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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 May 2015
As this word is so important for the student of Roman religion, and for the student of religion in general, since it has in western Europe helped to fix a pattern of thought in which ‘superstition‘ is contrasted with ‘religion’, it is natural that there should have been many attempts to explain its semantic origin, i.e. how the historical senses have come from that of‘standing over’.
1 Cf.Leumann, M.Glotta 21 (1932),Google Scholar198 and xxiii (1935), 144 for this remark and the separation of superstes and superstitiosus. For -iosus from stems in -ion- see Stolz-Leumann, p. 231. For a summary of previous views on superstitio see Walde-Hofmann and the article of Linkomies referred to below.
2 Arctos ii (1931), 73 ff.
3 Römische Religionsgeschichte, p. 268 n. 1.
4 Compare now Jocelyn, The Tragedies of Ennius, p. 212 and p. 397. In Cicero’s quotation from the Telamo, his CXXXIV (b), Jocelyn prints superstitiosi vates as Cicero, not Ennius, the adj. having here its later pejorative value.
5 For previous interpretations of 
see the literature in Frisk, adding for the group Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, s. v. verstehen. The interpretations of Bréal and Grimm have no real evidence to support them.
6 Journal of Philology vi (1876), 99. I owe the reference to Pease’s note on Cic. Div. ii 148. Nettleship’s remarks on contemplor and considero in the same article are still of value.