VIII Part of His Work Le Tibre, Fleuve De Rome Dans L'antiquite, 1953)
VIII THE GODDESS CERES AND HER ROMAN MYSTERIES France continues to enrich us with books, doctos, Jupiter, et laboriosos, on the history of Roman religion and dealing with individual gods and goddesses. We have had in succession A. Bruhl on Liber Pater (1953), J. le Gall on Tiberinus Pater (in the second part of his work Le Tibre, fleuve de Rome dans l'Antiquite, 1953), R. Schilling on Venus (1954), J. Gage on Roman Apollo (1955), and now H. le Bonniec has joined them with a book of nearly five hundred pages on the goddess Ceres.1 And it is no wonder that with such men as Jean Bayet and Georges Dumezilleading the way, to name only those to whom this particular author owes so much, many young French classicists should have been stirred to study the history of Roman religion. It is a phenomenon of which we outsiders gratefully reap the fruits. Now I had good reason indeed to read this book with special interest. Twelve years ago I investigated the real meaning of the expression Initia Cereris and devoted eighteen pages to what I thought was the answer. 2 Le Bonniec repeatedly refers to this short article,3 with the purpose it seems of refuting it, as it befits a disciple of Dumezil, of course because I had dared in this 'etude tres suggestive' (p. 28) to attribute the origin of the goddess Ceres to some numen of fertility. '11 n'est pas de these plus fausse', so we read at the conclusion of the first part,' 'que celle qui pretend rendre compte, a partir de numina specialises, de la genese des grandes divinites romaines.' Here I must point out, or rather repeat, that I have nowhere maintained that all the Roman gods 1 Henri Le Bonniec, Le Culte de Ceres a Rome (Etudes et Commentait'es XXVII), Paris, Klincksieck, 1958.
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