor grow indignant and take offence at honour withheld, but — what is proper to a divine being — know themselves by their own power, and do not value themselves by the flatteries of others. And yet, that we may see what sort of thing this is that is spoken of — what kind of honour is this, to bind a wether, a ram, a bull beneath the god's face and to slay it in his sight?

What kind of honour is it to invite a god to blood, which you may see him share and hold in common with dogs? What kind of honour is it, by the burning of piled-up wood, to overspread the sky with smoke, and to darken the images of the divinities with deadly blackness? But if the things that are done are to be weighed by their own worth, and not appraised by opinions taken up beforehand, then those altars of yours, and these fair shrines, are but the burning-places of the most wretched kind of animals — pyres and graveyards, built for a most foul work and fashioned into a seat of stenches. What say you, O men? Is that stench, then, which rises from the burning hides and breathes forth as they blaze,

and which rises from the bones, from the bristles, from the wool of lambs and the feathers of hens — is that a god's gift and honour, and are these offered to those whose temples, when you prepare to approach them, you present yourselves pure of every stain, elegant and most chaste? And what can be more defiled, more wretched, more filthy than these beings, if they are so made by the nature of their perception that they hold such cruel things among their loves, and stenches are for them a pleasure — stenches which neither the sacrificers themselves can bear, nor can a free-born nostril endure when they are drawn in through the breath? But if you suppose that the minds of the gods above are honoured and gratified by the blood of living creatures, why do you not slay for them mules and elephants and asses too? Why not dogs also, and bears and foxes, camels and beasts and lions?

And since you reckon birds too among the numbers of your victims, why not vultures, eagles, storks, ospreys, buzzards, ravens, hawks, and owls, and along with them salamanders, water-snakes, vipers, and venomous spiders? For surely these too have blood beneath them, and are stirred by a vital breath in like manner. What greater workmanship or skill is there in the former, what less in the latter, that these should not increase, while those enhance, the dignity of the gods above? 'Because it is fitting,' he says, 'to honour the heavenly gods with those things by which we ourselves are fed, sustained, and live, and which they have deigned in their kindness to bestow upon us for our sustenance by their divine will.'

— But the same gods have also bestowed upon you cumin, cress, turnips, bulbs, celery, thistles, roots, gourds, rue, mint, basil, pennyroyal, and cut leeks, and have ordained that these be among your uses as part of your nourishment. Why then do you fail to give these too upon the altars, and to sprinkle over all these things savory of the meadow, and to mingle in the sharpness of onions? Behold —

if dogs — for some things must needs be imagined, that matters may be seen more clearly — if, I say, dogs and asses, if wagtails along with them, if chattering swallows, and, equally with these, pigs, having received some sense of human feeling, were to reckon and suppose you to be gods, and were to offer sacred rites to you for honour's sake — not from other and other materials, but from those things by which it is their custom to be fed and to be sustained by natural appetite — we demand to hear from you whether you would judge this to be an honour, or rather a most grievous insult: when the swallows should slay flies for you, the wagtails should slaughter and consecrate little ants; when the asses should give hay upon your altars and offer chaff; when the dogs should lay on bones and burn up the discharge of human dung; and when, last of all, the little pigs should pour out for you the mire taken from their bristling wallows, muddy places, and quagmires?

Would you not, then, be inflamed that your dignities were spat upon, and would you not reckon it among atrocious injuries that you were received with dung? 'But you honour the gods with the bodies of bulls and the slaughter of other living creatures.' — And how does this differ from that, since these too, if not yet turned to it, will nevertheless become dung, and, with the interposition of a little time, will rot? In short, cease to place fire beneath the altars: assuredly you will now behold those sacred entrails of bulls, by which the honour of the gods is augmented by you, seething and heaving with worms, tainting and corrupting the state of the sky, and wounding the neighbouring regions with pestilential smells; so that, if the gods should bid you turn your care to your health, and thence to make your midday meals

or suppers of them, after the solemn manner, you would flee far away, and, cursing that kind of smell, would beg pardon of the gods above, and would swear to them that you would never make such sacrifices. Is not this, then, to play the fool, to confess, and to lay bare that you know not what God is, nor to what power the force and appellation of this name ought to be subjected and applied? You augment the gods with new foods, you honour them with reeking fumes and juices, and, because those things which feed you are pleasant and welcome to you, you believe that the gods too abound in the same pleasures — that, after the manner of barkers and dogs, they lay aside their savagery at a morsel and fawn upon those who offer it again and again.

