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CONCEPTION, BIRTH AND INFANCY
; IN ANCIENT ROME AND
MODERN ITALY

WALTON BROOKS McDANIEL

Emeritus Professor of Latin
University of Pennsylvania

“SUNNYREST,” COCONUT GROVE
FLORIDA

1948

BUSINESS PRESS, INC.
LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIA
Successor to
The Science Press Printing Co.

‘

PATRI ET MATRI

/

4

CONCEPTION, BIRTH AND INFANCY IN ANCIENT
ROME AND MODERN ITALY

There have been many scholars who have sought to learn all
that they could from ancient art and literature about the Roman
child. They have written articles and books that have dealt with
such matters as conception and the methods which some used to
prevent it, the pregnancy and parturition of the mother, and the
period of infancy. On these topics no classical specialist can hope
to add much that is new to what has been already published in
one language or another. But there is a somewhat novel angle
from which he can approach them. Very rarely, indeed, has any
researcher or literary writer paid the slightest attention to the
birth and early life of a modern Italian baby, Giulio or Giulia,
for the purpose of instituting the interesting and sometimes, I
believe, illuminating comparisons which can be made with the
life of Julius and Julia, their remote ancestors. It is this com-
parative method that I have used in all my study of the ancient
Romans, and now, as I am nearing, supposedly, the period of my
own second childhood, I can see a certain appropriateness in
turning my attention to matters that are concerned with the in-
fancy of man.

Perhaps few of my readers have had occasion to consider how
small a portion of Latin writing from the Republican and early
Imperial periods of Roman history has actually survived. If we
only had more of the letters that were interchanged, more of the
orations that were delivered, more of the ordinary personal poetry
that was composed, and, particularly, more of the public and
private inscriptions that were cut, scratched, and painted, we
might form rather different opinions of the people as a whole. It
is quite possible that Father Time, however grudging we class-
icists may consider him to have been, has actually allowed to
reach our age a generous representation of Rome’s best literature,
but we must remember that works that deserve praise from the
point of view of literary art may yet be far from dependable
sources to use too exclusively in judging an entire civilization. It
has been unfortunate for the Romans that so many of her most
widely read and most entertaining authors have belonged to a

5

6 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

rather small upper class in the community, and have used their
talent for social and ethical analysis and for satirical description
and censure with but slight regard for the fairness and breadth
of view that modern principles of historical criticism require. The
specialist may point out that the dissolute conditions in Roman
society which the poet Ovid has vividly depicted—himself a rec-
ognized master in the arts of seduction and, we suspect, an active
and successful practitioner in that field—do not hold true for
earlier ages, nor even for all ranks of society in his own day. A
scholar may furthermore emphasize the fact that Roman satirists
and moralists like Horace, Persius, Juvenal, Martial, and Seneca,
often say in a piquant fashion and with an exaggeration which
may be born of indignation but is too often largely a product of
rhetoric, things which we must weigh with a scrupulous care.
But the influence of the classical scholar and teacher cannot reach
very far in an age which can scarcely keep up with its own mod-
ernity. The findings of dispassionate investigators of Roman
family life have little effect upon those adepts in popular sen-
sationalism, whether novelists, painters, play-wrights, or pulpi-
teers, who have been responsible for the ideas which the ordinary
layman cherishes concerning Roman character and conduct. It
is spectacular and sometimes salacious movies founded upon
Quo Vadis, The Last Days of Pompeu and the like that provide
the mental pictures of our contemporaries, and the less knowledge
any informed spectator takes to them the less will be his irritation
at their falsities both in spirit and in fact. ;

It is only too apparent that in all that concerns the sexual and
family life of antiquity our purveyors of excitement have catered
to the popular love of intrigue, scandal, and lubricity. In what
I shall have to say about conception, pregnancy, birth, and baby-
hood among the Romans in correlation with information from
modern Italian life, which is often curiously parallel, I am at-
tempting to set forth thoughts and procedures of people living at
two widely separate periods in Italian history which I think may
interest the general reader as well as the student. If some of the
facts, especially some in the field of folkmedicine with which this
work will have much to do, seem incomprehensibly strange or even
sensational, they will owe nothing of their quality to the writer’s
fancy or diction. I write soberly and must often present a rather

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 7

depressing picture of humanity in even this century of Christian
culture. Unequal treatment of topics will, of course, be inevitable
because of disparities in the amount of data available for drawing
our comparisons.

While research reveals an astonishing amount of parallelism
between superstitious ideas and practices of the Romans and those
found among Italians of recent times, we must always bear in mind
that the latter are treasured for the most part by the less intelligent
and least educated members of any community. Moreover, it is
never safe to generalize from the instances that I have found and
to conclude that the same superstition is current in all parts of
the country, because it is reported from several widely separated
regions. We simply lack the data, and until there are many
more folklorists at work in Italy than there have yet been or are
at all likely to be, we cannot have even a near approach to a
comprehensive account. What chiefly interests us is to find any
survivals at all of thoroughly pagan and irrational beliefs and
practices after the lapse of so many centuries and in an age that
has enjoyed the advantages of scientific scholarship and of the
wide dissemination of its teaching. Let us begin with the baby’s
beginning, or to speak more accurately, with efforts to prevent his
coming into being at all.

Although, for one reason or another, information about con-
traceptives and abortives excited interest among the Romans, as
appears from the attention that Pliny the Elder gives them in his
Historia Naturalis as well as from a few references in other au-
thors, yet we cannot stress too strongly the fact that Romans
married primarily in order to produce children who should per-
petuate the family and perform the religious rites which were
thought to be essential for the happiness of both the living and the
dead, and who should fulfil civic and military duties in default
of which the nation could not endure. Laws penalized even with
exile those who committed abortion.? Of course, for reasons that
cannot be set forth here, there was plenty of licentious living at
Rome, and increasingly so as the Republican period drew to a
close, but during many centuries the family occupied a position
of respect, and its purity enjoyed a rating of importance that
Greek and much Oriental life of the time does not match. We
think of this when we note how in Roman Catholic Italy the

8 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

movement for birth control has won no such favor as it has in
many other countries. Some of the reasons behind Papal op-
position would appeal strongly to, let us say, Cato, the Censor,
or any other high-placed Roman of early days.

Mussolini was a genuine old Roman in emphasizing the im-
portance of large families to Church and State, as the Papacy and
Fascism respectively conceive that church and state ought to
be.? Furthermore, he was a patriot of a not wholly unreasoning
optimism when he cherished the thought that the fatherland
might yet, as a land of fathers, merely through a cunicular fe-
cundity conquer much of the world for Rome—a military victory
achieved through sound biological principles and practices, but
one which, if we judge from present prospects, is a long, long
way off!

In spite of this powerful opposition from both Church and
Fascism, interest in ways of restricting the size of the family has
been mounting in Italy, and information and misinformation about
contraceptives and abortives circulate in the folkmedicine of the
land. It is with these and not, of course, with any scientific
methods of regular medicine that we are going to deal, since they
are the ones which have ancient antecedents.*

Such Italian women as put their faith in popular precepts may
use as safeguards decoctions made from the leaves or other parts
of elder, willow, valerian, dittany, rue, swallowwort, maidenhair
fern, and sage. Savin, a juniper (Juniperus sabina) is employed
in local applications. Much of this lore has commanded belief
for thousands of years.> Thus, people have thought of ferns as
plants that have no seeds and so as obviously possessed of power
to make women sterile or to bring about an abortion. The fern
figures prominently, it is needless to say, in the botany of witch-
craft.7_ Other preventives and abortifacients in more or less vogue
among rustics are the testicles of a hare dried and reduced to
powder, the scrapings of a tobacco pipe, water which has remained
in casks of anchovies. The first of these sounds more like a
recipe to encourage fecundity, especially in view of the animal
chosen for the sacrifice, but the second cannot be very ancient,
although it is true that smoking other things than tobacco was
known to Roman soldiers, and some of the pipes that were used
resemble those that are familiar now.

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 9

The region of Perugia offers folklore on our subject which is
sufficiently absurd to match the superstitions of even the most
primitive age. In order to escape pregnancy a woman must avoid
the greeting or even the glance of a midwife and, during inter-
course, hold a container of mercury on her chest or wear a bit of
stag skin. Alternatives are to drink in wine scrapings from the
hoof of a mule or some steel filings.? The contribution of the
mule is explicable,®* the avoidance of a midwife is consonant with
magic doctrine, but just how the metals are going to do their
work I must leave to others to conjecture.

We wish that we possessed something comparable with modern
detailed statistics on births and deaths for any ancient city, but
we have but little information on which to build. Interest cen-
tered then on rare or sensational phenomena, such as prolonged
or abbreviated gestation,° Caesarotomy,!! the birth of mon-
strosities,*2 mutation of sex,!? and multiparity.1* The cure of
sterility and the use of aphrodisiacs and anaphrodisiacs much en-
gaged the attention of medical men and, we need hardly add, of
the immortal tribe of quacks and operators in magic. Why should
any woman continue to grieve over her childlessness, when con-
ception within three days was guaranteed her if she would eat in
her food the eye of a hyaena along with some licorice and anise?**
Another insurance was to take in drink, they said, certain little
worms to the number of five or seven.’ Pliny says that the
dung of hawks taken in honied wine seems to make women
fruitful.17 So, too, eating partridge eggs.1° Some agents that
were recommended belong in the field of magic and are conse-
quently utterly absurd.?®

The excitants to venery and their opposites, the anaphrodisi-
acs, in which the Romans were asked to put their trust when
they wished to arouse passion in a loved one or make it futile
in some rival, range from those which are primarily pharma-
ceutical to those that may be termed purely magical. The drugs
mentioned in literature would be, we know, in some cases power-
less, except for their effect upon the mind, in others, likely to pro-
duce the opposite effect, and in still others, so dangerous to use
that insanity or death, as ancient writers themselves recognize,
could be the result. Since, however, the Roman husband and
wife of our present account may be considered an ordinary healthy

10 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

couple, we shall ignore the topic of philtres and love charms in
this discussion.

The actual fecundity of married women in Italy in our time is
sure to impress a tourist if he happens to come from a land and
from a social class in which the family stock commonly produces
but a single flower. In Italy one may see so many children
gathered around still youngish parents that one wonders whether
they may not have arrived not as singlets but in veritable clusters.
To speak in the terminology of the old Romans, we seem to be
viewing not a mere familia but an entire gens. Pitifully often the
poor of the community appear to possess little else but a horde
of children. It is probable that in ancient Rome babies came to
the young mother in quick succession, and that in the ignorance
of hygiene which characterized the age, infant mortality reached
a high rate even in normal times when neither famine nor pesti-
lence was afflicting the city. Insanitary conditions fostered any
endemic disease, and malnutrition lowered the resistance of the
young. We can assume, I believe, that ignorance of a proper diet,
superstitious practices and medical quackery destined much of the
annual increase in Roman families to a premature end.

While the diffusion of scientific knowledge in Italy has reduced
in recent years the chance of finding the beliefs and practices of
Roman times surviving there in the fields of procreation, ob-
stetrics, and pediatrics, there are yet some legacies discoverable.
For example, a classicist will learn with interest that a test of
conception to which Catullus refers in a well-known passage of
one of his poems is still employed. On the morning after the
wedding the interested inquisitor encircles the woman’s neck with
a cord to see whether its measurement has increased since the day
before: a greater circumference is a sign that she has conceived.?°
It is curious that one of the ancient tests of virginity, the burning
of jet, gargates, also served to determine whether a slave on sale
was subject to epilepsy and so no bargain, and whether a person
who had fallen to the ground was in an epileptic fit or was merely
the victim of somebody’s magic spell. In the thirteenth cen-
tury the test to ascertain the condition of a woman was not the
fumigation, but a drink of water in which the jet was immersed.
It acted as an immediate diuretic, we are told, if she were a maiden.
We suspect, however, that she had to be a believer in the criterion

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 11

or, perhaps, to be thoroughly frightened by her submission to it
if she was to prove responsive.”*

There is a belief as old as Roman days that during a woman’s
period of gestation any special desires that she cherishes should,
if possible, be gratified.2?, Since, according to this persistent su-
perstition, the baby will bear a birthmark which pictures more or
less perfectly the object of his mother’s craving at whatever place
on his body the woman may be touching on her own as she does
her wishing, a foresighted Italian who senses that she has centered
her desire overmuch on something touches her buttocks, and this,
she imagines, will protect her child from having a disfigurement on
some more public part of its anatomy.?? However, the situation
at the worst is not hopeless: the marking of the newborn can be
cancelled, it is claimed, by washing it with a little blood from the
placenta upon which it depended as a fetus.2* The mother her-
self may have to suffer when she fails to get something that she
“honed for” during pregnancy. Thus, an unsatisfied craving for
- an eel may bring upon her a facial neuralgia, a tic douloureux.”°
It may seem to us a strange choice of food anyway where there
were so many other possibilities for her fancy to dwell on. But,
of course, it could be near Christmas Eve when the place of honor
on the festal board goes to the capitone. It would be like denying
a New Englander turkey at Thanksgiving time.

Roman parents who had set their hearts on having children
were naturally anxious that a conception should not be in vain.
They recognized many perils, many of them such as no gyne-
cologist would think of today. For instance, we are warned that
the stench of a lamp that has just been extinguished may be
enough to cause an abortion.2° This may seem amusing when
we recall how ignorant of sanitation and of chemical controls
ancient communities were, so that malodor would be ubiquitous
among the people and sudden affronts to the nose scarcely avoid-
able. We are told, furthermore, that miscarriage may occur, if
the woman merely sneezes after sexual congress, or yawns at the
time of her delivery,?” or even looks at a sea hare.?®

The Romans were acquainted with Greek medical works on
chaplets which told which flowers were injurious to the head.°
This was of interest to them, since wreaths and cut flowers were
used in abundance at their banquets in spite of their tendency to

12 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

wither disagreeably, dining-rooms could rarely boast of much
ventilation, and lamps burning olive oil and provided with no
chimneys would add odor as well as heat to apartments. Among
modern peoples it is the Italian that seems to be most sensitive
about having cut flowers in a room.®° Some Italians of the south
believe that the scent poisons the blood and causes fever.*t An
Italian woman who is about to bear a child is especially guarded
against the odor of fresh flowers and artificial floral perfumes.®?
They are likely, it is believed, to make her miscarry. Yet, cur-
iously enough, a pregnant woman may be observed walking about
in public with leaves of centaury, the matricaria, stuck in her
nostrils in the belief that they act as a calmative and prevent
spasms.

During the trying period of pregnancy it is natural enough
for the more ignorant among Italian women to resort to adepts
in quackery and superstitious practices who can still be found
readily enough in backward communities. On the advice of some
old crone, the local repository of traditional lore, they may act
quite as an ancestress of theirs would have done two thousand
years ago and employ for safety or for relief devices of a similar
occult character. Roman remedies and magic ways to safeguard
a pregnant woman against miscarriage are often mentioned, and
some of them must have stirred the risibility of the more intelligent
and better educated people of Rome as much as they do our own.
We wonder, for instance, how many wives would actually wear
suspended from their neck in a container made of antelope skin
some white flesh from the breast of a hyaena, the genitals of a
stag, and seven of its hairs,** or would apply an ointment con-
sisting of the ashes of burnt hedgehogs mixed with oil.* A
pregnant woman is especially cautioned against stepping over a
raven’s egg lest she miscarry by the mouth. To eat one causes
the same result. Even having eggs of this bird under the same
roof makes delivery difficult. Back of all this, is, of course, the
vulgar belief that ravens couple or lay by means of the beak.*®

One of the most remarkable safeguards proposed for the period
of pregnancy of which I know is the use of what the ancients
called an eagle-stone. According to beliefs of which Pliny the
Elder has preserved the record, certain eagles use in the con-
struction of their aeries this aétites or gangites.°° He speaks of it

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 13

as incombustible, and as of having value only when taken from
the nest of these birds. The stone has in it another one which
can be heard to rattle when shaken. An imaginative Roman
could think of it, therefore, as pregnant, as a sort of womb with
a fetus inside, and we read, indeed, of several other stones of a
similar nature which were said to have conceived and, in some
cases, to carry their contents for a specific period of time.*7 We
are probably concerned with a ferruginous geode “a globular mass
of clay iron-stone”’,*® and Pliny actually mentions®® a stone which
he calls geodes, as being useful as a remedy for the eyes, and for
the cure of diseases of the testicles and breasts, but just what this
was I do not dare to conjecture.

It is quite in accord with ancient ways of thought that the
aetites, like other stones of strange origin,*® should be valued as
a preventive of miscarriage.*t We are assured that there were
always two of them in the nest, a male and a female stone, and
that, if they are not there, the birds cannot reproduce, and that,
being two, the young they have are always two.*? Of four kinds
of eagle-stones which our author describes, one, the Taphusian, is
to be found in streams. If this be attached to a pregnant woman
or animal in a piece of skin which has been taken from an animal
that has been used in a sacrifice, and be kept in place to the time
of parturition, it prevents a miscarriage. If removed, however,
before that time, it causes falling of the womb; if not taken away
after parturition has begun, it prevents birth entirely.*? To this
very day in Italy “pregnant stones”, pietre gravide or pietre della
gravidenza,** found, it is still reported, in the nests of eagles, are
let by midwives for a fee to women during pregnancy.*® Fast-
ened to the left arm or hip, they are -expected to protect her
through the period of gestation,*® nor does this blessing end with
the delivery of the baby. The nursing mother should wear one
suspended from her neck if she expects to insure her infant a good
supply of milk.*7 It is perhaps only an indication of an abnormal
ecclesiastical leniency when such obviously pagan amulets appear
among the ex-votos exhibited in a church.*®

It was a usual belief in antiquity that the three chief times of
danger in the career of a man, so far as those which come from
sorcery and the spirit world are concerned, are birth, marriage,
and death. The natal hour seems to offer the maximum menace

14 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

of the three. We of today try to reduce infant mortality to a
minimum by applying the results of scientific study to safeguard
delivery and the crucial periods before and after. But the Ro-
mans resorted to much simpler and probably, in some cases, to
what were really less dangerous devices to protect the two persons
most involved. For example, it could do the woman who was
lying in no harm, at any rate, if somebody threw a stone over the
house in order to ease her suffering by an act of magic.*? Pre-
sumably this would scare away any evil spirit who was hovering
around. [If in the Italy of our own time a relative of a woman in
travail steps to the window in her chamber and with a fierce look
around at the possible witch or witchcraft in the air spits out three
times, he is observing due precautions of a similar nature and not
merely indulging a personal habit or relieving a supercharged
gland.®° In the region of Perugia there is current a rather simple
prescription against miscarriage. —The woman has merely to wear
from the first months of pregnancy in contact with her abdomen
the skin or a part of the skin of a calf taken alive from its mother’s
womb by a Caesarean operation.*?

Among ancient protective charms were certain small bones
which we are told were found in the heart and uterus of a hind.
This animal taught mankind their utility by swallowing them at
some time during her own gestation period.®? Pregnant women
were much indebted also to the wolf. Not only was its fat praised
as a fine emollient for the womb and its liver used in some way
or other as an anodyne for uterine pains, but, as the woman neared
delivery, she should eat some of its flesh as meat, and during
childbirth see that some person was near her who had done this:
it would nullify any noxious spells. On the other hand, it could
work the parturient woman great harm if that person should
chance to arrive on the scene just at the birth.®* Even in the
midst of her pains she might have to take a dose of dung, that
of a wild boar or a pig, powdered and sprinkled in her drink.*4
A mixture of sow’s milk and honied wine is said to facilitate par-
turition.°* So, too, goose dung and the uterine discharge of a
weasel.®*®

In antiquity there was a custom of giving a woman a key as a
symbol of easy parturition, in other words, an instrument for un-
locking and opening.®*® A key in my collection of antiquities from

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 15

(

Roman days makes part of a bronze finger-ring. The combination
may have been merely a convenient device to prevent loss, but
some would identify it as an amuletic charm.*” A key still serves
as an amulet of release for those who are blessed with faith in
occult action of a magical sort. It is reputed to relieve an epi-
leptic of his falling sickness, free a baby from convulsions, send
the blood to a limb that is numb and stiff, and assure a nursing
mother a good flow of milk for her child.°® Putting a female key
frequently in the hand of a baby is now said to make it able to
talk soon. It releases that flow of language which men who
wish to do the talking complain is natural to members of the fe-
male sex.°® J have known the ®BK key, dangling from a watch-
chain, to be mistaken even by an Italian professor for some sort
of American amulet, “Philosophy, the guide of life”, notwith-
standing; but precisely what a key could do for a full-grown male
who spoke soon enough, and could neither throw fits, nor bear
or nurse a baby is beyond conjecturing.

Under the pillow of an Italian pwerpera, it is quite possible to
find concealed, if one has chanced upon a properly superstitious
woman, not only a key, but also a piece of iron, a bone from the
dead, some salt, and various sacred objects which are thought to
protect her against witchcraft and to ease her delivery. It is also
a modern protection for her against the machinations of a witch
to put a piece of a priest’s stole, a broom, and the skin of a badger
behind the street door.®

Useful, also, at the time of confinement, if we may believe an-
cient lore, was a stick with which a frog had been struck out of
the mouth of a snake. This operation of delivering one reptile
from the other was expected to work by sympathetic magic upon
the delivery of a baby.*t The choice of animals does not seem
quite complimentary to either mother or child. Snakes play a role
in obstetrics for other occult reasons, as we shall presently see,
but just how the Roman applied that stick to a parturient woman
we are left to conjecture. However, I have learned that nowadays
a properly instructed Italian need merely touch the skin of the
woman’s belly with a walking-stick with which a viper has been
slain. Actually, this may well be merely a modern version of
the old practice. It is certainly a more agreeable way to ease a
parturition than fumigating the parts involved by burning bran,

16 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

horse manure or cowdung, as may also be recommended by Ital-
ians who claim to be wise in such matters.

