TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

PRIESTS. 91
her back at last to her sanctuary, cap. 40. Segimund, the son of
Segestes, whom Tac. Ann. 1, 57 calls sacerdos, had been not a
German but a Roman priest (apud aram Ubiorum), and after tearing
up the alien chaplet (vittas ruperat), had fled to his home.
These few incidental notices of priests give us anything but a
complete view of their functions (see SuppL). On them doubtless
devolved also the performance of public prayers, the slaying of
victims, the consecration of the kings and of corpses, perhaps of
marriages too, the administering of oaths, and many other duties.
Of their attire, their insignia and gradations, we hear nothing at
all ;
once Tacitus cap. 43 speaks of a sacerdos muliebri ornatu, but
gives no details. No doubt the priests formed a separate, possibly
a hereditary order, though not so powerful and influential as in
Gaul. Probably, beside that sacerdos civitatis, there were higher
and low^er ones. Only one is cited by name, the Cattian, i.e.
Hessian, Libes in Strabo (Ai/Bys rwv Xdrrwv lepevsi), who with
other German prisoners was dragged to Rome in the pompa of
Germanicus. Of him Tacitus (so far as we still have him) is
silent. 1
Jornandes s statement is worthy of notice, that the Gothic
priests were termed pileati in distinction from the rest of the people,
the capillati, and that during sacrifice they had the head covered
with a hat ; conf. RA. 271 (see SuppL). 05inn is called SiShottr,
broadhat.
The succeeding period, down to the introduction of Christi
anity, scarcely yields any
information on the condition of the
priesthood in continental Germany ; their existence we infer from
that of temples and sacrifices. A fact of some importance has been
preserved by Beda, Hist. eccl. 2, 13 : a heathen priest of the Anglo-
Saxons was forbidden to carry arms or to ride a male horse : Non
enim licuerat, pontificem sacrorum vel arma ferre, vel praeterquam
in equa equitare. Can this have any connexion with the regulation
which, it is true, can be equally explained from the Bible, that
Christian clergymen, when riding about the country, should be
mounted on asses and colts, not horses (RA. 86-88) ? Festus also
remarks : Equo vehi flamini diali non licebat, ne, si longius digrederetur,
sacra neglegerentur (see SuppL). The transmission of
such customs, which have impressed themselves on the habits of
1 Libes might be Leip, Leb, O.N. Leifr, Goth. Laibs ? A var. lect. has A#W.