Similarly we have seen that disease-laden and sin-laden boats are
dreaded and shunned by East Indian peoples. Again, the view that in
these popular customs the Death is a scapegoat as well as a
representative of the divine spirit of vegetation derives some
support from the circumstance that its expulsion is always
celebrated in spring and chiefly by Slavonic peoples. For the
Slavonic year began in spring; and thus, in one of its aspects, the
ceremony of "carrying out Death" would be an example of the
widespread custom of expelling the accumulated evils of the old year
before entering on a new one.
LVIII. Human Scapegoats in Classical Antiquity
1. The Human Scapegoat in Ancient Rome
WE are now prepared to notice the use of the human scapegoat in
classical antiquity. Every year on the fourteenth of March a man
clad in skins was led in procession through the streets of Rome,
beaten with long white rods, and driven out of the city. He was
called Mamurius Veturius, that is, "the old Mars," and as the
ceremony took place on the day preceding the first full moon of the
old Roman year (which began on the first of March), the skin-clad
man must have represented the Mars of the past year, who was driven
out at the beginning of a new one.
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