Pliny informs us®? that when a woman’s delivery is to be ex-
pected soon, the husband can quicken it if he unties the girdle of
his tunic and, after putting it around his wife, frees her from it,
uttering the set formula “I have fastened it and I am going to
loose it”, and thereupon takes his departure. As a matter of fact,
other advice in Pliny upon magical effects that may result from
any sort of constriction would suggest that until his wife had been
delivered and was sound and well, the man of the house had better
stay around and safeguard her against careless visitors; for we
are told that when a woman is lying in, or a sick person is taking
medicine, nobody ought to sit near the bed with his fingers inter-
locked, or, worse still, with them in that position clasped over one
or both knees, nor, indeed, should anybody in a sick room cross
the knees at all.¢* Whoever participated in the rites of Juno
Lucina as the goddess of lying-in women must have nothing on
the person in the form of a knot.®

Nowadays there are Italian women who during pregnancy
would not dare to put a skein of wool or any knotted cord around
their neck lest the child be born with the umbilical cord around
its throat suffocating it, or, in any case, be fated to have a neck
that is permanently undersized.°* The presence of maidens is un-
desirable, since their organs have never had the dilation of child-
bearing.*7 On the other hand, there is a supposedly efficacious
method of facilitating delivery by fastening around the parturient
woman the cast-off skin of a snake, or by giving her a bit of it
in her soup: then the baby slips from the womb quickly like a
snake from a hole.®® This sort of obstetrical magic has a long
history behind it. According to the Roman superstition, the
circling slough had to be removed as soon as the child was born.°®
The skin was thought to work effectively also if some of it was
taken in wine with frankincense as the other ingredient. Ad-
ministered in any other way, it was said to cause a miscarriage.®

Latin literature informs us of other remedial agents that should
be available at parturition. To accelerate a woman’s delivery
the echeneis should be worn as an amulet,’° a vulture’s feather
should be put under her feet," or an ass’s hoof should be burned
beneath her, but only when a dead fetus is to be expelled.”

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 17

Other vile fumigations and repulsive potions recommended for
this purpose depended upon the use of such things as excrescences
from the legs of horses, their hoofs, and their dung.7?

An Italian amulet against uterine pain is the first tooth that
was shed by one of the mother’s own children.“* For the same
purpose a girdle that is made of sealskin may be worn.’> But in
neither case can I guess at any possible line of reasoning that can
go on about it in a user’s mind. Perhaps it comes to nothing more
than a willingness to try anything when in desperate pain. Mere
strangeness may be a recommendation for a remedy among ig-
norant, superstitious people.

Romans believed that a taper kindled in honor of Candelifera
kept away the evil spirits.*°° These seemed to have disliked the
light and the smell of lights. They were thought to be partic-
ularly pestiferous during a woman’s pregnancy and parturition.
In Italy there is still current a strong belief that a light must be
kept burning constantly to safeguard the baby against demons
until he has received the protection of baptism.” Once he is made
a Christian, he is relatively secure against the powers of darkness.
But there are also, I need hardly add, purely religious reasons
that prompt a pious Roman Catholic to keep an oil lamp or
candle which has been blessed attached somewhere to the woman’s
bed.7® Moreover, holy water must be at hand to use, if an
emergency should arise, for the baptism of the newborn child.
The rite may have to be performed by either doctor or nurse when
there is no priest living near enough to arrive in time in answer
to a summons.”®

When a Roman woman was in the pangs of childbirth, she
would regularly turn for support to one of the major divine
powers, Juno Lucina or Diana Lucina, goddesses who brought
babies safely into the light of day (dux), quite as in Rome, at this
writing, parturient women address themselves to the Madonna
in Santa Maria Maggiore. Some antiquarians have thought, in-
deed, that that great basilica occupies the site of a temple of
Juno Lucina. A table of food was set out for her, after the
woman whom she had been helping in the birth of her child had
had a successful issue.*°° Some deliveries must have given the
goddess a sharp appetite. Two other divinities, Pilumnus and
Picumnus, received a similar collation.2! Two thousand years

18 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

ago a famous sanctuary of Diana on the shore of Lake Nemi was
much frequented by prospective mothers. Ex-votos of terra cotta
which have been found on its site represent women, some of
them pregnant, others holding their newborn infants. They are
offerings of gratitude from votaries who bore their bouncing babies
safely and gave the goddess the memorial which they had prom-
ised. The nymph Egeria also received sacrifices from pregnant
women who wished her aid during their confinement.®? This
attests a feeling that even minor powers should not be ignored
when need for supernatural support could be so dire.

Italians believe that among the saints it is Anna, the mother of
the Virgin, who takes especial care of a woman at her crucial hour.**
The prospective mother may have the picture of this protectress
removed from the head of her bed and put near her where she can
see it readily at all times for her greater comfort. At her neck
she should wear a medal of the saint and perhaps also one of the
Madonna di Pompeii. Resting on her bosom she ought to have
prayers in printed form along with accounts of miracles which
Anna has performed, a source of confidence and courage, but also,
one may fancy, a suggestion to her helper of what she expects from
her at a crisis when the doctors may fail. Such narratives are to
be bought from the “story-singers”, cantastorie. There are also
wandering peddlers who sell these modern sacra, the giramondi,
who frequent places where people gather on the days of festas and
fairs.84 When persons enter the woman’s bedchamber, they are
expected to say to her: S. Anna benedetta vi aiuti, “May Saint
Anna, the blessed, assist you”, if they are to be truly welcome.*®
Words of good omen are important, and Italians have—so at least
I have always found—a special gift for doing and saying the in-
gratiating thing in all relations of life.

At the crisis of her suffering a woman of Modica resorts in prayer
to a specific Madonna, Madonna della Catena, my Lady of the
Chain, to loose her from pain.8° The idea that one may have her
own private Madonna, an, as it were, much particularized power,
is very general among Italians. The many epithets of the Holy
Virgin attest and further this attitude of the pious.

The very multiplicity of Roman divinities of all degrees of power
was conducive to anxiety as to whether, in any given case, the
right one was being chosen for one’s petitions and worship. Among

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 19

tutelary deities of married people, di: coniuwgales, and of infants,
infantum di, were the two brother powers already mentioned,
whom the Romans named Picumnus and Pilumnus. ‘The former
was the personification of the woodpecker (ficus), the latter of
the pestle (pulum). Their protection was needed against Sil-
vanus, who was a wild and mischievous spirit of the woodland.
We read of a special ceremony which was performed after a woman
had given birth to her child, in the invocation of Pilumnus and of
two other friendly spirits, Intercidona, the “Sunderer”, and De-
verra, the “Sweeper.”®? It required three men to attend to it at
the entrance of the house, that being generally recognized to be
always a place of danger. One struck the threshold with a pestle,
another with a hatchet, and the third swept it with a broom.
These three implements, tokens of civilized life, used in this per-
formance of avertive magic were thought to keep the spirit of the
savage wilds from coming in.**

But in Roman antiquity no fewer than twenty or more other
divine beings presided specifically over the first life of a child; for
it seems unreasonable to suppose that the names of those that are
mentioned in Latin literature, Rumina, Adeona, Abeona, etc., fig-
ured in the mind of a worshipper as merely epithets of this or that
major divinity and not as the appellatives of distinct, independent
powers.®® Of course, at first thought, from the usual scientific
point of view, we should condemn the entire score of spirits as so
many powerless nonentities, but actually the Roman’s confidence
in some of them and their like could be salutary as compared with
the trust that might be placed in some ignorant physician or mid-
wife; for the combination of the two mortals could easily be re-
sponsible for the death of both mother and child through their
active incompetency or quackery. Similarly today a saint can be
a very real presence in the thought of a trusting contadino. Even
one who discredits the whole system of intercessors must recognize
that, however illusory the sacred visitor may be, Santo This or
Santo That will never work any direct harm. It is usual for a
pious Roman Catholic to invoke a special saint, for example, San
Leonardo. By a popular twist to observe the proprieties, he may
be called Santa Leonarda.®° If his or her intercession fails to facili-
tate delivery, it is time to turn to other saints of either sex, par-
ticularly, in many communes, to S. Francesco di Paola. They —

20 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

may appeal also to the Madonna and even directly to God, al-
though direct addresses to the Supreme Deity are not, perhaps, so
usual in Roman Catholic circles as in Protestant.

Let us consider now some Italian practices which have nought
to do with religion and are more or less replicas of ancient practices
in their spirit and certainly, in some cases, in their futility. It is,
indeed, pathetic to see how prone many ignorant mothers are to
turn to those who are reputed to be adepts in the operations of
magic rather than to the ministrations of a physician in their time
of special need® for the best of medical care.

Collectors of folklore have noted some of the obstacles or rather
of the supposed obstacles to a favorable delivery which supersti-
tious Italians dread. For example, they deem it perilous to have in
the house of the woman who is lying in a member of her sex who
is of ill repute, in other words, wna donna in disgrazia di Dio,®? or
a female hunchback for fear of the power of the evil eye that is
credited to her, the ever-dreaded malocchio. No squint-eyed
woman should be allowed to enter the bedchamber, nor a woman
who has come with her distaff engaged in spinning, since the par-
turition will continue until the hemp or the wool has been spun,
and the spinster’s mere coming must be taken as a hostile act.%*
It is not safe, either, to have a midwife, mammana, who is wearing
mourning.°*

Always to be feared at this time are the evil influence of zetta-
tura, maleficent overlooking, and the workings of sorcery, stre-
gheria. Against these threatening perils Giuseppe Pitré, speaking
of his fellow Sicilians, lists a number of protectives, including the
use of saliva. This is an ever-dependable avertive, provided it be
spat under precisely the right conditions. No matter how many
amulets an Italian may wear, the product of his salivary glands
can always reinforce their power.°**

While they are trying to avert various mystic terrors, those who
are attending a woman at her parturition can do some pretty
dreadful things. A doctor of Perugia tells how the common people
thereabouts sometimes seek to hasten the pains of their friend’s
delivery by giving her a shock. Un forte spavento may be con-
trived by putting in the woman’s soup (minestra) a huge spider,
a lizard, a snake, a toad, or a mouse.®> Sometimes it suffices to
make her sneeze by sniffs of snuff.®°

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 21

Similia similibus curantur, “like cures like”, is sound doctrine
in magic, with a very broad application of the principle: one needs
no great amount of imagination to find some sort of connection
between a disease or other physical evil and an occult cure that
may be recommended. Sometimes a similarity between the rem-
edy used and the result to be obtained is not at once apparent to
an investigator, but among the cases which can be adduced from
modern as well as ancient therapy there are many in which at least
a superficial correspondence or some sort of mystic analogy is dis-
cernible. For example, the woman who is pale from the hemor-
rhages of parturition may expect to recover her color, provided she
wear something red, but she must avoid anything of a different
color, and especially a mixture of colors, lest she finally leave her
bed with a mottled face.°* In some instances, color is only one of
the factors in the service that the object performs. A red ribbon
round the body, la misura di San Sebastiano, i.e., the chest measure
of the saint, is declared a cure for fever, while the dark gray cord
of San Francesco di Paola, when fastened around the waist of a
woman in confinement, is thought to insure her a happy outcome
to her travail. In the latter case it is perhaps the saint alone
and not at all the color which should receive the credit for success:
I should not dare to guess at what is in any Italian peasant’s mind,
even when she is not bearing a child. It is only after eight days
have passed from the birth of her baby that a properly supersti-
tious Abruzzese woman will comb her hair, and, if she does not wish
to lose her hair, she will have under her feet, as she combs it, a
piece of iron, e.g., a spit or hatchet, which has been heated.°*®

But it is time for us now to imagine that the infant has been
born, that the mother is doing as well as could be expected, and
that her offspring cannot receive too much attention from us in the
opinion of either old Roman or modern Italian parents.

According to the ancient mythological story, Athena sprang to
life, full-grown, from the head of Zeus, and the thought may well
occur to an imaginative student that a large part of the populace
of Rome in ancient days must have had a similar birth of full ma-
turity, since Latin literature has so little to say of the life of chil-
dren, and the sculptors of Rome have so infrequently given us
their portraits. But we may be sure that Italian communities of
those days teemed with boys and girls, and the references to them

22 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

that we do possess declare their importance in the life of their
elders, and, in some cases, reveal an emotional tenderness which
one expects to find in a modern Italian, but perhaps not in the old
Roman with whom we associate the cruelties of war, the gladia-
torial games, and the wild beast fights. In some delightful lines
with which Vergil ends his fourth Eclogue he urges the baby who
has caused his mother ten long months of travail in bearing him
to begin to know her with a smile:*°° “Those who have never
smiled on their parents, no god honors with his table, no goddess
with her bed.” The Tuscan peasant calls the sudden fleeting smile
which a mere infant sometimes gives, benedetto, “blessed.” The
little innocent sees the angels whom we cannot see.1*!_ If a butter-
fly appears near the cradle, the Calabrian recognizes it as an angel,
or some baby’s soul.1°? Prosaic doctors may say that the smile
comes simply from baby’s sense of well-being, but Italian mothers
and discerning poets will always see in it something of heaven,
something divine. On the other hand, a habitual smiling in the
first forty days of life is interpreted by the superstitious to be a sign
of coming misfortune.?°° Indeed, if a baby is in poor condition and
will not be quiet, or, on the other hand, is prone to smile during
the first forty days, it may be suspected of being a changeling.*%
Either the Devil is responsible for this, or some witch. Parents
who are convinced that the child is not their own must work on any
suspected person with gifts, and place the changeling at a cross-
road in the hope that the witch, moved to pity, will return the
mother’s own child and take back the weird substitute.1™*

The ancients were too much interested in omens not to be im-
pressed with the fact that life begins with a cry, and some main-
tained that the much-talked-of smile of infancy—risus praecox ille,
as Pliny the Elder puts it—comes to no child until he has had
forty days of life.t°

The student of Roman art is tempted to interpret the fondness
of the Romans for the baby forms of the god Cupid and of cupids
in their sculpture and mural paintings as evidence of that same
special fondness for children which is illustrated by the popularity
of the Bambino conception of Christ in the iconography of Christi-
anity in Italy. For the inspiration of piety there seems to be in
that land more dependence upon representations of the Madonna
and her chubby Child than upon those grim pictures of an emaci-

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 23

ated and suffering Savior which are so abundant in northern art.
Foreign observers comment upon the devotion of Italian parents
to their offspring and upon the general happiness of domestic life.
Holding the baby is still a preferred pleasure in an Italian family,
and, among the poor, the older children are more likely to be quar-
relling for the possession of it, with the privilege of smothering it
with insanitary kisses, than for their turn at playing with a mere
inanimate thing, such as a toy or doll. Yet every Italian girl
knows that, if she only loves her doll enough, she can make it
alive. It is needless to add that in the higher walks of life spoiled
children can be obtrusively noticeable. They are the inevitable
product of such doting parentage.1°

When a child was born to a Roman family, it was customary for
father and mother to declare their joy by having the door of their
dwelling adorned with a wreath or with garlands of flowers. To
sentimental people of our time the custom might seem to be lovely
enough to adopt, were it not that a spray of flowers is already used
in connection with crepe to announce the arrival of that least wel-
come of visitors, Death. It is, indeed, a sad commentary upon the
poverty which prevails in parts of Sicily that the black of mourn-
ing has sometimes been displayed at the door of indigent parents
when they had to declare the addition to the family of a baby girl
—the unwanted girl.

Italy is such a conservative land that the motives given for a
certain custom may change in the course of the ages and the origi-
nal reason for it may be lost to knowledge, and yet the custom itself
live on. Those superstitious parents in various parts of the king-
dom, as, for example, in Amalfi, the Abruzzi, and Sicily, who have
kept up the practice of placing a newborn child on a cloth spread
on the earth or floor, generation after generation, probably do not
even know that they had predecessors long before the commence-
ment of our era who were doing the same thing.t°7 The Roman
belief seems to have been that through lying there the infant drew
strength from old Mother Earth as the parent of all living things.1°°
We hear of the divine spirit Levana as being present, if she had
been properly invoked, to preside over the lifting of the child from
the ground—her only service during the entire lifetime of an indi-
vidual—a momentary god, indeed!

Italians are to be found whose ways of thought are so primitive

24 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

that, soon after a child has been born, they will put it on the ground
or beneath the bed with the idea that this mystic act will safe-
guard it against having convulsions, or they will lay it upon snow
to preserve it from chest affections, or to make it permanently
fearless of cold,?°® or, if it be a boy, they may wrap him at once
in his father’s night shirt in order to insure that he live sano eé
robusto.11°

Upon the arrival of a son or daughter in the Roman family, the
nurse in charge laid it at the feet of its father. He might acknowl-
edge its paternity and his desire to rear it as his own by taking it
into his arms, or, because of what seemed to him to be a compelling
reason, he might let it lie on the ground where the nurse had put it.
This would signify that it was to be exposed in some public place
to die, or, if such were its fate, to be found and reared by somebody
else who had desired a child, or who was too tenderhearted to let
it perish, or who saw a chance, especially in the case of a girl, to
bring it up for gain through the fees of prostitution.

The mysteries of birth have always had a fascinating interest
for superstitious people. In Roman days the production of a
monstrosity in either the human race or in the animal world por-
tended something momentous for the whole community,’" such
creatures as a pig with a human face, or with two heads, a colt with
five legs, a baby without arms or feet or one two-headed. The
birth of what passed for a hermaphrodite might be of national im-
portance: it was an awiul threat.4? Such a baby had to be kept
out of all contact with the earth, enclosed alive in a chest, and cast
outside of Roman territory into the sea. Those who look upon
the birth of the Dionne quintuplets as a supreme good fortune, a
truly “blessed event”, should read what Capitolinus says in his
biography of Antoninus Pius: “The following misfortunes and
prodigies occurred during his reign. . . . The Tiber overflowed its
banks, a comet appeared, a child was born with two heads, and a
woman gave birth to quintuplets.” Even the birth of quadruplets
to a certain Fausta at Ostia in the reign of Emperor Augustus was
deemed to portend a famine which presently befell Rome.1**

During the Republican period of Roman history exposure of an
unwanted infant was quite unusual, but its immediate death by
drowning was probably in all periods the approved disposal of it
if the infant was born either a helpless monstrosity or a hopeless

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 25

imbecile. The practice in modern Italy, as elsewhere, of saving
such a miscreation because of its possession of an immortal soul
would have seemed to a humane Roman an unpardonable wrong
to all concerned.

The abandonment or murder of children has been a persistent
criminal problem with which every age has to deal wherever pov-
erty is rife or loose sexual relations are common. ‘Through all the
Christian centuries the Church of Rome has done what it could to
discourage desperate mothers from doing away with their offspring.
Recognizing that a degree of maternal instinct can survive the ruin
of hope and character, the authorities have offered this natural
feeling a chance for at least a partial satisfaction. Without reveal-
ing their own identity, mothers have been able to preserve the life
of an illegitimate child by going by night to the entrance of a
foundling hospital or asylum and placing it upon a revolving shelf
or in an arrangement resembling a cradle, the rwota. As this turns,
it carries the baby through an aperture out of sight to be received
by the nuns of the institution and properly cared for. This simple
device to protect life and good name I have seen at the portals of
the Ospedale di Santo Spirito in Rome, although it may now be no
longer in use.1?® ‘Through this invention for the preservation of
secrecy and anonymity children up to the age of seven have re-
ceived a convent mother in lieu of their natural one. At Naples,
however, the authorities in charge of an asylum had, at last, to
close an aperture of eight square inches, because there were se
many attempts made to squeeze through it children who had
grown too large. Though naked and well oiled, some of the vic-

tims were extracted crippled for life.*” As a matter of fact, what-
ever be the reason, infanticide has been, it would seem, exceedingly
rare among the modern Italians.1!*

It may not be generally known among classical students that the
opportunity for parents to rid themselves of an infant with a mini-
mum amount of inhumanity may have ancient precedent. In the
excerpts made by Paulus from the dictionary of Festus we read of
a so-called Columna Lactaria at Rome, where, if our interpretation
be correct, babies might be put to be taken and reared as found-
lings.11° )

Quite as some foresighted parents did in Greek and Roman days,
when an unwanted child was exposed to die or to be found, as

26 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

chance might decide, the Italian mother has sometimes left with
her baby or on it some object which would identify its parentage
if a turn of fortune or the prick of conscience eventually inspired
the wish for its recovery. Soin the home for foundlings, Casa dei
Trovatelli, of an Italian city, a token of identity, known only to
the person who gave up the infant and the managers of the institu-
tion, has, in some instances, led to its restoration. Commonly the
identifier is a ribbon of unusual color or a piece of money which has
been cut in half. The claimant has only to match the ribbon or
the half coin with what she has retained in order to secure her
child.12°. The practice of deserting children greatly exercised both
pagan and Christian moralists in antiquity, not only for more obvi-
ous reasons, but because of the future danger of committing an
unwilling incest: a girl grown to womanhood might marry her own
brother, a father fornicate in a brothel with his own child.1?2

The preference which the Romans showed for male children and
their greater willingness to rid themselves of a girl baby than a boy,
if the birth of any offspring was undesired, or if its prospects for a
healthy life were poor, is not without parallel in civilized form
among many Italians now. A child of the stronger sex bids fair
to be an asset, one of the weaker a liability. And so down in the
region of Venosia!?? (not to speak of other communities) the wish
of felicity takes the form of salute, denart e fight mascht, “Health,
wealth, and male children”—and Venosia is Venusia, the birthplace
of Horace, Rome’s poet of worldly wisdom, who, apparently, never
married. When a Sicilian bride enters her new house, her friends
may call to her cuntintizza e figgt masculi, which is to wish her
contentment and boy babies.??*_ In Sicily the salutation of good
omen for a sneeze may be Salute e un figho masche, “Health and
a male child.” Nobody, of course, would sneeze for a female.

