Note 439 — ROMAN PEOPLE (continued 4)

See Marquardt, p. 276 and notes; Mommsen, Strafrecht, 900 foll. The subject has generally been treated from the legal point of view rather than the religious; but from the religious point of view it has generally been assumed that the sacrifice was to appease the god. So no doubt it was; but I venture also to conjecture that the victim was vicarius for the contamination of the community. On the subject generally Westermarck's two chapters on human sacrifice and blood-revenge (xix. and xx. in vol. i.) are extremely well worth reading.