[428] By Deubner in _Archiv_, 1905, p. 69 foll. This touching of the chin seems to be an example of that personal contact which makes a man or thing holy; see, _e.g._, Westermarck, _op. cit._ i. 586. Decius makes himself holy for the sacrifice (as victim) by touching (as priest) the only part of his person which was exposed. For the magic touch of the hand see O. Weinrich, _Antike Heiligungswuender_, p. 63 foll., and Macrobius iii. 2. 7, for the touching of the altar by a sacrificing priest. [429] See above, p. 180. [430] This is Deubner's explanation, which he elaborates at length by examples of the worship of the spear or sword among various peoples. [431] This is peculiar to the formula in Livy viii. 9. Is it possible that it may have some reference to the fact that the Romans were fighting their own kin, the Latins? [432] Buecheler, _Umbrica_, pp. 22 and 102: "hastatos inhastatos completo timore tremore, fuga formidine, nive nimbo, fragore furore, senio servitio," where, however, the translator from the Umbrian is assisted by the Latin formulae we are discussing. [433] Macrobius iii. 9. 10, "exercitum quem ego me sentio dicere fuga formidine terrore compleatis," etc. This is of comparatively late origin, as it is addressed to Dis pater, who only became a Roman deity in 249 B.C. (Wissowa, _R.K._ p. 257). The interesting feature in this _devotio_, used at the siege at Carthage, is that it is not himself whom the commander devotes--the common sense of the Romans had got beyond that--but the enemy as substitutes for himself. "Eos vicarios pro me fide magistratuque meo pro populo Romano exercitibus do devoveo, ut me meamque fidem imperiumque legiones exercitumque nostrum bene salvos siritis esse." Thus the enemy is made the victim, and this is why the only gods invoked are the Di Inferi, Dis pater, Veiovis, Manes, while in the older formula it is the gods of Romans and Latins. Pacuvius in a praetextata called _Decius_ wrote: "Lue patrium hostili fusum sanguen sanguine" (Ribbeck, p. 280). This is the language Ennius used before him of the sacrifice of Iphigenia: "ut hostium eliciatur sanguis sanguine," where, however, the word _eliciatur_ shows that it is magic. The curious thing in this last passage is that the parallel passage in the Euripidean _Iph. in Aul._ (1486) does not suggest magic. Is the idea Italian? The curse (for such it really is) is to be witnessed by Tellus and Iuppiter, and the celebrant points down and up respectively in invoking them, as also in the _devotio_ of Curtis in the Forum (Livy vii. 6), which was an abnormal _procuratio prodigii_.