The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic W. Warde Fowler 3289 downloads.pdf

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Roman Festivals of the
Period of the Republic
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic

Author: W. Warde Fowler

Release date: March 4, 2019 [eBook #59007]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/59007

Credits: Produced by Ted Garvin, David King, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMAN
FESTIVALS OF THE PERIOD OF THE REPUBLIC ***

Transcriber’s Note:

Footnotes have been collected at the end of the text, and are
linked for ease of reference.

The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic

THE ROMAN FESTIVALS OF THE
PERIOD OF THE REPUBLIC
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE RELIGION
OF THE ROMANS
BY

W. WARDE FOWLER, M.A.
FELLOW AND SUB-RECTOR OF LINCOLN COLLEGE,
OXFORD

London
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1899

All rights reserved

OXFORD: HORACE HART

PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

FRATRIS FILIIS

I. C. H. F

H. G. C. F

BONAE SPEI ADOLESCENTIBUS

PREFACE

A word of explanation seems needed about the form this book has taken.
Many years ago I became specially interested in the old Roman religion,
chiefly, I think, through studying Plutarch’s Quaestiones Romanae, at a
time when bad eyesight was compelling me to abandon a project for an
elaborate study of all Plutarch’s works. The ‘scrappy’ character not only of
the Quaestiones, but of all the material for the study of Roman ritual, suited
weak eyes better than the continual reading of Greek text; but I soon found
it necessary to discover a thread on which to hang these fragments in some
regular order. This I naturally found in the Fasti as edited by Mommsen in
the first volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum; and it gradually
dawned on me that the only scientific way of treating the subject was to
follow the calendar throughout the year, and to deal with each festival
separately. I had advanced some way in this work, when Roscher’s Lexicon
of Greek and Roman Mythology began to appear in parts, and at once
convinced me that I should have to do my work all over again in the
increased light afforded by the indefatigable industry of the writers of the
Roman articles. I therefore dropped my work for several years while the
Lexicon was in progress, and should have waited still longer for its
completion, had not Messrs. Macmillan invited me to contribute a volume
on the Roman religion to their series of Handbooks of Archaeology and
Antiquities.
Having once set out on the plan of following the Fasti, I could not well
abandon it, and I still hold it to be the only sound one: especially if, as in
this volume, the object is to exhibit the religious side of the native Roman
character, without getting entangled to any serious extent in the colluvies
religionum of the last age of the Republic and the earlier Empire. The book
has thus taken the form of a commentary on the Fasti, covering in a
compressed form almost all the public worship of the Roman state, and
including incidentally here and there certain ceremonies which strictly

speaking lay outside that public worship. Compression has been
unavoidable; yet it has been impossible to avoid stating and often
discussing the conflicting views of eminent scholars; and the result
probably is that the book as a whole will not be found very interesting
reading. But I hope that British and American students of Roman history
and literature, and possibly also anthropologists and historians of religion,
may find it useful as a book of reference, or may learn from it where to go
for more elaborate investigations.
The task has often been an ungrateful one—one indeed of

Dipping buckets into empty wells
And growing old with drawing nothing up.

The more carefully I study any particular festival, the more (at least in
many cases) I have been driven into doubt and difficulty both as to reported
facts and their interpretation. Had the nature of the series permitted it, I
should have wished to print the chief passages quoted from ancient authors
in full, as was done by Mr. Farnell in his Cults of the Greek States, and so to
present to the reader the actual material on which conclusions are rightly or
wrongly based. I have only been able to do this where it was indispensable:
but I have done my best to verify the correctness of the other references,
and have printed in full the entries of the ancient calendars at the head of
each section. Professor Gardner, the editor of the series, has helped me by
contributing two valuable notes on coins, which will be found at the end of
the volume: and I hope he may some day find time to turn his attention
more closely to the bearing of numismatic evidence on Roman religious
history.
It happens, by a curious coincidence, that I am writing this on the last day
of the old Roman year; and the lines which Ovid has attached to that day
may fitly express my relief on arriving at the end of a very laborious task:

Venimus in portum, libro cum mense peracto,
Naviget hinc alia iam mihi linter aqua.

W. W. F.

Oxford: Feb. 28, 1899.

CONTENTS

Introduction 1

Calendar 21

Festivals of March 33

Festivals of April 66

Festivals of May 98

Festivals of June 129

Festivals of July 173

Festivals of August 189

Festivals of September 215

Festivals of October 236

Festivals of November 252

Festivals of December 255

Festivals of January 277

Festivals of February 298

Conclusion 332

Notes on Two Coins 350

Indices 353

ABBREVIATIONS.

The following are the most important abbreviations which occur in the
notes:
C. I. L. stands for Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Where the volume is
not indicated the reference is invariably to the second edition of that part of
vol. i which contains the Fasti (Berlin, 1893).
Marquardt or Marq. stands for the third volume of Marquardt’s Römische
Staatsverwaltung, second edition, edited by Wissowa (Berlin, 1885). It is
the sixth volume of the complete Handbuch der Römischen Alterthümer of
Mommsen and Marquardt.
Preller, or Preller-Jordan, stands for the third edition of Preller’s Römische
Mythologie by H. Jordan (Berlin, 1881).
Myth. Lex. or Lex. stands for the Ausführliches Lexicon der Griechischen
und Römischen Mythologie, edited by W. H. Roscher, which as yet has only
been completed to the letter N.
Festus, or Paulus, stands for K. O. Müller’s edition of the fragments of
Festus, De Significatione Verborum, and the Excerpta ex Festo of Paulus
Diaconus; quoted by the page.

INTRODUCTION

I. The Roman Method of Reckoning the Year.[1]

There are three ways in which the course of the year may be calculated. It
can be reckoned—
1. By the revolution of the moon round the earth, twelve of which = 354
days, or a ring (annus), sufficiently near to the solar year to be a practicable
system with modifications.
2. By the revolution of the earth round the sun i. e. 365-1/4 days; a system
which needs periodical adjustments, as the odd quarter (or, more strictly, 5
hours 48 minutes 48 seconds) cannot of course be counted in each year. In
this purely solar year the months are only artificial divisions of time, and
not reckoned according to the revolutions of the moon. This is our modern
system.
3. By combining in a single system the solar and lunar years as described
above. This has been done in various ways by different peoples, by
adopting a cycle of years of varying length, in which the resultants of the
two bases of calculation should be brought into harmony as nearly as
possible. In other words, though the difference between a single solar year
and a single lunar year is more than 11 days, it is possible, by taking a
number of years together and reckoning them as lunar years, one or more of
them being lengthened by an additional month, to make the whole period
very nearly coincide with the same number of solar years. Thus the
Athenians adopted for this purpose at different times groups or cycles of 8
and 19 years. In the Octaeteris or 8-year cycle there were 99 lunar months,
3 months of 30 days being added in 3 of the 8 years—a plan which falls
short of accuracy by about 36 hours. Later on a cycle of 19 years was
substituted for this, in which the discrepancy was greatly reduced. The
Roman year in historical times was calculated on a system of this kind,
though with such inaccuracy and carelessness as to lose all real relation to
the revolutions both of earth and moon.
But there was a tradition that before this historical calendar came into use
there had been another system, which the Romans connected with the name
of Romulus. This year was supposed to have consisted of 10 months, of

which 4—March, May, July, October—had 31 days, and the rest 30; in all
304. But this was neither a solar nor a lunar year; for a lunar year of 10
months = 295 days 7 hours 20 minutes, while a solar year = 365-1/4. Nor
can it possibly be explained as an attempt to combine the two systems.
Mommsen has therefore conjectured that it was an artificial year of 10
months, used in business transactions, and in periods of mourning, truces[2],
&c., to remedy the uncertainty of the primitive calculation of time; and that
it never really was the basis of a state calendar. This view has of course
been the subject of much criticism[3]. But no better solution has been found;
the hypothesis that the year of 10 months was a real lunar year, to which an
undivided period of time was added at each year’s end, to make it
correspond with the solar year and the seasons, has not much to recommend
it or any analogy among other peoples. It was not, then, the so-called year
of Romulus which was the basis of the earliest state-calendar, but another
system which the Romans themselves usually ascribed to Numa. This was
originally perhaps a lunar year; at any rate the number of days in it is very
nearly that of a true lunar year (354 days 8 hours 48 minutes)[4]. It consisted
of 12 months, of which March, May, July, October had 31 days, and the rest
29, except February, which had 28. All the months therefore had an odd
number of days, except the one which was specially devoted to purification
and the cult of the dead; according to an old superstition, probably adopted
from the Greeks of Southern Italy[5], that odd numbers were of good omen,
even numbers of ill omen. This principle, as we shall see, holds good
throughout the Roman calendar.
But this reckoning of the year, if it ever existed at all, could not have lasted
long as it stood. As we know it in historical times, it has become modified
by applying to it the principle of the solar year. The reason for this should
be noted carefully. A lunar year, being about 11 days short of the solar year,
would in a very short time become out of harmony with the seasons. Now if
there is one thing certain about the Roman religious calendar, it is that many
at least of its oldest festivals mark those operations of husbandry on which
the population depended for its subsistence, and for the prosperous result of
which divine agencies must be propitiated. These festivals, when fixed in
the calendar, must of course occur at the right seasons, which could not be
the case if the calendar were that of a purely lunar year. It was therefore
necessary to work in the solar principle; and this was done[6] by a somewhat
rude expedient, not unlike that of the Athenian Octaeteris, and probably

derived from it[7]. A cycle of 4 years was devised, of which the first had the
355 days of the lunar year, the second 355 + 22, the third 355 again, and the
fourth 355 + 23. The extra periods of 22 and 23 days were inserted in
February, not at the end, but after the 23rd (Terminalia)[8]. The total number
of days in the cycle was 1465, or about 1 day too much in each year; and in
course of time even this system got out of harmony with the seasons and
had to be rectified from time to time by the Pontifices, who had charge of
the calendar. Owing to ignorance on their part, misuse or neglect of
intercalation had put the whole system out of gear before the last century of
the Republic. All relation to sun and moon was lost; the calendar, as
Mommsen says, ‘went on its own way tolerably unconcerned about moon
and sun.’ When Caesar took the reform of the calendar in hand the
discrepancy between it and the seasons was very serious; the former being
in advance of the latter probably by some weeks. Caesar, aided by the
mathematician Sosigenes, put an end to this confusion by extending the
year 46 B.C. to 445 days, and starting afresh on Jan. 1, 45 B.C.[9]—a day
henceforward to be that of the new year—with a cycle of 4 years of 365
days[10]; in the last of which a single day was added, after the Terminalia.
This cycle produced a true solar year with a slight adjustment at short
intervals; and after a few preliminary blunders on the part of the Pontifices,
lasted without change until A.D. 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII set right a
slight discrepancy by a fresh regulation. This regulation was only adopted
in England in 1752, and is still rejected in Russia and by the Greek Church
generally.

II. Order of Months in the Year.

That the Roman year originally began with March is certain[11], not only
from the evidence of the names of the months, which after June are
reckoned as 5th (Quinctilis), 6th (Sextilis), and so on, but from the nature of
the March festivals, as will be shown in treating of that month. In the
character of the religious festivals there is a distinct break between February
and March, and the operations both of nature and of man take a fresh turn at
that point. Between the festivals of December and those of January there is
no such break. No doubt January 1, just after the winter solstice, was even
at an early time considered in some sense as a beginning; but it is going too
far to assume, as some have done, that an ancient religious or priestly year
began at that point[12]. It was not on January 1, but on March 1, that the
sacred fire in the Aedes Vestae was renewed and fresh laurels fixed up on
the Regia, the two buildings which were the central points of the oldest
Roman religion[13]. March 1, which in later times at least was considered the
birthday of the special protecting deity of the Romans, continued to be the
Roman New Year’s Day long after the official beginning of the year had
been changed to January 1[14]. It was probably not till 153 B.C., when the
consuls began to enter on office on January 1, that this official change took
place; and the date was then adopted, not so much for religious reasons as
because it was convenient, when the business of administration was
increasing, to have the consuls in Rome for some time before they left for
their provinces at the opening of the war season in March.
No rational account can in my opinion be given of the Roman religious
calendar of the Republic unless it be taken as beginning with March; and in
this work I have therefore restored the old order of months. With the Julian
calendar I am not concerned; though it is unfortunate that all the Roman
calendars we possess, including the Fasti of Ovid, date from after the Julian
era, and therefore present us with a distorted view of the true course of the
old Roman worship.
Next after March came Aprilis, the month of opening or unfolding
vegetation; then Maius, the month of growing, and Junius, that of ripening

and perfecting. After this the names cease to be descriptive of the operations
of nature; the six months that follow were called, as four of them still are,
only by their positions relative to March, on which the whole system of the
year thus turned as on a pivot.
The last two months of the twelve were January and February. They stand
alone among the later months in bearing names instead of mere numbers,
and this is sufficient to suggest their religious importance. That they were
not mere appendages to a year of ten months is almost certain from the
antique character of the rites and festivals which occur in them—Agonia,
Carmentalia, Lupercalia, &c.; and it is safer to consider them as marking an
ancient period of religious importance preparatory to the beginning of the
year, and itself coinciding with the opening of the natural year after the
winter solstice. This latter point seems to be indicated in the name
Januarius, which, whether derived from janua, ‘a gate,’ or Janus, ‘the god of
entrances,’ is appropriate to the first lengthening of the days, or the entrance
of the sun on a new course; while February, the month of purifying or
regenerative agencies (februa), was, like the Lent of the Christian calendar,
the period in which the living were made ready for the civil and religious
work of the coming year, and in which also the yearly duties to the dead
were paid.
It is as well here to refer to a passage of Ovid (Fasti, ii. 47 foll.), itself
probably based on a statement of Varro, which has led to a controversy
about the relative position of these two months:

Sed tamen antiqui ne nescius ordinis erres,
Primus, ut est, Iani mensis et ante fuit.
Qui sequitur Ianum, veteris fuit ultimus anni,
Tu quoque sacrorum, Termine, finis eras.
Primus enim Iani mensis, quia ianua prima est;
Qui sacer est imis manibus, imus erat.
Postmodo creduntur spatio distantia longo
Tempora bis quini continuasse viri.