In order to obtain their preference superstitious women may
wash themselves and fumigate themselves, using for bath or smoke
aromatic herbs that were gathered on the day of San Giovanni, the
day of magic, and they drink decoctions of Mercurialis annua, or
eat the kidneys of a hare.1?* Some even cherish the comforting
belief that the sex of their infant can be determined at any time
right up to the moment of its issue. The woman need merely hold
in her hand the pestle for salt to bear a boy, a brush or broom to
get a girl.12° Superstitious methods of prognosticating the result

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy ZY,

of their efforts abound.!2° In all of this they are true descendants
of Roman women who would drink decoctions of plants??? and eat
parts of such animals as hares and cocks??* as sex determinants,
and resort to senseless forms of divination?2® to learn what success
was in store. Since there was, we may suppose, nearly a 50-50
chance that the prognostic would turn out true, luck might give
any method a considerable reputation. According to ancient di-
viners, even to dream of a son was better than to dream of a
daughter. The vision of a girl implied the need of providing a
dowery, and she was, therefore, as it were, a sort of creditor.1*°
Nor is it without significance to a person of fancy that the naming-
day of a girl was the eighth day after birth, while a boy’s was on
the ninth. An extra twenty-four hours needed to settle on his
praenomen! In Italy of the present, the Christian present, the
baptism of a boy is likely to be esteemed the more important.1**
One of the tales of Greek mythology that delight our fancy by
the naive criminality which is set forth in them tells how Cronus
acted like a jack rabbit, eating his children as fast as they were
born. When his wife Rhea gave birth to Zeus, she defeated this
habitual cannibalism by handing him a stone, swathed in strips of
cloth, which he thereupon swallowed, quite unaware that he was
still the father of a living infant. Even if we wish to fancy that
Cronus, as the aged God of Time, had reached an extreme stage of
senile gullibility, it is hardly comprehensible how he could have
been deceived by such a substitution. But the myth does become
a little more reasonable as soon as one has seen with his own eyes
the likeness to an elongated medicinal capsule which a Greek or an
Italian infant often bears when it has been wound with a swad-
dling-band some five inches wide and several yards in length.
When baby’s one piece garment, fascia, is flying from a clothesline
on a Neapolitan roof, or is hanging in all its undulating length from
the rail of a balcony to dry in the sun, a foreigner who is a stranger
to Italian ways could readily mistake it for a pennant, a home-
made decoration for some festa. Still more do the bands resemble
pennants when they have received the maternal tribute of “Gioia
Mia”, “Delizia Mia”, or “Idolo Mio”, interwoven in the material,
words of endearment and good omen for which no mother who
reads aloud the words can need any translation from me. Two
thousand years ago the bands were sometimes dyed in color: an

28 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

imperial prince might be wrapped in purple.1?? Since the child’s
arms as well as its legs are often and were often confined by the
swaddling-band, the resulting bundle would look almost as much
like the stone of Cronus as like an infant.1** Even an Italian who
is in the helplessness of a first fatherhood should handle his infant
thus stiffly swathed without fear of breaking it, but he must be
sure which end is which, if he tries standing it upright in a corner,
as he may be tempted to do in the child’s squally moments. When
one who is familiar with the art of Italy sees one of these bundled
babies, he will think at once of some favorite bambino made of
glazed terra cotta which he has admired in the tympanum over a
church door in Tuscany, or perhaps in some art gallery where a
room serves as a créche, shall we say, for the lovely children of
the Della Robbias.1*4

The continuity of this method of clothing infants through hun-
dreds of years can be traced in Italian paintings, but nowadays
one must not look for exemplifications of it among babies who are
born with the proverbial silver spoon in their mouths. Tin-
spooned Mussolini may have been bundled in this fashion in his
humble birthplace at Varano di Costa, a hamlet overlooking Dovia
di Predappio, but we imagine that his own grandchildren received
a more ducal treatment and wore diapers.

Among the ancient writers Pliny the Elder contrasts man in his
helplessness with all other animals, noting that they are born to
complete freedom in the use of their body, while the human baby
has all its limbs swathed in swaddling-bands.13> ‘The creature that
is destined to rule all others lies bound fast, hand and foot, in weep-
ing impotence. Naturally observers who come from lands of
diapered infants have often commented upon this Italian method
of clothing them. Hawthorne conjectured that use of this binder
was responsible for an excess of dwarfs in the population of the
country, Charles Dickens that it produces cripples;1%7 but a far
more trustworthy commentator, W. W. Story, held that it is whole-
some and that it accounts for good backs and fine straight limbs.***

In Terracina, where winter can be sufficiently severe, I have
watched little children, who were all but nude, playing gleefully
in a large puddle of water, thinly skimmed with ice, which they
broke with their bare feet. The representations of slightly clad
children in ancient works of art suggest that young Romans were
blessed with much the same hardiness.

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 29

Just how long it was after birth that loving Roman parents
began to put on their baby ornaments as well as garments can
only be conjectured. I am tempted to believe that it may have
been rather early because I have had pass through my possession,
and have seen in collections of antiquities such tiny earrings and
fingerrings. Certainly today among the Italians personal dec-
oration begins early in life. In the third-class compartment of
a railroad train you are likely to see a mere infant nestled in its
mother’s arms wearing in the tiny lobes of its ears a pair of rather
heavy gold earrings. ‘The illusion that it must be already pretty
well grown up may be furthered by the sight of a piece of sausage
which it is sucking in place of its thumb.

In Roman Catholic Italy it is necessary to make a new arrival
in the world a Christian by baptizing it as soon as possible. Baby
can be clothed and bound to a pillow, and, with its near baldness
duly capped, be already on its way to the font within a few hours
after its arrival in this world of sin.1°9 Only after the priest has
finished the rite—so runs an Italian belief—should “the little
darling” receive its first kiss—until baptized he may figure merely
as un ebreo—and the promptness of his Christening is said to free
a soul from Purgatory.’*° During the inclemencies of the winter
season, in order to avoid the risk of having sudden death from
exposure consign the infant to Limbo instead of Paradise, it may
be carried to the baptistery in a coffin-like box. It is visible
through a pane of glass, while safeguarded against any current of
air, that dread of hypochondriacs whom one can never hope to
escape in train travel even in sunny Italy unless he rides third-
class. In cases where the trip to church is quite impossible, an
altar erected in the house of the parents may be used for the
performance of the rite.

At the baptismal font, if the teaching of the Roman Catholic
church be fully respected, the infant receives for its good fortune
the name of a saint as its Christian name.14t The vocabulary of
appellatives available has its limits. Consequently, if the patron
saint of the place where he is born is selected to be his protector,
and it happens to be, let us say, Giuseppe, an occasion can readily
arise in his maturer years when his mother’s call of “Bepe, Bepe”,
may assemble from various directions a considerable number of
unwanted boys from whom to single out her own.

30 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

The paucity of the Italian first names that are in common use
recalls the limited number of patrician praenomina which were
available to the pagan Romans. It also accounts for the im-
portance of the nicknames to the use of which the Italians are so
much addicted. It may, indeed, be the individual’s nomignolo,
contranome or sopranome, as it is used in place of Christian name
and surname together, that best identifies him. The designation
may have been attached to him during his childhood in good-
natured fun, or as a term of ridicule, or for some hostile reason.**2
Even villages may be known to many only by their nicknames.*#2
The criminals of any of the large Italian colonies in the cities of
the United States exemplify what extra work this habitual use
of nicknames may cause police and detectives. We must re-
member, too, that, according to primitive ways of thought which
persist, a person’s name is so closely and intimately related to him,
or, if we may so express it, is such an integral part of him that it
may be used in the operations of magic to do him harm.“ So,
for example, when a Roman was laying somebody under a spell,
he would drive a nail through his enemy’s name, written on a
tablet, or, perhaps, inscribed on a likeness made of him in wax,
and then hide this where his victim could not find it. If the
person cursed came into possession of it, he might loose the spell
by some counter charm. ‘Today even the foreigner is likely to
bear a nickname in the community where he settles. Some oddity
about him stands out enough for a local wit to note it and dub
him with a descriptive expression which people use behind his
back. Overhearing it may profit him as a corrective of any
pomposity or conceit, but, as a rule, Italians are too considerate
of hurting an American’s feelings to make this a common ex-
perience for one of us.

The nature of the third name of the ancient Roman, his
cognomen, which designated his family, as the second name in-
dicated his clan, suggests that it originated as a personal name and
only later was given to all members of the family; for we have
such names as Rufus, meaning the “red-headed man”, Naso, im-
plying that the person so named has a prominent nose, Barbatus,
the “bearded fellow”, all sounding like the nicknames that Ital-
ians would use today. Well-known is the name of the Roman
emperor Caligula, which stuck to him from the time that his

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 31

father’s legionaries gave it to him as a little boy because he used
to wear a child-size imitation of the heavy hob-nailed sandals of
the common soldier.*° The historian Tacitus tells us of a bru-
tal centurion whom the soldiers dubbed Cedo alteram, “Bring
another”, because when he had broken one vine-stick on a man’s
back, he would thus call for another, and then another.1*¢

Pride in the noble history of their country has led Italians to
adopt the names of many historical and legendary personages.
They are not always, however, accurately bestowed. Thus—so
I have been assured on excellent authority—at Pratica di Mare,
the village which occupies the supposed site of Lavinium, the
first settlement of the Trojans in Latium, mothers are prone to
name their boy baby Didone, believing it to be a masculine word,
and their girl baby Enea, which is, seemingly, a good feminine
form. Irreverent school-boys in our land might think the inter-
change appropriate as they recall the ready tearfulness of pius
Aeneas and the heroic end of Dido.*4?

Twenty centuries ago Italians were more leisurely about naming
a new member of the family. As we have already noted, daugh-
ters commonly waited until the eighth day, sons to the ninth. I
have been interested to find that in Venice an eight-day anonymity
has been—at any rate, at one period—the custom for newborn
children. We may note, finally, that the Romans made naming-
day an occasion for purification ceremonies, and there would be
a jolly family party at which the infant might receive presents.
All this is, in a slight way, an anticipation of modern baptismal
celebrations.

In view of the important role which suffixes play in modifying
the meanings of Italian words, the reader may be interested to
know that the old Romans had already converted ordinary names
into expressions of affection by giving them significant endings.
So Julia became Julietta as a name of endearment, and we also
find Gallitta and even Livilitta. Italians have therefore, ex-
cellent precedents when they ring into an infant’s ears such af-
fectionate diminutives as, bellillo, ninnillo, titillo, titiriniello, as
well as make more musical even his own baptismal name.*#®

The special nourishment of mother and baby may now engage
our attention. In these days when we hear so much about al-
lergies, it is interesting to find an Italian superstition that before

a Conception, Birth and Infancy in

a mother makes her first visit to church after her delivery, she
should have taken pains to eat a small amount’ of every sort of
food to prevent any of them from ever being harmful to her off-
spring and insure for it a robust health. Grapes alone are ex-
cluded from her diet, lest eating them should develop in them
both a tendency to get drunk.1*9

In pious homes of Italy an oil lamp of small size may be kept
near the lying-in woman as a sort of silent invocation to the Mother
of God to send her breasts a good supply of milk when the baby
comes. Nearby is also ?acqua panata, toast in water, of which she
takes a little every time she finds her misery too severe.°° Then,
even in a matter of magic, something sensible may be done, al-
though the motive for it be quite foolish. Buttermilk curds,
ricotta, would seem to be wholesome food for a woman during her
time of lactation, but it is to its milky whiteness that the super-
stitious attribute a peculiar potency in bringing a full supply to
her breasts.1°* In other words, sympathetic magic should be
playing its role here as in so many other operations which may
seem to an untutored observer to be quite innocent of any oc-
cultism. Eating lettuce (/attuga) brings the milk (Jatte), not
merely because of the etymological connection between the Italian
words for the vegetable and the fluid, but because of the milky sap
of the plant. If the mother’s nipples swell or indurate, the amu-
letic cure is a comb of ivory: for is it not as white as milk?*5*

If disease attacks her breasts, a superstitious woman of Valdelsa
may turn to her experts in magic for a cure. They anoint them
with preparations of herbs and rub them, while they utter the
proper words of benediction. Any witch or warlock whom she
consults must be recompensed with presents, not paid with mon-
ey.** In some places we learn that the dung of a mouse, taken
in drink, has a good reputation as an agent to bring back milk to
breasts that have gone dry,!® or, in order to achieve the same
result, a bit of the afterbirth may be boiled in her soup without
her knowing it. When the milk begins to come, it is well to take
the placenta to a stream and hide it under a stone, so that, while
no animal can find and eat it, the flowing of the water may insure
a free flow of the woman’s Jochia.°* In some places, the after-
birth is buried under a fig tree so as to make certain that she shall
have plenty of milk for her infant: an unripe fig is milky.*’ If

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 33

a mother suddenly goes dry, it may mean that a female animal
has found the placenta and secured abundant food for its own
young by merely devouring it.1°°

Should the magic of witchcraft and the remedies of folkmedicine
fail the nursing mother, divine assistance can be sought in the
local chapel of S. Benedetto.1°? She does well to suspend from her
neck a representation of that saint. In spite of his gender, he can
insure her baby a bountiful provision. If, however, the mother
does not feel quite sure of an effective intercession by the saint,
she may wear a small round white stone veined with red which
is perforated in the middle by a hole which was worn through by
the water of the stream in which it was found. These stones are
considered great treasures to be handed down from generation to
generation.!®° Sometimes it is a hippocampus or seahorse which
she has-somewhere on her person. The fish should be alive or
only recently dead. A bit of cloth, wrapped around it, protects
it and reduces the offensiveness of its odor.1*t Other lacteal charms
are the “Madonna’s herb” (Balsamita minor), and a cloth con-
taining soil from a sacred place.'®

The ancients set store by a milk-white stone which they call
galactitis, this being a derivative from the Greek word meaning
milk. Nursing women believed that it promoted the lacteal
secretion.1** They would also attach one to the neck of the baby
to better its flow of saliva. This ancient precedent would be
reason enough why Italian women of our time should be resorting
to the use of a white bead, or to an appendage of white coral.
They also depend upon milk-balls, cut out of ivory*® or out of
chalcedony,® or one of ‘its varieties, agate.1° Jasper is another
milk-stone.*®® If an amulet of white coral be worn suspended
from the neck of even the infant, it ought, they say, to stimulate
the mother’s provision of milk.1® Additional aid may also be
sought from Saint Agatha, because in her martyrdom she lost her
breasts, however strange this reasoning may seem.*”°

When, in spite of everything that the fancy of doting parents
and the suggestions of the ignorant can inspire them to try, an
Italian nursling begins to waste away, one may conclude that
a snake is sucking the mother’s breast at night after putting its
tail in the infant’s mouth to keep it from crying.1™

For the ailments of a mother which were connected with her

34 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

nursing, Latin literature offers a sufficiency of crazy remedies.
She might mitigate pains in her breasts by anointing them with
goose fat1”? or by merely drinking ass’s milk.17? The milk of that
animal might be dried and applied to them to increase the supply
of milk.1* Eating the eggs of partridges was said to produce the
same result.17°

The paraphernalia and the personnel of the Roman nursery
anticipated somewhat those of today, and some of the usages
there seem to have established precedents for the Italians to fol-
low ever since. Modern-looking cradles and sucking-bottles were
already in use. Lullabies and nursery tales soothed children to
sleep. In modern Italian there is a rich literature of these for use
by mother or nurse.'7°

Weaning brought Roman children some variety in their diet,
but we read of some practices in their feeding for which I have
noted no parallels in the Italian home of today. For instance, we
read of ancient nurses who gave a preliminary chewing to baby’s
food. The morbific possibilities of that friendly service need be
merely suggested to the apprehensive type of mother of our times
to cause a shudder of horror.177 Nurses were accused of swal-
lowing the food themselves, cheating their innocent charges by not
emitting. This was a trouble with which owners of aviaries who
raised thrushes for the market also had to contend when they de-
pended upon similar-professional chewers in the feeding of their
birds.178

However welcome the rapidly coming babies may be to pro-
lific families in the lower levels of Italian society, the mother (who
must be said to be at least somewhat responsible for the child’s
existence) often seems to be doing her involuntary best to hurry
it out of life by paying such little heed to the laws of health as
would hardly appear excusable even in the remote Villanovan
period of Italian history. So far as diet is concerned, I may say
that there is scarcely anything that outrages the normal practices
of a scientifically conducted nursery that I have not seen done.
Let me illustrate by a few examples from experiences of mine such
as “personally conducted” American tourists are not likely to
have.*”

The occupants of a third-class compartment of a train should
not be surprised to see the least attractive of his fellow passengers

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 35

nestled in his mother’s arms receiving from her a draught of sour
wine (as a rule, of course, diluted) instead of milk.1®° I have
observed a tiny creature, still unweaned, greedily sucking a sau-
sage with no premonition of approaching death. When tied a-
round the neck with a string, it serves as a non-disappearing, or,
at any rate, retrievable baby-comforter. A yearling is old enough
to be given raw chestnuts to eat and have coffee as a beverage in
preference to milk. But we must remember that among the
Italian poor (except as immigrants in the Americas) caffé is gen-
erally not real coffee, but, for the most part, a substitute, made,
e.g., from some sort of grain that has been roasted. If a young
child cries for his share of ham, he gets it, and too often he gets
it raw. A fare of onions may enable parents to find their be-
loved bantling more readily in the dark, but he receives it at a
much more youthful age than any treatises on the diet of children
would allow. Its sweet tooth, or rather those that are on the way,
may be gratified with a bit of sponge cake dipped in wine. Where
honey is added to the milk for the same purpose, it may be more
wholesome for the child than cane or beet sugar. The Romans
thought that honey and butter made an infant thrive: modern
Italians agree to this.181 Two millennia ago butter was valued
for the treatment of infant maladies, for example, as an ointment
for the aches of teething, and, in general, it was, like sugar, classed
among the medicines, not the foods.1*? 5

The attitude of doting indulgence which we observe in so many
Italian parents in dealing with their children is in notable con-
trast with the stern discipline that characterized the family rule
of early Republican Rome. Patria potestas gave the father in
those days complete and absolute control over his entire house-
hold.t8° Public opinion and the natural feeling of paternity
tempered his exercise of the power under normal circumstances.
But when today an observer notes precious Pepino as he accords
to his nurse’s orders at best only a long deferred obedience, and,
with a full confidence based on much success, follows the nursery
adage: “If at first you don’t succeed, cry, cry again”, he cannot
help recalling from Roman history the opposite attitude, that
paternal despotism of early times which is exemplified for us by
the case of Brutus, who tried his sons for a plot against their
native land and presided over their execution, or by the case of

36 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

Titus Manlius who, when his son disobeyed orders by leaving the
ranks to fight a victorious duel with a taunting foe, had him put
to death before his own eyes. But carino Pepino is not executed:
he is obeyed, fondled, and kissed.

Ancient conceptions of what was quite proper discipline for
children permitted nurses to terrify them into subjection by threat-
ening them with punitory visits of ghosts and ogres.1** In Italy
of today the goblins who “get” bad children, if they don’t “watch
out” are some of them of excellent classical lineage. Thus, it is
reasonable to believe that the bugbear Mammone is a direct de-
scendant of the Mormo who probably during many centuries
served the nurses of Greek and Roman children in their reigns of
terror.1®° Lamia was another one of the terrifying creatures of
antiquity with the coming of whom disobedient children could be
threatened.1®° She still lives in her character of a terrorist. Fur-
thermore, the much dreaded sorceress, the Impusa della morte,
of whom Charles Godfrey Leland speaks in his interesting but not
wholly reliable book on “Etruscan Roman Remains”, must be a
survival, in a way, of the Empusa that figures in classical litera-
ture.187 Orcus, the god of the Lower World, as well as one of the
names given to it, survives in the folklore of south Italy as an old
man who has a long white beard, teeth as sharp as nails, and hooked
fingernails.18® He appears in Sardinia as “Uncle Orcus”, Ziu
Orcu. When a child misbehaves, he is told that this monster will
carry him off, fatten and devour him. Orcu is ably assisted by the
ogre Zia Orca, his wife “Aunt Orca.” His name may be plural-
ized, so that Orcht is equivalent in Italian to “hobgoblins”, “buga-
boos.”’2®9

One of the functions of the so-called Saint Eliseo, who is to be
recognized, I suppose, as Elisha, would appear to be to destroy
bad boys, but he has not been very efficient at this task.1°° We
must not overlook the fact that even Befana, whom we recognize
ordinarily as the Italian gift-giver of Christmastide, is not always
a sort of female counterpart of our Santa Klaus, but can be sum-
moned as a bugaboo to scare children. Effigies of her as an old
witch, made of rags, are burned by the boys at the ceremonies of
Twelfth-night.1°t Other fanciful modern creations are Farfarelli,
Mamucca, and the Monacello. Occasionally they are called upon
to coerce the disobedient child. There is much traditional lore

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 50

about them current among the Italian people which I cannot deal
with here.1%

Fata, the Roman Fates, now appear as Fate, of which the sin-
gular in Italian is Fata. They are often thought of as beautiful
spirits in contrast with the aged crones who figured as the three
Fates in classic times. They can be generous and full of fun.
They will rejuvenate the old, beautify the ugly, and enrich the
poor, but their vengeance for any slight is much to be feared.*®°
The other conception of them as little wrinkled vecchiettine who
deal out to us good and bad does, however, still exist.1°* In
Abruzzese folklore we even hear of Szbilla as the chief of the Fate,
a seducer of young men and a bugbear whose name is used in
parental discipline of the very young: Zitto zitto che la Sibilla tu
porta via, “Hush, hush, or Sibilla will carry you off.” Pre-
sumably to be associated with the Italian Fate are the spirits that
are called Fatuzzt. In order to protect her baby against them
a mother of Trapani in Sicily will put around the left arm a circlet
of amber or glass. This carries as amulets a bunch of coral horns
with fastening of gold or silver, along with seashells, little keys
of silver, and other baubles which have been blessed in her church
in spite of their patently pagan background. It seems that God
punished the Fatuzzt for boasting equality with Him at the time
He came on earth.1°® San Michele Archangelo evicted them from
Paradise, and, in these days, they make midair their place of hab-
itation.1°%” Their attitude towards man is now kindly, now mal-
eficent. They are thought of as tiny gnome-like creatures who
lie with women. They seem indeed, to be as incontinent as a
Roman Fire Spirit (the Lar Familiaris?) might be, or as certain
Italian folletis.1°°

The utter helplessness of an infant and the constant exposure
of growing children to injury when they have little foresight of
their own to prevent it have led parents in every period of Italian
history to safeguard them not only by human watchfulness and
care, but also by the protection of spiritual powers to whom appeal
could be made in prayer and, when success had attended the peti-
tion, some return of gratitude could be made in the form of a
votive offering or religious sacrifice.

Everybody possessed of any cultural education is familiar with
the names and fields of interest of the major gods and goddesses

38 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

of Roman worship, but my reader may not know that, just as
the Roman Catholic of Italy has many specializing saints upon
whom to call in time of trouble, so the ancient Romans worshipped
many minor spirits each responsible in a particular field of activity.
From the time of birth on, the child came progressively under the
care of such powers: Cunina safeguarded him as he lay in his
cradle, Potina presided over his drinking, Edusa over his eating,
Statilinus assisted him to stand erect so that he would not become
bowlegged or knock-kneed, and, as Vaticanus had been by him at
his first cry, so Fabulinus superintended his first articulate
speech.1°® At that time the debate would start, we may suppose,
as to whether pater or mater received the earliest address.

