Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 19 



tutelary deities of married people, di coniugales, and of infants, 

 infantum di, were the two brother powers already mentioned, 

 whom the Romans named Picumnus and Pilumnus. The former 

 was the personification of the woodpecker (picus), the latter of 

 the pestle (pilum). Their protection was needed against Sil- 

 vanus, who was a wild and mischievous spirit of the woodland. 

 We read of a special ceremony which was performed after a woman 

 had given birth to her child, in the invocation of Pilumnus and of 

 two other friendly spirits, Intercidona, the "Sunderer", and De- 

 verra, the "Sweeper." 87 It required three men to attend to it at 

 the entrance of the house, that being generally recognized to be 

 always a place of danger. One struck the threshold with a pestle, 

 another with a hatchet, and the third swept it with a broom. 

 These three implements, tokens of civilized life, used in this per- 

 formance of avertive magic were thought to keep the spirit of the 

 savage wilds from coming in. 88 



But in Roman antiquity no fewer than twenty or more other 

 divine beings presided specifically over the first life of a child; for 

 it seems unreasonable to suppose that the names of those that are 

 mentioned in Latin literature, Rumina, Adeona, Abeona, etc., fig- 

 ured in the mind of a worshipper as merely epithets of this or that 

 major divinity and not as the appellatives of distinct, independent 

 powers. 89 Of course, at first thought, from the usual scientific 

 point of view, we should condemn the entire score of spirits as so 

 many powerless nonentities, but actually the Roman's confidence 

 in some of them and their like could be salutary as compared with 

 the trust that might be placed in some ignorant physician or mid- 

 wife; for the combination of the two mortals could easily be re- 

 sponsible for the death of both mother and child through their 

 active incompetency or quackery. Similarly today a saint can be 

 a very real presence in the thought of a trusting contadino. Even 

 one who discredits the whole system of intercessors must recognize 

 that, however illusory the sacred visitor may be, Santo This or 

 Santo That will never work any direct harm. It is usual for a 

 pious Roman Catholic to invoke a special saint, for example, San 

 Leonardo. By a popular twist to observe the proprieties, he may 

 be called Santa Leonarda. 90 If his or her intercession fails to facili- 

 tate delivery, it is time to turn to other saints of either sex, par- 

 ticularly, in many communes, to S. Francesco di Paola. They 



