Abstract
If the Romans themselves are to be believed, there are apparently customs that have been attested in more or less the same way for centuries (e.g. prohibitions concerning a sacred space, attested by inscriptions). They claim, for example, that the prescriptions applicable to a place of worship are derived from the lex of the altar of Diana Aventine, in the old Latin federal sanctuary of the Aventine. That said, many ritual rules are defined as and when required by decisions of the authorities (law, senatus-consult, magistrates, priests). This sacred law, scattered among different places of worship, could be brought together. This was done, for example, in the Protocols of the Pontiffs, from which scholars at the end of the Republic drew certain elements to bring them together in the " Pontifical Books ". But the latter have never had more than a cultural value, and not a normative scope. To be normative, a rule must be covered by a statement of authority. This doesn't mean that we didn't have treatises written on a festival that we wanted to " restore ". This is what Augustus undertook when composing the ritual script for the secular Games, or when he restored the obligations and prohibitions of the flamines and those of the Vestals. However, it was not such treaties that led to the norm, but an edict, a decree, an oracle transmitted not a senatus-consult.
