AQUAELICIUM

AQUAELICIUM. - A public Roman sacred-magical ceremony, since the pontiffs and magistrates took part in it in expiatory dress, that is, without the toga praetexta and with the lictors proceeding with reversed fasces. It was a rite intended to bring about rain by virtue of the magical principle that like acts upon like (imitative magic), and consisted in lifting a stone lying outside the Porta Capena near the temple of Marte and dragging it in procession towards the Campidoglio, imploring rain from Giove under the title of Elicio, that is, giver of water, who had an altar on the nearby Aventino. The stone was followed by matrons barefoot and with their hair unbound (Petronio, Satyr., 44; Tertulliano, Apol., 40; Festo, s. V. Menaeum; Nonio, p. 547; Servio, Am., 301). The imitative phenomenon of rain may have been produced by the dull, almost thunder-like sound that the dragged stone must have made, or—although the sources are silent on this point, similar ceremonies among primitive peoples (the islanders of Fiji) justify the inference—by the fact that the stone was wetted or sprinkled with water. The evidently magical character of the rite is redeemed from the religious point of view by the fact that it was framed within a penitential procession and that the pontiffs, the official overseers of worship, took part in II.