Note 351 — ROMAN PEOPLE (continued 4)

R.F. p. 302 foll. Meals in connection with sacrifice are also found at the Parilia (R.F. p. 81, and Ovid, Fasti, iv. 743 foll.) and Terminalia (Ovid, Fasti, ii. 657); but in both cases Ovid seems to be describing rustic rites; nor is it certain that the meal was really sacramental. What does seem proved is that the old Latins and other Italians believed the deities of the house to be present at their meals—

and thus the idea was maintained that in some sense all meals had a sacred character, i.e. all in which the members of a familia (see above, p. 78), or of gens or curia, met together. Cp. R. Smith, op. cit. p. 261 foll. We may remember that the Penates were the spirits of the food itself, not merely of the place in which it was stored; it had therefore a sacred character, which is also shown by the sanctification of the firstfruits (R.F. pp. 151, 195). (The cenae collegiorum, dinners of collegia of priests, were in no sense sacrificial meals; see Marquardt, p. 231, note 7; Henzen, Acta Fratr. Arv. pp. 13, 39, 40.)