Note 382 — ROMAN PEOPLE (continued 4)

Virg. Aen. ix. 641, "macte nova virtute puer, sic itur ad astra," etc., and many other passages. The verb mactare acquired a general sense of sacrificial slaying, as did also immolare, though neither had originally any direct reference to slaughter. The best account I find of the word is in H. Nettleship's Contributions to Latin Lexicography, p. 520. He takes mactus as the participle of a lost verb maco or mago, to make great, increase, equivalent to augeo, which is also a word of semi-religious meaning, as Augustus knew. Nettleship quotes Cicero in Vatinium, 14, "puerorum extis deos manes mactare."