And since our discourse now turns upon the matter of victims, what is the cause, what the reason, that although the immortal gods - granted, for our part, that any beings whatever are believed to be gods - ought to be of one mind or of one nature, of one kind and one quality, yet all of them are not appeased by all victims, but certain gods by certain ones according to the laws of their rites? Again let me ask what the reason is, that yonder god is honored with bulls, another with kids or with sheep, this one with sucking pigs, another with unshorn lambs, this one with virgin heifers, that one with horned she-goats, this one with barren cows, but that one with pregnant sows, this one with white beasts, that one with black, one with victims of the female sex, but another indeed with male animals?

For if victims are slaughtered to the gods for the sake of honor and reverence, what does it matter, what difference does it make, from the head of which animal this debt is paid, by which the god's anger and displeasure is laid to rest? Or is the blood of one somehow less pleasing and agreeable to one god, while the blood of another pours pleasure and gladness into another? Or, as is the custom, does one god, from fear of some scruple and religious observance, abstain from goat's flesh, while another abhors the touch of pork; to this one the entrails of sheep are rank, and lest it burden a weak stomach, this one avoids the toughness of beef and takes the tenderness of sucklings, so as to digest more readily? "But," he says, "you err and are mistaken:

for that female victims should be immolated to female deities, and males to males, is a hidden and inner rationale, remote from the knowledge of the common crowd." I do not inquire, I do not demand, what the laws of the rites prescribe or what they contain; but if reason should prevail and truth win out, that there is no distinction of sexes among the gods, and that they are not divided into any sexes, is it not necessary that all these accounts be dissolved, and be found to rest upon opinions believed by the most foolish? I will not summon the verdicts of wise men, who cannot restrain their laughter when they hear that distinctions of sex have been attributed to the immortal gods:

I ask of each individual man, whether he himself believes and persuades himself that the race of the gods is divided into sexes, that these are males and females, and are formed with a disposition of members fit for begetting offspring. But if the ordinances of the sacrifices prescribe that sex be immolated to the gods matched with sex - that is, females to female deities, but male victims to male gods - what is the reason in the matter of colors, that it should be fitting to slay white victims to these, but black and jet-black ones to those? "Because," he says, "to the gods above and to those who prevail in the favorableness of omens, a bright color is acceptable and its whiteness auspicious in its cheerfulness; but to the gods on the left, dwelling in the seats below, a dusky color is more pleasing, steeped in gloomy dyes." But if again reason should prevail,

that the name of the nether world is utterly empty and void, and that there are no realms beneath the earth nor Plutonian abodes, then it is necessary that this opinion too, which you hold concerning black beasts and the subterranean gods, prove groundless. But if there are no beings below, it is necessary that there be also no gods of the Manes. For how can it come about that, when there are no such places, there should be said to be any worshippers of things that do not exist? But let us grant, as you wish, both that there are nether regions, and that there are Manes, and that certain gods dwell among these, less favorable in omens and set over the more mournful affairs. And what is the cause, what the reason, that black victims of the darkest color are brought to them? "Because black things suit the black, and gloomy things are pleasing to the like."

What then? Do you not see how you, together with us, are foolishly making sport alike, since the flesh of victims is white, and the bones, teeth, fat, caul, together with the brains, and the soft marrow within the bones? "But their fleeces are black, and the bristles of the animals are black." Then immolate to the gods the wool alone and the little bristles plucked from the victims, and leave the unhappy beasts, though stripped and shorn, to draw the breath of heaven, and to lie down among their pastures, most harmless creatures. But if you deem those things which are black and of dusky color pleasing to the nether deities, why do you not take care that everything else too, which it is customary to bring to their sacrifices, be black and smoked and hideously colored? Dye the incense, if it is offered, the salted meal, and all the libations;

to the milk, the oil, the blood - the one that it may take on a purple color, the others that they may be sallow - pour in soot together with cinders. But if for you there is no scruple in bringing certain white things that retain their own brightness, you yourselves dissolve your own religious observances and rationales, since in the work of the sacrifices you preserve nothing single and consistent. But it is fitting in this place also to learn this from you. If a he-goat be slain to Jupiter, whom it is customary to sacrifice to father Liber and to Mercury, or if a barren ox be slain to Unxia, whom it is prescribed to assign to Proserpina by Tuscan rite and observance, what crime will there be in this, what of evils or wickedness incurred, since it makes no difference in the service, from the head of which animal that debt of honor is discharged?