We have given only a sample of the divine protectors who were
supposed to watch over the very young. If all were known to
scholars, they might prove to be as numerous as the special saints
of Roman Catholicism or as the fairies in which a Protestant may
believe in a moment of poetic ecstasy.

But the worship of pagan gods and the reverence of Catholic
saints are not nearly so interesting to some of us as are certain
ancient and modern dealings with the spirit world which adherents
of legitimate religion must ever disapprove. There is the great
kingdom of magic, in which the professional experts have been the
witches and warlocks who have gulled the simple-minded in every
age successfully. The boundary lines between it and the fields
of religion and medicine are not always easy to establish without
some irritation on the part of those whose life’s work lies in these
two departments of learning. Even in our study of man’s early
years we are bound to give some attention to the ars magica and
to some of the superstitions that are associated with it.

The Romans believed that children were exposed not only to
the ordinary perils of accidents, bad health, and disease, but to
various evils for which occult influences, operations of magic, and
visitors from the spirit world might be held responsible. Witches
might use the black art for nefarious purposes of their own, or
put it to the service of clients who were intent on accomplishing
something beyond the normal powers of man and, in many cases,
something actually criminal.

In all their activities witches and wizards have been able to
escape publicity by changing into animals or by using agents of

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 39

demoniac character. Imagination has also created as possible
dangers to infancy various beings who have more or less the
nature of spirits. Their human traits and their names vary with
the locality which cherishes lore about them. Let us review a
few of them. Some of them have a long lineage.

When a Sicilian woman is nearing the time for the birth of her
baby, certain knowing ignoramuses of her community may advise
her to eat nine black beans, one at a time. After her child has
arrived, the eldest woman present at her delivery should form a
cone of nine of them on a table, and by reciting the proper con-
juration render certain spirits, /e padrone di casa, impotent to do
her any harm.?°° But of greater interest to us, of course, are the
creations of fancy that have some background in the history of
ancient superstition. Some of these, like Mormo, Lamia, and
Orcus, and their modern representatives have already engaged
our attention in another connection, but there are others who are
equally dreadful.

The vampirical striges or strigae (the vulgar spelling), of whom
_ we find grim tales told in our Latin authors, were, doubtless, born
to primitive fancy from knowledge of screech-owls, blood-sucking
bats, and other vermin of the air.?°* In early times the pallor of
an ailing child was not interpreted in terms of needed vitamins
and minerals, but in terms of visits which such creatures of the
night would make to it in order to feed on young blood. Witches
took the guise of these flying things as well as of spirits in order to
facilitate their undertakings. Cuts and scratches on the child, self-
inflicted or not, would be credited to beaks and talons.?°? The
belief was strengthened by the sight of screech-owls flying about
tombs in the hours of darkness. The strident note of the bird
would suggest to a superstitious Roman that the ghosts of persons
who had died before their time were wailing over their unhappy
fate and bent on vengeance. A few authors give us most of our
Latin lore on the subject.

In a passage of his Fastz Ovid appears to have confused Cardea,
goddess of hinges, with Carna, whose function was to protect the
vitals of the human body.?? He tells us how Janus, after ravishing
a nymph, constituted her the deity of hinges and assigned to her
the task of safeguarding infants from the vampirical striges.
These rapacious creatures with goggle-eyes and curved beaks fly

40 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

by night and assail children if they are not sufficiently protected
by a nurse. Their strident voices give them the name of sérix.
This is the Latin word for screech-owl. ‘They seize an infant from
his cradle, suck his blood, and devour his vitals. Ovid leaves it
unsettled whether they are born birds or are not rather the result
of a metamorphosis of beldames into that form under the influence
of a spell imposed by some Marsian wizard.?* Although Pliny
the Elder is credulous enough about many matters, he stamps as
a fabulous invention the statement that striges milk teats into the
lips of infants.?°° However these things may be, the king of Alba
Longa, Proca, was attacked by such creatures, as the story runs,
when he was five days old, but the nymph Crane made him whole
by touching the door posts three times in succession with arbutus
leaves and marking the threshold with them thrice. She used
water with some drug in it to sprinkle the entrance, and at the
cost of a sacrifice of a two-months-old pig saved the baby’s life.
A sprig of white thorn, set in the chamber window, kept the birds
from ever violating the cradle again.?

The term strix was used, then, for old hags in the flesh who
practised the arts of sorcery and carried off the children. In other
words, a witch was believed to turn into a screech-owl when it
suited her purpose, as, in Italy of today, they change at pleasure
into cats.2°7

We are introduced to a fiendish and possibly cannibalistic sorcer-
ess in one of the tales of horror which Petronius likes to bring into
his novel here and there as spice to the narrative. A much beloved
boy has died. His mother is bewailing his death with several
mourners, when suddenly they hear the screeching of witches. At
this a giant Cappadocian slave, who is described as strong enough
to lift from the ground a mad bull, rushed boldly out of the house
to attack them with a sword. He ran one of them through the
middle. All heard the groan clearly enough, but they failed to
catch sight of the witches themselves. When the man returned,
he threw himself on the bed. His whole body was black and blue
from the touch of the hag’s evil hands, as if he had been scourged.
When the mother went to embrace the body of her son, she found
that she had only a little bundle of straw to put her arms around.
There was no heart in it, no insides, nothing human at all. The
witches had, it was only too clear, swooped down to take the boy

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 4]

and put a dummy in his place. The stout lad from Cappadocia
never got back his natural color, and, a few days later, he died
raving mad. Those who listened to this tale expressed alike their
wonder and their full belief. They kissed the table, and prayed
the hags of night to stay in their own haunts when the time came
for the party to go home from the dinner.?°°

The Italian word strega clearly goes back to the Latin. It
means not only a witch but also a vampirical monster possessed
of the various powers which evil spirits commonly enjoy.2 In
speaking of an anemic child a superstitious mother will say that
it is stregato, in other words, that a strega has been working her
bloodthirsty will upon it.2*° Fortunately there is always avail-
able a plant that is thought to be almost a panacea in folkmedi-
cine, rue, the “herb of grace.” This has great magic power.
Mothers have only to eat some of it on Ascension Day to keep
away all the bloodsucking streghe that molest Italian babies.?**
Incidentally we may remark that the mild cordial that is also
called strega got its name from being a product of Benevento,
which for ages has been the reputed gathering-place of witches.
But Italians may use the word also for the wise woman who tells
fortunes at a fair, or, at any time, in some public piazza, as I have
seen her do, holding spellbound a wondering crowd.

Colitis and rickets are among the ailments of children for which
ignorant Italians will hold witches and warlocks responsible. A
skin eruption can be blamed on the meanness of some witch, who,
finding baby’s diapers or swaddling-band left out to dry after
nightfall has urinated on them. The coming of Ave Maria should
bring indoors every stitch of his clothing.?”

About two parts of their anatomy other than their sexual or-
gans superstitious people have felt some special concern from the
most remote times, the hair of the head and the nails.2** This
seems to have been partly because their readily recognizable
growth suggests the existence of a special amount of life and vi-
tality in them, partly because when they have been trimmed,
the cuttings are thought to be so representative of their former
owner that one can work the injuries of witchcraft against him by
using them in magical operations.2‘* He must, therefore, dis-
pose of them in such a way that no enemy can get possession of
them.2° The teachings of superstition may furthermore require

42 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

that hair and nails be cut at precisely the right time and in pre-
cisely the right way. For example, the principles of sympa-
thetic magic indicate that they be shortened when the moon is
waxing, not waning, if healthy growth thereafter is to be ex-
pected. This ages-old belief is, of course, world-wide!?*° We
learn that a Roman mariner was strongly opposed to anybody’s
cutting his hair or nails on board his ship unless wind and wave
were in angry conflict with each other.?*7 The day chosen for
such self-improvement was a matter of importance to super-
stitious Romans 71° and is a matter of importance even now to
unnumbered Italians. Clipping the hair on a Friday makes it
grow gray prematurely or fills it with lice.?1° If, however, the
first Friday in March be selected, the person will suffer no headache
for an entire year.??? Similarly, while one should avoid cutting
the nails on Tuesday, Friday, or Sunday, in order not to stop their
growth,””? doing it every Monday, or, according to some, on the
first Monday of every month should save one from a toothache for
a twelve-month.”2?_ Fridays must, however, be avoided even for
a nail-cut.??8

Besides these rules that are to be observed by everybody, no
matter what his age may be, there are others which superstitious
Italians follow in the rearing of their helpless babies. So, for ex-
ample, Abruzzesi hold that one should not pare a child’s nails be-
fore it is six months old, lest it grow up to be a thief.??4 Other
Italians make the period of uninterrupted growth a whole year.?”°
Moreover, it is wiser to bite off the ends of baby’s nails than to clip
them with the scissors.??°

But it is time to turn our attention now to a specific superstition
which has seriously affected the lives of the people of Italy (not to
mention other lands) through some thousands of years, namely
the superstition of the Evil Eye. The belief in it can still be a
matter of daily concern. One finds it cherished not only by mem-
bers of the lower classes but by many persons of social and intellec-
tual standing, even as it was two millennia agoin Rome. Children
were thought to be likely victims because of their inability to fend
for themselves.

According to a usual doctrine that has prevailed through the
ages, persons possessed of an ability to fascinate or bewitch by a
glance of the eye may exercise this native gift either voluntarily,

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 43

or, in certain cases, in spite of themselves. Possession of the power
is commonly indicated by some peculiarity of the eye or by some-
thing unusual about the body, such as a deformity, or abnormal
stature.227, An emanation of magic potency proceeds from the
eye. This can be diverted, stopt, or nullified by various occult
means. Quite usual is the employment against it of an amulet of
some kind, a prophylactic gesture, or a countercharm of words.

Since feelings of jealousy are so often thought to be responsible
for the action of the Evil Eye, possession of a healthy, pretty baby
an cause an Italian mother as much solicitude as maternal pride.??*
She has ever to fear somebody’s lurking look of envy which may
eventually cause her darling to waste away and die. So it is that
quite spontaneous praise from anyone who is gazing at the child
terrorizes the superstitious parent. A considerate Italian who is
aware of all this will accompany his words of admiration, his Che
bel bimbo, com’é bello! or the like, with some such expression as
fuort jettatura or fuort malocchio, which orders the maleficence
away, or he may call down God’s blessing with a Dio la benedica
or Il Signore lo benedica; for God’s blessing is still believed to save
a little girl or boy from the worst of deviltry.”*? Merely to say
Grazia a Dio, “Thanks to God”, will suffice. If trust in God be
feeble; one can always make the sign of the horns without attract-
ing attention. This consists in sticking out towards the person or
thing that threatens danger the index and little finger of the closed
hand. This prophylactic gesture has been in use for at least sev-
eral thousand years. It symbolizes, as it were, the actual horns
of an animal, and these were deemed to be avertive as being instru-
ments of hostility, or, it may be, as constituting a semblance here
below of the crescent moon in the sky. This heavenly body in its
‘waxing and waning symbolizes the power of growth. As an object
of religion, it represents the Goddess Diana, and Diana, in her
other self as Hecate, was mistress of Hell and Queen of Witches.

If baby’s health begins to fail and its parents know who has
praised its beauty, they must find that person. Putting the child
in his or her arms, they compel the blunderer to annul the effects of
the bewitchment by a blessing or by spitting on it.?°° If the ad-
mirer is more inclined to superstition than to the use of the pious
phrase, he can himself make the protective sign of the horns at the
time he eulogizes and all will then be well. Moreover, the nurse

44 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

or the mother of the baby, as the case may be, has always at her
command a quick and drastic remedy. She need only spit in the
direction of the danger or directly on the child, and preferably
three times and as forcibly as possible.?*_ If a woman of question-
able character has kissed a newborn baby, somebody ought to save
it from any evil which this act of affection might cause, by spitting,
even were it only once, behind the kisser.?*?

The situation seems to have been much the same two thousand
years ago. There would be many occasions in the early life of man
when spitting would be the quickest form of counter magic to use.
As a gesture of contempt, hostility, and insult, it should put a stop
to any attack. So we learn that if a person gazed upon a sleeping
infant, or a stranger entered the room who might be dangerous in
some magic way, a right-minded and prudent nurse would spit
thrice in the direction of her charge.?*?

Even such a parental pleasure as keeping track of a child’s
growth by measuring and weighing is an indulgence fraught with
peril of an occult character which derives, in its ultimate analysis,
from the emotion of envy. Anybody who knows just how great
or how numerous a person’s blessings are is able, out of jealousy,
to lay a spell on him or work some other form of sorcery to end the
good fortune. To bewitch or injure someone magically with the
tongue’s speech was in Latin fascinare lingua. You could do
it, for example, as we learn from lovelorn Catullus, if you knew
just how many multitudinous kisses a woman bestowed upon her
lover.2*4 The superstition about exact numbering and other beliefs
akin to it continue to be current in Latin countries.?*> And so an
Italian father may have the good sense to realize that if he remains
ignorant of exactly how much his incomparable youngster is break-
ing records of growth for his age, he is less likely to indulge in
thoughtless boasting and so unwittingly to draw the attention of
a baleful eye of envy which can stunt the baby’s increase.?*°

In order to meet the threats of an evil eye and in general to
annul the maleficence of magic, boys and girls in Roman times
used to wear, suspended from the neck, the bulla, a sort of locket
or spherical pendant. This contained an amulet (most frequently
the figure of a membrum virile, such as Italian babies may still
wear), and might be inscribed with its owner’s names. Amulets
seem to have been deemed most effective when they were obscene,

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 45

grotesque, or terrifying: they compelled the attention of that
menacing glance.

Other charms besides the locket might be hung from the neck
or worn elsewhere on the person. Sometimes natural objects were
put to this prophylactic use. Among those that might protect a
baby were the notably large horns of the stag-beetle.?** The
amuletic use of insects is by no means an outmoded practice among
uneducated Sicilians even now.?8

In Roman antiquity nurses would put a bit of garlic, Alum
sativum, in the swaddling-clothes of their little charges. It was
considered to be an effective avertive for keeping out of the house
the vampirical creatures who molested children: the hawthorn that
was planted in the window might have let some of them slip by!
Merely eating three cloves of garlic every morning would keep evil
spirits from entering your body, but that regimen might be difh-
cult even for an Italian baby to follow.?°® There were also Ro-
mans who believed that the skin and tooth of a wolf would protect
the helpless young.24° One might imagine that this superstition
- went back to the days when a wandering wolf served as godmother
to Romulus and Remus. Then there were charms that were manu-
factured to represent various magically protective plants and ani-
mals. These were made with varying degrees of artistry out of
metal or other material. Gold in itself, no matter in what form
it might be employed to adorn the baby, would reduce, the Romans
thought, any harm which sorceries could work.?*?

In modern Italy and its adjacent islands there are superstitious
people who will not place their full dependence for baby’s well-
being upon the rites of baptism and the supervision of Christian
powers. While a representation of the Madonna with her own
Bambino looks down upon the sleeping child, and tiny bags con-
taining relics of the saints are tied to the bars of the crib,” and
the family keeps close by a small container of holy water which
was blessed on Palm Sunday, timorous, superstitious Italians are
prone to supplement all this religious or semi-religious provision
by amuletic objects and occult agencies which they believe will
work against disease, magic, or the spirits of evil that are ever be-
setting the young and helpless. We may, indeed, discover a quaint
admixture of what passes for Christianity and what, if truly named,
is nothing but heathen superstition. Thus, south Italians, if they

46 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

\

are true sons and daughters of trusting ancestors in the days of
paganism, will hang from baby’s neck, attached to a circlet, a tiny
bell, a bronze or gold medal of the Virgin Mary, or a scapulary, a
little packet of cloth or leather which contains the name or a tiny
likeness of the Madonna, their Madonnina.?** The packets are
called abitint, devozioni, etc. 744

The amulets that are not in sight on the child’s neck or attached
to his arm or wrist?*> may be hidden in his swaddling-band :24° such
things as the claw of some animal, amber, and witch stones.247
There, too, the mother may put a bit of bread and salt, and a piece
of the lwmen Christi, a wax candle, which got its special powers
during the religious functions of Holy Week.?4*

Some mothers put their trust in a tiny bag of magic herbs which
an expert in witchcraft bids them place under baby’s pillow.
Pennyroyal, rue, wild marjoram, wormwood, and Johnsroot may
be the choice,”4® but anywhere on his person such powerful aver-
tives as garlic, leeks, and the erva cacciadiavuli, the herb that
chases out the devils,?°° should do the business. The bed itself
must have its magic protection.?°?

Among the semi-magical and semi-religious safeguards which
Sicilians may use is the abbizze, or, as we might translate it, the
ABC, a tract which gets its name from the fact that it contains
portions of the alphabet. Scholars have pointed out that the use
of these, as also the use of letters of the alphabet traced by the
bishop with his pastoral staff in a bed of ashes at the consecration
of a cathedral, may be somewhat analogous to the employment of
letters on certain tablets which were consecrated to Rehtia, an
ancient goddess of the Veneti.?°?

In order to protect the infant from sorcery between its birth and
the saving day of baptism, that brief period of special peril, it is
advisable to put scissors behind the entrance door and two knives,
crossing each other, between the mattresses on which he sleeps.?°*
Some seek to ward off the influence of the Evil Eye by putting
behind the door mattocks, cattle horns, or horseshoes.?°*

However brief and sketchy, the account which we have just
given of ancient and modern beliefs in magic and other superstition
so far as they are pertinent to the life of a baby, may be of some
help as a background to what we now have to say about the doc-
toring of young children in the widely separated periods with which

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 47

we are concerned. It is hardly necessary to remark that we are
not going to be much engaged with the remedies and therapeutics
of scientific pediatricians. Our concern will be with Italian folk-
medicine of the traditional sort. Very commonly, this has ele-
ments of magic in it which commend it in families where the ways
of thought and much of the daily life are primitive. Among such
people any diagnosis of disease must constantly include the pos-
sibility that a witch or sorcerer has been at work. It is, indeed,
hard to say whether lovers or ailing children are believed to fare
worse at the hands of such beldames and impostors.

Italy is not the only enlightened country in this world of modern
science where there are people who, when doctoring a baby, put
more trust in some ignorant but shrewd old woman of their com-
munity than in any physician.2°> They have more faith in her
powers to nullify sorcery than in the prayers and exorcisms of the
parish priest. The local wise woman and practitioner in irregular
medicine, the medichessa, not only sells drugs of secret composition
and concocts fomentations of magic herbs, but uses mystic speech.
She can utter compelling incantations.?°* She is easier to confide
in than the state or commune doctor, who at any time may inter-
fere with his newfangled notions about sanitation and hygiene
which upset both human and animal life in the household. What
is more, they think that the maleficence of a witch or the influence
of an evil eye may be more responsible for baby’s marasmus than
any malnutrition or dietary deficiency that a doctor dwells on.®°"
It is witches also who keep the baby restless.2°° They are eager to
suck its untainted blood. Peasants who cherish such ideas as these
are not going to resort to the regular physicians who serve the well-
to-do and educated people of the town. They have access to lore
which may go back through generations of their ancestors, aye,
back even to their remote Roman forbears.

The time when a child cuts its first teeth has always been a
period of maternal anxiety and of domestic insomnia. ‘The an-
cients had various superstitions about it. When we read how mal-
ominous many Italians of our age consider it to be if a baby comes
into the world with teeth already cut,?°® we note with interest the
cases in antiquity when this premature equipment did not prevent
the “toothed” (dentatus) baby, or, at any rate, those who con-
tinued his name Dentatus from growing up to high distinction.

48 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

The careers of those outstanding citizens Manius Curius Dentatus
and Lucius Siccius Dentatus may serve as sufficient evidence.?®
On the other hand, the Romans thought that when a girl baby was
born possessed of a full array of teeth, it meant destruction to any
community to which she might be taken.?*

Those of my readers who are familiar with Florence and Verona
know that in the neighborhood of those two cities the best orris-
root has been grown for the manufacture of perfumery.?® In old
Roman days one might see the dried root of this plant suspended
from the neck of children for them to bite on during their teething.
Similarly today, a finger of orris-root provides baby with a favorite
dentaruolo.?** For the same purpose, however, he may have vari-
ous amuletic objects dangling from a necklace. ‘These should ease
the discomfort of his tender gums as well as keep him safe against
the Evil Eye and against any maleficence of witchcraft. In Ro-
man times the first teeth shed by a colt were particularly prized
for baby’s chewing:?* they were not merely a physical comforter
but had occult value. Other amuletic aids in dentition were grit-
like substances from the horns of snails,?*° vipers’ brains,?°* the
largest teeth of serpents,?°° a stone extracted from the head of a
boa,?*7 or its brains,?** a tiny stone or bone said to be found in the
head of a slug,?*® and the tooth of a wolf.?°° The latter had the
additional occult merit of keeping him, the Romans believed, free
from frights. A wolf had once done much for the Latin race by
suckling the twin foundlings Romulus and Remus: it might be
expected, therefore, according to the reasoning of an ancient nurse,
to continue service to the children of Rome even after their suck-
ling period. The dolphin was another creature that figured promi-
nently in ancient folklore, but I see no special reasons why the
ashes that resulted from burning its teeth, when mixed with honey,
should make a good fricative for baby’s gums. Touching them
with a tooth of this fish is also recommended.?”°

We may feel certain that the ancients would have found nothing
unreasonable about a current Italian belief that in order to insure
a child a fine array of teeth in a powerful jaw, it is well to suspend
from his neck any teeth from such strong-jawed animals as the
wild boar, wolf, fox, dog, and bear. Such are common amulets.?™
In order to speed up his teething, baby’s gums are rubbed with the
brains of a hare, possibly, as Zeno Zanetti suggests, because that

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 49

\

animal’s proverbial swiftness is thought to affect in some occult
way the coming through of the first teeth.?”?. Once a person be-
gins to think in terms of sympathetic magic, all things appear to
be possible. In any case, the Romans had already set the pre-
cedent for using them in dentition as also the brains of pigs and
sheep, and the milk of goats. Yet these are animals which, one
might fancy, were not likely to speed up anything.?”

