[417] _Ib._ sec. 6. The meaning is that if any one has stolen an animal which was intended to be dedicated, no blame attaches to the person so robbed; and that if a man performs his dedication on a day of ill omen unwittingly, it will hold good none the less. [418] Farnell, _Evolution of Religion_, p. 195. [419] The fact that words like _reus_ and _damnatus_ were applied respectively to persons who had made a vow and to those who had performed it, _i.e._ as being liable like a defendant, and then released from that position by a verdict or sentence (see Wissowa, _R.K._ p. 320), is of course significant of the idea of the transaction in the mind of the Roman, who, as Macrobius says (iii. 2. 6) _se numinibus obligat_, as an accused person is _obligatus_ to the authorities of the State (Mommsen, _Strafrecht_, 189 foll.). It is the natural tendency of the Roman mind to give all transactions a legal sanction; but it does not thence follow that the original idea was really thought of as a contract, and we have only to reflect that the final act was a thank-offering to see the difference between the civil and the religious process. [420] Livy v. 21. [421] Macr. iii. 9, 6. He says that he found it in the fifth book of _Res reconditae_ by one Sammonicus Serenus, and that the latter had himself found it "in cuiusdam Furii vetustissimo libro." [422] On this subject see article "Devotio" in Pauly-Wissowa. [423] Livy viii. 10, "licere consuli dictatori praetori...." Cp. Cic. _de Nat. deorum_, ii. 10, "at vero apud maiores tanta religionis vis fuit, ut quidam imperatores etiam se ipsos dis immortalibus capite velato certis verbis pro republica devoverent." [424] See Muenzer's article "Decii" in Pauly-Wissowa, _Real-Encycl._; Soltau, _Die Anfaenge der roem. Geschichtschreibung_, p. 48 foll. [425] Livy viii. 9 foll.; Dio Cassius, fragment, xxxv. 6; Ennius, _Ann._ vi. 147, Baehrens. The latter fragment is the oldest reference to the event which we possess, and just sufficient to confirm Livy's account: "Divi hoc audite parumper, ut pro Romano populo prognariter armis certando prudens animum de corpore mitto." [426] It is worth remarking that the sacrificial aspect struck St. Augustine. In _Civ. Dei_, v. 18, he writes: "Si se occidendos certis verbis quodam modo consecrantes Decii devoverunt, ut illis cadentibus et iram deorum sanguine suo placantibus Romanus liberaretur exercitus," and goes on to compare the Decii with Christian martyrs. I am indebted for this reference to Mayor's note on Cicero, _de Nat. deor._ ii. 3. 10. [427] See above, p. 176; Wissowa, _R.K._ p. 352, note 1.