22. If, then, these things
are vain, and are not supported by any reason, the very
offering
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of
sacrifices also is idle. For how can that which follows have a
suitable cause, when that very first
statement
from which the
second flows is found to be utterly idle and vain, and established on
no solid basis? To mother Earth, they say, is sacrificed a
teeming
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and
pregnant sow; but to the virgin Minerva is slain a virgin calf, never
forced
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by the
goad to attempt any labour. But yet we think that neither should
a virgin have been sacrificed to a virgin, that the virginity might not
be violated in the brute, for which the goddess is especially esteemed;
nor
should
gravid and pregnant
victims have been
sacrificed
to the Earth from respect for its fruitfulness,
which
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we all
desire and wish to go on always in irrepressible fertility.
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For if
because the Tritonian
goddess
is a virgin it is therefore
fitting that virgin victims be sacrificed to her, and
if
because
the Earth is a mother she is in like manner to be entertained with
gravid swine, then also Apollo
should be honoured
by the
sacrifice of musicians because he is a musician; Æsculapius,
because he is a physician, by the sacrifice of physicians; and because
he is an artificer, Vulcan by the sacrifice of artificers; and because
Mercury is eloquent, sacrifice should be made to him with the eloquent
and most fluent. But if it is madness to say this, or, to speak
with moderation, nonsense, that shows much greater madness to slaughter
pregnant
swine
to the Earth because she is even more prolific;
pure and virgin
heifers
to Minerva because she is pure, of
unviolated virginity.
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So the
ms.
, Hild., and Oehler,
reading
d-atio
, approved of by Stewechius also. The
others read
r-
—“reasoning on behalf.”
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Inci-ens
, so corrected in the margin of Ursinus for
ms.
ing-
—“huge.” Cf. ch. 18, p. 524, n.
10.
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The
ms.
reads
excitata conatus
(according to
Hild.); corrected, as above, by the insertion of
ad
.
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Quam
, i.e., the earth.
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Singularly enough, for
fecunditate
Oberthür reads
virginitate
—“inextinguishable virginity,”
which is by no means universally desired in the earth. Orelli, as
usual, copies without remark the mistake of his predecessor.