As a fricative to ease dentition the Italians may now employ a
tooth of a wild boar, fox, dog, or bear, or an ancient tooth from
another child, or even a piece of amber, as well as also those vari-
ous amulets that baby could use “on his own” as suspended from
his neck.2* If one would bring in the second set of teeth “as
strong as a wall”, the first, as they come out, should be put away
carefully in a crack of some wall.?7°

The teachings neither of church nor of science can dissuade many
members of the lower classes in Italy from accrediting to certain
objects which to an imaginative person can suggest in some way
the organs of sex a special magic potency. Cowries, i.e., shells of
the Cyprea species, and cockles bear enough resemblance to the
female pudenda to give them a mystic value.?”* Faith in them as
amuletic charms was in evidence, we believe, as far back in the
history of man as the Iron Age.?”7 Sicilians will put together a
necklace of them for a teething baby.?** The shells appeared
among the baubles of necklaces in classical times, and figured, no
doubt, as a prophylactic against evils of a magic nature and at the
same time as a smooth, round object just suited to ease a baby’s
teething.

Next to dentition the invasion of parasitical worms is supposed
to upset otherwise healthy Italian babies as much as any other
ordinary ailment.2”° The use of certain remedies has been tradi-
tional during thousands of years. The vermifuges interest us most
when something magical or supernatural can be detected in their
use. Our earliest Latin reference to them seems to be in the De
Agricultura of Cato, the Censor, whose long life covered the years
from 234 to 149 B.C. Already in his time the pomegranate tree
provided anthelmintics. It still does in Italy.28? Wormwood also
has a long history behind it in that character.28t Authorities in
pharmacology note that derivatives from either pomegranate or
wormwood may prove to be rather drastic remedies. Garlic?®? and

50 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

onions are now a milder recourse when an Italian has to rid his
child of worms. The former when it has been pounded up with
mint and moistened with vinegar serves as an anthelmintic plaster.
The mere odor is said to drive the parasites from their feeding-
grounds, although these, according to rustic teaching, extend all
the way from mouth to anus.?°* A double protection for the Italian
child is to wear as amulets the vertebrae of a snake which ants have
bared of its flesh, and a necklace of the odoriferous vegetable.?**

One prescription which Pliny offers may be said to take pity on
little children: according to him, lupines will work as a vermifuge
if merely applied externally to the abdomen.” Rue was recog-
nized as a good one two millennia ago, as it still is.2°* In this case,
too, even the mere odor is said to dislodge the parasites.2*7 Some
Italians trust to it, even when it is simply put on the belly or on
the soles of the baby’s feet.?8® In the province of Basilicata, the
worms receive a quite absent treatment from the herb: it is merely
put under the pillow.?®° Such methods ought to win favor for any
pediatrician with his young patients, if they will only work. Al-
most as inoffensive is the application to the victim’s nose, temples,
and throat of certain unguents which aged experts in the use of
folkmedicine recommend.?°° We seem to be wholly in the province
of the occult when we read of a rustic remedy of Perugia which
requires anointing the navel of the suffering baby with hot oil in
which the dung of a pig has been dissolved.?**

Amuletic charms for use against the parasites are in favor with
some mothers. Here, as in dealing with the troubles of teething,
cowrie shells may be a Sicilian choice, along with a tiny imperforate
key of silver, in other words a male key.?°? ‘Then there are the
witch-stones to use not only against a baby’s worms but against the
threats of sorcery of any sort. These pretre stregomie may be fossil
corals which display in their structure the appearance of tiny stars
and so bear the specific name of pietre stellarie.2°? Calabrians,
women as well as children, will sometimes be found to be wearing
fossil shark’s teeth concealed in tiny bags beneath the shirt. Such
“tongues of stone”, lingue di pietra, or “tongues of S. Paul”, lingue
di S. Paolo,?** are, no doubt, the glossopetrae to which Pliny re-
fers.2°° Baby has one to bite on when he is teething. As an amu-
let it is expected to protect him against intestinal worms and also
against all injuries that can come from the Evil Eye.?°°

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 51

It is quite natural for a certain type of mother to associate some
Christian procedure with the various superstitions of a magical
sort. In order to rid her baby of its worms, she may put it across
her knees and murmur in its ears an incantation. Then she blesses
it with the sign of the cross and so makes doubly sure of their
exit.297 She thinks that merely marking her child’s belly with a
cross in ink should work the same result.2°® Who will decide
whether it is a medical or a magical remedy in the thought of a
woman of Perugia when she takes an ascarid that her baby has
spued from its mouth, mashes it up, and administers it in the child’s
pap or in some water which contains powdered egg-shells? Swal-
lowing this should make the child emit more of its worms—a sort
of homoeopathic process, she may suppose.?%°

There is a curious Italian superstition that one of the causes of
worms is the emotion of terror.°°° For this reason an Abruzzese
mother will not bring her swaddled infant in front of a mirror, lest
it take fright and so become infested with parasites.°°' Kissing
the child on the forehead is said to bring worms into its intes-
tines, but you can prevent it, we are told, by merely saying Crisce
cappomonde.***

We may next turn to some of the other troubles besides cutting
teeth and playing host to intestinal and stomachic parasites which
vex the opening years of life. Again we shall consider not what
the reputable Italian pediatrician would prescribe for them but
rather certain remedies that are to be found in use among unedu-
cated people. ‘Their superstitious ideas can often make them seem
like old Romans who have suddenly come to life again to deal with
the latest generation of their descendants. We may work down
(or up, whichever my reader may decide the process is ) from some
that are more purely medical to those that are partly or wholly of
an occult or magical nature.

In sufficiently backward communities a suckling who is suffering
from the disease called sprue or thrush may have the head of a
frog put in its mouth,?” and a child who regurgitates its milk has
the tail of a live tench inserted there.*°? Oral ulcerations may lead
an ignoramus of Umbertide to swab off the victim’s tongue and
clean his mouth with the end of a cat’s tail.2°* An easy cure for
such ailments is to have a shepherd, malodorous from his sheepskin
garments and the care of animals, merely kiss the baby, or spit in

52 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

its mouth.?°° Such a pastoral doctor would, no doubt, sometimes
get his fee “in kind” and not like it.

Sometimes we can relate a modern outrage to therapy or decency
with an ancient. The powder of calcined oyster shells mixed with
stale wine made a sort of salve that a Roman baby might have
smeared on a skin eruption or on running ulcers.2°° It may be
at least harmless to wash a child today in a decoction of rue to keep
off any evil from witchcraft, but what shall we say of the practice
of washing it in wine to make it robust?’ There are ignorant
women dwelling in the region of Perugia, and probably in other
places, who not only change their baby’s garments infrequently in
the belief that its combined excretions will insure its growing up
with a soft, white skin, but themselves use the child’s urine as a
cosmetic face-wash.°°°

Knowing, as I do, that a remedy which seems to be in vogue in
all parts of Italy for curing a child of his habit of wetting the bed
is to feed him a mouse without his knowing what he eats,?°® I am
not surprised to find that boiled mice were already recommended
for this incontinence nineteen centuries ago.*?° In fact, the ali-
mentary canal of Egyptian children, mummified ages earlier, has
revealed the remains of mice which were unquestionably taken as
medicine. Pliny recommends them for numerous ailments. Ad-
ministered roasted, they would stop a child from dribbling at the
mouth. ‘That we may well believe.

When a baby arrives in the world weak and near suffocation, the
mother of it may be advised in some parts of Italy to cut the throat
of a black hen and clap the animal, still palpitating, on the hind
parts of the child, col becco infisso nell? ano. If my reader knows
the Italian word for beak, he can shock his sense of delicacy by
translating the rest with no help from me. ‘The hen is supposed
to swell up, correcting the baby’s condition by drawing out the
causes of it.244. The very color of the bird, an essential specifica-
tion, suggests that we have here a bit of the black art in operation,
and not merely a new sort of poultice that is credited with an un-
usual drawing power. ‘The method used is merely a modern ex-
emplification of a common procedure in antiquity by which a dis-
ease is transmitted from an ailing person to some animal victim
which thereupon suffers a vicarious death. When, for example,
the Roman applied to the abdomen of someone who was afflicted

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 53

with pain in that region a live duck and a lap-dog of the Melitaean
species, or a puppy that was not yet old enough to see, a post-
mortem examination of the animal was expected to reveal in it
the very malady of which the beneficiary had been relieved.**? As
a matter of fact, that anal extraction of disease is actually used
today on Sicilian babies when they are suffering from the colic.*1*
But for this common ailment there is also available a remedy which
has none of the offensiveness of these animal transfers: simply have
a twin touch the belly of the little sufferer with his foot.*1*

Convulsions are another dreaded ailment, but why let an infant
have them? As soon as it is born, a tortoise should be killed and
a few drops of its blood should be given it to drink.*#® Such a
quiet animal ought to be potent. ‘There is a well-known quietus
for an epileptic fit, a small iron key, la chiave di San Valentino.
Suspended from a baby’s neck, it is thought to prevent and cure
this affliction. But in order to stop the paroxysms of a child the
key must be one that is made of brass or silver.*1® If, in spite of
its wearing a protective key, Papal coin, or the dried heart of a
cocksparrow suspended from its neck and a black silk handkerchief
tied around it, it does have fits, hot wax dropped on its neck and
finger nails from a candle which has had an ecclesiastical blessing
may be expected to work a cure.*1”7 The heart of a swallow which
has been dried is used as an amuletic protection against a recur-
rence of such troubles.***

In order to prevent an infant from suffocating itself during sleep,
one need only put on it somewhere an emerald. We must suppose,
however, that few Italian parents could possess such a costly means
of insurance.*!® Another charm that is favored for a baby is a
gathering of badger’s hair.*?? Like hair from a red dog, if it
is suspended from the neck, it should keep him from becoming pale,
weak, and emaciated.**!' The long-suffering toad has to provide
another charm. At the time of a new moon all four of its legs are
cut off while the reptile is still alive, so that, when suspended from
a child’s neck, they may cure it of scrofulous ulcerations.*??

It is Pliny the Elder who tells us that, if babies are restless, the
dung of goats should be attached to them in a piece of cloth. This
acts as a sedative more effectively on a girl than on a boy.®?* He
tells us, too, that we can make the little ones fearless by putting on
them the skin of a wolf, or of an ass, or a piece of it which has the

54 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

hair on.°2* We can prevent their alarms by attaching to them the
tooth of a wolf,3”° a dolphin, or a dogfish.*?® Such notions are not
unknown in Italy now. Italian babies still suffer terribly from
“night terror”, pavor nocturnus, and the less usual fits of fright
that may come by day, pavor diurnus. Zeno Zanetti reports out
of his profound knowledge of the folklore of Perugia that a child
may be safeguarded against terrifying nightmares by giving it
doses of the brains of a she-goat, if local teaching is followed, while
as an amulet it may still, as in antiquity, wear a piece of the skin
of an ass.°?7 In this connection we remember a prescription from
the magi both for the diseases which belong particularly to infancy
and for epilepsy. It requires one to give the youngster the brains
of a she-goat. But they must be passed through a gold ring and
dropped into the mouth before the child is given its milk.°?> Su-
perstitious Neapolitans maintain that a remedy for fear is the eat-
ing of scarab beetles.*?® But there are Bolognese mothers who
fortify the infant against fear by washing it with water in which
certain herbs have been boiled.*?° In the Abruzzi country you will
be told not to put any sort of necklace on a baby boy lest he grow
up timid.*°°

Exposure to the hot sun of Italy might give the Roman baby
siriasis, an inflammation of the brain.**_ In some Latin references,
perhaps, the word should be translated “sunstroke.” In any case,
its derivation reminds us that Sirius, the Dog-Star, must be held
responsible for a period in midsummer when Helios, the Sun-God,
is likely to do his worst. We cannot be much surprised, then, if
the heliotrope, Heliotropium europaeum (also called verrucaria,
a “wart plant” which should cure those excrescences), provides
leaves, which, when prepared in the form of an ointment, were
deemed a remedy for the disease. A turnsole ought to cure an
infant that had been turned too much towards the sun. It was
also supposed to be good for the child’s convulsions, even if they
were of epileptic origin. If this plant was not available as a rem-
edy, one had merely to find dog dung that contained bones and
then attach these to the baby as an amulet.**2. Also conducive to
a cure was a sponge wet with cold water, or a frog applied, belly-
side in, on the suffering head.**3

Babies were exposed to much other therapy that they might live
to regret. Their precious eyes might be smeared with the slimy

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 55

fluid from snails to straighten their lashes and make them grow.***
Instead of cough medicine, they might have to depend upon a
charm attached to their person, such as raven’s dung in a piece of
wool.?*> On their ears, when diseased, went goose-grease with the
juice of basil.?2° If food stuck in baby’s throat, letting certain
rough, hairy worms crawl on its neck might loosen the obstacle,
presumably through the child’s reaction of terror.*** A foolish
parent might decide that in order to safeguard an infant against.
epilepsy and various diseases that threaten the first years of life it
was worth while trying a prescription found in the Natural History
of Pliny: daily for forty days drop a liquid compound of the liver
of an ass with panax or all-heal into its mouth.**7_ If the child suf-
fered pain in the spleen, they treated it topically with a preparation
of honey and the milt of an ox. This was recommended also as an
application for running ulcers.**7__ If ulcers were forming in baby’s
mouth it was the milt of a calf boiled in wine that provided an oint-
ment for them.?*8 The way to stop the child’s diarrhoea was to
apply a hare’s rennet to the breasts of its nurse.**°

Even the healthiest children are exposed to various ills from
sources of which one is unlikely to think. Anybody who under-
stands the power of sympathetic magic will realize why it is that
some Italian mothers when washing their child’s diapers take pains
not to beat them too hard against the stones of the fountain lest it
cause the wearer the gripes.*4° Mothers are cautioned particularly
not to let their little ones nap in the shade of a walnut tree; for
such serve as the sabbath dormitory of the witches and they are
likely to anoint a child with magic stuff and so make it pale and
subject to rickets.*41 The great assembly of witches is on the
night of S. Simone in November. Their most celebrated meeting-
place was under a walnut tree at Benevento. According to some
reports, this was destroyed centuries ago, but they continue to use
the site for their rendezvous. There one may see them dancing
on the night of San Giovanni Battista.*4? I have not had that
good luck.

Even within the field of surgery magic had its role to play in
Roman times, and it still does among the modern people of Italy
in sporadic instances. Among the worthies of early history there
is no more respectable figure than Cato the Elder, nor can he be
classed among the unintelligent of his time.*4* Yet when anybody

56 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

was suffering from a dislocated bone such as children are so likely
to get, it was Cato who would have two men apply to it a split
green reed, while a powerful spell was recited over it. The words
of this sound less like Latin than like some formula which children
might use in a counting-out for a game: motas vaeta dares dar-
darese astataries dissunapiter. You almost expect to hear at the
end the decision “You are it.” After joining the ends of the split
reed around his thighs, one could expect the bone and joint to unite
properly.*** In our age an Italian who is possessed of the same
degree of faith as Cato passes a baby afflicted with a rupture above
a cleft made in the fork of an oak or anelm. He believes that the
eventual union of the severed wood, which has to be bound with
a sheathing of the tree’s own bark, will effect a similar healing of
the child. This was orthodox treatment as long ago as the days
of Marcellus Empiricus of Bordeaux.**®

A cure for what was probably hydrocele, and not a rupture (as
so often translated), which also depended upon an operation of
magic, was to let a green lizard bite the baby while it lay asleep,
then attach the reptile to a reed and hang it in the smoke of a fire
until it died. By that time the child was supposed to be perfectly
cured.*4® The masters of medical hocus pocus sought to make this
more impressive by certain details in an alternative. A male liz-
ard should be the choice. It must bite the part afflicted through
stuff of gold or silver, or of purple. Then, fastened in a cup that
had never been used, it should be given the smoking.**7_ If these
methods failed, one could try burning snails and applying the ashes
from them, mixed with frankincense and the juice of white grapes.
When this had been done for a period of thirty consecutive days,
the infant ought to be quite sound.***

But an Italian has at his command for the protection of his
children magic preventives not only of disease but even of acci-
dents, if what I read be true. What could be simpler, for instance,
than to keep a little boy from falls by having him suck the first
egg gathered from the hencoop in the morning? Another magic
protection is to wear a turquoise. If the child does, however, have
a bad fall on his head, some shelled beans put on his forehead is a
remedy widely known in folkmedicine for his pain as well as for
headaches in general.**°

In this little treatise on the birth and infancy of children in Italy

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 57

at two widely separated periods of that country’s history I have
correlated with our ancient data some of the information which I
have gathered during years of acquaintance with many parts of
the Italian peninsula and Sicily and from a lifetime of reading in
the voluminous literature which has been written in various lan-
guages about their inhabitants. I have written as a lover of the
Italian land and people, but I have written inevitably as a fallible
alien who realizes that even as a well-wisher who is determined to
be as free from bias as possible, he will need charitable judgment
from critics who have seen things with different eyes, heard things
with different ears, and interpreted what they have seen and heard
from a different point of view. So far as antiquity is concerned,
my account was bound to be at least somewhat uneven, because
that ever churlish fellow, Father Time, has allowed to survive in
Latin literature such disparate amounts of information about the
different topics which we have treated. No doubt I have offended
the spirits of the dead more often than the feelings of the living.
But of ghosts I have no dread, not even of that of “imperious
Caesar, dead and turned to clay.” In fairness, however, to Italy
my readers must also remember that my modern analogies and
apparent survivals have been found, as a rule, in the life of the less
favored classes of the community. Lack of education makes the
proletariat of any country cling to traditional beliefs and habits;
poverty compels them to follow primitive ways of life.*°° Among
people too poor to travel much beyond their own town or village,
campanilismo, “church-steeple-ism”, is an enduring characteristic
that makes them wary of anything that is foreign to the com-
munity where they live.

We have dealt rather fully with superstitious beliefs and prac-
tices which affected and are still affecting the well-being of mother
and child, because neither classical scholars nor writers on modern
Italian life seem to have had much knowledge of such matters.
Since no man can know the extent to which the prescriptions and
directions of doctor, quack, or witch were actually followed by the
ancients, our repetition of them may appear, at first thought, to
be of minor importance, no matter how entertaining they happen
to be. But when we find that so much of the nonsense survives
among those who may be called the descendants and intellectual
heirs of the old Romans, it must concern anybody who is interested

58 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

in studying human culture and the forms in which it has been
transmitted from age toage. Moreover, it is obvious that in such
a relatively poor country as Italy has long been and must now, we
fear, long continue to be, legitimate medicine fails to provide ade-
quately for the needs of an enormous number of people. Even
among the more prosperous citizens a doctor may lack such inti-
macy with a family under his charge as would acquaint him with
much that his patients may do when he is not around to outrage
science and even the dictates of common sense. My study of
folklore leads me to believe that medical practitioners everywhere
have this handicap to a greater degree than such busy men can
fully realize. While I have put in my notes only a few references
to English and American parallels, I commend them particularly
to any physician who may read this book. Familiarity with such
lore will convince him that there are superstitions which have
shown a tenacity of life that almost justifies our terming them im-
mortal, and which have a power to harm that makes them some-
thing more than negligible absurdities for his profession.

We may well believe that reproduction in human beings is still
physically quite what it was when Cain and Abel were begotten,
carried, and then delivered, the first of earth’s children, according
to our Biblical account, but what Adam and Eve did to their sons
during gestation and infancy has perhaps never been precisely
duplicated by any parents within these last two thousand years.
_ Nature no longer has her primeval way with the beginnings of man.
Man interferes in countless particulars. If, however, baby Caesar,
baby Vergil, or baby Pliny, not to mention any babies of the then
less favored sex, were introduced among a score of children of the
same age in an Italian nursery, I am sure that identification tags
would be necessary to differentiate them from the rest. It is
pleasant to think, too, that during their opening years of life they
would all play happily together, having none of the thoughts of
their stupid elders about race, color, creed, or social origin to dis-
turb their peace or prospects. Yes, it is what these elders would
think and do, sensible and nonsensical, that would so greatly affect
their start in life, whether they were to exist and die in the slums,
unknown to fame and fortune, or were to grow up a Caesar or
Vergil, a Mussolini or D’Annunzio. That “chance makes our par-
ents” can still be man’s worst mischance.

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 59
NOTES

1 Notable among many references is Ovid, Nuw, 23-24; cf. in Pliny N. H.
(hereafter abbreviated N.H. with the numbers) 21.116; 24.18; 25.25; 28.81;
29.85; 30.142; Gell. 12.1.8-9. It is clear that the gullibility of man had no
limits when he was trying to circumvent Nature. The subject deserves more
thorough investigation than it has yet received. See, however, A. G. Roper,
Ancient Eugenics, which this writer reviewed in The Classical Weekly, VIII
(1915), 202-207. We may cite also Palmer Findley, Priests of Lucina, The
Story of Obstetrics, 44, where he deals with Soranus.

2 Dig. 47.11.4; 48.8.8; for the death penalty cf. Cic. Pro Cluent. 11.32; Dig.
48.19.39; Paul. Sent. 5.23.14.

3 For the attitude of Mussolini see E. Ludwig, Talks with Mussolini, 168-171;
cf. C. M. Hamilton, Modern Italy, 88-89; 196-197; F. Fox, Italy of Today,
113; 219-222.

*Cf., eg., P. Sébillot, Le paganisme contemporain chez les peuples celto-latins,
15; M. Pasquarelli, “Medicina popolare basilicatese”, Archivio per lo studio
delle tradizioni popolari (hereafter Archivio), XVI (1897), 52. On prolongation
of nursing with intent to prevent pregnancy: P. H. Williams, South Italian
Folkways in Europe and America, 89.

5 See, e.g., Z. Zanetti, La medicina delle nostre donne, studio folklorico (here-
after abbrev. La medicina), 116; 118; 185; M. Pasquarelli, op. cit. (see note 4)
XVI, 52-53; G. Finamore, Tradizioni popolari abruzzesi, 60; 118-119; cf. for
Ruta graveolens, V.H. 20.143; for asplenium: 27.34; and for a use of savin: 24.
102.

6 Cf. G. Ferraro, “Botanica popolare di Carpeneto D’Acqui”, Archivio, IV
(1885), 176 with N.H. 27.78 and 80. Among some Italians asparagus has a
similar reputation: C. Coronedi-Berti, “Appunti di medicina popolare bolognese’’,
Rivista di letteratura popolare, 1 (1877), 4.

7E. Canziani, Abruzzese Folklore, 213.

8 Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 118; on objects introduced into the womb cf. Joc. cit.

9Z. Zanetti, op. cit., 105; 252. 92 Among the most dreaded portents of
some evil coming to the nation was the birth of young to a mula. Cfi., eg.,
Jul. Obs. Prod. 37; 55; 88; 130. Cicero commented interestingly on this
unnatural fecundity: De Div. 2.22.49.

