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(PALILIA).
625
In Deut. 18, 10 and 2 Chron. 28,
custom of making sons and daughters pass through afire. In
3 is mentioned the heathen
reference to this, Theodoret bp. of Cyrus (d. 458), makes a note
on 2 Kings 16, 3 : el8ov yap ev TKJI irciKecriv ajra^
rov erou? ev
you? TrXare/cu? aTrro/jLevas Trvpas /cal ravras Tivas VTrepaXXojAevovs
Kal Tr^Stovra? ov JJLOVOV Tral&as a\\a KCLI avSpas, TO, Be 76 Ppetyij
eoo/cet, oe
irapa TWV fjLrjrepcov irapa^epof^eva Sea TT}? <Xoiyo?.
TOVTO aTToryooTTtao-yLto? elvcii KOI Kd0ap(7^. (In some towns I saw
pyres lighted once a year in the streets, and not only children
but men leaping over tlwm, and the infants passed through the
flame by their mothers. This was deemed a protective expiation) .*
He says once a year/ but does not specify the day, which would
have shewn us whether the custom was imported into Syria
from Rome. On April 21, the day of her founding, Eome kept
the palilia, an ancient feast of herdsmen, in honour of Pales, a
motherly divinity reminding us of Ceres and Vesta. 2 This date
does not coincide with the solstice, but it does with the time of
the Easter fire ; the ritual itself, the leaping over the flame, the
driving of cattle through the glowing embers, is quite the same
as at the Midsummer fire and needfire. A few lines from Ovid s
description
in the 4th book of the Fasti shall suffice :
727. certe ego transilui positas ter in ordine flammas.
781. moxque per ardentes stipulae crepitantis acervos
trajicias celeri strenua membra pede.
795. pars quoque, quum saxis pastores saxa feribant,
scintillam subito prosiluisse ferunt ;
prima quidem periit ; stipulis excepta secunda est,
hoc argumentum^&mwa palilis habet.
805. per flammas saluisse pecus } saluisse colonos ;
quod fifc natali nunc quoque, Koma, tuo (see Suppl.).
The shepherds had struck the fire out of stone, and caught it on
straw ; the leaping through it was to atone and cleanse, and to
secure their flock against all harm. That children were placed in
the fire by their mothers, we are not told here ; we know how
the infant Demophoon or Triptolemus was put in the fire by
1
Opp., ed. Sirmond, Paris, 1642. 1, 352.
2 The masc. Pales, which also occurs, may remind us of the Slav god of
shepherds, Euss. Volos, Boh. Weles.