A last word before I leave this part of my subject. Though it is interesting to try to get at the root-idea of these processes of _lustratio_, we must remember that in the Rome of history they had lost not only such magical meaning as they ever had, but also much of the religious meaning which in course of time was superimposed upon it. The sacrifices and the prayers remained, but the latter were muttered and unheard by the people. And except in the country districts these ceremonies were more and more absorbed, as time went on, into the social, military, and political life of the community, as _e.g._ the lustration of the host became a political census; or they tended to disappear altogether, like the _ambarvalia_ and perhaps the _amburbium_. They grew up in the religious experience of the Romans, beginning with its very earliest and quasi-magical forms; but they came at last to represent that experience no longer, and when we meet with them in historical times it is impossible to ascribe to them any real influence on life and conduct. _Lustratio_ never in pagan Italy developed an ethical meaning as _catharsis_ did in Greece.[462] But meaningless as they were, the stately processions remained, and could be watched with pride by the patriotic Roman all through the period of the Empire, until the Roman Church adapted them to its own ritual and gave them, as we saw, a new meaning. As the cloud-shadows still move slowly over the hollows of the Apennines, so does the procession of the patron saint pass still through the streets of many an Italian city.[463] NOTES TO LECTURE IX [406] Dill, _Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire_, p. 63. [407] See Westermarck, _Origin and Development of Moral Ideas_, ii. 615 foll. [408] _C.I.L._ i. Nos. 43 foll. [409] _C.I.L._ xiv. 2863. See _R.F._ p. 224, and Wissowa, _R.K._ p. 209. [410] _Op. cit._ vol. i. p. 252; cp. 271. [411] See Sir Alfred Lyall's _Asiatic Studies_, Series I. ch. vi. No one would call the vow of Aeneas, in _Aen._ vi. 69, a bargain with Apollo and the Sibyl. [412] Marquardt, p. 266; Mommsen, _Staatsrecht_, i.^2 594 foll. The ceremony is best described by Ovid, _Ex Ponto_, iv. 9. 5 foll. He is addressing the consul of the year from his place of exile: at cum Tarpeias esses deductus in arces, dum caderet iussu victima sacra tuo, me quoque secreto grates sibi magnus agentem audisset media qui sedet aede deus. (II. 28 foll.) [413] Valerius Maximus iv. 1. 10. [414] A list of these is given in Aust, _De aedibus sacris populi Romani_ (Marpurg, 1889). A valuable work, which will be of service to us later on. [415] Livy xxxvi. 2. 3. [416] _Ib._ xxii. 10.