This plainly means that from the time when March ceased to be the first
month, the year always began with January and ended with February; in
other words the order was January, March, April, and so on, ending with

February; until the time of the Decemvirate, when February became the
second month, and December the last, as at present, January still retaining
its place. A little consideration of Ovid’s lines will, however, suggest the
conclusion that he, and his authority, whoever that may have been, were
arguing aetiologically rather than on definite knowledge. January, they
thought, must always have been the first month, because janua, ‘a door,’ is
the first thing, the entrance, through which you pass into a new year as into
a house or a temple. How, they would argue, could a month thus named
have ever been the eleventh month? This once supposed impossible, it was
necessary to infer that the place of January was the first, from the time of its
introduction, and that it was followed by March, April, &c., February
coming last of all, immediately after December; and finally that at the time
of the Decemvirs, who are known to have made some alterations in the
calendar, the positions of January and February were reversed, January
remaining the first month, but February becoming the second.

III. The Divisions of the Month.

The Romans, with their usual conservatism, preserved the shell of the lunar
system of reckoning long after the reality had disappeared. The month was
at all times divided by the real or imaginary phases of the moon, though a
week of eight days was introduced at an early period, and though the month
was no longer a lunar one.
The two certain points in a lunar month are the first appearance of the
crescent[15] and the full moon; between these is the point when the moon
reaches the first quarter, which is a less certain one. Owing to this
uncertainty of the reckoning of the first days of the month there were no
festivals in the calendars on the days before the first quarter (Nones), with a
single exception of the obscure Poplifugia on July 5. The day of the new
moon was called Kalendae, as Varro tells us, ‘quod his diebus calantur eius
mensis nonae a pontificibus, quintanae an septimanae sint futurae, in
Capitolio in curia Calabra sic: Dies te quinque calo, Iuno Covella. Septem
dies te calo Iuno Covella’[16]. All the Kalends were sacred to Juno, whose
connexion with the moon is certain though not easy to explain.
With the Nones, which were sacred to no deity, all uncertainty ceased. The
Ides, or day of the full moon, was always the eighth after the first quarter.
This day was sacred to Jupiter; a fact which is now generally explained as a
recognition of the continuous light of the two great heavenly bodies during
the whole twenty-four hours[17]. On the Nones the Rex sacrorum (and
therefore before him the king himself) announced the dates of the festivals
for the month.
There was another internal division of the month, with which we are not
here specially concerned, that of the Roman week or nundinal period of
eight days, which is indicated in all the calendars by the letters A to H. The
nundinae were market days, on which the rustic population came into
Rome; whether they were also feast days (feriae) was a disputed question
even in antiquity.

IV. The Days.

Every day in the Roman calendar has a certain mark attached to it, viz. the
letters F, C, N, NP, EN, Q.R.C.F., Q.St.D.F., or FP. All of these have a
religious significance, positive or negative.
F, i. e. fas or fastus, means that on the day so marked civil and especially
judicial business might be transacted without fear of divine displeasure[18].
Correctness in the time as well as place of all human actions was in the
mind of the early Roman of the most vital importance; and the floating
traditional ideas which governed his life before the formation of the State
were systematized and kept secret by kings and priests, as a part, so to
speak, of the science of government. Not till B.C. 304 was the calendar
published, with its permissive and prohibitive regulations[19].
C (comitialis) means that the day so marked was one on which the comitia
might meet[20], and on which also legal business might be transacted, as on
the days marked F, if there were no other hindrance. The total number of
days thus available for secular business, i.e. days marked F and C, was in
the Julian calendar 239 out of 365.
N, i. e. nefastus, meant that the day so marked was religiosus, vitiosus, or
ater; as Gellius has it[21], ‘tristi omine et infames impeditique, in quibus et
res divinas facere et rem quampiam novam exordiri temperandum est.’
Some of these days received the mark in historical times for a special
reason, e. g. a disaster to the State; among these were the postriduani or
days following the Kalends, Nones and Ides, because two terrible defeats
had occurred on such days[22]. But most of them (in all they are 57) were
probably so marked as being devoted to lustrations, or worship of the dead
or of the powers of the earth, and therefore unsuitable for worldly business.
One long series of such dies nefasti occurs Feb. 1-14, the time of
purification; another, April 5-22, in the month occupied by the rites of
deities of growing vegetation; a third, June 5-14, when the rites of the
Vestals preparatory to harvest were taking place; and a fourth, July 1-9, for
reasons which are unfortunately by no means clear to us.

NP was not a mark in the pre-Julian calendars, for it was apparently
unknown to Varro and Ovid. Verrius Flaccus seems to have distinguished it
from N, but his explanation is mutilated, even as it survives in Festus[23]. No
one has yet determined for certain the origin of the sign, and discussion of
the various conjectures would be here superfluous[24]. It appears to
distinguish, in the Julian calendars, those days on which fell the festivals of
deities who were not of an earthly and therefore doubtful character from
those marked N. Thus in the series of dies nefasti in February and April the
Ides in each case have the mark NP as being sacred to Jupiter.
EN. We have a mutilated note in the calendar of Praeneste which indicates
what this abbreviation meant, viz. endotercisus = intercisus, i. e. ‘cut into
parts’[25]. In morning and evening, as Varro tells us, the day was nefastus,
but in the middle, between the slaying of the victim and the placing of the
entrails upon the altar, it was fastus. But why eight days in the calendar
were thus marked we do not know, and have no data for conjecturing. All
the eight were days coming before some festival, or before the Ides. Of the
eight two occur in January and two in February, the others in March,
August, October and December. But on such facts no conjectures can be
built.
Q.R.C.F. (Quando Rex Comitiavit Fas) will be explained under March 24;
the only other day on which it occurs is May 24. Q.St.D.F. (Quando stercus
delatum fas) only occurs on June 15, and will there be fully dealt with.
FP occurs thrice, but only in three calendars. Feb. 21 (Feralia) is thus
marked in Caer.[26], but is F in Maff. April 23 (Vinalia) is FP in Caer. but NP
in Maff. and F in Praen. Aug. 19 (Vinalia rustica) is FP in Maff. and Amit,
F in Antiat. and Allif., NP in Vall. Mommsen explains FP as fastus
principio, i. e. the early part of the day was fastus, and suggests that in the
case of the Feralia, as the rites of the dead were performed at night, there
was no reason why the earlier part of the day should be nefastus. But in the
case of the two Vinalia we can hardly even guess at the meaning of the
mark, and it does not seem to have been known to the Romans themselves.

V. The Calendars still surviving.

The basis of our knowledge of the old Roman religious year is to be found
in the fragments of calendars which still survive. None of these indeed is
older than the Julian era; and all but one are mere fragments. But from the
fragments and the one almost perfect calendar we can infer the character of
the earlier calendar with tolerable certainty.
The calendar, as the Romans generally believed, was first published by
Cnaeus Flavius, curule aedile, in 304 B.C., who placed the fasti
conspicuously in the Forum, in order that every one might know on what
days legal business might be transacted[27]; in other words, a calendar was
published with the marks of the days and the indications of the festivals.
After this we hear nothing until 189 B.C., when a consul, M. Fulvius
Nobilior, adorned his temple of Hercules and the Muses with a calendar
which contained explanations or notes as well as dates[28]. These are the
only indications we have of the way in which the pre-Julian calendar was
made known to the people.
But the rectification of the calendar by Julius, and the changes then
introduced, brought about a multiplication of copies of the original one
issued under the dictator’s edict[29]. Not only in Rome, but in the
municipalities round about her, where the ancient religious usage of each
city had since the enfranchisement of Italy been superseded, officially at
least, by that of Rome, both public and private copies were made and set up
either on stone, or painted on the walls or ceiling of a building.
Of such calendars we have in all fragments of some thirty, and one which is
all but complete. Fourteen of these fragments were found in or near Rome,
eleven in municipalities such as Praeneste, Caere, Amiternum, and others as
far away as Allifae and Venusia; four are of uncertain origin[30]; and one is a
curious fragment from Cisalpine Gaul[31]. Most of them are still extant on
stone, but for a few we have to depend on written copies of an original now
lost[32]. No day in the Roman year is without its annotation in one or more of
these; the year is almost complete, as I have said, in the Fasti Maffeiani; and
several others contain three or four months nearly perfect[33]. Two, though in

a fragmentary condition, are of special interest. One of these, that of the
ancient brotherhood of the Fratres Arvales, discovered in 1867 and
following years in the grove of the brethren near Rome, contains some
valuable additional notes in the fragments which survive of the months
from August to November. The other, that of Praeneste, containing January,
March, April and parts of February and December, is still more valuable
from the comments it contains, most of which we can believe with
confidence to have come from the hand of the great Augustan scholar
Verrius Flaccus. We are told by Suetonius that Verrius put up a calendar in
the forum at Praeneste[34], drawn up by his own hand; and the date[35] and
matter of these fragments found at Praeneste agree with what we know of
the life and writings of Verrius. It is unlucky that recent attempts to find
additional fragments should have been entirely without result; for the whole
annotated calendar, if we possessed it, would probably throw light on many
dark corners of our subject.
To these fragments of Julian calendars, all drawn up between B.C. 31 and
A.D. 46, there remain to be added two in MSS.: (i) that of Philocalus, A.D.
354, (ii) that of Polemius Silvius, A.D. 448; neither of which are of much
value for our present purpose, though they will be occasionally referred to.
Lastly, we have two farmer’s almanacs on cubes of bronze, which omit the
individual days, but are of use as showing the course of agricultural
operations under the later Empire[36].
All these calendars, some of which had been printed wholly or in part long
ago, while a few have only been discovered of late, have been brought
together for the first time in the first volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum
Latinarum, edited by Mommsen with all his incomparable skill and
learning, and furnished with ample elucidations and commentaries. And we
now have the benefit of a second edition of this by the same editor, to
whose labours in this as in every other department of Roman history it is
almost impossible to express our debt in adequate words. All references to
the calendars in the following pages will be made to this second edition.
A word remains to be said about the Fasti of Ovid[37], which is a poetical
and often fanciful commentary on the calendar of the first half of the Julian
year, i.e. January to June inclusive; each month being contained in one
book. Ovid tells us himself[38] that he completed the year in twelve books;
but the last six were probably never published, for they are never quoted by

later writers. The first six were written but not published before the poet’s
exile, and taken in hand again after the death of Augustus, but only the first
book had been revised when the work was cut short by Ovid’s death.
Ovid’s work merits all praise as a literary performance, for the neatness and
felicity of its versification and diction; but as a source of knowledge it is too
much of a medley to be used without careful criticism. There is, however, a
great deal in it that helps us to understand the views about the gods and
their worship, not only of the scholars who pleased themselves and
Augustus by investigating these subjects, but also of the common people
both in Rome and in the country. But the value varies greatly throughout the
work. Where the poet describes some bit of ritual which he has himself
seen, or tells some Italian story he has himself heard, he is invaluable; but
as a substitute for the work of Varro on which he drew, he only increases
our thirst for the original. No great scholar himself, he aimed at producing a
popular account of the results of the work of scholars, picking and choosing
here and there as suited his purpose, and not troubling himself to write with
scientific accuracy. Moreover, he probably made free use of Alexandrine
poets, and especially of Callimachus, whose Aetia is in some degree his
model for the whole poem; and thus it is that the work contains a large
proportion of Greek myth, which is often hard to distinguish from the
fragments of genuine Italian legend which are here and there imbedded in
it. Still, when all is said, a student of the Roman religion should be grateful
to Ovid; and when after the month of June we lose him as a companion, we
may well feel that the subject not only loses with him what little literary
interest it can boast of, but becomes for the most part a mere investigation
of fossil rites, from which all life and meaning have departed for ever.