"It is not lawful," he says, "to confound these things, nor is it a small offense to mix up the duties of rituals and their administration." - Explain, I beg, the reason. "Because it is the law that victims of a fixed kind be consecrated to fixed deities, and that fixed supplications be rendered." - And what again is the cause, that it should be the law that victims of a fixed kind be consecrated to fixed deities, and fixed supplications rendered? For this very law too ought to have its own cause and to arise and be derived from fixed reasons. Are you going to plead antiquity and custom? - You pronounce to me the decrees of men and the inventions of a blind creature:

but I, when I demand that a reason be produced for me, desire to hear either that something has fallen from heaven, or - what the matter rather requires - what is inherent in a bull's blood that it should be immolated to Jupiter, and not to Mercury or Liber? Or what nature belongs to a goat, that it should again be suited to these gods, but not fitting for Jupiter's sacrifices? Has a division of the animals been made among the gods? Was it agreed by the compact of some settlement, that one god should keep off from another's victim, and this one cease to usurp the rights over another's blood? Or is it as jealous little boys are unwilling to share the taste of their own animals; or as report has it to be the custom among most different nations, that the things held fit for food by these are rejected from the diet of others?

Therefore if these things are empty and have not the firmness of any reason, the very rationale of the sacrifices is also void. For how can that which follows have a suitable cause, when that very first thing, from which the second flows, is found to be utterly empty and void and established on no solidity? "To Earth," they say, "the mother, a pregnant and teeming sow is immolated, but to the virgin Minerva a virgin heifer is slain, never yet roused by any goad to attempt any work."

- But we, on the contrary, judge that neither ought a virgin to have been slain to a virgin, lest virginity be violated in the beast - the very thing in which that goddess most excels - nor pregnant and teeming beasts to Earth, for the sake of honoring that very fecundity which we all seek and pray may go forward in ever-inextinguishable fruitfulness. For if, because Tritonia is a virgin, therefore it is fitting that virgin victims be immolated to her, and because Earth is a mother, she is likewise to be received with pregnant sows, then Apollo too, because he is a musician, ought to be slain victims by musicians; and Aesculapius, because he is a physician, by physicians; and Vulcan, because he is a smith, by smiths; and Mercury, because he is eloquent, by the eloquent and the most articulate.

But if to say this is insane, or - to pronounce it more moderately - stupid, far more is it a matter of greater madness to slaughter teeming beasts to Earth because she is heavy with offspring, and chaste virgins to Minerva because she is pure, of untouched virginity. For as to what we hear said by you, that some of the gods are good, but others evil and more prone to the lust of doing harm, and that the solemnities of sacrifices are ministered to the former that they may benefit, but to the latter that they may not harm - by what reasoning that is said, we confess we cannot understand.

For to say that the gods are most kindly and have gentle natures is both holy and religious and true; but that some are evil and sinister, this is by no means to be admitted to our ears, for the reason that that divine power is far removed and disjoined by its nature from doing harm. But whatever is able to bring on the cause of calamity, what it may be must first be seen, and it ought to be set apart from the name of god by the very greatest difference. And so, that we may accommodate our assent to you, that there are gods who favor prosperous affairs and gods who favor adverse ones, even so there is no reason why you should allure some to prosperity, but soothe others with sacrifices and rewards that they may not harm: first, because the good gods cannot do ill, even if they have been honored with no sacrifice;

for whatever is mild and placid by nature is far removed and set apart from the practice and thought of doing harm; but the evil one knows not how to check its ferocity, though it be allured by a thousand thousand herds and altars. For neither can bitterness turn itself into sweetness, nor dryness into moisture, nor the heat of fire into cold, nor can that which is contrary to anything take upon itself and transform into its own nature that which is contrary to it. Just as, if you should stroke a viper with your hand, or coax a scorpion venomous as it is, the one would attack you with a bite, the other, drawing itself together, would fix its sting, and that fondling of yours would profit nothing, since both creatures are driven to harm not by the goads of anger but by a certain property of their nature:

