18.  PALES.  A rural god, protecting cattle.  At his feast men and cattle were purified.

The Romans had many other deities, whose worship was more or less popular.  But those now mentioned were the principal ones.  This list shows that the powers of earth were more objects of reverence than the heavenly bodies.  The sun and stars attracted this agricultural people less than the spring and summer, seedtime and harvest.  Among the Italians the country was before the city, and Rome was founded by country people.

Sec. 3.  Worship and Ritual.

The Roman ceremonial worship was very elaborate and minute, applying to every part of daily life.  It consisted in sacrifices, prayers, festivals, and the investigation by augurs and haruspices of the will of the gods and the course of future events.  The Romans accounted themselves an exceedingly religious people, because their religion was so intimately connected with the affairs of home and state.

The Romans distinguished carefully between things sacred and profane.  This word “profane” comes from the root “fari,” to speak; because the gods were supposed to speak to men by symbolic events.  A fane is a place thus consecrated by some divine event; a profane place, one not consecrated.[286] But that which man dedicates to the gods (dedicat or dicat) is sacred, or consecrated.[287] Every place which was to be dedicated was first “liberated” by the augur from common uses; then “consecrated” to divine uses by the pontiff.  A “temple” is a place thus separated, or cut off from other places; for the root of this word, like that of “tempus” (time) is the same as the Greek [Greek:  temno], to cut.

The Roman year was full of festivals (feriae) set apart for religious uses.  It was declared by the pontiffs a sin to do any common work on these days, but works of necessity were allowed.  These festivals were for particular gods, in honor of great events in the history of Rome, or of rural occurrences, days of purification and atonement, family feasts, or feasts in honor of the dead.  The old Roman calendar[288] was as carefully arranged as that of modern Rome.  The day began at midnight.  The following is a view of the Roman year in its relation to festivals:—­

January.

   1.  Feast of Janus, the god of beginnings.
   9. Agonalia.
  11. Carmentalia.  In honor of the nymph Carmenta, a woman’s
        festival.
  16.  Dedication of the Temple of Concord.
  31.  Feast of the Penates.

February.

   1.  Feast of Juno Sospita, the Savior:  an old goddess.
  13. Faunalia, dedicated to Faunus and the rural gods.
  15. Lupercalia.  Feast of fruitfulness.
  17. Fornacalia.  Feast of the oven goddess Fornax.
  18 to 28.  The Februatio, or feast of purification and atonement,