99
Is it, as some say, because they wish no one who is not a priest to know the secrets of the holy rites?
99
Or, because the augur is bound by oaths to reveal the sacred matters to no one, are they unwilling to release him from his oath as would be the case if he had been reduced to private status?
99
Or is augur a name denoting, not a rank or office, but knowledge and skill? Then to prevent a soothsayer from being a soothsayer would be like voting that a musician shall not be a musician, nor a physician a physician: for they cannot deprive him of his ability, even if they take away his title. They naturally appoint no successor since they keep the original number of augurs.
100
Why is it that on the Ides of August, formerly called Sextilis, all the slaves, female and male, keep holiday, and the Roman women make a particular practice of washing and cleansing their heads?
100
Do the servants have release from work because on this day King Servius was born from a captive maid-servant? Cf. 323 b-c, infra. And did the washing of their heads begin with the slave-women, because of their holiday, and extend itself to free-born women?
101
Why do they adorn their children’s necks with amulets which they call bullae? Cf. Life of Romulus, xx. (30 c); Pliny, Natural History, xxxiii. 1 (10); Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 6. 7-17.
101
Was it, like many another thing, in honour of their wives, who had been made theirs by force, that they voted this also as a traditional ornament for the children born from them?
101
Or is it to honour the manly courage of Tarquin? For the tale is told that, while he was still but a boy, in the battle against the combined Latin and Etruscan forces he charged straight into the enemy; and although he was thrown from his horse, he boldly withstood those that hurled themselves upon him, and thus gave renewed strength to the Romans. A brilliant rout of the enemy followed, sixteen thousand were killed, and he received this amulet as a prize of valour from his father the king.