so it profits nothing to wish to win over the sinister gods by victims, since whether you have done that or on the contrary have not done it, they act according to their own nature and are led to the things they habitually do by innate laws and by a certain necessity. What of the fact that in this way both classes of gods cease to exist in their own powers and to abide in their own qualities? For if a sacred rite is performed to the good that they may benefit, but supplication is made to the evil by the same reasoning that they may not harm, it follows that it must be understood that the favorable gods will bestow no benefit if they receive no gifts, and from this become evil; but the evil, if they receive gifts, will lay aside their intent of harming, and from this become good:

and thus the matter is brought to this pass, that neither are these gods on the right nor those on the left; or - what cannot happen - both are themselves on the right and both again on the left. Be it so; let it be granted that the unhappy beasts are not slain at the temples of the gods without some office of religion, and that what has been done from the usage of custom contains some cause of a reason. But if it seems grand and ample to slaughter bulls to the gods, if it seems so to burn up entire and solid the entrails of the animals, what do these remaining things mean, cohering with the disciplines of the magi, which they restored as pontifical mysteries in the hidden laws of the sacred rites and inserted into divine matters? What, I say, do these mean: 'apexaones,' 'hirciae,' 'silicernia,' 'longavi'?

These are the names of kinds of sausages, some stuffed with goat's blood, others with minced lungs. What of 'taedae,' what of 'neniae,' what of 'offae' - not the common ones, but those whose name and appellation is 'penitae'? Of these, the first is lard cut, according to custom, into tiny morsels for stuffing into dishes; the second is a stretch of intestine, through which the flux of the vitals is discharged, dried out by juices. But the 'offa penita' is when a bit of the flesh of the tail is cut off from the beast. What of 'polimina,' what of 'omenta,' what of 'palasea' or, as some name it, 'plasea'?

Of these, the name 'omentum' is a certain part by which the enveloping membranes of the bellies are bounded; 'plasea' is the tail of an ox smeared with fine flour and blood; while 'polimina' furthermore are those things which we more modestly call 'proles' (offspring), but which are wont to be named by the common folk with the appellation of 'testes' (testicles). What of 'fitilla,' what of 'frumen,' what of 'africia,' what of 'gratilla,' 'catumeum,' 'cumspolium,' 'cubula'? Of these, the two that come first are names of porridges, but differing in kind and quality; while the series that follows contains the significations of cakes - for these too do not have one and the same form.

For it is not fitting to name 'caro strebula,' the flesh taken from the haunches of bulls; nor 'pulpamenta,' the unroasted morsels, which are entrails first enlivened on spits and scorched over coals; nor finally 'salsamina,' which are a single mixture combined from four kinds of grain; nor likewise 'fendicae,' which are themselves guts, those which the speech of the common people is wont to call by that name when it expresses them; nor by the same reasoning 'rumae,' which are the first heads in the gullets, whereby it is the nature of ruminating beasts both to cast down their food and to bring it back up; nor 'magmenta,' nor 'augmina,' nor a thousand kinds either of 'sanguinamina' (blood-puddings) or 'fitillae' (porridges), to which you have given obscure names and, for the crowd, made them more venerable.

For if whatever things are done by men, and most of all in a sacred matter, ought to have their causes, and nothing in all affairs and in all administration is to be done without reason: expound to us and tell us, what is the cause, what the reason, that these things too should be given to the gods and burned up on the sacred altars. For in this place, most necessary above all to this cause, we tarry longer, we press on, we cling fast, desiring to learn what business a god has with porridges, what with cakes, what with the various stuffings, seasoned by the art of confection from a manifold and costly variety of ingredients. Are the deities affected by sumptuous dinners or luncheons, so that it is fitting to devise these countless dishes for them?

Do they labor under aversions of the stomach, and is a variety of flavors sought to expel their loathings, so that now roasted things, now raw are set before them, now half-cooked, now half-raw? But if the gods love to receive all these parts which you call 'praesiciae,' and they are pleasing to them by a sense either of some pleasure or of some sweetness, what intervenes, what forbids, that you should not bring in all these things at once together with the whole animals?

What is the cause, what the reason, that the 'caro strebula' should be added separately in the offering, the rumen, the tail, and the 'plasea' separately, the guts alone and the caul alone among the 'augmenta'? Are the celestial gods affected with varieties of relishes, as it is the custom to happen after the gorgings of rich and wealthy dinners, when they take these tiny scraps as sweet tidbits - not those by which they allay hunger, but that they may rouse the leisure of the palate and, though full, goad themselves on to an appetite of gluttony?

