sacra_ but _loca religiosa_, technically because they were not the property of the state or consecrated by it; in reality, I venture to say, because the place where a corpse was deposited was of necessity taboo. Such places were _extra commercium_, and their sanctity might not be violated: "religiosum est," wrote the learned Roman Masurius Sabinus, "quod propter sanctitatem aliquam _remotum et sepositum est_ a nobis."[64] So, too, the great lawyer of Cicero's time, Servius Sulpicius, defines _religio_ as "quae propter sanctitatem aliquam remota ac seposita a nobis sit," where he is using _religio_ in the sense of a thing or place to which a taboo attaches.[65] And again, another authority, Aelius Gallus, said that _religiosum_ was properly applied to an object in regard to which there were things which a man might not do: "quod si faciat," he goes on, "adversus deorum voluntatem videatur facere."[66] These last words are in the language of the City-state; if we would go behind it to that of an earlier age, we should substitute words which would express the feeling or scruple, the _religio_, without reference to any special deity. Virgil has pictured admirably this feeling as applied to places, in describing the visit of Aeneas to the site of the future Rome under the guidance of his host Evander (_Aen._ viii. 347):-- hinc ad Tarpeiam sedem et Capitolia ducit, aurea nunc, olim silvestribus horrida dumis. _iam tum religio pavidos terrebat agrestis_ _dira loci_: iam tum silvam saxumque tremebant. "hoc nemus, hunc," inquit, "frondoso vertice collem, (quis deus, incertum est) habitat deus." This is a passage on which I shall have to comment again: at present I will content myself with noting how accurately the poet, who of all others best understood the instincts of the less civilised Italians of his own day, has used his knowledge to express the antique feeling that there were places which man must shrink from entering--a feeling far older than the invention of legal _consecratio_ by the authorities of a City-state. Lastly, the principle of taboo, or _religio_, if we use the Latin word, affected certain times as well as places. Just as under the _ius divinum_ of the fully-developed State certain spots were made over to the deities for their habitation and rendered inviolable by _consecratio_, so certain days were also appointed as theirs which the human inhabitants might not violate by the transaction of profane business. But I have just pointed out that the consecration of holy places in this legal fashion was a late development of a primitive feeling or _religio_; exactly the same, if I am not mistaken, was the case with regard to the holy days. These were called _nefasti_, and belong to the life of the State; but there were others, called _religiosi_, which I believe to have been tabooed days long before the State arose.