Chap. 3.] WHETHEK WOEDS ARE OF HEALING EFFICACY. 279 



though at the moment we are not sensible of it. Thus, for 

 instance, it is a general belief that without a certain form of 

 prayer^^ it would be useless to immolate a victim, and that, 

 with such an informality, the gods would be consulted to little 

 purpose. And then besides, there are different forms of 

 address to the deities, one form for entreating,^^ another form for 

 averting their ire, and another for commendation. 



"We see too, how that our supreme magistrates use certain 

 formulae for their prayers: that not a single word may be 

 omitted or pronounced out of its place, it is the duty of one 

 person to precede the dignitary by reading the formula before 

 him from a written ritual, of another, to keep watch upon 

 every word, and of a third to see that'® silence is not ominously 

 broken ; while a musician, in the meantime, is performing on the 

 flute to prevent any other words being heard. ^^ Indeed, there 

 are memorable instances recorded in our Annals, of cases where 

 either the sacrifice has been interrupted, and so blemished, 

 by imprecations, or a mistake has been made in the utterance 

 of the prayer ; the result being that the lobe of the liver or 

 the heart has disappeared in a moment, or has been doubled, -° 

 while the victim stood before the altar. There is still in exist- 

 ence a most remarkable testimony,^^ in the formula which the 

 Decii, father and son, pronounced on the occasions when they 

 devoted themselves.^^ There is also preserved the prayer 

 uttered by the Vestal Tuccm,'^^ when, upon being accused of 

 incest, she carried water in a sieve — an event which took place 

 in the year of the City 609. Our own age even has seen a 

 man and a woman buried alive in the Ox Market,-"* Greeks by 

 birth, or else natives of some other^^ country with which we 



^s Beginning witli an address to Janus and Vesta, imploring their inter- 

 cession with the other divinities, and concluding with an appeal to Janus. 



17 " Impetritis." 



1^ *' Qui favere linguis jubeat." " Favete Unguis " were the words used 

 in enjoining strict silence. 



19 By him who is offering up the prayer. 



2^ A trick adroitly performed by the priests, no doubt. 



21 Given by Livy, in Books viii. and x. 



22 To death, in battle, for the good of their country. 



" Preserved by Valerius Maximus, B. viii. c. 1. Tertullian and Saint 

 Augustin doubt the authenticity of the story. She is said to have carried 

 water in a sieve from the river Tiber to the temple of Vesta. 



'* '* Forum Boarium ;" in the Eighth Region of the City. 



^ Of Gaul, as Plutarch informs us, who mentions also the Greek victims. 