VI. The Calendar of the Republic and its Religious Festivals.

All the calendars still surviving belong, as we saw, to the early Empire, and
represent the Fasti as revised by Julius. But what we have to do with is the
calendar of the Republic. Can it be recovered from those we still possess?
Fortunately this is quite an easy task, as Mommsen himself has pointed
out[39]; we can reconstruct for certain the so-called calendar of Numa as it
existed throughout the Republican era. The following considerations must
be borne in mind:
1. It is certain that Caesar and his advisers would alter the familiar calendar
as little as possible, acting in the spirit of persistent conservatism from
which no true Roman was ever free. They added 10 days to the old normal
year of 355 days, i. e. two at the end of January, August, and December, and
one at the end of April, June, September, and November; but they retained
the names of the months, and their division by Kalends, Nones, and Ides,
and also the signs of the days, and the names of all festivals throughout the
year. Later on further additions were made, chiefly in the way of
glorification of the Emperors and their families; but the skeleton remained
as it had been under the Republic.
2. It is almost certain that the Republican calendar itself had never been
changed from its first publication down to the time of Caesar. There is no
historical record of any alteration, either by the introduction of new
festivals or in any other way. The origin of no festival is recorded in the
history of the Republic, except the second Carmentalia, the Saturnalia, and
the Cerealia[40]; and in these three cases we can be morally certain that the
record, if such it can be called, is erroneous.
3. If Julius and his successors altered only by slight additions, and if the
calendar which they had to work on was of great antiquity and unchanged
during the Republic, how, in the next place, are we to distinguish the
skeleton of that ancient calendar from the Julian and post-Julian additions?
Nothing is easier; in Mommsen’s words, it is not a matter of calculation; a
glance at the Fasti is sufficient. In all these it will be seen that the numbers,
names, and signs of the days were cut or painted in large capital letters;

while ludi, sacrifices, and all additional notes and comments appear in small
capital letters. It cannot be demonstrated that the large capital letters
represent the Republican calendar; but the circumstantial evidence, so to
speak, is convincing. For inscribed in these large capitals is all the
information which the Roman of the Republic would need; the dies fasti,
comitiales, nefasti, &c.; the number of the days in the month; the position
of the Nones and the Ides and the names of those days on which fixed
festivals took place; all this in an abbreviated but no doubt familiar form.
The minor sacrificial rites, which concerned the priests and magistrates
rather than the people, he did not find there; they would only have confused
him. The moveable festivals, too, he did not find there, as they changed
their date from year to year and were fixed by the priesthood as the time for
each came round. The ludi, or public games, were also absent from the old
calendar, for they were, originally at least, only adjuncts to certain festivals
out of which they had grown in course of time. Lastly, all rites which did
not technically concern the State as a whole, but only its parts and
divisions[41], i. e. of gentes and curiae, of pagi (paganalia), montes
(Septimontium) and sacella (Sacra Argeorum), could not be included in the
public calendar of the Roman people.
But the Roman of the Republic, even if his calendar were confined to the
indications given by the large capital letters in the Julian calendar, could
find in these the essential outline of the yearly round of his religious life.
This outline we too can reconstruct, though the detail is often wholly
beyond our reach. For this detail we have to fall back upon other sources of
information, which are often most unsatisfactory and difficult to interpret.
What are these other sources, of what value are they, and how can that value
be tested?
Apart from the surviving Fasti, we have to depend, both for the completion
of the religious calendar, and for the study and interpretation of all its
details, chiefly on the fragmentary remains of the works of the two great
scholars of the age of Julius and Augustus, viz. Varro and Verrius Flaccus,
and on the later grammarians, commentators, and other writers who drew
upon their voluminous writings. Varro’s book de Lingua Latina, though not
complete, is in great part preserved, and contains much information taken
from the books of the pontifices, which, did we but possess them, would
doubtless constitute our one other most valuable record besides the Fasti

themselves[42]. Such, too, is the value of the dictionary of Verrius Flaccus,
which, though itself lost, survives in the form of two series of condensed
excerpts, made by Festus probably in the second century, A.D., and by
Paulus Diaconus as late as the beginning of the ninth[43]. Much of the work
of Varro and Verrius is also imbedded in the grammatical writings of
Servius the commentator on Virgil, in Macrobius, Nonius, Gellius, and
many others, and also in Pliny’s Natural History, and in some of the
Christian Fathers, especially St. Augustine and Tertullian; but all these need
to be used with care and caution, except where they quote directly from one
or other of their two great predecessors. The same may be said of
Laurentius Lydus[44], who wrote in Greek a work de Mensibus in the sixth
century, which still survives. To these materials must be added the great
historical writers of the Augustine age; Livy, who, uncritical as he was, and
incapable of distinguishing the genuine Italian elements in religious
tradition from the accretions of Greek and Graeco-Etruscan myth, yet
supplies us with much material for criticism; and Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, who as a foreigner resident for some time in Rome,
occasionally describes ritual of which he was himself a witness. The Roman
lives of Plutarch, and his curious collection entitled Roman Questions, also
contain much interesting matter, taken from several sources, e.g. Juba, the
learned king of Mauritania, but as a rule ultimately referable to Varro.
Beyond these there is no one author of real importance; but the ‘plant’ of
the investigator will include of course the whole of Roman literature, and
Greek literature so far as it touches Roman life and history. Of epigraphical
evidence there is not much for the period of the Republic, beyond the
fragments of the Fasti; by far the most valuable Italian religious inscription
is not Roman but Umbrian; and the Acta Fratrum Arvalium only begin with
the Empire. Yet from these[45], and from a few works of art, however hard of
interpretation, some light has occasionally been thrown upon the difficulties
of our subject; and the study of early Italian culture is fast progressing
under the admirable system of excavation now being supervised by the
Italian government.
All this material has been collected, sifted, and built upon by modern
scholars, and chiefly by Germans. The work of collecting was done to a
great extent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the rest of the
process mainly in the nineteenth. The chief writers will be quoted as
occasion demands; here can only be mentioned, honoris causa, the writings

of Ambrosch, Preller, Schwegler, Marquardt[46], and of some of the writers
in the Mythological Lexicon, edited by Roscher, especially Professor
Wissowa of Berlin, whose short but pithy articles, as well as his treatises de
Feriis and de Dis Indigetibus are models of scholarly investigation[47]. Of
late, too, anthropologists and folk-lorists have had something to say about
Roman religious antiquities; of these, the most conspicuous is the late
lamented Dr. Mannhardt, who applied a new method to certain problems
both of the Greek and the Roman religion, and evolved a new theory for
their interpretation. Among other works of this kind, which incidentally
throw light on our difficulties, the most useful to me have been those of
Professor Tylor, Mr. Frazer, Mr. Andrew Lang, and the late Professor
Robertson Smith. In the Religion of the Semites, by the last named scholar, I
seem to see a deeper insight into the modes of religious thought of ancient
peoples than in any other work with which I am acquainted.
Yet in spite of all this accumulation of learning and acumen, it must be
confessed that the study of the oldest Roman religion is still one of
insuperable difficulty, and apt to try the patience of the student all the more
as he slowly becomes aware of the conditions of the problem before him.
There are festivals in the calendar about which we really know nothing at
all, and must frankly confess our ignorance; there are others about which
we know just enough to be doubtful; others again, in interpreting which the
Romans themselves plainly went astray, leaving us perhaps nothing but a
baseless legend to aid us in guessing their original nature. It must be borne
in mind that the Roman religion was in ruins when the Julian calendar was
drawn up, and that the archaeological research which was brought to bear
upon it by Varro and Verrius was not of a strictly scientific character. And
during the last two centuries of the Republic, as the once stately building
crumbled away, it became overlaid with growths of foreign and especially
of Greek origin, under which it now lies hopelessly buried. The ground-plan
alone remains, in the form of the calendar as it has been explained above; to
this we must hold fast if we would obtain any true conception of the
religion of the earliest Roman State[48]. Here and there some portion of the
building of which it was the basis can however still be conjecturally
restored by the aid of Varro and Verrius and a few other ancient writers,
tested by the criticism of modern scholars, and sometimes by the results of
the science of comparative religion. Such particular restoration is what has

been attempted in this work, not without much misgiving and constant
doubt.
The fall of the Republic is in any case a convenient point from which to
survey the religious ideas and practice of the conquerors of the civilized
world. It is not indeed a more significant epoch in the history of the Roman
religion than the era of the Punic wars, when Rome ceased to be a
peninsular, and began to be a cosmopolitan state; but it is a turning-point in
the history of the calendar and of religious worship as well as of the
constitution. Henceforward, in spite of the strenuous efforts of Augustus to
revive the old forms of worship, all religious rites have a tendency to
become transformed or overshadowed, first by the cult of the Caesars[49];
secondly, by the steadily increasing influence of foreign and especially of
Oriental cults; and lastly, by Christianity itself[50].
Taking our stand, then, in the year 46 B.C., the last year of the pre-Julian
calendar, we are able in a small volume, by carefully working through that
calendar, to lay a firm foundation of material for the study of the religious
life and thought of the Roman people while it was still in some sense really
Roman. The plan has indeed its disadvantages; it excludes the introduction
of a systematic account of certain departments of the subject, such as the
development of the priesthoods, the sacrificial ritual, the auspicia, and the
domestic practice of religious rites[51]. But if it is true, as it undoubtedly is,
that in dealing with the Roman religion we must begin with the cult[52], and
that for the cult the one ‘sincerum documentum’ is to be found in the
surviving Fasti, these drawbacks may fairly be deemed to be
counterbalanced by distinct advantages. And in order to neutralize any
bewilderment that may be caused by the constant variety of the rites we
shall meet with, both in regard to their origin, history, and meaning, some
attempt will be made, when we have completed the round of the year, to
sum up our results, to sketch in outline the history of Roman religious ideas,
and to estimate the influence of all this elaborate ceremonial on the life and
character of the Roman people.

In order to fit the calendar of each month into a single page of this work it
has been necessary to print the names of the festivals, and the indications of
Kalends, Nones, &c. in small capital letters instead of the large capitals in
which they appear in the originals (see above, p. 15). In the headings to the

days as they occur throughout the book the method of the originals will be
reproduced exactly, i. e. large capitals represent in every case the most
ancient calendar of the Republic, and small capitals the additamenta ex
fastis.

Calendar.

MENSIS MARTIUS

Fasti antiquissimi. Additamenta ex Additamenta ex
fastis. scriptoribus.

1 KAL. 1. Feriae Marti. 1. Matronalia(?).
NP Iunoni Lucinae.
2 F
3 C
4 C
5 C
6 NP
7 NON. 7. Vediovi.
F
8 F
9 C 9. Arma ancilia
movent.
10 C
11 C
12 C
13 EN
14 NP EQUIRRIA 14 (or 15?). 14. Mamuralia(?).
Feriae Marti.
15 EID. 15. Feriae
NP Annae
Perennae.
16 F 16 (and 17?).
Sacra Argeorum.
17 NP LIBERALIA
AGONIA
18 C

19 N QUINQUATRUS 19. Feriae
Marti.
20 C
21 C
22 N
23 NP TUBILUSTRIUM
24 Q.R.C.
F
25 C
26 C
27 NP
28 C
29 C
30 C
31 C 31. Lunae in
Aventino.

MENSIS APRILIS

Fasti antiquissimi. Additamenta ex Additamenta ex
fastis. scriptoribus.

1 KAL. 1. Veneralia(?).
F Fortunae virili in
balneis (Verr.
Flacc.).
2 F
3 C
4 C 4. Matri Magnae.
4-10. Ludi
Megalesiaci.
5 NON. 5. Fortunae
N publicae citeriori
in colle.
6 NP
7 N
8 N
9 N 9-10 or 10-11.
Oraculum
Fortunae patet (at
Praeneste).
10 N
11 N
12 N 12-19. Ludi
Cereales
13 EID.
NP
14 N
15 NP FORDICIDIA

16 N
17 N
18 N
19 N CEREALIA 19. Cereri Libero
Liberae.
20 N
21 NP PARILIA 21. Natalis urbis
(Philoc.).
22 N
23 NP VINALIA 23. Veneri
Erycinae. Iovi.
24 C 24. Feriae Latinae
(conceptivae)
usually about this
time.
25 NP ROBIGALIA 25. Sacrificium et
ludi.
26 F
27 C
28 NP 28. Ludi Florae, to 28. Floralia (Plin.).
V. Non. Mai.
(May 3).
29 C

MENSIS MAIUS

Fasti antiquissimi. Additamenta ex Additamenta ex
fastis. scriptoribus.

1 KAL. 1. Laribus 1. Dies natalis of
F (praestitibus). temple of Bona
Dea (Ovid).
2 F
3 C
4 C
5 C
6 C
7 NON.
[53]
F
8 F
9 N LEMURIA
10 C
11 N LEMURIA
12 NP
13 N LEMURIA
14 C
15 EID. 15. Feriae Iovi 15. Sacra
NP Mercurio Maiae. Argeorum (Ovid,
&c.).
16 F
17 C
18 C
19 C
20 C
21 NP AGONIA 21. Vediovi.

