CHAP. 5.—A DESCRIPTION OF VARIOUS USAGES.
I would appeal, too, for confirmation on this subject, to the
intimate experience of each individual. Why, in fact, upon
the first day of the new year, do we accost one another with
prayers for good fortune,
1 and, for luck's sake, wish each other
a happy new year? Why, too, upon the occasion of public
lustrations, do we select persons with lucky names, to lead the
victims? Why, to counteract fascinations, do we Romans
observe a peculiar form of adoration, in invoking the Nemesis
of the Greeks; whose statue, for this reason, has been placed
in the Capitol at Rome, although the goddess herself possesses
no Latin name?
2 Why, when we make mention of the dead,
do we protest that we have no wish
3 to impeach their good
name?
4 Why is it that we entertain the belief that for every
purpose odd numbers are the most effectual;
5—a thing that is
particularly observed with reference to the critical days in
fevers? Why is it that, when gathering the earliest fruit,
apples, on pears, as the case may be, we make a point of saying
"This fruit is old, may other fruit be sent us that is new?"
Why is it that we salute
6 a person when he sneezes, an observance which Tiberius Cæsar, they say, the most unsociable of
men, as we all know, used to exact, when riding in his chariot
even? Some there are, too, who think it a point religiously
to be observed to mention the name as well of the person whom
they salute.
And then, besides, it is a notion
7 universally received, that
absent persons have warning that others are speaking of them,
by the tingling of the ears. Attalus
8 assures us, that if a
person, the moment he sees a scorpion, says "Duo,"
9 the reptile will stop short, and forbear to sting. And now that I am
speaking of the scorpion, I recall to mind that in Africa no one
ever undertakes any matter without prefacing with the word
"Africa;" while in other countries, before an enterprise is
commenced, it is the practice to adjure the gods that they
will manifest their good will.
In addition to this, it is very clear that there are some
religious observances, unaccompanied by speech, which are
considered to be productive of certain effects. Thus,
10 when
we are at table, for instance, it is the universal practice, we
see, to take the ring from off the finger. Another person,
again, will take some spittle from his mouth and place it with
his finger behind the ear, to propitiate and modify disquietude
of mind. When we wish to signify applause, we have a proverb
even which tells us we should press the thumbs.
11 When paying adoration, we kiss the right hand, and turn the whole
body to the right: while the people of the Gallic provinces, on
the contrary, turn to the left, and believe that they show
mere devoutness by so doing. To salute summer lightning
with clapping of the hands, is the universal practice with all
nations. If, when eating, we happen to make mention of a
fire that has happened, we avert the inauspicious omen by pouring water beneath the table. To sweep the floor at the moment
that a person is rising from table, or to remove the table
or tray,
12 as the case may be, while a guest is drinking, is
looked upon as a most unfortunate presage. There is a treatise,
written by Servius Sulpicius, a man of the highest rank, in
which reasons are given why we should never leave the table
we are eating at; for in his day it was not yet
13 the practice to
reckon more tables than guests at an entertainment. Where a
person has sneezed, it is considered highly ominous for the
dish or table to be brought back again, and not a taste thereof
to be taken, after doing so; the same, too, where a person at
table eats nothing at all.
These usages have been established by persons who entertained a belief that the gods are ever present, in all our affairs
and at all hours, and who have therefore found the means of appeasing them by our vices even. It has been remarked, too,
that there is never a dead silence on a sudden among the guests
at table, except when there is an even number present; when
this happens, too, it is a sign that the good name and repute of
every individual present is in peril. In former times, when
food fell from the hand of a guest, it was the custom to return
it by placing it on the table, and it was forbidden
14 to blow
upon it, for the purpose of cleansing it. Auguries, too, have been
derived from the words or thoughts of a person at the moment
such an accident befalls him; and it is looked upon as one of
the most dreadful of presages, if this should happen to a pontiff,
while celebrating the feast of Dis.
15 The proper expiation in
such a case is, to have the morsel replaced on table, and then
burnt in honour of the Lar.
16 Medicines, it is said, will prove
ineffectual, if they happen to have been placed on a table before
they are administered. It is religiously believed by many,
that it is ominous in a pecuniary point of view, for a person to
pare his nails without speaking, on the market days
17 at Rome,
or to begin at the forefinger
18 in doing so: it is thought, too,
to be a preventive of baldness and of head-ache, to cut the hair
on the seventeenth and twenty-ninth
19 days of the moon.
A rural law observed in most of the farms of Italy, forbids
20
women to twirl their distaffs, or even to carry them uncovered,
while walking in the public roads; it being a thing so prejudicial to all hopes and anticipations, those of a good harvest
21
in particular. It is not so long ago, that M. Servilius
Nonianus, the principal citizen at Rome,
22 being apprehensive
of ophthalmia, had a paper, with the two Greek letters P and
A
23 written upon it, wrapped in linen and attached to his neck,
before he would venture to name the malady, and before any
other person had spoken to him about it. Mucianus, too, who
was thrice consul, following a similar observance, carried about
him a living fly, wrapped in a piece of white linen; and it
was strongly asserted, by both of them, that to the use of these
expedients they owed their preservation from ophthalmia.
There are in existence, also, certain charms against hail-storms,
diseases of various kinds, and burns, some of which have been
proved, by actual experience, to be effectual; but so great is the
diversity of opinion upon them, that I am precluded by a
feeling of extreme diffidence from entering into further particulars, and must therefore leave each to form his own conclusions as he may feel inclined.