O wondrous greatness of the gods, comprehended by no men, understood by no natures, if indeed they are bought over to be beneficial by the testicles of beasts and by their rumens, and do not lay aside their wrath and passions until they have beheld the 'neniae' and 'offae penitae' prepared to be burned and rendered up to them! It follows that we should say something about incense and about wine, without any excess. For these kinds too are coupled and mixed among the ceremonies, and are employed in worship for the most part. And first we ask and inquire this of you concerning incense: whence or at what time you were able to come to know it or to learn it, so that you should rightly deem it either to be given to the gods, or most acceptable to their will.

For it is a well-nigh recent thing, and no inexplicable series of years, since the knowledge of it flowed forth into these regions and merited to have a part in the divine shrines.

For neither in heroic times, as it is believed and reported, was it known what incense was - as is proved by the ancient writers, in whose books no mention of it is found to be set down; nor did Etruria, the parent and mother of superstition, know its notion or fame, as the rites of the shrines indicate; nor in the four hundred years during which the Alban state flourished did it come into anyone's use when a sacred rite was being performed; nor did Romulus himself, nor Numa, that craftsman in devising religious observances, know either that it existed or was born - as the holy spelt shows, by which it was the custom to carry out the duties of the solemn sacrifices. Whence then did the use of it begin to be taken up,

or what novelty burst into the ancient and time-honored custom, so that what was not necessary through such great ages should take the first place in the ceremonies? For if without incense the office of religion goes lame, and its force is necessary which makes the celestials propitious and gentle to men, then a sin was committed by the ancients - nay rather, all their life was full of expiations owed - who through carelessness neglected to offer up that which was most agreeable to the pleasure of the gods. But if in ancient times neither men nor gods desired this material of incense, it is proved that even today it is furnished in vain and to no purpose, since antiquity did not believe it necessary, and novelty craved it without any reasons.

Finally, that we may always hold to that rule and definition by which it has been demonstrated and fixed that whatever is done by man ought to have its causes, in this part too we shall maintain it, so that we may ask of you what is the cause, what the reason, that grains of incense should be cast upon the altars before the very images of the deities, and that they should be deemed made familiar and gentle by the burning of them. What is acquired for these gods from a deed of this kind, or what accrues to their minds, that we should rightly judge these things to be duly expended and not burned up in vain and to no purpose?

For just as you ought to show why you give incense to the gods, so too it follows for the gods that you ought to bring forth their having some cause why they do not spurn it - nay rather, why they so familiarly covet it. "We honor the gods with these things," someone will perhaps say. - But we inquire not into your sense, but into that of the deities, nor what is done by you, but we ask what is weighed by them as to the value of the favor which is given in reward. But yet, O piety! how great or of what sort is that honor, which is achieved by the sweat of a tree and procured by the resin of that tree? For, lest perchance you be ignorant what incense is or whence it comes: it is a viscous gum flowing from the barks, just as from the almond or the cherry, coalescing by a tearlike distillation.

Does this then honor and augment the dignities of the gods above, or, if some offense has at any time been contracted, is it dissolved by the vapor of incense and the indignation lulled and appeased? Why then do you refrain from burning everywhere, without any distinction, the gum of any tree whatever? For if the deities are honored by this, and do not unworthily endure that Panchaean resins should burn for them, what does it matter whence the smoke is produced on the holy altars, or with what kind of gum the clouds of fumigation billow up? "Or will anyone perhaps say that incense is given to the gods above for this reason, that it has a sweet smell and soothes the sense of the nostrils, but the rest are harsh and, for the cause of offense, excluded?"

- For do the gods then have nostrils, with which to draw in aerial breaths, do they take in and give back the airs, so that the qualities of the differing smells can penetrate them? But if we grant that this is so, we join them to the law of mortality and shut them out from the bounds of divinity. For whatever breathes and draws reciprocal breaths through passable airs, that must needs be mortal, because it is sustained by the food of the air. But whatever is sustained by the food of the air, if you take away the returns by which the vital alternation is rendered and drawn back, its soul must needs be stifled, and its reason undermined, and its living power perish.

Therefore if the gods too breathe and draw an odor to themselves wrapped up in the accompanying air, it is not beside the point to say both that they live by external exhalations and that they can perish when their breathings are cut off. And how, in the end, do you know whether, if they are captivated by the sweetness of odors, the same things are pleasant to them as to you, and soothe and affect your natures with a like sense? Is it not possible that things which bring you pleasure may on the contrary seem harsh and grievous to them? For since the sentiments of the gods are diverse and their substances not one, by what reasoning can it be brought about that a thing diverse in quality should feel one and the same contact and receive it alike?