22 N
23 NP TUBILUSTRIUM 23. Volcano.
24 Q.R.C.
F
25 C 25. Fortunae
publicae Populi
Romani.
26 C
27 C
28 C
29 C 29. Ambarvalla
(feriae
conceptivae).
30 C
31 C

MENSIS IUNIUS

Fasti antiquissimi. Additamenta ex Additamenta ex
fastis. scriptoribus.

1 KAL. N 1. Iunoni 1. Kalendae
Monetae. fabariae (Plin.)
Ludi.
2 F
3 C 3. Bellonae in
circo.
4 C
5 NON. 5. Dio Fidio in
N colle.
6 N
7 N
8 N 8. Menti in
Capitolio.
9 N VESTALIA
10 N
11 N MATRALIA
12 N
13 EID. 13. Feriae Iovi. 13. Quinquatrus
NP minusculae.
[54]
14 N
15 Q.ST.D.
F
16 C
17 C
18 C 18. Annae
sacrum.

19 C
20 C 20. Summano ad
circum maximum.
21 C
22 C
23 C
24 C 24. Forti
Fortunae.
25 C
26 C
27 C
28 C
29 F

MENSIS QUINTILIS

Fasti antiquissimi. Additamenta ex Additamenta ex
fastis. scriptoribus.

1 KAL.
N
2 N
3 N
4 NP
5 NP POPLIFUGIA
6 N 6-13. Ludi
Apollinares.
7 NON. 7. Nonae
N Caprotinae (Varro).
8 N
9 N 9. Vitulatio (Varro).
10 C
11 C
12 C
13 C
14 C 14-19. Mercatus.
15 EID.
NP
16 F
17 C
18 C 18. Dies
Alliensis.
19 NP LUCARIA
20 C
21 NP LUCARIA

22 C
23 NP NEPTUNALIA
24 N
25 NP FURRINALIA
26 C
27 C
28 C
29 C
30 C 30. Fortunae
huiusque diei in
campo.
31 C

MENSIS SEXTILIS

Fasti antiquissimi. Additamenta ex Additamenta ex
fastis. scriptoribus.

1 KAL. 1. Spei ad forum 1. Laribus
F holitorium. compitalibus?
(Ovid, 5. 147).
2 NP
3 C
4 C
5 NON. 5. Saluti in colle
F Quir.
6[55] F
7 C
8 C 8 (or 9?) Soli
Indigiti in colle
Quir.
9 F
10 C
11 C
12 C 12. Herculi
invicto ad circ.
max.
13 EID. 13. Feriae Iovi.
NP
14 F Dianae in
Aventino.
15 C Vortumno in
Aventino, &c.
(see p. 198).
16 C

17 NP PORTUNALIA 17. Ianoad
theatrum
Marcelli.
18 C
19[56] FP VINALIA
20 C
21 NP CONSUALIA 21. Conso in
Aventino.
22 EN
23 NP VOLCANALIA 23. Volcano in
circo Flaminio,
&c.
24 C 24. Mundus patet
(Festus).
25 NP OPICONSIVIA
26 C
27 NP VOLTURNALIA
28 C
29 F

MENSIS SEPTEMBER

Fasti antiquissimi. Additamenta ex Additamenta ex
fastis. scriptoribus.

1 KAL.
F
2 F
3 F
4 C 4-12. Ludi
Romani.
5 NON.
F
6 F
7 C
8 C
9 C
10 C
11 C
[57]
12 N
13 EID. 13. Iovi epulum.
NP Feriae Iovi.
14 F 14. Equorum
probatio.
15[58] N 15-19. Ludi
Romani in circo.
16 C
17 C
18 C
19 C
20 C 20-23. Mercatus.

21 C
22 C
23 F
24 C
25 C
26 C
27 C
28 C
29 F

MENSIS OCTOBER

Fasti antiquissimi. Additamenta ex Additamenta ex
fastis. scriptoribus.

1 KAL. 1. Tigillo
N sororio Acili.
Fidei in
Capitolio.
2 F
3 C
4 C
5 C 5. Mundus patet.
6[59] C
7 NON. 7. Iovi fulguri.
F Iunoni Curriti in
campo.
8 F
9 C
10 C
11 NP MEDITRINALIA
12 C
13 NP FONTINALIA 13. Feriae Fonti.
14 EN
15 EID. 15. Feriae Iovi. 15. Sacrifice of
NP October horse
(Festus).
16 F
17 C
18 C
19 NP ARMILUSTRIUM

20 C
21 C
22 C
23 C
24 C
25 C
26 C
27 C
28 C
29 C
30 C
31 C

MENSIS NOVEMBER

Fasti antiquissimi. Additamenta ex Additamenta ex
fastis. scriptoribus.

1 KAL.
F
2 F
3 C
4 C 4-17. Ludi plebeii.
5 F
6 NON.
F
7 C
8 C
9 C
10 C
11 C 13. Feriae Iovi.
Iovi epulum.
12 C
13 EID. 13. (or 14?).
NP Feroniae in campo.
Fortunae
Primigeniae.
14 F
15 C
16 C
17 C 14. Equorum
probatio.
18 C 18-20. Mercatus.
19 C

20 C
21 C
22 C
23 C
24 C
25 C
26 C
27 C
28 C
29 F

MENSIS DECEMBER

Fasti antiquissimi. Additamenta ex Additamenta ex
fastis. scriptoribus.

1 KAL. 1. Neptuno Pietati 1. Fortunae
N ad circ. max. muliebri (Dionys.).
2 N
3 N 3. Sacra Bonae
Deae (Plutarch,
&c.).
4 C
5 NON. 5. Faunalia rustica
F (Horace).
6 F
7 C
8 C 8. Tiberino in
insula.
9 C
10 C
11 NP AG[ONIA] IN. 11. Septimontium
(Festus; Varro).
12 EN 12. Conso in
Aventino.
13 EID. 13. Telluri et
NP Cereri in Carinis.
14 F
15 NP CONSUALIA
16 C
17 NP SATURNALIA
18 C

19 NP OPALIA
20 C
21 NP DIVALIA
22 C 22. Laribus
permarinis in
porticu Minucia.
23 NP LARENTALIA
24 C
25 C
26 C
27 C
28 C
29 F

MENSIS IANUARIUS

Fasti antiquissimi. Additamenta ex Additamenta ex
fastis. scriptoribus.

1 KAL. 1. Aesculapio
F Vediovi in insula
2 F
3 C 3-5 (circa).
Compitalia or ludi
compitales.
4 C
5 NON.
F
6 F
7 C
8 C
9 [NP] AGONIA
10 EN
11 NP CARMENTALIA 11. ‘Inturnalia’
Servius.
12 C
13 EID.
NP
14 EN
15 NP CARMENTALIA
16 C
17 C
18 C
19 C
20 C

21 C
22 C
23 C
24 C 24-26. Sementivae
or Paganalia
(Ovid) (feriae
conceptivae).
25 C
26 C
27 C 27. Castori et
Polluci
(dedication of
temple).
28 C
29 F

MENSIS FEBRUARIUS

Fasti antiquissimi. Additamenta ex Additamenta ex
fastis. scriptoribus.

1 KAL. 1. Iunoni Sospitae
N (Ovid).
2 N
3 N
4 N
5 NON. 5. Concordiae in
NP arce (Praen.).
6 N
7 N
8 N
9 N
10 N
11 N
12 N
13 EID. 13. Fauno in 13-21. Parentalia.
NP insula (Esq.).
14 N
15 NP LUPERCALIA
16 EN
17 NP QUIRINALIA 17. Last day of
Fornacalia (feriae
conceptivae).
‘Stultorum feriae’
(Paulus, &c.).
18 C
19 C

20 C
21[60] FP FERALIA
22 C
23 NP TERMINALIA
24 N REGIFUGIUM
25 C
26 EN
27 NP EQUIRRIA
28 C

MENSIS MARTIUS.

The mensis Martius stands alone among the Roman months. Not only was it
the first in matters both civil and religious down to the time of Julius
Caesar, but it is more closely associated with a single deity than any other,
and that deity the protector and ancestor of the legendary founder of the
city. It bears too the name of the god, which is not the case with any other
month except January; and it is less certain that January was named after
Janus than that March was named after Mars. The cult of Janus is not
specially obvious in January except on a single day; but the cult of Mars is
paramount all through March, and gives a peculiar character to the month’s
worship.
It follows on a period which we may call one of purification, or the
performance of piacular duties towards dead ancestors and towards the
gods; and this has itself succeeded a time of general festivity in the
homestead, the group of homesteads, the market, and the cross-roads. The
rites of December and January are for the most part festive and social, those
of February mystic and melancholy—characteristics which have their
counterpart in the Christian Christmas, New Year, and Lent. The rites of
March are distinct from those of either period, as we shall see. They again
are followed by those of April, the opening month, which are gay and apt to
be licentious; then comes the mensis Maius or month of growth, which is a
time of peril for the crops, and has a certain character of doubt and darkness
in its rites; lastly comes June, the month of maturity, when harvest is close
at hand, and life begins to brighten up once more. After this the Roman
months cease to denote by their names those workings of nature on which
the husbandman’s fortune for the year depends.
By a process of elimination we can make a guess at the kind of ideas which
must have been associated with the month which the Romans called
Martius, even before examining its rites in detail. It is the time when the

spring, whose first breath has been felt in February, begins to show its
power upon the land[61]. Some great numen is at work, quickening
vegetation, and calling into life the powers of reproduction in man and the
animals. The way in which this quickening Power or Spirit was regarded by
primitive man has been very carefully investigated of recent years, and
though the variation is endless both in myth and in ritual, we may now
safely say that he was looked on as coming to new life after a period of
death, or as returning after an absence in the winter, or as conquering the
hostile powers that would hinder his activity. Among civilized peoples these
ideas only survive in legend or poetry, or in some quaint bit of rural custom,
often semi-dramatic, which may or may not have found its way into the
organized cults of a city state of Greece or Italy, or even into the calendar of
a Christian Church. But when these survivals have been collected in vast
numbers both from modern Europe and from classical antiquity, and
compared with the existing ideas and practices of savage peoples, they can
leave no doubt in our minds as to the general character of the primitive
husbandman’s conception of the mysterious power at work in spring-time.
It was this Power, we can hardly doubt, that the Latins knew by the name of
Mars, the god whose cult is so prominent throughout the critical period of
the quickening processes. We know him in Roman literature as a full-grown
deity, with characteristics partly taken from the Greeks, partly extended and
developed by a state priesthood and the usage of a growing and
cosmopolitan city. We cannot trace him back, step by step, to his earliest
vague form as an undefined Spirit, Power, or numen; it is very doubtful
whether we can identify him, as mythologists have often done, with
anything so obvious and definite as the sun, which by itself does not seem
to have been held responsible by primitive peoples for the workings of
nature at this time of year. We do not even know for certain the meaning of
his name, and can get no sure help from comparative philology.
Nevertheless there is a good deal of cumulative evidence which suggests a
comparatively humble origin for this great god, some points of which we
shall meet with in studying his cult during the month. The whole subject has
been worked up by Roscher in the article on Mars in his Mythological
Lexicon, which has the great advantage of being based on an entire re-
examination of the Mars-cult, which he had handled in an earlier essay on
Apollo and Mars.

Kal. Mart. (March 1). NP.

FERIAE MARTI. (PRAEN.)
N̄ MARTIS. (PHILOC.)
IUN[O]NI LUCINAE E[S]QUILIIS QUOD EO DIE AEDES EI
[DEDICA]TA EST PER MATRONAS QUAM VOVERAT ALBI[NIA] ...
VEL UXOR ... SI PUERUM ... [AT]QUE IPSA[M].... (PRAEN.)

This was the New Year’s day of the Roman religious calendar. From
Macrobius[62] we learn that in his day the sacred fire of Vesta was now
renewed, and fresh laurels fixed on the Regia, the Curiae, and the houses of
the flamens; the custom therefore was kept up long after the first of March
had ceased to be the civil New Year. Ovid alludes to the same rites, and
adds the Aedes Vestae as also freshly decorated[63]:

Neu dubites, primae fuerint quin ante Kalendae
Martis, ad haec animum signa referre potes.
Laurea flaminibus quae toto perstitit anno
Tollitur, et frondes sunt in honore novae.
Ianua tunc regis posita viret arbore Phoebi;
Ante tuas fit idem, curia prisca, fores.
Vesta quoque ut folio niteat velata recenti,
Cedit ab Iliacis laurea cana focis.

The mention of these buildings carries us back to the very earliest Rome,
when the rex and his sons and daughters[64] (Flamines and Vestales, in their
later form) performed between them the whole religious duty of the
community; to these we may perhaps add the warrior-priests of Mars
(Salii). The connexion of the decoration with the Mars-cult is probable, if
not certain; the laurel was sacred to Mars, for in front of his sacrarium in
the regia there grew two laurels[65], and it has been conjectured that they
supplied the boughs used on this day[66].

