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[2]
Now it would seem that Numa, who in other respects also was a very wise director of sacred rites, had very properly sought to secure the people's reverent attention by means of the following ordinance. When, namely, magistrates or priests perform any religious function, a herald goes before, crying with a loud voice,
‘Hoc age.’ The meaning of the cry is, Mind this! and it warns the people to give heed to the sacred rites, and suffer no task or demand of business to intervene,1 implying that men perform most of their duties under some sort of compulsion and by constraint.
1 Cf. Numa, xiv. 2.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives. with an English Translation by. Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1916. 4.
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