Ver Sacrum
（
ἔτος ἱερόν). “A sacred spring.” A
dedication practised by the Italian tribes, whereby, in times of severe hardship, all the
products of the succeeding spring, i. e. the months of March and April, were consecrated to
the gods. All the fruits and cattle were actually offered up in sacrifice; while the children
that were then born, as soon as they were grown up, were driven out of the country as
forfeited to heaven, and required to seek a new home. Originally both men and children were
undoubtedly sacrificed, but expatriation was substituted for death as the sentiment of mercy
grew more general. Whole generations in this way left their country, those of the Sabine stock
being led by the animals sacred to Mars—a bull, a woodpecker, or a wolf. In Rome,
whose origin is traced back by many to a Ver Sacrum, the
pontifices
superintended the vow and its fulfilment. The Ver Sacrum was vowed for the last time in the
Second Punic War, B.C. 217, after the battle of Lake Trasimenus (
Livy,
xxii. 10). The vow was not fulfilled, however, until twenty-one years afterwards, B.C.
195 and 194 (
Livy, xxxiii. 44; xxxiv. 44). See Marquardt,
Staatsverwaltung, iii. 281; and Ihering,
Die Vorgeschichte der
Indoeuropaeer.