March 1 is also marked in the calendar of Philocalus as the birthday of
Mars (N̄ = natalis Martis). This appears in no other calendar as yet
discovered, and is conspicuously absent in the Fasti Praenestini; it is
therefore very doubtful whether any weight should be given to a fourth-
century writer whose calendar had certainly an urban and not a rustic
basis[67]. There is no trace of allusion to a birth of Mars on this day in Latin
literature, though the day is often mentioned. There was indeed a pretty
legend of such a birth, told by Ovid under May 2[68], which has its parallels
in other mythologies; Juno became pregnant of Mars by touching a certain
flower of which the secret was told her by Flora:

Protinus haerentem decerpsi pollice florem;
Tangitur et tacto concipit illa sinu.
Iamque gravis Thracen et Iaeva Propontidis intrat
Fitque potens voti, Marsque creatus erat.

Of this tale Preller remarked long ago that it has a Greek setting: it is in fact
in its Ovidian form a reflex from stories such as those of the birth of Athena
and of Kora. Yet it has been stoutly maintained[69] that it sprang from a real
Italian germ, and is a fragment of the lost Italian mythology. Now, though it
is certainly untrue that the Italians had no native mythology, and though
there are faint traces, as we shall see, of tales about Mars himself, yet the
Latins at least so rarely took these liberties with their deities[70], that every
apparent case of a divine myth needs to be carefully examined and well
supported. In this case we must conclude that there is hardly any evidence
for a general belief that March 1 was the birthday of Mars; and that Ovid’s
story of Juno and Mars must be looked on with suspicion so far as these
deities are concerned.
The idea that Mars was born on March 1 might arise simply from the fact
that the day was the first of his month and also the first of the year. It is
possible however to account for it in another way. It was the dies natalis of
the temple of Juno Lucina on the Esquiline, as we learn from the note in the
Fasti Praenestini; and this Juno had a special power in childbirth. The
temple itself was not of very ancient date[71], but Juno had no doubt always
been especially the matrons’ deity, and in a sense represented the female
principle of life[72]. To her all kalends were sacred, and more especially the

first kalends of the year, on which we find that wives received presents
from their husbands[73], and entertained their slaves. In fact the day was
sometimes called the Matronalia[74], though the name has no technical or
religious sense. Surely, if a mother was to be found for Mars, no one could
be more suitable that Juno Lucina; and if a day were to be fixed for his
birth, no day could be better than the first kalends of the year, which was
also the dedication-day of the temple of the goddess. At what date the
mother and the birthday were found for him it is impossible to discover. The
latter may be as late as the Empire; the former may have been an older
invention, since Mars seems to have been apt to lend himself, under Greek
or Etruscan influence, somewhat more easily to legendary treatment than
some other deities[75] But we may at any rate feel pretty sure that it was the
Matronalia on March 1 that suggested the motherhood of Juno and the birth
of Mars; and we cannot, as Roscher does, use the Matronalia to show that
these myths were old and native[76].
Yet another legend was attached to this day. It was said that the original
ancile, or sacred shield of Mars, fell down from heaven[77], or was found in
the house of Numa[78], on March 1. This was the type from which were
copied the other eleven belonging to the collegium of Salii Palatini; in the
legend the smith who did this work was named Mamurius, and was
commemorated in the Salian hymn[79]. These are simply fragments of a
tangle of myth which grew up out of the mystery attaching to the Salii, or
dancing priests of Mars, and to the curious shields which they carried, and
the hymns which they sang[80]; in the latter we know that the word Mamuri
often occurred, which is now generally recognized as being only a variant
of the name Mars[81]. We shall meet with the word again later in the month.
This also was the first day on which the shields were ‘moved,’ as it was
called; i. e. taken by the Salii from the sacrarium Martis in the Regia[82],
and carried through the city in procession. Dionysius (ii. 70) has left us a
valuable description of these processions, which continued till the 24th of
the month; the Salii leaped and danced, reminding the writer of the Greek
Curetes, and continually struck the shields with a short spear or staff[83] as
they sang their ancient hymns and performed their rhythmical dances.
The original object and meaning of all these strange performances is now
fairly well made out, thanks to the researches of Müllenhoff, Mannhardt,
Roscher, Frazer and others. Roscher, in his comparison of Apollo and

Mars[84], pointed out the likeness in the spring festivals of the two gods. At
Delphi, at the Theophania (7th of Bysios = March), there were decorations,
sacrifices, dances, and songs; and of these last, some were ὔμνοι κλητικοί,
or invocations to the god to appear, some παιᾶνες, or shouts of
encouragement in his great fight with the dragon, or perhaps intended to
scare the dragon away. For Apollo was believed to return in the spring, to
be born anew, and to struggle in his infancy with the demon of evil. At other
places in Greece similar performances are found; at Delos[85], at Ortygia[86]
near Ephesus, at Tegyra, and elsewhere. At Ortygia the Κουρῆτες stood and
clashed their arms to frighten away Hera the enemy of Apollo’s mother
Leto, in the annual dramatic representation of the perilous labour of the
mother and the birth of her son. These practices (and similar ones among
northern peoples) seem to be the result of the poetical mythology of an
imaginative race acting on still more primitive ideas. From all parts of the
world Mr. Frazer has collected examples of rites of this kind occurring at
some period of real or supposed peril, and often at the opening of a new
year, in which dances, howling, the beating of pots and pans, brandishing of
arms, and even firing of guns are thought efficacious in driving out evil
spirits which bring hurt of some kind to mankind or to the crops which are
the fruits of his labour[87]. This notion of evil spirits and the possibility of
expelling them is at the root of the whole series of practices, which in the
hands of the Greeks became adorned with a beautiful mythical colouring,
while the Romans after their fashion embodied them in the cult of their city
with a special priesthood to perform them, and connected them with the
name of their great priest king.
In an elaborate note[88] Mr. Frazer has attempted to explain the rites of the
Salii in the light of the material he has collected. He is inclined to see two
objects in their performances: (1) the routing out of demons of all kinds in
order to collect them for transference to the human scapegoat, Mamurius
Veturius (see below on March 14), who was driven out a fortnight later; and
(2) to make the corn grow, by a charm consisting in leaping and dancing,
which is known in many parts of the world. It will perhaps be safer to keep
to generalities in matters of which we have but slender knowledge; and to
conclude that the old Latins believed that the Spirit which was beginning to
make the crops grow must at this time be protected from hostile demons, in
order that he might be free to perform his own friendly functions for the
community. Though the few words preserved of the Salian hymns are too

obscure to be of much use[89], we seem to see in them a trace of a deity of
vegetation; and the prayer to Mars, which is given in Cato’s agricultural
treatise, is most instructive on this point[90].
The Salii in these processions were clothed in a trabea and tunica picta[91],
the ‘full dress’ of the warrior inspired by some special religious zeal,
wearing helmet, breastplate, and sword. They carried the ancile on the left
arm, and a staff or club of some kind to strike it with[92]. At certain sacred
places they stopped and danced, their praesul giving them the step and
rhythm; and here we may suppose that they also sang the song of which a
few fragments have come down to us, where the recurring word Mamurius
seems beyond doubt to be a variant of Mars[93]. Each evening they rested at
a different place—mansiones Saliorum, as they were called—and here the
sacred arms were hung up till the next day, and the Salii feasted. They were
twenty-four in number, twelve Palatini and twelve Collini (originally
Agonales or Agonenses), the former specially devoted to the worship of
Mars Gradivus, the latter to that of Quirinus[94]. The antiquity of the
priesthood is proved by the fact that the Salii must be of patrician birth, and
patrimi and matrimi (i. e. with both parents living) according to the ancient
rule which descended from the worship of the household[95].
It has been suggested that the shields (ancilia) which the Salii carried, being
twelve in number for each of the two guilds, represented the twelve months
of the year, either as twelve suns[96] (the sun being renewed each month), or
as twelve moons, which is a little more reasonable. This idea implies that
the number of the Salii (which was the same as that of the Fratres Arvales)
was based on the number of months in the year, which is very far from
likely; it would seem also to assume that the shape of the shields was round,
like sun or moon, which was almost certainly not the case. According to the
legend, the original shield fell on the first new moon of the year; but it is
quite unnecessary to jump to the conclusion that the others represent eleven
other new moons. It would rather seem probable to a cautious inquirer that
though an incrustation of late myth may have grown upon the Salii and their
carmen and their curious arms, no amount of ingenious combination has as
yet succeeded in proving that such myths had their origin in any really
ancient belief of the Romans. What we know for certain is that there were
twelve warrior-priests of the old Palatine city, and that they carried twelve
shields of an antique type, which Varro compares to the Thracian peltae (L.

L. 7. 43); shaped not unlike the body of a violin, with a curved indentation
on each side[97], which, when the shield was slung on the back, would leave
space for the arms to move freely. In this respect, as in the rest of his
equipment, the Salius simply represented the old Italian warrior in his ‘war-
paint.’ In the examples of expulsion of evils referred to above as collected
by Mr. Frazer, it is interesting to notice how often the expellers use military
arms, or are dressed in military fashion. This may perhaps help us to
understand how attributes apparently so distinct as the military and the
agricultural should be found united in Mars and his cult.

Non. Mart. (March 7). F.

... [VEDI]OVI. ARTIS VEDIOVIS INTER DUOS LUCOS. (PRAEN.)

Various conjectures have been made for correcting this note. We may take it
that the first word is rightly completed: some letters seem to have preceded
it, and feriae has been suggested[98], but not generally accepted. The next
word, Artis, must be a slip of the stone-cutter. That it was not Martis we are
sure, as Ovid says that there was no note in the Fasti for this day except on
the cult of Vediovis[99]. Even Mommsen is in despair, but suggests Aedis as
a possibility, and that dedicata was accidentally omitted after it.
We do not know when the temple was dedicated[100]. The cult of Vediovis
seems to have no special connexion with other March rites: and it seems as
well to postpone consideration of it till May 21, the dedication-day of the
temple in arce. See also on Jan. 1.

vii Id. Mart. (March 9). C.

ARMA ANCILIA MOVENT. (PHILOC.)

As we have seen, the first ‘moving’ of the ancilia was on the 1st. This is the
second mentioned in the calendars; the third, according to Lydus (4. 42),
was on the 23rd (Tubilustrium, q.v.). As the Salii seem to have danced with
the shields all through the month up to the 24th[101], it has been supposed
that these were the three principal days of ‘moving’; and Mr. Marindin
suggests that they correspond to the three most important mansiones
Saliorum, of which two were probably the Curia Saliorum on the Palatine
and the Sacrarium Martis in the Regia[102].

PRID. ID. MART. (MARCH 14). NP.

EQUIRR[IA]. (MAFF. VAT. ESQ.)
FERIAE MARTI. (VAT.)
[103]
SACRUM MAMURIO. (RUSTIC CALENDARS .)
MAMURALIA. (PHILOC.)

These notes involve several difficulties. To begin with, this day is an even
number, and there is no other instance in the calendar of a festival occurring
on such a day. Wissowa[104], usually a very cautious inquirer, here boldly
cuts the knot by conjecturing that the Mars festival of this day had
originally been on the next, i.e. the Ides, but was put back one day to enable
the people to frequent both the horse-races (Equirria) and the festival of
Anna Perenna[105]. The latter, he might have added, was obviously extremely
popular with the lower classes, as we shall see from Ovid’s description; and
though the scene of it was close to that of the Equirria, or certainly not far
away, it is not impossible that it may have diverted attention from the
nobler and more manly amusement. Wissowa strengthens his argument by
pointing out an apparent parallel between the festival dates of March and
October. Here, as elsewhere, in the calendar, we find an interval of three
days between two festivals, viz. between March 19 (Quinquatrus) and
March 23 (Tubilustrium), and between Oct. 15 (‘October horse’) and Oct.
19 (Armilustrium). Now, as we shall see, the rites of March 19 and Oct. 19
seem to correspond to each other[106]; and if there were a chariot-race on
March 15, it would also answer to the race on the day of the ‘October
horse,’ Oct. 15, with a three days’ interval as in October. The argument is
not a very strong one, but there is a good deal to be said for it.
A much more serious difficulty lies in the discrepancy between the three
older calendars in which we have notes for this day and the almanacs of the
later Empire, viz. that of Philocalus (A.D. 354) and the rustic calendars. The
former tell us of a Mars-festival, with a horse-race; the latter know nothing
of these, but note a festival of Mamurius, a name which, as we saw,
occurred in the Saliare Carmen apparently as a variant of Mars, and came to

be affixed to the legendary smith who made the eleven copies of the ancile.
How are we to account for the change of Mars into Mamurius, and of feriae
Marti into Mamuralia? And are we to suppose that the later calendars here
indicate a late growth of legend, based on the name Mamurius as occurring
in the Carmen Saliare, or that they have preserved the shadow of an earlier
and popular side of the March rites, which the State-calendars left out of
account?
Apparently Mommsen holds the former opinion[107]. In his note on this day
he says that it is easy to understand how the second Equirria came to be
known to the vulgus as Mamuralia (i.e. so distinguished from the first
Equirria on Feb. 27), seeing that Mamurius who made the ancilia belongs
wholly to the cult of Mars, and that this day was one of those on which the
Salii and the ancilia were familiar sights in the streets of Rome. In other
words, the Salian songs gave rise to the legend of Mamurius, and this in its
turn gave a new name to the second Equirria or feriae Marti. And this I
believe to be the most rational explanation of our difficulty, seeing that we
have no mention of a feast of Mamurius earlier than the calendar of
Philocalus in the fourth century A.D., which cannot be regarded as in any
sense representing learning or research[108].
But of recent years much has been written in favour of the other view, that
the late calendars have here preserved for us a trace of very ancient Roman
belief and ritual[109]. This view rests almost entirely on a statement of a still
later writer, Laurentius Lydus of Apamea, who wrote a work, de Mensibus,
in the first half of the sixth century A.D., preserved in part in the form of two
summaries or collections of extracts. Lydus was no doubt a man of learning,
as is shown by his other work, de Magistratibus; but he does not give us his
authority for particular statements, and his second- or third-hand knowledge
must always be cautiously used.
Lydus tells us that on the Ides of March (a mistake, it is supposed[110], for
the 14th—which, however, he should not have made), a man clothed in
skins was led out and driven with long peeled wands (out of the city, as we
may guess from what follows) and shouted at as ‘Mamurius.’ Hence the
saying, when any one is beaten, that they are ‘playing Mamurius with him.’
For the legend runs that Mamurius the smith was beaten out of the city
because misfortune fell on the Romans when they substituted the new
shields (made by Mamurius) for those that had fallen from heaven[111].

