Now we have the Aztec case and the Sacæan case. But the Aztec victim is a captive, not a free soldier, whose life Bassus is most anxious to preserve. The Sacæan victim is not sacrificed, and is a condemned criminal. Now Mr. Frazer has said 'when a nation becomes civilised, if it does not drop human sacrifices altogether, it at least selects as victims only such wretches as would be put to death at any rate.'[5] But a valuable soldier, like Dasius, is not a wretch who would be put to death at any rate. Again, among the numerous cases of periods of licence, like the Sacæa, we know only one instance of sacrifice, and that of a criminal, in Ashanti. Our business is to prove that free Roman soldiers voluntarily sacrificed themselves at the Saturnalia. The Aztec sacrifice of a captive, the Persian execution of a criminal, with folklore rites of analogous description, scarcely make the Roman custom probable, while the direct evidence is only that of the martyrologist. His evidence merely asserts, as to the death of Dasius, that he perished for refusing the usual test. Again, as M. Parmentier argues, the sacrifice, if it existed, may have been of Oriental importation. In this condition of the evidence, especially as it allots thirty days to the Saturnalia, an otherwise unheard-of period, suspension of judgment seems prudent. [1] Urbino, 1727, vol. i. p. 198. [2] _Golden Bough_, iii. 141. [3] _Analecta Bollandiana_, xvi. pp. 5-16. The precise position of a 'Legatus' like Bassus is rather indistinct. If an officer, he need not have asked Dasius what his 'profession' was. [4] _G. B_. iii. 142. [5] _G. B_. iii. 120. APPENDIX C THE RIDE OF THE BEARDLESS ONE