Do we not daily perceive that even among the animals sprung from the earth the same things are to some bitter or sweet, deadly to these which to those were not born unto destruction, so that the very things which soothe those with pleasant odors breathe pestilential exhalations upon the bodies of others? But the cause that this happens and comes about lies not in the things - which cannot at one and the same time be deadly and salutary, sweet and bitter together - but according as each thing has been made, so is it affected toward the contact of the thing coming from without; it does not receive a quality born from the impulsions of the things, but from the nature of its own sense and touch. But this whole account lies far removed from the gods, nor is it separated by the interposition of a scanty boundary.

For if it is true, as is believed by the wise, that these gods are incorporeal and not upheld by any eminence of vigor, then odor is empty in their regard, nor can any breath of some smell move them perceptibly, not even if you should burn a thousand pounds of male incense and this whole sky be shut in by the fog of overflowing vapors. For that which has not strength and corporeal substance cannot be touched by a corporeal substance: but odor is a body, as is indicated by the nostrils when they are touched: therefore it cannot by any reasoning be perceived by a god, who lacks a thing of body and is deprived of all sense and contact. Wine is the companion of incense, which we likewise demand be explained, why it should be poured over the kindled offering.

For unless a reason why it is done is shown, and it shall not have its cause set forth, then that thing is no longer to be charged with a laughable error, but - to speak more expressly - with insanity, madness, blindness. For, as has already been said quite often, everything that is done ought to have its cause manifest, and not veiled by the obscurity of some darkness. If therefore you have confidence in the deed, open up, show why this liquid is given, that is, why wine is poured over the altars.

For do the bodies of the deities feel a parching thirst, and are their drynesses necessarily to be tempered with some moisture? Is it their custom, as it is ours who are mortals, to intersperse drinks among our dinners, and likewise after solid meals of cakes and porridges and slaughtered victims, that the food may more easily rot and be cooked through, do they very frequently irrigate themselves and take wine? Give, I pray, cups to the immortal gods that they may drink; bring forth flagons, bowls, and ladles; and since they cram themselves with fat bulls and with rich, sumptuous feasts, lest any morsel ill-swallowed should stick in the passage of the stomach, run to their aid, make haste;

give unmixed wine to Jupiter Best and Greatest, lest he choke; he longs to belch and cannot, and unless that obstruction slips and dissolves, there is the greatest danger lest his crushed breath be interrupted, and heaven remain widowed and left without its administrators. "But," he says, "in vain do you ride roughshod over us: for we do not pour out unmixed wine to the gods above for such causes, as though we deem them either to thirst or to drink or to rejoice in the pleasant effect of it. It is given to them, therefore, for honor; so that their loftiness may become higher, ampler, and more august, we make libations upon the very altars and stir up the venerable embers with rekindled coals."

- And what graver insult can be inflicted on the gods than if you should believe that they become propitious upon receiving unmixed wine, or should deem that a great honor is paid to them, if only you have cast and dripped the dew of a little wine upon a glowing coal? Our discourse is not with men devoid of reason, nor with those to whom the truth of common understanding is lacking: there is wisdom in you too, there is sense, and you yourselves know by your inner judgment that we speak truth in your presence. But what can we do with those who are unwilling to consider the matters themselves deeply and to converse with their own selves? For you do what you see done, not what you are confident ought to be done:

first, because among you custom prevails, which holds no reason, rather than the nature of things inspected and weighed by the examination of truth. For what has a god to do with wine, or in the material of this thing what force is there, of what sort or how great, that when it has been poured out, his sublimity should increase and his authority be deemed honored? What, I say, has a god to do with wine - a thing next of kin to the works of Venus, weakening the sinews of all the virtues, an enemy of modesty, of shame, and of chastity, which has more often hurled roused minds into madnesses and frenzies, and has driven those very gods by outrageous railings to be cashiered by the demented?

Is not this then an impiety and a crime full of sacrilege, to give as an honor that which, if you should take it too greedily, you would not know what to do, would not know what to say, and in the end, as a drunkard, a debauchee, and a lost man, would earn reproach and infamy? It is worth while also to bring out the very words which it is customary to use and to supplicate with when wine is given: "Be thou honored with this inferior wine." "'Inferior,'" says Trebatius, "is a word added for this cause and uttered for this reason, lest all the wine whatever that is stored in cellars and storerooms - from which that which is poured out is taken - should begin to be sacred and be snatched from human uses.