This is clearly a late form of the Mamurius-myth: in all the earlier
accounts[112] only one ancile is said to have fallen from heaven. Lydus seems
rather to be thinking of twelve original ones[113], and twelve copies—
perhaps of the Palatine and Colline ancilia respectively. If the form of the
myth, then, is of late growth, suspicion may well be aroused as to the
antiquity of the rite it was meant to explain, for with the older type of myth
the rite does not seem to suit. And this suspicion is strengthened by the fact
that in the whole of Latin literature there is no certain allusion to a rite so
striking and peculiar, and only one that can possibly, even by forcible
treatment, be taken as such. In Propertius v (iv.) 2. 61, we have the
following lines, put into the mouth of the god Vertumnus:

At tibi, Mamuri, formae caelator aenae,
Tellus artifices ne premat Osca manus,
Qui me tam docilis potuisti fundere in usus.
Unum opus est: operi non datur unus honos.

Usener took this to mean, or to imply, that Mamurius was driven out of the
city to its enemies the Oscans; but how we are to get this out of the words,
which will bear very different interpretations, obscure as they are, it is not
easy to see. And can we easily believe that, with this exception, no allusion
should be found to the rite in either Latin or Greek writers—not in Ovid,
Dionysius, Servius, Plutarch[114], or in the fragments of Varro, Varrius, and
others—if that curious rite had really been enacted year by year before the
eyes of the Roman people? It certainly is not impossible that it may have
slipped their notice, or have been mentioned in works that are lost to us; but
it is so improbable as to justify us in hesitating to base conclusions as to the
antiquity of the rite on the statement of Lydus alone.
There are indeed one or two passages which seem to prove that skins were
used by the Salii, and that these skins were beaten. Servius[115] says of
Mamurius that they consecrated a day to him, on which ‘pellem virgis
caedunt ad artis similitudinem,’ i. e. on which they imitate the smith’s art by
beating a skin. So also Minucius Felix[116]: ‘alii (we should probably read
Salii) incedunt pileati, scuta vetera[117] circumferunt, pelles caedunt.’ If we
may judge by these passages of writers of the second century, there was
something done by the Salii which involved the beating of skins; but if it

was a skin-clad Mamurius who was beaten, why is he not mentioned, and
why did they, as Servius says (and the context shows that he is speaking of
him with all respect), set apart a day in his honour?
Yet Lydus’ account is so interesting from the point of view of folk-lore, that
Usener was led by it into very far-reaching conclusions. These have been so
well condensed in English by Mr. Frazer that my labour will be lightened if
I may borrow his account[118]:
‘Every year on March 14 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[119], that is, “the old Mars,” and as the
ceremony took place on the day preceding the first full moon of the old
Roman year[120] (which began on March 1), the skin-clad man must have
represented the Mars of the past year, who was driven out at the beginning
of a new one. Now Mars was originally not a god of war, but of vegetation.
For it was to Mars that the Roman husbandman prayed for the prosperity of
his corn and vines, his fruit-trees and his copses; it was to Mars that the
Arval Brothers, whose business it was to sacrifice for the growth of the
crops, addressed their petitions almost exclusively.... Once more, the fact
that the vernal month of March was dedicated to Mars seems to point him
out as the deity of the sprouting vegetation. Thus the Roman custom of
expelling the old Mars at the beginning of the New Year in spring is
identical with the Slavonic custom of “carrying out Death[121],” if the view
here taken of the latter custom is correct. The similarity of the Roman and
Slavonic customs has been already remarked by scholars, who appear,
however, to have taken Mamurius Veturius and the corresponding figures in
the Slavonic ceremonies to be representatives of the old year rather than of
the old god of vegetation. It is possible that ceremonies of this kind may
have come to be thus interpreted in later times even by the people who
practised them. But the personification of a period of time is too abstract an
idea to be primitive. However, in the Roman, as in the Slavonic ceremony,
the representative of the god appears to have been treated not only as a
deity of vegetation, but also as a scape-goat[122]. His expulsion implies this;
for there is no reason why the god of vegetation, as such, should be
expelled the city. But it is otherwise if he is also a scape-goat; it then
becomes necessary to drive him beyond the boundaries, that he may carry
his sorrowful burden away to other lands. And, in fact, Mamurius Veturius

appears to have been driven away to the lands of the Oscans, the enemies of
Rome[123].’
My examination of the evidence will, I hope, have made it clear why I
hesitate to endorse these conclusions in their entirety (as I did for many
years), interesting as they are. I rather incline to believe that the whole
Mamurius-legend grew out of the Carmen Saliare, and that we may either
have here one of those comparatively rare examples of later ritual growing
itself out of myth, or a point of ancient ritual, such as the use of skins—
perhaps those of victims—misinterpreted and possibly altered under the
influence of the myth. As to Lydus’ statement, it is better to suspend our
judgement; he may, for all we know, have confused some foreign custom,
or that of some other Italian town where there were Salii, with the ritual of a
Roman priesthood[124]. In any case, his account is too much open to question
to bear the weight of conjecture that has been piled upon it.

Id. Mart. (March 15). NP.

[125]
FERIAE ANNAE PERENNAE VIA FLAM[INIA] AD LAPIDEM PRIM[UM]. (VAT.)

ANNAE PER. (FARN.)

This is a survival of an old popular festival, as is clearly seen from Ovid’s
account of it; but the absence of any mention of it in the rustic calendars or
in those of Philocalus and Silvius leads us to suppose that it had died out in
the early Empire. This may be accounted for by the fact that the people
came to be more and more attracted by spectacles and games; and also by
the ever-increasing cosmopolitanism of the city populace, which would be
continually losing interest in old Roman customs which it could not
understand.
On this day, Ovid tells us[126], the ‘plebs’ streamed out to the ‘festum
geniale’ of Anna Perenna, and taking up a position in the Campus Martius,
not far from the Tiber[127], and lying about on the grass in pairs of men and
women, passed the day in revelry and drinking[128]. Some lay in the open;
some pitched tents and some constructed rude huts of stakes and branches,
stretching their togas over them for shelter. As they drank they prayed for as
many years of life as they can swallow cups of wine; meanwhile singing
snatches of song with much gesticulation and dancing. The result of these
performances was naturally that they returned to the city in a state of
intoxication. Ovid tells us that he had seen this spectacle himself[129].
Whether there was any sacrificial rite in immediate connexion with these
revels we do not know. Macrobius indeed tells us[130] that sacrifice was
offered in the month of March to Anna Perenna ‘ut annare perannareque
commode liceat’[131]; and Lydus, that on the Ides there were εὐχαὶ δημόσιαι
ὑπὲρ τοῦ ὑγιεινὸν γενέσθαι τὸν ἐνιαυτόν; but we do not know what was the
relation between these and the scene described by Ovid.
Who was the Anna Perenna in whose honour these revels, sacrifices, and
prayers took place, whatever their relation to each other? Ovid and Silius
Italicus[132] tell legends about her which are hardly genuine Italian, and in

which Anna Perenna is confused with the other Anna whom they knew, the
sister of Dido. Hidden under such stories may sometimes be found traces of
a belief or a cult of which we have no other knowledge; but in this poetical
medley there seems to be only one feature that calls on us to pause. After
her wanderings Anna disappears in the waters of the river Numicius:

Corniger hanc cupidis rapuisse Numicius undis
Creditur, et stagnis occuluisse suis.

Her companions traced her footsteps to the bank: she seemed to tell them

Placidi sum nympha Numici,
Amne perenne latens Anna Perenna vocor.

This tale led Klausen[133] into some very strange fancies about the goddess,
whom he regarded as a water-nymph, thinking that all her other
characteristics (e.g. the year) might be explained symbolically; the running
water representing the flow of time, &c. But it is probable that she only
came into connexion with the river Numicius because Aeneas was there
already. If Aeneas, as Jupiter Indiges, was buried on its banks[134], what
could be more natural than that another figure of the Dido legend should be
brought there too? There does not indeed seem to be any reason for
connecting the real Anna Perenna with water[135]. All genuine Roman
tradition seems to represent her, as we shall see directly, as an old woman;
and when she appears in another shape, she must have become mixed up
with other ideas and stories. It may perhaps be just possible that on this day
some kind of an image of her may have been thrown into the Tiber, as was
the case with the straw puppets (Argei) on May 15, and that the ceremony
dropped out of practice, but just survived in the Numicius legend[136]. But
this is simply hypothesis.
The fact is that, whatever else Anna Perenna may have been, all that we can
confidently say of her is that she represented in some way the circle or ring
of the year. This is indicated not only by the name, which can hardly be
anything but a feminine form of annus, but by the time at which her festival
took place, the first full moon of the new year. The one legend preserved

about her which is of undoubted Italian origin is thought to point in the
same direction. Ovid, wishing to explain ‘cur cantent obscena puellae’ in
that revel of the ‘plebs’ on the Tiber-bank, tells us[137] how Mars, once in
love with Minerva[138], came to Anna and asked her aid. It was at length
granted, and Mars had the nuptial couch prepared: thither a bride was led,
but not the desired one; it was old Anna with her face veiled like a bride
who was playing the passionate god such a trick as we may suppose not
uncommon in the rude country life of old Latium.
There is no need to be startled at the rude handling of the gods in this story,
which seems so unlike the stately and orderly ideas of Roman theology. It
must be borne in mind that folk-tales like this need not originally have been
applied to the gods at all. They are probably only ancient country stories of
human beings, based on some rude marriage custom—stories such as
delighted the lower farm folk and slaves on holiday evenings; and they have
survived simply because they became in course of time attached to the
persons of the gods, as the conception of divinities grew to be more
anthropomorphic. Granted that Anna or Perenna[139] was the old woman of
the past year, that Mars was the god of the first month, and that the story as
applied to human beings was a favourite one, we can easily understand how
it came to attach itself to the persons of the gods[140].
Yet another story is told by Ovid of an Anna[141], in writing of whom he does
not add the name Perenna. The Plebs had seceded to the Mons Sacer, and
were beginning to suffer from starvation, when an old woman from
Bovillae, named Anna, came to the rescue with a daily supply of rustica
liba. This myth seems to me to have grown out of the custom, to be
described directly, of old women[142] selling liba on the 17th (Liberalia), the
custom having been transferred to that day through an etymological
confusion between liba and Liberalia. Usener, however, saw here a
connexion between Anna and Annona[143]; and recently it has been
suggested that a certain Egyptian Anna, who is said by Plutarch to have
invented a mould for bread-baking, may have found her way to Rome
through Greek channels[144].

XVI Kal. Apr. (March 17). NP.

LIB[ERALIA]. (MAFF. FARN. RUST.)
LIB. AG[ONIA]. LIBERO LIB. (CAER.)
AG[ONIA]. (VAT.)
LIBERO IN CA[PITOLIO]. (FARN.)

