The root-notion of _feriae_ was a day set apart for the worship of the gods, and on it therefore the citizen ought to do 'no manner of work.' The state observed this condition fully in the closing of law-courts and the absence of legislative assemblies, and in theory too the private citizen must refrain from any act which was not concerned with the worship of the gods, or rendered absolutely necessary, as, for instance, if 'his ox or his ass should fall into a pit.' But it is characteristic of Rome that the state did not seek for offence, but only punished it if accidentally seen: on a feast-day the _rex sacrorum_ and the _flamines_ might not see work being done; they therefore sent on a herald in advance to announce their presence, and an actual conviction involved a money-fine. Perhaps more scrupulously than the _feriae_ were observed the _dies religiosi_, days of 'abstinence,' on which certain acts, such as marriage, the beginning of any new piece of work, or the offering of sacrifice to the gods, were forbidden: such, in the oldest period, were the days on which the _mundus_ was open, or the temple of Vesta received the matrons, the days when the Salii carried the _ancilia_ in procession, and the periods of the two festivals of the dead in February and May; but for eluding their observance too devices were not unknown. In the state-organisation of religion, then, we seem to see just the same features from which we started: as a basis the legal conception of the relation of god to man, as a result the extreme care and precision in times and ceremonials, as a corollary in the state the idea of legal representation and the consequent looseness of hold on the action of the individual. CHAPTER VIII AUGURIES AND AUSPICES