10 The classicist will not overlook the highly interesting chapters in Gellius,
3.16, and Pliny the Elder, N.H. 7.3840. 11 See, eg., N.H. 7.47. 12 Cf.,
e.g., Liv. 27.37.5-6; 31.12.6-8; N.H. 7.30; 7.34-35; 11.262; Val. Max. 1.6; 6.5;
Jul. Obseq. Prod. 38; 46; 51; 66; 73; 84; 86; 94; 96; 100; 107; 108; 110; 113.
13 Cf. N.H. 7.36; Jul. Obseq. Prod. 31; 34; Gell. 9.4.14-15; Auson. Epigr. 76;
Phlegon Trall. De Mirabilibus, 4-9. 14 Cf. N.H. 7.33-34; Jul. Obseq. Prod. 73;
Gell. 10.2. 15 NH. 28.97. 16 N.H. 30.125. 17 N.H. 30.130. 18 N.H.
30.131. 19 N.H. 30.142.

20 Catullus 64.377-378; cf. C. T. Ramage, The Nooks and Byways of Italy.
Wanderings in Search of its Ancient Remains and Modern Superstitions, 208.
Comparable also here is the Italian test of either male or female virginity:
Notes and Queries, Ser. 3, XII (1867), 475-476. For ancient tests of virginity

60 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

see, e.g., Prop. 4.8.3-14; Ovid Fast. 4.323-325; Plin. N.H. 7.120; 28.12; Val. Max.
8.1.

21 N.H. 36.142 and note 63 in the Translation of Pliny by Bostock and Riley,
VI, 361; Apul. Apol. 45; 48. We are reminded of the Biblical trial by ordeal:
Numbers 5.11-31, the Roman test at Lanuvium (Prop. 4.8.3-14), not to mention
others.

22 R. Corso (Reviviscenze, studi di tradizioni popolart italiane, 25) cites the
case of Macrina, wife of the consul Torquatus. Cf. P. H. Williams, op. cit. (see
note 4), 87; S. La Sorsa, Costumi e ritt pugliesi, 3. The belief is so widespread
in our country that it figures among the fatuities noted by Morris Fishbein,
Shattering Health Superstitions, 72-79. On its inacceptability see, e.g., J. Morris
Slemons, The Prospective Mother?, 86; and, in general, on prenatal influences
Joseph Garland, The Youngest of the Family, 14; F. C. Irving, The Expectant
Mother's Handbook, 196-197.

23 Messina e dintorni, guida a cura del municipio (1902), 92; Z. Zanetti, La
medicina, 110; Nonne e bambini, saggio di credenze popolari umbre, (hereafter
abbrev. Nonne) 28-29; G. Finamore, op. cit. (see note 5), 59; 60; G. B. Corsi,
“Usi natalizi senesi”, Archivio, XIII (1894), 474; S. La Sorsa, Costwmi e riti
puglesi, 3; P. Ellero, Scrittt minori. Delle superstizioni volgari in Triuli, 21;
G. Pitré, Medicina Popolare Siciliana, 67. Italians call the marks woglie, ie.,
“wishes.”

24Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 138. According to a Pennsylvania superstition,
rubbing it with the hand of a corpse will make it disappear: E. M. Fogel, Beliefs
and Superstitions of the Pennsylvania Germans, 296, no. 1567.

25 Z. Zanetti, op. cit., 81; cf. 111; 117: cause of a miscarriage or death; 177:
brings a sty to the eye. 26 N.H. 7.43. For the stricter use of the terms
“abortion”, “miscarriage” and “premature labor” cf. J. Whitridge Williams,
Obstetrics®, 759. 27 N.H. 742; Gell. 3.16.24. 28 N.H. 32.8. 29 Cf. N.H.
PAI 30H. N. Maugham, The Book of Italian Travel, 46; W. J. A. Stamer,
Dolce Napoli, 8; C. De Brosses, Selection from the Letters of, Transl. of R. S.
Gower, 230; Mrs. Piozzi, Glimpses of Italian Society in the 18th Century, 208-
209; H. I. Tuckerman, Jsabel or Sicily, 51; W. W. Story, Roba di Roma, 212.
31 W. J. A. Stamer, Dolce Napoli, 8. 32 W. W. Story, op. cit., 501; cf. 505-506.
During pregnancy a woman may develop an appetite for strange or unwonted
food: cf. Albert Westland, The Wife and Mother, 13.

33 N.A. 28.98. 34 N.H. 30.124. The ashes from burning an ibis are another
suggestion: 30.142. 35 N.H. 10.32; 30.130.

36 N.H. 10.12; 30.130; 36.149-151; Lucan 6.676.

87 N.H. 37.154; 37.163; 37.180. It is noteworthy that a piece of wood which
has in it something that grew in it parasitically, e.g., mistletoe, is used today to
prevent miscarriage from occurring among goats, sheep, and cows. It is only
necessary to put it somewhere in their stable: Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 118.

38 G, Bellucci, // feticismo primitivo in Italia e le sue forme di adattamento, 92:
una concrezione argillo-ferruginosa; cf. 36: concrezione limonitica; see fig. 154, a
steatite.

39 N.A. 36.140. 40 Cf., e.g., N.H. 28.246: those found in the dung or in the
uterus of hinds, used as an amulet. 41 N.H. 30.130; 36.151. J. Mantegazza,

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 61
“Di alcuni documenti che illustrano la superstizione in Italia e che si conservano
nel museo psicologico di Firenze”, Arch. per P'antropol., XXVII (1897), 483, no.
15:

42 N.H. 36.149.

43 N.H. 36.151.

44 Tn another name for them, pietra aquilina, the adjective does not refer, as has
been thought (C. Pigorini-Beri, “Le superstizioni e i pregiudizi delle marche
appennine”, Archivio per l'antropologia e la etnologia, XX (1890), 50), to a
place where they are found, but it is to be connected with aquila, “eagle.”

45 P. Mantegazza, op. cit. (see note 41), 483; Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 252;
G. Bellucci, Catalogue descriptif dune collection damulettes italiennes envoyée
a Texposition universelle de Paris, 1889, 48, tav. VIII, no. 10; 11; “Amuleti
italiani antichi e contemporanei”, Annali della facolta di medicina e memore
della accademia medico-chirurgica di Perugia, XII (1900), 253, no. 13; E.
Canziani, “Abruzzese Folklore”, Folklore XXXIX (1928), 211. For their use
in England during many centuries: Notes and Queries, Ser. 6, III (1881), 327;
510.

46 Cf. E. Canziani, Abruzzese Folklore, 211; G. Pitré, Medicina popolare sicil-
tana, 451; Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 117; L. Marco, “Usi, costumi e credenze
popolari di Mottola”, Rivista delle tradizioni popolari italiane, I (1893-1894),
298. See further on the eagle-stone, C. J. S. Thompson, The Hand of Destiny,
The Folklore and Superstitions of Everyday Life, 249. S. Seligmann, Die
magischen Heil- und Schutzmittel aus der unbelebten Natur mit besonderer
Beriicksichtung der Mittel gegen den bésen Blick, 215-217; fig. 73?.

477. Zanetti, Nonne e bambini, 13: pietra aetite.

48G. Bellucci, J] feticismo (See op. cit. note 38) 93; 97.

49 N.H. 28.33.

50 §. Salomone-Marino, “Rimedj e formole contro la jettatura”, Archivio, I
(1882), 132.

51 Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 117; 252. 52 N.H. 28.246. Amuletic also are the
fish called echeneis or echenais: 9.79; 32.6; and a species of Libyan serpent, the
amphisbaena, used either dead or alive: 30.128. 53 N.H. 28.247. 54 NH.
28.249-250.

55 N.A. 30.124.

56 Paul. Exc. 56.7 (Edit. of Lindsay 49.1).

57F, T. Elworthy, The Evil Eye, 353.

58 Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 251; G. Pitré, Cartelli, pasquinate, canti, leggende,
ust del popolo siciliano, 293; I. Nieri, “Superstizioni e pregiudizi lucchesi’,
Atti della reale accademia lucchese di scienze, lettere ed arti, XXXV (1919),
374; M. Pasquarelli, op. cit. (See note 4), XVI, 51; L. Di Pasquale, “Metereo-
logia, medicina e superstizione popolare in Calabria”, Archivio XI (1892-1893),
249.

59Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 142.

60 G. Finamore, of. cit. (See note 5), 69.

61 N.H. 30.129.

62 Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 127. Upon the advisability of sexual congress at
this time: op. cit., 123, note 3.

62 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

63 N.H. 28.42. At a difficult childbirth the Italian husband may be called
upon to go to the church belfry and pull the bell rope with his teeth: cf., e.g.,
G. Finamore, op. cit. (See note 5), 66.

84 N.H. 28.59; cf. Ovid Met. 9.297-300. It may interest those who are curious
about such things to know that crossing the legs is forbidden at a spiritistic
seance: D. Rorie, Folklore, XLV (1933), 390-391.

65 Serv. Com. on Verg. Aen. 4.518.

66 Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 112; 121; I. Nieri, op. cit. (see note 58), 354;
A. De Nino, Usi e costwmi abruzzesi, II, 20-21. Z. Zanetti (op. cit., 109; 112-
113) mentions many taboos that a pregnant woman should observe. According
to Welsh superstition, the child would live to be hanged with a hempen rope:
C. J. S. Thompson, The Hand of Destiny, 21-22.

67 Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 121.

657 Zanetti, op: cit a 125:

als SONS). OO IN ak, BAS (ee oe 5A), 71 N.A. 30.130. 12 NH.
28.251. 73 N.A. 28.252-253.

747. Zanetti, La medicina, 257.

75 G. Pitré, op. cit. (see note 46), 449.

76 Cf. Tert. Ad Nat. 2.11; Athen. 10.58 (442A).

77 A. Karusio, “Pregiudizi popolari putignanesi (Bari)”, Archivio per lantro-
pologia e la etnologia, XVII (1887), 320.

78 G. Bacci, “Usi e costumi dei contadini della Valdelsa”, Archivio XIV (1895),
219; A. De Nino, op. cit. (see note 66), V, 107; S. La Sorsa, “Superstizioni,
pregiudizi e credenze popolari pugliesi’, Lares IV (1915), 59: before the image
of S. Anna; also an oil lamp before that of the Madonna dei Sette Dolori: Z.
Zanetti, La medicina, 122.

79G. Bacci, loc. cit. (see note 78).

80 Tert. De Anim. 39. Minor deities to help were the Carmentes Postverta
and Prorsa who were concerned with the birth of the baby in the proper position,
the former with the head forward, an easy issue, the latter feet first, a difficult
one: Gell. 16.16.

81 Serv. Com. on Verg. Aen. 10.76; Non. 528.

82 Paul. Exc. 77 (Edit. of Lindsay 67.25).

83 A. De Nino, of. cit. (see note 66), V, 107; G. Finamore, op. cit. (see note 5),
63; S. La Sorsa, op. cit. (see note 78). They say that, if she is piqued, she may
prolong the pains, quite as the ancients believed that their deities would do:
Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 11.

84G. Bacci, loc. cit. (see note 78).

85 Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 121.

86G. Pitré, Usi natalizi, nuziali e funebri del popolo siciliano, II, 136-137.

87 See esp. August. De Civ. Dei, 6.9; cf. Non. 528.11. |

88 T believe that this is rightly so explained by F. Granger, The Worship of the
Romans, 102-104.

89 The most interesting passages are, perhaps, August. De Civ. Dei, 4.11; 4.21.

99 G. Pitré, op. cit. (see note 58), 282.

°1Cf., e.g., G. Bacci, op. cit. (see note 78), XIV, 95. For many minute pre-
cautions to be taken see M. Placucci, “Usi e pregiudizi dei contadini della

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 63

Romagna”, Archivio, III (1884), 321-333. On the old crones and “wise women”
who may be assembled at the parturition see Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 120, note 1.
92C. Simiani, “Usi, leggende e pregiudizi popolari trapanesi”, Archivio, X
(1891), 488-489; G. Pitré, op. cit. (see note 86), 18; op. cit. (see note 58), 281.

93 Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 121; cf. G. Finamore, op. cit. (see note 5), 22.

94 PH. Williams, op. cit. (see note 4), 88, 94a. Fora fuller account cf. Walton
Brooks McDaniel, “Some Roman Remedies in Italian Folkmedicine”, Trans. and
Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Ser. 4, vol. XII (1944), 74-76.

95 Z. Zanetti, op. cit., 125.

96 Z. Zanetti, op. cit., 127.

97 Z, Zanetti, op. cit., 134.

98 We may give a few illustrations of this line of thought out of many available.
The red misura of S. Restituta is used for an attack of measles: G. Pitré, op. cit.
(see note 58), 291. We are told that a red bed-covering or the red mantle of a
friar of S. Giuseppe may also help. If a woman in a fever keeps under the bed
clothes close to her a red handkerchief during an entire day, it should rid her of it:
Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 69. There is also a misura for arthritis: G. Pitré, op. cit.
(see note 46), 269.

99 EF. Canziani, op. cit. (see note 45), 214.

100 J accept Politian’s emendation qui in Verg. Ecl. 4.62 and in Quint. 9.3.8.

101]. Nieri, op. cit. (see note 58), 356-357. See on this Fanny D. Bergen,
Current Superstitions Collected from the Oral Tradition of English-Speaking Folk,
24, no. 42; E. M. Fogel, op. cit. (see note 24), 49, No. 124.

102 Cf. A. F. Chamberlain, The Child and Childhood in Folkthought, 156. On
the notion that a moth or a butterfly is a soul cf. Notes and Queries, Ser. 1, II
(1850), 220; Ser. 5, VII (1877), 284.

103 Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 140-141.

104 Z, Zanetti, op. cit. 140-141; 161. Ina case of rickets, the only thing to do
with the donne di fuora who have substituted a changeling is to placate them.
G. Pitré, op. cit. (see note 46), 270-271.

105 Cf., e.g. Lucret. 5.222-227; Plin. N.H. 7.2-3; 11.269. We are told that
Vergil did not cry at his birth: Verg. Vita Donatiana (Edit. of Brummer) 2,
line 13. According to Pliny, babies begin to speak when they are a year old.
It was a portent if one spoke at the age of six months. Those who talk early,
walk late: N.H. 11.270. Modern babies are not supposed to smile until the
second month, but doting parents may insist that they detect a visws much
earlier: cf., e.g., G. Sellew, Pediatric Nursing, 22. See, also, the Scientific
Monthly, R. W. Gerard, “The Biological Basis of Imagination”, June, 1946, 487.
At nine months they reach the “dada” and “mama” stage of speech: cf., e.g., J.
Garland, The Youngest of the Family, 26.

106 Even American travelers note the lack of discipline, and, of course, the
Germans censure it: cf., e.g., W. Frey, Jtalia sempiterna, II, 24. On the other
hand, Italians themselves note that among the Sicilians the authority of the
paterfamilias is strong: Encic. ital., s.v. “Sicilia”, 697. P. D. Fischer (/talien und
die Italiener?, 348) quotes the words of Torquato Tasso: alla virtt latina, o nulla
manca o sol la disciplina. The ancients give us a picture of punishment at home
and at school that contrasts strongly with anything to be seen now in an upper-
class family: cf. O. Kiefer, Sexual Life in Ancient Rome, 68-74.

64 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

107 G, Pitré, op. cit. (see note 86), II, 145: if the baby is not put at once on
the floor, it will die in the hospital; G. Finamore, op. cit. (see note 5), 67-68: on
piano del focolare; 8. A. Guastella, Canti popolari del circondario di Modica,
CXIV; cf. A. Dieterich, Mutter Erde?, 7; 10-11; Non. 528.

108 We may conjecture this on the basis of Macrob. 1.12.20. H. J. Rose
(Primitive Culture, 133) has a different theory: “Laid on ground to provide it
with a soul that comes from Mother Earth.”

109 Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 136; Nonne e Bambini, 9.

110 C. Guerrieri, “Credenze, superstizioni e usi popolari in Rimini e suoi
dintorni”, Rivista delle tradizioni popolari italiane, I (1893-1894), 315.

111 Cf., e.g., Jul. Obs. Prod. 37; 48: 41: 44; 46; 47; 83: 51: 66; 88; 111 for
these, and, in general, Lucan 1.562-563. Emperor Augustus abhorred freaks
of nature (Suet. Aug. 83), but usually the Romans took great interest in such
creatures as dwarfs, giants, congenital idiots. The classical student who wishes
to find exact parallels for the monstrosities which Roman writers mention as
portents may be referred to the illustrations in such books as R. Meyer and
E. Schwalbe, Studien zur Pathologie der Entwicklung; E. Schwalbe, Die Morpho-
logie der Missbildungen der Menschen und der Tiere (vol. I1); A. Foster, Die
Missbildungen des Menschen; F. Ahlfeld, Die Missbildungen des Menschen;
Adolph G. Otto, Monsirorum sexcentorum descriptio anatomica; C. J. S. Thomp-
son, The Mystery and Lore of Monsters; Ivar Broman, Normale und Abnorme
Entwicklung des Menschen, and especially Barton C. Hirst and George A. Piersol,
Human Monstrosities in four volumes.

112 Cic, De Div. 1.43.98; Liv. 27.37.5 ; 39.22; Jul. Obs. Prod. 38; 46; 81; 86;
92; 107; 110. Sometimes the portentous androgynus was not discovered before it
had reached some maturity (aged 8, 12 or 16), but it had to die for the safety
of the state: Jul. Obs. Prod. 46; 56; 96; 108; 113.

113 Capit. Ant. Pius 9.1-3. Ina more modern spirit Emperor Augustus honored
with a monument the grave of a mother who had done so well by the population
of her country only to die after her achievement: Gell. 10.2. See also Phlegon
Trall. De Mirabilibus, 29.

114 N.H. 7.33. The top record for antiquity seems to have been seven: N.H.
7336

115 Cic. De Leg. 3.8.19; Sen. De Ira 1.15.2.

116 The ethical aspects of this are discussed by P. D. Fischer, Jtalien, 351-352 ;
C. J. A. Mittermaier, Italienische Zustande, 167-171. See also R. Kleinpaul,
Roma Capitale, Rémische Lebens- und Landschaftsbilder, 150 ff.

117 FE, Neville-Rolfe, Naples in 1888, 18-19; cf. A. Rumpelt, Sicilien und die
Sicilianer, 161-162.

118 Cf. E. Neville-Rolfe, op. cit. 25.

119 Paul. Exc. 118.6 (Edit. of Lindsay 105.13); cf. Hulsebos, De Educatione et
institutione apud Romanos, 28; G. Pinto, Storia della medicina in Roma al tempo
de re e della republica, 412.

120 C, E. Whitcomb, A Little Journey to Italy, 77; Poujoulat, Toscane et Rome,
318-319. The classical student will be reminded of a similar use of a token of
hospitality tessera hospitalis. Naturally enough the reclamations are few: Cf.
C. R. Weld, Last Winter in Rome, 201; 203.

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 65

121 Some of the most interesting passages are Dion. Hal. 2.15; Plin. Ep. 10.66;
Min. Fel. Oct. 31.14; Tert. Apol. 9.17-19.

122 K, Hooker, Through the Heel of Italy, 202; M. Pasquarelli, op. cit. (see
note 4), XV, 327. :

123 G, Pitré, op. cit. (see note 86), 31; P. H. Williams, op. cit. (see note 4),
78; for the Basilicata, M. Pasquarelli, op. cit. (see note 4), XV, 327; for Piedmont,
G. Di Giovanni, Usi credenze e pregiudizi del Canavese, 18.

124 Z, Zanetti, La medicina, 108; 126; cf. G. Ferraro, “Botanica popolare di
Carpeneto D’Acqui’”, Archivio, IV (1885), 188. There are also things to be
avoided. A baby should not be allowed to die in its mother’s arms if she hopes
ever to have any sons born to her: M. Pasquarelli, op. cit. (see note 4), XVI, 55.
125 Z, Zanetti, op. cit., 126. Actually, of course, nothing can be done about it:
See J. Morris Slemons, The Prospective Mother®, 45.

126 Cf., eg., S. La Sorsa, Costumi e riti puglesi, 4; M. Pasquarelli, op. cit.
(see note 4), XVI. 53; G. Finamore, op. cit. (see note 5), 60; 62; A. De Nino,
op. cit. (see note 66), II, 22-24. A woman who puts her left foot first in climbing
stairs may expect to give birth to a girl baby instead of the preferred boy:
A. De Nino, of. cit. (see note 66), II, 23. When a baby is born with a fine
head of hair, it indicates that the next will be a boy: Z. Zanetti, La medicina,
128: bambino con capelli chiama dietro altri fratelli. Such ideas are, of course,
not unusual in other countries: Notes and Queries, Ser. 1, I] (1850), 20. For
antiquity cf., e.g., V.H. 7.41. It is still a problem for science to solve: cf., e.g.,
F. C. Irving, The Expectant Mother's Handbook, 187-192; J. M. Slemons, op. cit.
(see note 125), 48.

127 N.H. 25.39-40; 26.97; 26.162; 27.62; 27.65; 27.125; 28.254; cf. 25.97 for
a different sort of folly.

128 N.H. 28.248; 30.123; cf. 28.254. To insure that a baby’s eyes should be
black, a pregnant mother ought to eat a shrew-mouse: NV.H. 30.134.

129 N HT. 10.154. 130 Artemid. Oneirocrit. 1.15; 3.14.

131 W. W. Story, Roba di Roma, II, 502; Cf. C. Guerrieri op. cit. (see note
110), 315. One finds a superstition in various parts of Great Britain to the
effect that if at a Christening a girl baby comes first, she will grow up to be
bearded, while the boy who has lost his priority at the ceremony will have no
hair on his chin: Notes and Queries, Ser. 4, X (1872), 477; Ser. 5, VI (1876),
323; 463; cf. VII (1877), 257; Ser. 7, X (1890), 306; 494. Similar fancy in
Sweden: Ser. 7, X (1890), 185.

132 Herodian 1.5.5.14.

183 See the illustration in Encic. ital. s.v. “Fascia”, tav. CXX XIII; CXXXIV..
On the subject: F. M. Guercio, Sicily, 226; Carr, North Italian Folk, 98; D. N.
Lees, Tuscan Feasts and Roman Banquets, 39-40; E. A. Reynolds-Ball, Unknown
Italy, Piedmont and the Piedmontese, 7.

134] have in memory the swathed puttino (but with arms free) of Andrea
Della Robbia that attracts lovers of art to the Loggia dell’ Ospedale degl’
Innocenti at Florence.