This is one of the four days marked AG. or AGON. in the Fasti (Jan. 9, May
21, Dec. 11)[145]. It is curious that on this day two of the old calendars
should mark the Liberalia only, and one the Agonia only, and one both. The
day was generally known as Liberalia[146]; the other name seems to have
been known to the priests only, and more especially to the Salii Collini or
Agonenses[147], who must have had charge of the sacrifice. Wissowa seems
to be right in thinking (de Feriis xii) that the conjunction of Liberalia and
Agonia is purely accidental, and that the day took its common name from
the former simply because, as the latter occurred four times in the year,
confusion would be likely to arise.
Liber is beyond doubt an old Italian deity, whose true nature, like that of so
many others, came to be overgrown with Greek ideas and rites. There is no
sign of any connexion between this festival and the cult of Dionysus; hence
we infer that there was an old Latin Liber before the arrival of the Greek
god in Italy. What this god was, however, can hardly be inferred from his
cult, of which we only know a single feature, recorded by Ovid[148]. He tells
us that old women, sacerdotes Liberi, sat crowned with ivy all about the
streets on this day with cakes of oil and honey (liba), and a small portable
altar (foculus), on which to sacrifice for the benefit of the buyer of these
cakes. This tells us nothing substantial, and we have to fall back on the
name—always an uncertain method. The best authorities seem now agreed
in regarding the word Liber (whatever be its etymology) as having
something of the same meaning as genius, forming an adjective liberalis as
genius forms genialis, and meaning a creative, productive spirit, full of
blessing, and so generous, free, &c.[149] If this were so it would not be
unnatural that the characteristics and rites of Dionysus should find here a

stem on which to engraft themselves, or that Liber should become the
object of obscene ceremonies which need not be detailed here, and also the
god of the Italian vine-growers.
It is possible that Liber may have been an ancient cult-title of Jupiter; we do
in fact find a Jupiter Liber in inscriptions, though the combination is
uncommon[150]. In that case Liber may have been an emanation or off-shoot
from Jupiter, as Silvanus probably was from Mars[151]. But I am disposed to
think that the characteristics of Liber, so far as we know them, are not in
keeping with those of Jupiter; and that the process was rather of the
opposite kind, that is, the cult of Liber in its later form became attached to
that of Jupiter, who was always the presiding deity of vineyards and wine-
making[152].
This was also the usual day on which boys assumed the toga virilis (toga
recta, pura, libera):

Restat ut inveniam quare toga libera detur
Lucifero pueris, candide Bacche, tuo.

Sive quod es Liber, vestis quoque libera per te
Sumitur et vitae liberioris iter[153].

We know indeed that in the late Republic and Empire other days were used
for this ceremony: Virgil took his toga on Oct. 15, Octavian on Oct. 18,
Tiberius on April 24, Nero on July 7[154]; but it is likely that this day was in
earlier times the regular one, in spite of the inconvenience of a disparity of
age thence resulting amongst the tirones. For whether or no the toga libera
has any real connexion with the Liberalia, this was the time when the army
was called out for the year, and when the tirones would be required to
present themselves[155]. Ovid tells us that on this day the rustic population
flocked into the city for the Liberalia, and the opportunity was doubtless
taken to make known the list of tirones, as the boys were called when the
toga was assumed and they were ready for military service.
They sacrificed, it appears, before leaving home and again on the Capitol,
either to Pubertas or Liber, or both[156].

On this day also, according to Ovid, and also on the previous one, some
kind of a procession ‘went to the Argei’[157]; by which word is meant, we
may be almost sure, the Argeorum sacella. There were in various parts of
the four regions of the Servian city a number of sacella or sacraria, which
were called Argei, Argea, or Argeorum sacella. What these were we never
shall know for certain; but we may be fairly sure that their number was
twenty-four, six for each region; the same number as that of the rush
puppets or simulacra also called Argei, which were thrown into the Tiber by
the Vestal Virgins on May 15. The identity of the name and number leads to
the belief that there was a connexion between these sacella and the
simulacra; but the very difficult questions which arose about both must be
postponed till we have before us the whole of the ceremonial, i. e. that of
May 15 as well as that of March 17. About this last we know nothing and
can at best attempt to infer its character from the ceremony in May, of
which we fortunately have some particulars on which we can fully rely.

Kal. xiv Apr. (March 19). NP Caer. Vat. N. Maff.

QUINQ[VATRUS]. (CAER. MAFF. PRAEN. VAT. FARN.)
QUINQUATRIA. (RUST. PHIL. SILV.)

A note is appended in Praen., which is thus completed by Mommsen with
the help of a Verrian gloss (Fest. 254).
[RECTIUS TAMEN ALII PUTARUNT DICTUM AB EO QUOD HIC DIES EST POST DIEM V
IDUS. QUO]D IN LATIO POST [IDUS DIES SIMILI FERE RATIONE DECLI]NARENTUR.

FERIAE MARTI (VAT.)

[SALI] FACIUNT IN COMITIO SALTUS [ADSTANTIBUS PO]NTIFICIBUS ET TRIB[UNIS]
CELER[UM]. Praen., in which we find yet another note: ARTIFICUM DIES [QUOD
MINERVAE] AEDIS IN AVENTINO EO DIE EST [DEDICATA].

The original significance of this day is indicated by the note Feriae Marti in
Vat., and also by that in Praen., which has been amplified with tolerable
certainty. The Salii were active this day in the worship of Mars, and the
scene of their activity was the Comitium. With this agrees, as Mommsen has
pointed out, the statement of Varro[158] that the Comitium was the scene of
some of their performances, though he does not mention which. More light
is thrown on the matter by the grammarian Charisius[159], who, in suggesting
an explanation of the name Quinquatrus by which this day was generally
known, remarks that it was derived from a verb quinquare, to purify, ‘quod
eo die arma ancilia lustrari sint solita.’ His etymology is undoubtedly
wrong, but the reason given for it is valuable[160]. The ancilia were purified
on this day (perhaps by the Salii dancing around them), and thus it exactly
answers to the Armilustrium on Oct. 19, just as the horse-races on the Ides
of March, if that indeed were the original day, correspond to the ceremony
of the ‘October horse’[161].
The object and meaning of the lustratio in each case is not, however, quite
clear. Since in March the season of war began, and ended, no doubt,
originally in October[162], and as the Salii seem to be a kind of link between

the religious and military sides of the state’s life, we are tempted to guess
that the lustration of the ancilia represented in some way the lustration of
the arms of the entire host, or perhaps that the latter were all lustrated so as
to be ready for use, on this day, and once again on Oct. 19 before they were
put away for the winter. In this latter case the Salii would be the leaders of,
as well as sharers in, a general purifying process. And that this is the right
view seems to be indicated by Verrius’ note in the Praenestine calendar,
from which it is clear that the tribuni celerum were present, and took some
part in the ceremony. These tribuni were almost certainly the three leaders
of the original cavalry force of the three ancient tribes, and they seem to
have united both priestly and military characteristics[163]; and from their
presence in the Comitium may perhaps also be inferred that of the leaders
of the infantry tribuni militum. In the earliest times, therefore, the arms of
the whole host may have been lustrated in the presence of its leaders, the
Salii, so to speak, performing the service; but in later times the Salii alone
were left, and their arms alone lustrated, though possibly individuals
representing the ancient tribuni celerum may have appeared as
congregation.
But this day was generally known as Quinquatrus, simply because it was
the fifth day after the Ides[164]; i.e. there was a space of three days between
the Ides and the festival. Such intervals of three days, either between the
Ides and the festival or between one festival and another, occur several
times in the Roman calendar[165], though in this instance alone the day
following the interval appears in the calendars as Quinquatrus. The term
was no doubt a pontifical one, and the meaning was unknown to the
common people; in any case it came to be misunderstood, and was in later
times popularly applied to the four days following the festival as well as the
festival itself; its first syllable being taken to indicate a five-day period
instead of the fifth day after the Ides. This popular mistake led to still
further confusion owing to a curious change in the religious character of
these days, about the nature of which there can be no serious doubt.
The 19th came to be considered as sacred to Minerva[166], because a temple
to that goddess was consecrated on this day, on the Caelian or the Aventine,
or possibly both[167]. There is no obvious connexion between Mars and
Minerva; and it is now thought probable that Minerva has here simply taken
the place of another goddess, Nerio—one almost lost to sight in historical

times, but of whose early connexion with Mars some faint traces are to be
found. Thus where we find Minerva brought into close relation with Mars,
as in the myth of Anna Perenna, it is thought that we should read Nerio
instead of Minerva[168]. This conclusion is strengthened by a note of
Porphyrion on Horace Epist. ii. 2. 209 ‘Maio mense religio est nubere, et
etiam Martio, in quo de nuptiis habito certamine a Minerva Mars victus est:
obtenta virginitate Neriene est appellata.’ As Neriene must = Nerio[169], this
looks much like an attempt to explain the occurrence of two female names,
Minerva and Nerio, in the same story; the original heroine, Nerio, having
been supplanted by the later Minerva[170].
Of this Nerio much, perhaps too much, has been made in recent years by
ingenious scholars. A complete love-story has been discovered, in which
Mars, at first defeated in his wooing, as Porphyrion tells us in the passage
just quoted, eventually becomes victorious; for Nerio is called wife of Mars
in a fragment of an old comedy by Licinius Imbrex, in a passage of Plautus,
and in a prayer put into the mouth of Hersilia by Gellius the annalist, when
she asked for peace at the hand of T. Tatius[171]. And this story has been
fitted on, without sufficient warrant, to the Mars-festivals of this month.
Mars is supposed to have been born on the Kalends, to have grown
wondrously between Kalends and Ides, to have fallen then in love with
Nerio, to have been fooled as we saw by Anna Perenna, to have been
rejected and defeated by his sweetheart, and finally to have won her as his
wife on the 19th[172]. Are we to find here a fragment of real Italian
mythology, or an elaborate example of the Graecizing anthropomorphic
tendencies of the third and second centuries B.C.?
The question is a difficult one, and lies rather outside the scope of this
work. Those who have read Usener’s brilliant paper will find it hard to
shake themselves free of the conviction that he has unearthed a real myth,
unless they carefully study the chapter of Aulus Gellius which is its chief
foundation. Such a study has brought me back to the conviction that Plautus
and the others were writing in terms of the fashionable modes of thought of
their day, and were not appealing to popular ideas of the relations of Italian
deities to each other[173]. Aulus Gellius begins by quoting a comprecatio
from the book of the Libri sacerdotum populi Romani. ‘In his scriptum est:
Luam Saturni, Salaciam Neptuni, Horam Quirini, Virites Quirini, Maiam
Volcani, Heriem Iunonis, Moles Martis Nerienemque Martis.’ A glance at

the names thus coupled together is enough to show that Mars is not here
thought of as the husband of Neriene; the names Lua, Salacia, &c., seem
rather to express some characteristic of the deity with whose name they are
joined or some mode of his operation[174]; and Gellius himself, working on
an etymology of Nerio which has generally been accepted as correct,
explains the name thus: ‘Nerio igitur Martis vis et potentia et maiestas
quaedam esse Martis demonstratur.’ In the latter part of his chapter, after
quoting Plautus, he says that he has heard the poet blamed by an eminent
critic for the strange and false notion that Nerio was the wife of Mars; but
he is inclined to think that there was a real tradition to that effect, and cites
his namesake the annalist and Licinius Imbrex in support of his view.
But neither annalist nor play-writer can stand against that passage from the
sacred books with which he began his chapter; and if we give the latter its
due weight, the value of the others is relatively diminished. It appears to me
that the one represents the true primitive Italian idea of divine powers,
which with its abundance of names offered excellent opportunities to
anthropomorphic tendencies of the Graecizing school, while the others
show those tendencies actually producing their results. Any conclusion on
the point must be of the nature of a guess; but I am strongly disposed to
think (1) that Nerio was not originally an independent deity, but a name
attached to Mars expressive of some aspect of his power, (2) that the name
gradually became endowed with personality, and (3) that out of the
combination of Mars and Nerio the Graecizing school developed a myth of
which the fragments have been taken by Usener and his followers as pure
Roman.
Having once been displaced by Minerva, Nerio vanished from the calendar,
and with her that special aspect of Mars—whatever it may have been—
which the name was intended to express. The five days, 18th to 23rd,
became permanently associated with Minerva. The 19th was the dedication-
day of at least one of her temples, and counted as her birthday[175]: the 23rd
was the Tubilustrium, with a sacrifice to ‘dea fortis,’ who seems to have
been taken for Minerva, owing to an incorrect idea that the latter was
specially the deity of trumpet-players[176]. She was no doubt an old Italian
deity of artificers and trade-guilds; but the Tubilustrium was really a Mars-
festival, and Minerva had no immediate connexion with it.

x Kal. Apr. (March 23). NP.

TUBILUST[RIUM]. (CAER. MAFF. VAT. FARN. MIN. III.)
TUBILUSTRIUM. (PHILOC.)
[177]
Note in Praen.: [FERIAE] MARTI . HIC DIES APPELLATUR ITA, QUOD IN ATRIO
SUTORIO TUBI LUSTRANTUR, QUIBUS IN SACRIS UTUNTUR. LUTATIUS QUIDEM
CLAVAM EAM AIT ESSE IN RUINIS PALA[TI I]NCENSI A GALLIS REPERTAM, QUA
ROMULUS URBEM INAUGURAVERIT.

ix Kal. Apr. (March 24). NP.

