word _religio_ which suggested the whole of this passage; the supposed derivation from _ligare_ was quite enough to suggest magic to those who are on the trail of it.[387] Let us go on to examine the prayers themselves; I think we shall find that though there is much truth in the common view of them, it is not quite the whole truth. The oldest Roman prayers we possess are usually called hymns, because the Latin word for them was _carmen_, viz. the _Carmen Saliare_, which is too obscure and fragmentary to be of use to us, and the _Carmen_ of the Arval Brethren, which is preserved on stone and is quite intelligible.[388] The word _carmen_, let us notice, was used by the old Romans for any kind of metrical formula, whether hymn, prayer, or spell. Pliny, when writing of magic and incantations, plainly includes prayer among them;[389] and Dr. Jevons has recently pointed out that singing, and especially singing in a low voice or muttered tones, is a characteristic of magic not only in Greece and Rome, but in many parts of the world at the present day.[390] The evidence of the word is thus strongly in favour of the view that these ancient _carmina_ of Roman worship were really spells; and the _Carmen Arvalium_ itself does not contradict it. After an elaborate sacrificial ceremonial the priests, using a written copy of the _carmen_ (_libellis acceptis_), danced in triple rhythm (_tripodaverunt_) while they sang it; it consisted of six clauses, each repeated three times. "_Enos Lases iuvate! Neve luerve Marmar sins incurrere in pleores! Satur fu fere Mars, limen sali, sta berber! Semunes alternei advocapit cunctos! Enos Marmar iuvato! Triumpe!_" With the precise interpretation of these words I am not now concerned; but they obviously contain invocations to the Lares and Mars, which may be either petitions or commands, and which perhaps are really on the borderland between the two; and as thrice repeated, and accompanied with dancing and gesticulation, they seem certainly to belong rather to the region of magic than of religion proper.