135 NA. 7.3.

136 N. Hawthorne, Passages from the French and Italian Notebooks, (River-
side Edition) 164. We must remember that he knew nought of pituitary glands.

137 C. Dickens, Pictures from Italy, 45-46.

66 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

138 W. W. Story, Roba di Roma, II, 508. 139 An amusing account: H. H.
Jackson, Bits of Travel, 199-201. Cf., also, W. D. Howells, Venetian Life, 321.

140 F. Canziani, op. cit. (see note 45), 214; G. Bacci, op. cit. (see note 78),
XV, 48; G. Finamore, op. cit. (see note 5), 68; 72-73; A. Karusio, op. cit. (see
note 77), 317; T. W. Lund, The Lake of Como, 65; D. Silvagni, Scene della
vita napoletana, 158.

141 Some believe that if the name of his birthday saint is not included, he will
die; M. Pasquarelli, op. cit. (see note 4), XVI, 55. For this belief in England
cf. Notes and Queries, Ser. 1, VII (1853), 128.

142, W. W. Story (Roba di Roma, I, 33-34) writes amusingly upon Italian
callousness to ridicule that concerns oddities and defects.

143 F, A. Reynolds-Ball, op. cit. (see note 133), 9.

144 The Romans were supposed to keep secret the name of the protecting deity
of Rome in order to protect the city against a foe who might summon him to
their side. On the subject in general see the admirable discussion of K. F.
Smith in his edition of Tibullus, note on 1.2.57-58; Plut. Quaest. Rom. 61; Plin.
N.H. 28.18; Macrob. 3.9.3.

145 Suet. Calig. 9; Tac. Ann. 1.41.

146 Tac. Ann. 1.23. 147 See the famous ancient picture of the wounded
Aeneas: Arturo Castiglioni, Storia della Medicina, 205.

148 Cf. N. Borrelli, “Tradizioni e leggende dei colli aurunci”, IJ folklore italiano,
VII (1932), 204; G. Amalfi, Tradizioni ed usi nella penisola sorrentina, 3.
The best terse exemplification of such formations known to me is in A. Hoare,
An Italian Dictionary, s.v. “Donna” and “Donnona.” 149 Z, Zanetti, La
medicina, 134.

150 G, Bacci, op. cit. (see note 78), XV, 52.

151 M. Pasquarelli, op. cit. (see note 4), XV, 330; XVI, 54.

152G, Pitré, Medicina, 202; cf. the use of the mother’s own milk for the cure
of her infant’s crosta lattea, “milk crust”: 224.

153 Z. Zanetti, Nonme, 14.

154 G_ Bacci, op. cit. (see note 78), XV, 53. This reminds me that some
Pennsylvania Germans believed that powwowing would be futile, if the pow-
wower set a price on his sorcery: E. M. Fogel, op. cit. (see note 24), 382.

155 G, Pinoli, “Medicina popolare nel canavese”, Archivio, IV (1885), 82.
On such use of ordure medically cf. Walton B. McDaniel, op. cit. (see note 94),
79-80.

156 G, Finamore, of. cit. (see note 5), 69; M. Pasquarelli, op. cit. (see note 4),
XV, 327; XVI, 54.

157 Z, Zanetti, La medicina, 132.

158 Z, Zanetti, op. cit., 145.

159 G, Bacci, op. cit. (see note 78), XV, 53.

160 G, Bacci, op. cit., XIV, 223; L. Marco, “Usi, costumi e credenze popolari di
Mottola”, Rivista delle tradizioni popolari italiane, I (1893-1894), 298. For
an artificial /attaruolo cf. A. De Nino, op. cit. (see note 66), II. 29.

161 P, Mazzuchi, “Leggende, pregiudizi e superstizioni del volgo nell’ alto
polesine”, Archivio per l’antropologia e la etnologia, XVIII (1888), 273; W. L.
Hildburgh, “Notes on Spanish Amulets”, Folklore, XXVI (1915), 409, pl. II,
fig. 28 and note 2.

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 67

1627, Zanetti, La medicina, 253. The use of wall-scrapings, floor-sweepings,
and the like from Catholic churches for therapeutic purposes is attested for
many parts of the world: cf., e.g., E. Canziani, Through the Apennines and the.
Lands of the Abruzzi, Landscape and Peasant Life, 300; G. Bellucci, op. cit.
(see note 38), 60 and fig. 37a; Notes and Queries, Ser. 4, VIII (1871), 505;
XII (1873), 385; Ser. 6, VI (1882), 6; Ser. 11, VI (1912), 175.

163 V.H. 37.162. 164 Drinking sow’s milk was a more reasonable dependence,
N.H. 28.250; taking earthworms in a drink of honied wine defies rationalization:
30.125.

165 G. Bellucci, Catalogue (see note 45), 64, no. 11; L. Eckenstein, “European
Amulets”, Transactions of the Third Congress for the History of Religions, 79.

166 Z, Zanetti, Nonne, 13; G. Bellucci, Catalogue, 36, tav. VI, no. 9; 37, tav.
VI, no. 19; Amuleti italiani (see note 45) 251: pietra lattea or latteruola.

167 G. Bellucci, Catalogue, 35, tav. VI, no. 2; cf. W. L. Hildburg, of. cit.
(see note 161), 66.

168 G. Bellucci, Amuleti italiani, 252; G. B. Corsi, “Sena vetus, superstizioni,
canti, indovinelli e giuochi’, Archivio, X (1891), 31. It enjoys favor as a
‘wedding present: T. Nencini, “Un: po’ di medicina rusticana”, Rivista delle
tradiziom popolari italiane, 1 (1893-1894), 888.

169 Z, Zanetti, Nonne, 13.

170 A. De Nino, op. cit. (see note 66), II, 29; Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 145;
E. A. W. Budge, Amulets and Superstitions, 319.

171M. Pasquarelli, op. cit. (see note 4), XVI, 54; E. Canziani, op. cit. (see
note 45), 212. 172 N.H. 30.131. 173 N.H. 28.250. 174 NA. 28.251.

175 NA, 30.131.

176 See the commentators on Pers. 3.18; Auson. 12.90-93. Sample cradle-
songs to hush-a-bye the baby: I. Rossi, “Ninne-nanne del Casentino”, Archivio,
XV (1896), 79-81; G. Pitré, op. cit. (see note 58), 93-96; G. Giannini, Canti
popolari toscani, 3-10.

177 Cf., e.g., Cic. De Orat. 2.39.162 with Aristot. Rhet. 3.4.3 and Sext. Empir.
Adv. Rhet. 2.42. See, too, J. Conington, Persivs, note on 3.17. The custom
was by no means unknown within my lifetime among persons of German ancestry
in our country.

178 Colum. R.R. 8.10; cf. Varr. R.R. 3.7.

179 Of course, some of the things that are fed to a child for a purely supersti-
tious reason will, at least, do him little or no harm; e.g., a piece of baked apple
to keep him from having diseases of the chest and from having a bad breath
when he has grown up: Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 139; cf. Mortimer Menpes,
Venice, 207.

180 The Fascist rules for living forbid the use of wine or tobacco before the age
of fifteen: F. Fox, Italy of Today, 225. Cf. on wine and other articles of diet,
H. F. Brown, Life on the Lagoons, 225-226. 181 [saiah 7.15. “Butter and
honey Shall he eat that he may know to refuse evil and choose the good” makes
it sound doctrine for any Christian land, although the newborn may get sugar
instead of honey in these days: cf. Notes and Queries, Ser. 7, 1 (1886), 145.

182 N.H, 28.257. On medical use of butter on ulcers: N.H. 28.190; Cels. 6.18.
2 C; 6.18.2.1. See also N.A. 11.239.

68 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

183 For the full story, told with due attention paid to chronology, see W. W.
Buckland, A Text Book of Roman Law, 101-141; esp. 103.

184 Cf., e.g., Paul, Exc. 128.8 (Edit. of Lindsay 115.13).

185 Tt would probably be from Greek nurses that Roman boys and girls would
hear of this female spectre: C. T. Ramage, op. cit. (see note 20), 62-63; H. M.
Vaughan, The Naples Riviera, 110 ; N. Borreli, op. cit. (see note 148), 170.
The Mommo which he thinks may be Momo, the god of ridicule, would more
naturally represent Mormo. In any case, I query whether Mammon of Math.
6.24 can be connected in any way with the Italian bugaboo. See, also, G.
Perroni, “Mamucca, credenza popolare di Castroreale’, Archivio, XX (1901),
537.

186 Cf., e.g. Lucil. 15.324; Hor. A.P. 340. G. Marchesi, “In Valtellina, costumi,
leggende, tradizioni”, Archivio, XVII (1898), 419.

187 C, G. Leland, Etruscan Roman Remains, 30.

188 J. Ross, The Land of Manfred, 196; P. Ellero, op. cit. (see note 23), 41-42;
G. Gigli, Superstizioni, pregiudizi e tradizion in Terra d Otranto con un aggiunta
di canti e fiabe popolari, 27-28. As an unbaptized giant: G. Calvia, “Esseri
meravigliosi e fantastici nelle credenze sarde e specialmente di Lagudoro”,
Archivio, XXII (1903), 11. See also B. Frescura, “Folletti e fate, folklore
vicentino”, Rivista delle tradizioni popolari italiane, I, 611.

189Q, Bruni, La nostra redenzione morale, libro offerto al popolo italiano, 52.

190C, G. Leland, Etruscan Roman Remains, 241.

191 G, Amalfi, Tradizioni ed usi nella penisola sorrentina, 158; M. Angelini, “La
‘Vecchia’ dell’ Epifania ed i pronostici d’amore di S. Giovanni nel Piceno ed
altrove”, Archivio, XIII (1894), 21; J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, IX,
166-167.

192]. Nieri, op. cit. (see note 58), 367-371: a list of such terrors.

193 G, Pitré, op. cit. (see note 58), 201-202; G. Amalfi, op. cit. (see note 191),
156; E. Canziani, Through the Apennines and the Lands of the Abruzzi, Land-
scape and Peasant Life, 37-39; op. cit. (see note 45), 245; G. Gigli, op. cit. (see
note 188), 26; C. Grisanti, “Credenze pregiudizi superstizioni in Isnello”, Archivio,
XVII (1898), 315-316. Identified with the donne di fuora: Messina e dintornt
(see note 23), 79; G. Calvia, op. cit. (see note 188), 10: the Fadas. We call
these etymological children of the Fata fairies or fays.

194], Nieri, op. cit. (see note 58), 368-369; cf. G. Pitré, op. cit. (see note 58),
201-202. It is hard to end the life of the Cumaean Sibyl. Perhaps she will
never have her wish: Petron. 48: gzo@avety Oédu-

195 F, Canziani, op. cit. (see note 45), 245. Are we to identify her with that
Cumaean seeress whose withered form Trimalchio saw caged (Petron. 48.8) and
whose bones were finally interred at Cumae (Paus. 10.12.8)?

196 G, Pitré, op. cit. (see note 58), 196-197; 286.

197 C, Simiani, “Usi, leggende e pregiudizi popolari trapanesi”, Archivio, X
(1891), 489; “I fatuzzi nella credenza popolare trapanese”, Archivio VIII (1889),
337-338. 198 Cf, C. G. Leland, op. cit. (see note 187), 159-160, with, e.g.,
Plut. Rom. 2.3-4; Plin. N.H. 36.204.

199 Cf, Gell. 16.17.2; August. De Civ. Dei, 4.8; 4.11; 4.21; Non. 108.15 (Edit.
of Lindsay, I, 155).

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 69

200 G. Cocchiara, La vita e arte del popolo siciliano nel museo Pitré, 92.

201 The candidacy of the bat for the identification is ably set forth by S. G.
Oliphant, “The Story of the Strix”, Transactions of the American Philological
Association, XLIV (1913), 133-149; XLV (1914), 49-63.

202 Cf, Ovid, Fast. 6.133-136; 143-148; W. H. Roscher, Lexikon, s.v. “Stringes”
and “Striges.” See E. Canziani, op. cit. (see note 45), 246.

203 Ovid Fast. 6.101-131; cf. Macrob. Sat. 1.12.31-33.

204 Ovid Fast. 6.141-142; cf. Amor. 1.8.13—-14.

205 N.H. 11.232; cf. Seren. Sammon. Lib. Medicin. 1035-1038.

206 Ovid Fast. 6.143-168.

207 Petron. 63; cf. 134. Cf. L. Villari, On the Roads from Rome, 126; G. B.
Corsi, “Sena Vetus, superstizioni, canti, indovinelli e giuochi”, Archivio, IX (1890),
521; Zanetti, La medicina, 11.

208 Petron. 63-64.

209 T. Trede, Das Heidentum in der rémischen Kirche, IV, 353; Z. Zanetti, La
medicina, 11; J. Nieri, op. cit. (see note 58), 371; E. Bonaventura, “Le streghe,
credenze popolari pisane”, Riv d. trad. pop. ital., I (1893-1894), 932-936.

210 A. De Nino, of. cit. (see note 66), I. 143-145; E. Canziani, op. cit. (see
note 45), 246; A. Rini, Popular Superstitions, 84. But, of course, diagnosis is
dificult: a toad is supposed to suck not only milk from a cow’s udder but blood
from a baby: G. Calvia, “Animali e piante nella tradizione popolare sarda e
specialmente del Logudoro”, J] folklore italiano, I (1925), 200. If a baby is
born with livid marks on its body, it may be thought that vampires sucked its
blood while still in the womb: Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 130.

211A. De Nino, op. cit. I. 168; G. Finamore, op. cit. (see note 5), 57-58:
eaten by women during pregnancy. As in the case of wormwood, it should be
gathered on Ascension Day: De Maricourt, “Croyances et moeurs a Naples”,
Archivio, XXII (1905), 547. That is the best time, anyway, to attempt the
cure of any sort of obstinate disease: G. Pitré, Spettacoli e feste popolari siciliane,
DSi

212 7. Zanetti, La medicina, 160.

213 For ancient Rome there is the notable care with which those of the Flamen
Dialis were buried under a fruitful tree: Gell. 10.15.15. Cf. the disposal of the
hair-clippings of the Vestal Virgins: Plin. V.H. 16.235; Paul. Exc. 57.17 (Edit.
of Linds. 50.12); Apul. Met. 3.16. 214 Any part or personal possession will do.
Cf. Verg. Ecl. 8.91-93. For modern Italy cf. Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 11; F.
Davegno, “Le superstizioni di Portofino”, Arch. per lantropol. XVIII (1888),
90; A. Balladoro, “Alcune credenze e superstizioni del popolo veronese”, Archivio,
XIII (1899), 127; L. D. Gordon, Home Life in Italy, 243; La Marchesa de
Villamarina, “Credenze popolari della Valsesia”, Riv. d. trad. pop. ital., 1 (1893-
1894), 134. Fear that a witch may find it accounts for the burning of a milk-
tooth, C. J. S. Thompson, The Hand of Destiny, 24. 215 G_ Pitré, Medicina,
62; Z. Zanetti, op. cit., 234-235; I. Nieri, op. cit. (see note 58), 375; G. Ferraro,
“Spigolature popolari monferrine”, Archivio, VI (1887), 118; A. De Nino, o?. cit.
(see note 66), 75; M. Pasquarelli, “Noterelle folkloriche per la basilicata”, Riv.
di trad. pop. ital., 1 (1893-1894), 636. See, furthermore, E. M. Fogel, Beliefs
and Superstitions of the Pennsylvania Germans, 242, No. 1255; 344, No. 1834;
Notes and Queries, Ser. 2, I (1856), 386.

70 Conception, Birth and Infancy im

216 Cf. for a baby’s hair, Notes and Queries, Ser. 6, VI (1882), 416. One must
burn discarded hair, for if toads find it, and take it into their hole, the careless
person will have a perpetual headache: Notes and Queries, Ser. 4, VII (1871),
91. 217 Petron. 104-105. 218 N.H. 28.28; Auson. Ecl. 26. 219R. M.
Cossar, “Usanze, riti e superstizioni del popolo di Montana nell’ Istria”, // folk-
lore italiano, IX (1934), 62; E. Canziani, op. cit. (see note 45), 228; F. Valla,
“Medicina e credenze popolari sarde”, Archivio, XIV (1895), 43. 220 F. Bel-
lizzi, “Credenze e superstizioni pugliesi”, Riv. d. trad. pop. ital., I (1893-1894),
459. 221 R. M. Cossar, loc. cit.; cf. Notes and Queries, Ser. 4, I (1868), 575.
222 C. Bottecchia, “Credenze popolari del bellunese”, Riv. d. trad. pop. ital.,
I (1893-1894), 557; G. M. Cossu, “Tradizioni, superstizioni e credenze sarde”,
Riv. d. trad. pop. ital., 1 (1893-1894), 222. It is interesting to find this super-
stition in the United States.: E. M. Fogel, op. cit. (see note 24), 243, No. 1256.

223. Valla, loc. cit. 224 EF. Canziani, op. cit. (see note 45), 214. But
merely washing a baby’s palm is said to make it light-fingered: Notes and
Queries, Ser. 3, XII (1867), 185. Cf. also C. J. S. Thompson, op. cit., 24-25;
F. D. Bergen, Current Superstitions Collected from the Oral Tradition of
English-Speaking Folk, 25, no. 55. 225 Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 142; Nonne e
bambini, 142; G. Pitré, Medicina, 103; cf. O. Bruni, La nostra redenzione morale,
51: Venetian practice; Notes and Queries, Ser. 5, VIII (1887), 325. The
Pennsylvania German superstition prescribes a wait of a year before the first
haircut, lest the infant lose its hair, be a weakling, or die young: E. M. Fogel,
op. cit. (see note 24), 42, nos. 81-82; 43, no. 83. 226 F. Canziani, loc. cit. The
superstitions have reached England or, perhaps, risen there independently: Notes
and Queries, Ser. 1, VI (1852), 312; X (1854), 71; Ser. 2, XII (1861), 500; Ser. 4,
VI (1870), 130; 204; 376; Ser. 6, VI (1882), 249; 416; Ser. 9, V (1900), 375;
500; Ser. 9, VI (1900), 93; 173; C. J. S. Thompson, of. cit. (see note 214), 24.

227 Any strange-looking eye will be particularly open to suspicion. See Walton
B. McDaniel, “The Pupula Duplex and Other Tokens of an Evil Eye in the
. Light of Ophthalmology”, Classical Philology, XIII (1918), 335-446.

228C, T. Ramage, op. cit. (see note 20), 60-61; C. Pigorini-Beri, op. cit.
(see note 44), 35; A. Mancarella, “Superstizioni popolari pugliesi”, JJ folklore
italiano, V (1930), 126-151.

229 Cf., e.g., A. De Nino, op. cit. (see note 66), V, 3; Z. Zanetti, La medi-
cina, 142.

230 Z, Zanetti, op. cit., 160; M. L. Wagner, “Il malocchio e credenze affini in
Sardegna”, Lares, II (1913), 133. Spitting away the evil effects of a compli-
ment is, of course, a farflung superstition: cf., e.g., Notes and Queries, Ser. 3,
XII (1867), 477.

231T. Trede, op. cit. (see note 209), II. 236; M. L. Wagner, op. cit., 133;
cf. G. E. Bideri, Usi e costwmi del popolo napoletano, 87.

232 §. Salomone-Marino, of. cit. (see note 50), 133.

233 N.H. 28.39.

234 Cat. 5. 11-13.

235 Neither blessings nor property should be counted. As the Tuscan peasant
puts it: il suo bene non si numera: A. De Gubernatis, “Psicologia del linguag-
gio popolare”, Rivista delle tradizioni popolari italiane, I, 153: Il contadino

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy i

* toscano a significare il gran bene che vuole suol dire che il suo bene non si
numera. In Piedmont: Si dice ai proprietari che contano la roba loro per
guardarsi dai ladri: roba cunta | liiv la mangia, roba contata se la mangia il
lupo. Cf. Notes and Queries, Ser. 5, VIII (1877), 325.

236 Z, Zanetti, La medicina, 141; J. B. Andrews, “Quelques croyances et usages
napoletains”, Archivio, XVIII (1899), 45; P. H. Williams, op. cit. (see note 4),
104-105; N. Valletta, Cicalata sul fascino volgarmente detto jettatura con cenni
biografici sull’ autore, 52. For this superstition in North America, cf. Fanny
D. Bergen, op. cit. (see note 224) 24, no. 38; 25, no. 52; E. M. Fogel, op. cit.
(see note 24), 52, no. 143.

237 N.H. 30.138 ; cf. 30.100.

238 G. Pitré, op. cit. (see note 46), 356.

239 Cf., e.g., Pers. 5.186-188; Dioscor. De Med. Mat. 3.97.

240 N.H. 28.257; cf. 11.166.

241 NH. 33.84. We may note the survival of such ideas about gold in North
America: Fanny D. Bergen, op. cit. (see note 224), 94, numbers 796-800.

242 M. D. Martini, “Note folkloristiche presi in Canicatti (Sicilia)”, Archivio,
»& CIS). SSS)

243 For a long list of the protectives in vogue today see A. De Nino, op. cit.
(see note 66), II, 35.

244M. Pasquarelli, op. cit. (see note 4), XVI. 56; Z. Zanetti, La medicina,
161: if the witches handle them, they must be replaced by others. The rest-
lessness of the baby indicates that the old ones have been impaired and are
not doing their work.

245 G. Pitré, op. cit. (see note 58), 286; M. Pasquarelli, Joc. cit: gives a full
statement.

246 §. La Sorsa, Il folklore nelle scuole di Puglia, 6; G. Amalfi, op. cit. (see
note 191), 4.

2477. Zanetti, La medicina, 255; M. Pasquarelli, loc. cit. (see note 4).

248 G. B. Corsi, loc. cit. (see note 207); “vita senese”, Archivio, IX (1890),
109; cf. Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 160; 255.

249 G. Ferraro, op. cit. (see note 6), 135; 410; M. Pasquarelli, op. cit. (see
note 4), XV, 503; A. De Nino, op. cit. (see note 66), V, 187; Z. Zanetti, La
medicina, 155: rue may be put on the belly and on the soles of the feet as well
as used internally.

250 §. Salomone-Marino, of. cit. (see note 50), 132; A. De Nino op. cit. V, 186.

251 The mother may be advised to put a sickle somewhere in baby’s bed or
cradle: M. Pasquarelli, op. cit., XVI, 56.

252 A. Dieterich, ““A-B-C Denkmiler”, Rheinisches Museum, LVI (1901), 104
105; R. S. Conway, Ancient Italy and Modern Religion, 14-15.