Therefore, with this word added, that alone will be sacred which is offered, and the rest will not be bound by religious obligation." - What sort of honor then is this, in which a kind of law is imposed upon the god, that he should not seek more than has been given? Or of what greed is that god himself, who, unless he be held off by the prescription of a word, would stretch his covetousness further and rob his suppliant of his storerooms? "Be thou honored with this inferior wine": this is an injury, not an honor. For what if the god should want more than this and not be content with what has been brought in? Must he not be said to be signally wronged, who will be forced to receive an honor upon a condition?

For if, no exception being added, every single portion of wine that is in the cellars must of necessity become sacred, it is manifest both that an affront is done to the god, for whom a limit is fixed against his will, and that you yourselves violate the duties of ceremony in a sacred matter, since you do not grant to the wine so much as you see the god wishes to be furnished to himself. Consider the formula, 'Be thou honoured with this offered wine.' What is this but to say: 'Be honoured only so far as I wish, be magnified only so much as I command, take unto thyself only so much honour as I decree thee to have and define by the restriction of words'?

O most mighty sublimity of the gods, which you are bound to venerate and to worship with all ceremonial observances, upon which its worshipper imposes a law, which he adores with bargains and set formulas, which by the dread of a single word is held back from immoderate cravings for wine! But let there be, as you will, honour in wine, honour in incense; let the wraths and offences of the deities be appeased by sacrifice and by the slaughter of victims. Are the gods, moreover, moved by garlands, wreaths, and flowers? moreover by the tinklings of bronze and the clashings of cymbals? moreover by drums? moreover by concerts of music? What? Do the rattlings of the castanets bring it to pass that, when the deities have heard them, they reckon that honourable dealing has been shown them, and lay aside their seething tempers of anger in forgetfulness?

Or is it perchance that, just as tiny babes are frightened out of their foolish wailings when they hear rattles, in the same manner the almighty deities are soothed by the shrilling of flutes, and, their indignation softened, grow limp to the beat of cymbals? What do those rousings mean which you sing at dawn, joining your voices to the flute? For the gods above fall asleep, that they must be recalled to their vigils. What of those lullings to sleep by which you bid them, with an auspicious salutation, to rest well? For they are released by the repose of sleep, and, that they may be able to be seized by it, gentle dirges must be given them to hear. 'The washing of the Mother of the gods,' one says, 'is today.' For the deities grow dirty, and to wash off the filth there is need of cleansing waters and, joined to them, the ancient rubbing with ashes.

'The banquet of Jove is tomorrow.' For Jupiter dines and must be filled with mighty feasts, this long while craving for hunger and fasting from the yearly interval. 'The vintage of Aesculapius is being conducted and celebrated.' For the gods tend vineyards, and, having engaged grape-pickers, press out wine for their own uses. 'The couch-spreading of Ceres will be at the next Ides.' For the gods have couches, and, that they may recline upon softer coverlets, the padding of the cushions is heaped up and puffed out. 'It is the birthday of Tellus.' For the gods issue forth from wombs, and have joyful days on which it is appointed for them to draw the vital breath.

Now the games which you hold—those called the Floralia and the Megalensia, and all the rest which you have willed to be sacred and to be reckoned among the duties of religion—what reason have they, what cause? that they ought to have been instituted and founded and marked with the name of a deity? 'By these,' one says, 'the gods are honoured; and if they retain any memory of offences brought against them by men, they cast it off, shut it out, and, their familiarity restored, render themselves our favourers.' And what, again, is the reason that they should be made tranquil, peaceful, and mild, if silly things are done and are played by idle men with a multitude looking on?

Does Jupiter lay aside his wrath if the 'Amphitryon' of Plautus is acted and recited, or if Europa, or Leda, or Ganymede, or Danaë is danced? does he curb the impulse of his angers? Is the Great Mother made more tranquil and gentle if she has beheld the ancient tale of Attis rubbed up afresh by the actors? Will Venus obliterate her offence if she has seen mimes in the guise of Adonis performing gestures in dancing movements? Does the indignation of Alcides grow faint if the tragedy of Sophocles named the Trachiniae, or the Hercules of Euripides, is acted out? Or does Flora think herself honourably treated if in her own games she has beheld shameful things enacted and a migration from brothels into the theatres?