Plutarch's Romane Questions: With dissertations on Italian cults, myths, taboos, man-worship, aryan marriage, sympathetic magic and the eating of beansPlutarch
Religion
Plutarch's Romane Questions: With dissertations on Italian cults, myths, taboos, man-worship, aryan marriage, sympathetic magic and the eating of beans
Plutarch
Rome -- Religion -- Early works to 1800; Rome -- Social life and customs -- Early works to 1800
IS not this also an evident argument of the great diligence and carefull
regard that was in their ancients? For when the maister of the family had
surprised one of his servants or slaves, committing a lewd and wicked
pranck, he commaunded him to take up and carrie upon his necke betweene his
shoulders a forked piece of wood, such as they use to put under the spire
of a chariot or waine, and so to go withall in the open view of the world
throughout the street, yea and the parish where he dwelt, to the end that
every man from thence forth should take heed of him. This piece of wood we
in Greeke call στήριγμα, and the Romanes in the Latin tongue _Furca_, that
is to say, a forked prop or supporter: and therefore he that is forced to
carie such an one, is by reproch termed _Furcifer_.
71.
_Wherefore use the_ Romans _to tie a wisp of hey unto the hornes of kine,
and other beefes, that are woont to boak and be curst with their heads,
that by the meanes thereof folke might take heed of them, and looke
better to themselves when they come in their way_?
IS it not for that beefes, horses, asses, yea and men become fierce,
insolent, and dangerous, if they be highly kept and pampered to the full?
according as _Sophocles_ said:
_Like as the colt or jade doth winse and kick,
In case he find his provender to prick:
Even so do'st thou: for lo, thy paunch is full
Thy cheeks be puft, like to some greedie gull._
And thereupon the Romans gave out, that _Marcus Crassus_ caried hey on his
horne: for howsoever they would seeme to let flie and carpe at others, who
dealt in the affaires of State, and government, yet beware they would how
they commersed with him as being a daungerous man, and one who caried a
revenging mind to as many as medled with him. Howbeit it was said
afterwards againe on the other side, that _Cæsar_ had plucked the hey from
_Crassus_ his horne: for he was the first man that opposed himselfe, and
made head against him in the management of the State, and in one word set
not a straw by him.
72.
_What was the cause that they thought those priests who observed
bird-flight, such as in old time they called_ Aruspices, _and now a
daies_ Augures, _ought to have their lanterns and lamps alwaies open, and
not to put any lid or cover over them_?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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