253 Contessa Fulvia Perotti De’ Miani, “Credenze e superstizioni di Cassano
Murge (Bari)”, Rivista delle tradiziom popolari italiane, 1 (1893-1894), 381.

254 §. La Sorsa, op. cit. (see note 246), 6. A broom set against the jamb of
the door is a Pennsylvania German way of keeping out the witches: E. M. Fogel,
Beliefs and Superstitions of the Pennsylvania Germans, 138, No. 634; cf. 139.

255 In childbirth, death is preferable to the surgeon: Z. Zanetti, La medicina;
120, note 1.

W2 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

256G. Amalfi, op. cit. (see note 191), 67; L. De Nardis, Le medichesse del
miracolo nella romagna”, [1 folklore italiano, VIII (1929), 174-177; cf. A. Posse-
Brazdova, Sardinian Sideshow, 150-151; Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 11. Their secret
nostrums for man and beast are passed down as family traditions among the crones
of the village: G. Di Giovanni, “Usi, costumi, pratiche, credenze e pregiudizi del
novarese”, Archivio, V (1886), 447-448. See also P. Riccardi, “Pregiudizi e
superstizioni del popolo modenese”, Arch. per l’antropol., XX (1890), 333-337.

_ 257 Cf. M. Pasquarelli, op. cit. (see note 4), 55-56.

258 Cf., e.g., Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 11; 160-161; 130: on livid marks that
are attributed to vampires who have been sucking sustenance from the child
while it was still in the womb. See also E. Canziani, of. cit. (see note 45), 246.

259 Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 130; 150. This accords with Pennsylvania Ger-
man belief: E. M. Fogel, op. cit. (see note 24), 49, No. 121. But cf. S. La
Sorsa op. cit. (see note 246), 4, where a belief is reported that such a Dentatus
of today is destined to prosper. On the idea that the phenomenon is something
to be dreaded see C. J. S. Thompson, The Hand of Destiny, 23. The average
age for the first appearance of teeth, regularly the two lower central incisors, is
six months. It is unusual enough for even these two to be in at birth, but there
may be even more, e.g., eight. Sometimes they are extracted to enable the
mother to nurse. See G. Sellew, Pedriatic Nursing, 23; and, in general, on Dentio
Praecox C. G. Grulee and B. E. Bonar, The Newborn, III, 130; E. L. Stone,
The Newborn Infant, A Manual of Obstetrical Pediatrics, 235; J. Garland, The
Youngest of the Family, 23.

260 N.H. 7. 68-69. On the phenomenal record of the latter cf. Gell. 2.11.

261 One of the portents noted in the De Prodigiis of Julius Obsequens, 66.

262 A comprehensive account of orris-root: A. H. Murray, Sketches on the
Old Road through France to Florence, 280-285; cf. also E. Strasburger, Rambles
on the Riviera (a translation by O. and B. C. Casey of Streifziige an der Riviera),
307.

263 For a long list of the objects that he may mumble see A. De Nino, of. cit.
(see note 66), II, 35.

264 N. H. 28.258; Seren. Sammon, Lib. Medicin. 1031-1032.

265 N.H. 30.136; cf. 30.24 266 N.H. 30.137. It is also used in a recipe for
an intestinal procidence. 267 N.H. 30.138. 263, NF. 30.139.

269 N.H. 28.257. For an English survival: Notes and Queries, Ser. 2, VII
(1859), 326. 270 NH, 32.137.

271Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 150. A hyacinth (red zircon) may be used:
Nonne e bambini, 25. I can find, however, no ancient parallel for that modern
superstition that teething the upper teeth first prognosticates nearness of death,
because they suggest by their appearance the mattocks that are used in the ex-
cavation of a grave: S. La Sorsa, op. cit. (see note 78), 58-59.

272 Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 150. It is advisable also to bathe them with some
of the blood which spurts out when a cock’s comb is cut off: Z. Zanetti, Nonne e
bambini, 24-25. The use of the brains of a hare for a fretful baby is not confined
to Italy: cf. Notes and Queries, Ser. 6, I (1880), 34.

273 N.H. 28.259; 30.135; cf. 30.139; Seren. Sammon. Lib. Medicin. 1033-1034.

274 Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 151; 254.

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 73

275 Z, Zanetti, Nonne e bambini, 25.

276 G Bellucci, op. cit. (see note 38), 47; M. L. Wagner, op. cit. (see note
230), 140, tav. II; Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 254; O. Keller, Die antike Tierwelt,
TI, 541-544; fig. 155-156.

277 G. Bellucci, op. cit. (see note 38), 38, fig. 18; 39, fig. 19; 40, fig. 20; cf. the
pectunculus: 41, fig. 21; Amuleti (see note 45), 253, numbers 14-16.

278 E. P. Heaton, By-paths in Sicily, 83. We may compare the conca venerea
used against worms and the purcidduzzu di S. Antoni shell: G. Pitré, op. cit. (see
note 46), 397; 457: a cowrie amulet for nephritic colic.

279 Cf. Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 8. See also my article “Undesirable Guests
and Unwilling Hosts, Parasites in Ancient and Modern Italian Folkmedicine”,
Transactions and Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, XV (1947),
26-35.

280 Cat. De Agric. 126; cf. Cels. 4.24.1, and, for modern times, C. Coronedi-
Berti, op. cit. (see note 6), 9. To kill tapeworms our doctors may prescribe
the fresh bark of pomegranate root macerated in hot water and boiled down to
half bulk. The doses are followed by a purgative: E. Cautley, The Diseases of
Infants and Children, 313. But the preferred remedy is the liquid extract of
male fern (filis mas), the oleoresin of aspidium: H. R. Litchfield, Therapeutics
of Infancy and Childhood, 1893; H. Koplik, The Diseases of Infancy and Child-
hood, 558; Sir James F. Goodhart, The Diseases of Children,12 155; H. Klein-
schmidt, Treatment of Disease in Infants and Children (Translation of H. M.
Greenwald), 143.

281 Pliny’s list of expellants includes lupines, rue, pepper, ordinary wormwood
and sea wormwood: N.H. 22.155; 27.48; 27.53; 32.100. Cf. Cels. 4.24.7. For
Italian use: Z. Zanetti, Nonne e bambini, 33; C. Coronedi-Berti, op. cit., 8;
M. Pasquarelli, op. cit. (see note 4), XV, 503. The roundworm is assailed
with wormwood, i.e. santonin from santonica (Artemisia pauciflora) and calomel:
J. P. Crozier Griffith, The Diseases of Infants and Children,3 647; H. D. Chapin,
Diseases of Infants and Children, 203; Dawson Williams, Medical Diseases of
Infancy and Childhood,? 403, or with the safer and more effective oil of cheno-
podium: L. Fischer, The Baby and Growing Child, 145; E. Cautley, op. cit.
(see note 280), 314; H. Kleinschmidt, op. cit. (see note 280), 145. Wormwood
is also used as a remedy for the Oxyuris vermicularis, pin worm, seat worm, or
thread worm: L. Fischer, of. cit., 144; D. Williams, op. cit., 405; Eustace Smith,
On the Wasting Diseases of Infants and Children,® 240.

282 For antiquity: Cels. 4.24.1-2. The pediatrician may use an infusion of
garlic in an enema to dislodge pin worms: H. M. McClanahan, Pediatrics for
the General Practitioner, 209; E. Cautley, op. cit. (see note 280), 315.

283 M. Pasquarelli, loc. cit.; Zanetti, La medicina, 155; C. Coronedi-Berti,
op. cit., 9. Among ancient references: Cels. 4.24.1.

284 Zanetti, La medicina, 157; Nonne e bambini, 33; M. Pasquarelli, op. cit.,
503; G. Ferraro, op. cit. (see note 6), 133.

285 N.H. 22.155.

286 G. Pinoli, op. cit. (see note 155), 79-80. Rue is an Italian cure-all: A.
D’Amato, “Folklore irpino”, J/ folklore italiano, I (1925), 83.

287 G, Pitré, op. cit. (see note 46), 388.

74 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

2887, Zanetti, La medicina, 155.

289 M. Pasquarelli, op. cit. (see note 4), XV, 503. The less agreeable method:
G. Di Giovanni, op. cit. (see note 256), 71. For the least rueful way to admin-
ister it to the young see C. Coronedi-Berti, op. cit. (see note 6), 8-9.

2907, Zanetti, La medicina, 156 and note 1.

291 Z, Zanetti, La medicina, op. cit., 157. The Pennsylvania German may put
pulverized glass there, in the belief, I suppose, that it is the external point nearest
to the worms: E. M. Fogel, op. cit. (see note 24), 269, no. 1395.

292 G, Pitré, op. cit. (see note 46), 397.

293 Z, Zanetti, La medicina, 254; G. Bellucci, Catalogue (see note 45), tab. VII;
cf. G. Palumbo, “Credenze e superstizioni salentine”, Rivista delle tradiziont
popolari italiane, I (1893-1894), 618; S. Seligmann, of. cit. (see note 46), 205.

294 7, Zanetti, loc. cit. (corno di serpente); 258; G. Bellucci, Catalogue (see
note 45), 60, no. 27; P. Saintyves, “Talismans et reliques tombés du ciel”, Revue
des études ethnographiques et sociologiques, II, 183.

295 N.H. 37.164.

296 G. Bellucci, Catalogue (see note 45), 60, no. 27.

297 Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 155; S. Raccuglia, “Medicina popolare siciliana”,
Rivista delle tradizioni popolari italiane, 1 (1893-1894), 727.

298 P| H. Williams, op. cit. (see note 4), 168.

299 Z, Zanetti, La medicina, 156; Nonne e bambini, 33. Cf. T. J. Pettigrew,
On Superstition Connected with the History and Practice of Medicine and
Surgery, 104.

300 M. Pasquarelli, op. cit. (see note 4), XV, 503. Another chief cause of the
infestation is eating cheese, loc. cit.

301 F. Canziani, op. cit. (see note 45), 214.

302 Encic. ital., s.v. “Animale”, 369. A little saliva spat into its mouth by
somebody who has known its great-grandfather or great-grandmother is supposed
to help: G. M. Cossu, “Tradizioni, superstizioni e credenze sarde”, Rivista delle
tradizioni popolari italiane, I (1893-1894), 222. Italy has, of course, no mo-
nopoly of such fantastic notions. In Cheshire the- frog cure is advised for
whooping-cough: C. J. S. Thompson, The Hand of Destiny, 153. The Yorkshire
child whose sore throat has been cured by the live frog held in its mouth by the
legs can thereafter cure any other case of it by merely blowing into the sufferer’s
mouth: Notes and Queries, Ser. 4, IX (1872), 401; cf. Ser. 1, V (1852), 393;
Ser. 2, IX (1866), 319; Ser. 7, XI (1891), 470; Ser. 12, VIL (1920), 246:
In Devonshire we learn that the victim of thrush should inhale the cold breath
of a duck from its open bill inserted in his mouth, o. cit., Ser. 1, VIII (1853);
cf. Ser. 9, XII (1903), 47. An alternative term for thrush is frog, and a some-
what similar disease called thrush attacks the frog or frush of a horse’s hoof.
Let those who are interested in the influence of words on folkmedicine ponder
these. As for the disease itself, which is credited to a fungus, the reader may
consult E. L. Stone, The Newborn Infant, 233; Sir James F. Goodhart, op. cit.
(see note 280), 199-200. The term is often applied loosely to any sore mouth:
D. Williams, op. cit. (see note 281), 294.

303 A. De Nino, of. cit. (see note 66), II, 31. Inserting a fish in the mouth
as a cure of whooping-cough has been reported from Philadelphia: Notes and

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 75

Queries, Ser. 5, III (1875), 345-346; cf. W. G. Black, Folkmedicine, 36-37.
Replaced alive in the river, it gives the disease to the other fish, as is shown
by their coming to the surface to cough: Notes and Queries, Ser. 5, IX (1878),
64-65. A Pennsylvania German prescription to stop an infant from slobbering
is to pass a small fish through its mouth and then return it alive to the water:
E. M. Fogel, op. cit. (see note 24), 269, no. 1399; one to cure a child’s whooping-
cough is to put a live trout into its mouth while fasting and then return it to
the stream: of. cit. 270, No. 1399; 329, No. 1805. For use of a fish in dentition:
314, No. 1672.

304 Z. Zanetti, Nonne e bambini, 27; A. De Nino, op. cit., V, 128.

305 C..Grisanti, Usi, credenze, proverbi e raconti popolari d’ Isnello, 144; J. B.
Andrews, op. cit. (see note 236), 42. Kissing a negro is supposed to cure a
Pennsylvania German baby of whooping-cough, E. M. Fogel, op. cit. (see note
24), 337, no. 1791. It is not done in our Southern states.

306 N.H. 28.66; cf. 28.91; 28.163; 28.244.

307 G, Finamore, op. cit. (see note 5), 67; 69. The old Roman and the
modern Italian prescriptions make us wonder at the possible connections with
them of the similar Pennsylvania beliefs and practices: E. M. Fogel, op. cit.
(see note 24), 38, No. 50. 308 Z, Zanetti, op. cit. (see note 304), 16; La
medicina, 139. Let the dermatologist who has no faith in this at least remember
how old such ideas are: cf. Plin. N.H. 28.109; 28.185.

309 G. Amalfi, op. cit. (see note 191), 61; A. Balladoro, “Alcune credenze e
superstizioni del popolo veronese”, Archivio, XVIII (1899), 125; M. Pasquarelli,
op. cit. (see note 4), XVI, 52; G. B. Corsi, op. cit. (see note 207), X, 31; J. B.
Andrews, “Quelques croyances et usages napoletains”, Archivio, XVIII (1899),
41. For a highly amusing account of its administration: A. De Nino, op. cit.
(see note 66), V, 173-174. Why mice, boiled or roasted, are a prescription of
English folkmedicine not only for bedwetting but also for whooping-cough and
measles, is a question I must leave with my readers. Cf., e.g., for the first use:
Notes and Queries, Ser. 1, II (1851), 435; VI (1852), 311; for the second: Ser.
1, I (1850), 397; II (1850), 197; 510; Ser. 2, VIII (1865), 145; 4, II (1868),
220; III (1869), 216; for the third: Ser. 1, I (1850), 430. The prescription
among the Pennsylvania Germans for incontinence of urine is fried mouse or
mouse pie: E. M. Fogel, Beliefs and Superstitions of the Pennsylvania Germans,
281, No. 1480 and 1483. An alternative is to eat a little sausage made of the
pudendum of a pig: 282, No. 1482. These obnoxious diets might have to last
a long time, since enuresis is hard to cure. Punishment avails little: G. Sellew,
op. cit. (see note 259), 399; H. R. Litchfield, op. cit. (see note 280), 1767-1769.

310 N.H. 30.138. On the numerous remedies derived from mice: G. B. Dawson,
Healing, Pagan and Christian, 105-106. Instead of eating mice, a child could
have roasted hippocamps or take certain other fish in his food: N.H. 32.109, or
the bladder of a hyaena, so prepared as to be drunk in wine: N.H. 28.103.

311M. Pasquarelli, op. cit. (see note 4), XVI, 54; A. De Nino, op. cit. (see
note 66), II 25-26; cf. 75; G. Finamore, of. cit. (see note 5), 67; 122; G. Pitre,
op. cit. (see note 86), 24.

312 N.H. 30.42-43; 30.61; 30.64; cf. Marcell. De Medicamentis 27.33; 27.123;
29.35.

76 Conception, Birth and Infancy in

313 G, Pitré, op. cit. (see note 46), 369.

314M. Pasquarelli, op. cit. (see note 4), XV, 502. An incantation of six
verses helps: 502-503. If a horse, ass, or cow has a similar pain, one must get
a girl who is a twin to give the part affected three good kicks: F. Valla, “Medicina
e credenze popolari sarde”, Archivio, XIV (1895), 45-46.

815 Z. Zanetti, Nonne e bambini, 15. Even kissing a baby too frequently is
said to cause them. They have always been common enough in infancy to keep
mothers guessing about the cause: cf. D. Williams op. cit. (see note 281), 451.

316 FE. Canziani, op. cit. (see note 162), 8; Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 153; G.
Bastanzi, “Superstizioni religiose nelle provincie di Treviso e di Belluno”,
Archivio per lantropologia e la etnologia, XVII (1887), 272; G. Bellucci, of. cit.
(see note 38), 104-105; 107; fig. 57; cf. G. Ferraro, “Toccaferro”, Archivio, XX
(1901), 414; L. Di Pasquale, loc. cit. (see note 58). Some epileptics wear at
their neck le chiavette di S. Domenico all the time: Encic. ital. s.v. “Umbria.”

317 G. M. Cossu, “Tradizioni, superstizioni e credenze sarde”, Rivista delle
tradizioni popolari italiane, | (1893-1894), 222; Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 254;
Nonne e bambini, 25-26.

318 Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 153; 254.

319 Z. Zanetti, Nonne e bambini, 17.

820 F. Canziani, op. cit. (see note 162), 7; Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 255; Nonne
bambimi, 21.

821 Z, Zanetti, La medicina, 153.

8227. Zanetti, Nonne e bambini, 30; cf. La medicina, 91; 252.

323 NH. 28.259.

324 N.H, 28.258.

DIN SEIS PRD SS S20tNV RH a s2el Sir

827 Z. Zanetti, La medicina, 154. For the administration of the brains of a hare
as a soporific in England: Notes and Queries, Ser. 6, IV (1881), 406; 457;
sometimes the brains of a calf: 458. On the unpredictable attacks of screaming
that afflict even healthy babies the layman may be referred, e.g., to Sir James F.
Goodhart, op. cit. (see note 280), 728-729; J. P. C. Griffith, op. cit. (see note
281), 887-888; L. Fischer op. cit. (see note 281), 147; E. Smith, op. cit. (see
note 281), 210-211.

328 J. B. Andrews, op. cit. (see note 236), 42.

829 C. Coronedi-Berti, op. cit. (see note 6), 6-7.

330 F. Canziani, op. cit. (see note 45), 214.

331 NH, 22.59. 332 NH. 30.135. 333 N.H. 32.138. 334 N.H. 30.136.

335 N.H. 30.137. 336 NA. 30.139. 337 N.H. 28.258. 338 N.H. 28.259.
The reference is probably to ulcerative stomatitis: cf. H. M. McClanahan, op. cit.
(see note 282), 147; J. P. C. Griffith, op. cit. (see note 281), 520. S330 i.
28.257.

840M. Vezzani, Usanze, tradizioni e leggende dell’ Apennino Reggiano, 13; G.
Finamore, op. cit. (see note 5), 78. E. Canziani, op. cit. (see note 45), 214.
On the same principle, if menstrual cloths are put in the wash above and not
underneath the garments of men, the men will suffer atrocious pains: Z. Zanetti,
La medicina, 101; 97: beating the cloths will communicate menstrual suffering;

cha:

®

Ancient Rome and Modern Italy : 77

341 G_ Ferraro, op. cit. (see note 6), 188; cf. I. Nieri, op. cit. (see note 58), 373.

342 P| H. Williams, op. cit. (see note 4), 13; 144; A. De Nino, op. cit. (see
note 66), I, 144; G. Pitré, “Alberi e piante negli usi e nelle credenze popolari
siciliane”, Archivio, V (1886), 180; J. B. Andrews, “Neapolitan Witchcraft”,
Folklore, VIII (1897), 1; F. Davegno, “Le superstizioni di Portofino”, Archivio
per Tantropologia e la etnologia, XVIII (1888), 88. On la notte di S. Simone:
M. Placucci, of. cit. (see note 91), IV, 48; cf. Messina e dintorni (see note 23),
7)

343 On his place in medicine: M. Neuburger, Geschichte der Medizin, I, 292.

344 Cat. De Agric. 160; Plin. N.H. 17.267.

345 The practice is astonishingly widely attested: M. Pasquarelli, op. cit. (see
note 4), XV, 503-504; A. Karusio, “Pregiudizi popolari putignanesi (Bari)”,
Archivio per Vantropologia e la etnologia, XVII (1887), 315-316; A D’Amato,
“Folklore irpino”, IJ folklore italiano, I; (1925), 88, no. 17; E. P. Heaton,
By-paths in Sicily, 90-100; 110; R. Corso, Reviviscenze, studi di tradiziom
popolari italiane, 7; 36; 44; M. L. Wagner, Sopra alcune pratiche magiche, 402.
Similar superstition is reported from England: E. Sidney Hartland, “Cleft Ashes
for Infantile Hernia”, Folklore, VII (1896), 303-306, plates II and III. Also
from our country and Germany, Notes and Queries, Ser. 6, I (1880), 16; 75;
234. Cf., also, C. S. Burne, The Handbook of Folklore, 156; W. G. Black,
Folkmedicine, 67-68; C. J. S. Thompson, The Hand of Destiny, 26. There is
an interesting, though not quite convincing, theory that the perforated stone or
the cleft of a tree through which an afflicted child is passed represents the female
genitalia, so that the act symbolizes a new birth for the victim, a regeneration
to health, shall we say? See Benjamin L. Gordon, The Romance of Medicine,
489-490. A fact which greatly helps probably in fostering faith in the cure is
that umbilical hernia (a case pictured by John A. Foote, Diseases of the New
Born, 148, fig. 51) and inguinal hernia (see same book, 150, fig. 53) and hydro-
cele, which ignorant persons can readily confuse with the latter, all have more
or less tendency to a spontaneous cure. The layman may be referred to William
Sheldon, Diseases of Infancy and Childhood, 224-225; E. Feer, The Diagnosis of
Children’s Diseases, 389; C. G. Grulee and B. E. Bonar, op. cit. (see note 259),
III, 158; 160; 263; L. E. Holt, The Diseases of Infancy and Childhood,® 113,
636; Henry E. Tuley, The Diseases of Children, 494; Henri de Rothschild, Traité
adhygiene et de pathologie du nourrisson et des enfants du premier age, 514;
John Ruhrah, A Manual of the Diseases of Infants and Children, 67.

346 NH. 30.135. 347 N.H. 30.137. 348 NH. 30.136.

349 Cf. Z. Zanetti, Nonne e bambini, 34.

350 One of the most recent authoritative works on Italy, Christ Stopped at Eboli,
by Carlo Levi, which deals with Lucania, can be cordially recommended to those
who have no knowledge of how primitive the life of South Italians can be.

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