Q. R. C. F. (VAT. CAER.)
Q. REX. C. F. (MAFF. PRAEN.)
Note in Praen.: HUNC DIEM PLERIQUE PERPERAM INTERPRETANTES PUTANT
APPELLAR[I] QUOD EO DIE EX COMITIO FUGERIT [REX: N]AM NEQUE TARQUINIUS
ABIIT EX COMITIO [URBIS], ET ALIO QUOQUE MENSE EADEM SUNT [IDEMQUE
S]IGNIFICANT. QU[ARE COMITIIS PERACTIS IUDICI]A FIERI INDICA[RI IIS MAGIS
[178]
PUTAMUS] .

These two days must be taken in connexion with the 23rd and 24th of May,
which are marked in the calendars in exactly the same way. The explanation
suggested by Mommsen is simple and satisfactory[179]; the 24th of March
and of May were the two fixed days on which the comitia curiata met for
the sanctioning of wills[180] under the presidency of the Rex. The 23rd in
each month, called Tubilustrium, would be the day of the lustration of the
tubae or tubi used in summoning the assembly. The letters Q. R. C. F.
(quando rex comitiavit fas) mean that on the days so marked proceedings in
the courts might only begin when the king had dissolved the Comitia.
The tuba, as distinguished from the tibia, which was the typical Italian
instrument, was a long straight tube of brass with a bell mouth[181]. It was
used chiefly in military[182] and religious ceremonies; and as the comitia
curiata was an assembly both for military and religious objects, this would
suit well with Mommsen’s idea of the object of the lustration. The
Tubilustrium was the day on which these instruments, which were to be
used at the meeting of the comitia on the following day, were purified by
the sacrifice of a lamb. Of the Atrium Sutorium, where the rite took place,
we know nothing.
There are some words at the end of Verrius’ note in the Praenestine
Calendar, which, as Mommsen has pointed out[183], come in abruptly and
look as if something had dropped out: ‘Lutatius quidem clavam eam ait esse
in ruinis Pala[ti i]ncensi a Gallis repertam, qua Romulus urbem

inauguraverit.’ This clava must be the lituus of Romulus, mentioned by
Cicero[184], which was found on the Palatine and kept in the Curia Saliorum.
We cannot, however, see clearly what Verrius or his excerptor meant to tell
us about it; there would seem to have been a confusion between lituus in the
sense of baculum and lituus in the sense of a tuba incurva. The latter was in
use as well as the ordinary straight tuba[185]; in shape it closely resembled
the clava of the augur, and perhaps the resemblance led to the notion that it
was the clava of Romulus and not a tuba which was this day purified with
the other tubae.

We can learn little or nothing from the calendar of this month about the
origin of Mars, and we have no other sufficient evidence on which to base a
satisfactory conjecture. But from the cults of the month, and partly also
from those of October, we can see pretty clearly what ideas were prominent
in his worship even in the early days of the Roman state. They were chiefly
two, and the two were closely connected. He was the Power who must be
specially invoked to procure the safety of crops and cattle; and secondly, in
his keeping were the safety and success of the freshly-enrolled host with its
armour and its trumpets. In short, he was that deity to whom the most
ancient Romans looked for aid at the season when all living things, man
included, broke into fresh activity. He represents the characteristics of the
early Roman more exactly than any other god; for there are two things
which we may believe with certainty about the Roman people in the earliest
times—(1) that their life and habits of thought were those of an agricultural
race; and (2) that they continually increased their cultivable land by taking
forcible possession in war of that of their neighbours.

MENSIS APRILIS.

There can hardly be a doubt that this month takes its name, not from a deity,
but from the verb aperio; the etymology is as old as Varro and Verrius, and
seems perfectly natural[186]. The year was opening and the young corn and
the young cattle were growing. It was therefore a critical time for crops and
herds; but there was not much to be done by man to secure their safety. The
crops might be hoed and cleaned[187], but must for the most part be left to the
protection of the gods. The oldest festivals of the month, the Robigalia and
Fordicidia, clearly had this object. So also with the cattle; oves lustrantur,
say the rustic calendars[188]; and such a lustratio of the cattle of the ancient
Romans survived in the ceremonies of the Parilia.
Thus, if we keep clear of fanciful notions, such as those of Huschke[189],
about these early months of the year, which he seems to imagine was
thought of as growing like an organic creature, we need find no great
difficulty in April. We need not conclude too hastily that this was a month
of purification preliminary to May, as February was to March. Like
February, indeed, it has a large number of dies nefasti[190], and its festivals
are of a cathartic character, while March and May have some points in
common; but beyond this we cannot safely venture. The later Romans
would hardly have connected April with Venus[191], had it been a sinister
month; it was not in April, but in March and May, that weddings were ill-
omened.
We may note the prevalence in this month of female deities, or of those
which fluctuate between male and female—a sure sign of antiquity. These
are deities of the earth, or vegetation, or generation, such as Tellus, Pales,
Ceres, Flora, and perhaps also Fortuna. Hence the month became easily
associated in later times with Venus, who was originally, perhaps, a garden
deity[192], but was overlaid in course of time with ideas brought from Sicily
and Greece, and possibly even from Cyprus and the East. Lastly, we may

note that the Magna Mater Idaea found a suitable position for her worship
in this month towards the end of the third century B.C.

Kal. Apr. (April 1). F.

VENERALIA: LUDI. (PHILOC.)

Note in Praen.: ‘FREQUENTER MULIERES SUPPLICANT FORTUNAE VIRILI,
HUMILIORES ETIAM IN BALINEIS, QUOD IN IIS EA PARTE CORPOR[IS] UTIQUE VIRI
NUDANTUR, QUA FEMINARUM GRATIA DESIDERATUR.’

Lydus[193] seems to have been acquainted with this note of Verrius in the
Fasti of Praeneste; if so, we may guess that some words have been omitted
by the man who cut the inscription, and we should insert with
Mommsen[194], after ‘supplicant,’ the words ‘honestiores Veneri
Verticordiae.’ If we compare the passage of Lydus with the name Veneralia
given to this day in the calendar of Philocalus, we may guess that the cult of
Venus on April 1 came into fashion in late times among ladies of rank,
while an old and gross custom was kept up by the humiliores in honour of
Fortuna Virilis[195]. This seems to be the most obvious explanation of the
concurrence of the two goddesses on the same day; they were probably
identified or amalgamated under the Empire, for example by Lydus, who
does not mention Fortuna by name, and seems to confuse her worship on
this day with that of Venus. But the two are still distinct in Ovid, though he
seems to show some tendency to amalgamation[196].
Fortuna Virilis, thus worshipped by the women when bathing, would seem
from Ovid to have been that Fortuna who gave women good luck in their
relations with men[197]. The custom of bathing in the men’s baths may
probably be taken as some kind of lustration, more especially as the women
were adorned with myrtle, which had purifying virtues[198]. How old this
curious custom was we cannot guess. Plutarch[199] mentions a temple of this
Fortuna dedicated by Servius Tullius; but there was a strong tendency, as
we shall see later on, to attribute all Fortuna-cults to this king.
The Venus who eventually supplanted Fortuna is clearly Venus
Verticordia[200], whose earliest temple was founded in 114 B.C., in obedience
to an injunction of the Sibylline books, after the discovery of incest on the

part of three vestal virgins, ‘quo facilius virginum mulierumque mens a
libidine ad pudicitiam converteretur[201].’ Macrobius insists that Venus had
originally no share in the worship of this day or month[202]; she must
therefore have been introduced into it as a foreigner. Robertson Smith[203]
has shown some ground for the conjecture that she was the Cyprian
Aphrodite (herself identical with the Semitic Astarte), who came to Rome
by way of Sicily and Latium. For if Lydus can be trusted, the Roman
ceremony of April 1 was found also in Cyprus, on the same day, with
variations in detail. If that be so, the addition of the name Verticordia is a
curious example of the accretion of a Roman cult-title expressive of
domestic morality on a foreign deity of questionable reputation[204].

Prid. Non. Apr. (April 4). C.

MATR[I] MAG[NAE]. (MAFF.)
LUDI MEGALESIACI. (PHILOC.)

Note in Praen.: LUDI M[ATRI] D[EUM] M[AGNAE] I[DAEAE]. MEGALESIA VOCANTUR
QUOD EA DEA MEGALE APPELLATUR. NOBILIUM MUTITATIONES CENARUM SOLITAE
SUNT FREQUENTER FIERI, QUOD MATER MAGNA EX LIBRIS SIBULLINIS ARCESSITA
LOCUM MUTAVIT EX PHRYGIA ROMAM.

The introduction of the Magna Mater Idaea into Rome can only be briefly
mentioned here, as being more important for the history of religion at Rome
than for that of the Roman religion. In B.C. 204, in accordance with a
Sibylline oracle which had previously prophesied that the presence of this
deity alone could drive the enemy out of Italy, the sacred stone representing
the goddess arrived at Rome from Pessinus in Phrygia[205]. Attalus, King of
Pergamus, had acquired this territory, and now, as a faithful friend to Rome,
consented to the transportation of the stone, which was received at Rome
with enthusiasm by an excited and now hopeful people[206]. Scipio was
about to leave with his army for Africa; a fine harvest followed; Hannibal
was forced to evacuate Italy the next year; and the goddess did everything
that was expected of her[207].
The stone was deposited in the temple of Victory on the Palatine on April
4[208]. The day was made a festival; though no Roman festival occurs
between the Kalends and Nones of any month, the rule apparently did not
hold good in the case of a foreign worship[209]. Great care was taken to keep
up the foreign character of the cult. The name of the festival was a Greek
one (Megalesia), as Cicero remarked[210]; all Romans were forbidden by a
senatus consultum to take any part in the service of the goddess[211]. The
temple dedicated thirteen years later on April 10[212] seems to have been
frequented by the nobilitas only, and the custom of giving dinner-parties on
April 4, which is well attested, was confined to the upper classes[213], while
the plebs waited for its festivities till the ensuing Cerealia. The later and

more extravagant developments of the cult did not come in until the
Empire[214].
The story told by Livy of the introduction of the goddess is an interesting
episode in Roman history. It illustrates the far-reaching policy of the Senate
in enlisting Eastern kings, religions, and oracles in the service of the state at
a critical time, and also the curious readiness of the Roman people to
believe in the efficacy of cults utterly foreign to their own religious
practices. At the same time it shows how careful the government was then,
as always, to keep such cults under strict supervision. But the long stress of
the Hannibalic War had its natural effect on the Italian peoples; and less
than twenty years later the introduction of the Bacchic orgies forced the
senate to strain every nerve to counteract a serious danger to the national
religion and morality.

XVII Kal. Mai. (April 15). NP.

FORD[ICIDIA][215]. (CAER. MAFF. VAT. PRAEN.)

This is beyond doubt one of the oldest sacrificial rites in the Roman
religion. It consisted in the slaughter of pregnant cows (hordae or fordae),
one in the Capitol and one in each of the thirty curiae[216]; i. e. one for the
state and the rest for each of its ancient divisions. This was the first festival
of the curiae; the other, the Fornacalia, will be treated of under February
17. The cows were offered, as all authorities agree, to Tellus[217], who, as we
shall see, may be an indigitation of the same earth power represented by
Ceres, Bona Dea, Dea Dia, and other female deities. The unborn calves
were torn by attendants of the virgo vestalis maxima from the womb of the
mother and burnt[218], and their ashes were kept by the Vestals for use at the
Parilia a few days later[219]. This was the first ceremony in the year in which
the Vestals took an active part, and it was the first of a series of acts all of
which are connected with the fruits of the earth, their growth, ripening and
harvesting. The object of burning the unborn calves seems to have been to
procure the fertility of the corn now growing in the womb of mother earth,
to whom the sacrifice was offered[220].
Many charms of this sacrificial kind have been noticed by various writers;
one may be mentioned here which was described by Sir John Barrow, when
British Ambassador in China in 1804. In a spring festival in the temple of
Earth, a huge porcelain image of a cow was carried about and then broken
in pieces, and a number of small cows taken from inside it and distributed
among the people as earnests of a good season[221]. This must be regarded as
a survival of a rite which was no doubt originally one of the same kind as
the Roman.

iii Id. Apr. (April 11). N.

On this day[222] the oracle of the great temple of Fortuna Primigenia at
Praeneste was open to suppliants, as we learn from a fragment of the
Praenestine Fasti. Though not a Roman festival, the day deserves to be
noticed here, as this oracle was by far the most renowned in Italy. The cult
of Fortuna will be discussed under June 25 and Sept. 13. It does not seem to
be known whether the oracle was open on these days only; see R. Peter in
Myth. Lex. s. v. Fortuna, 1545.

xiii Kal. Mai. (April 19). NP.

CER[IALIA]. (CAER. MAFF. PRAEN. ESQ.)
CERERI LIBERO (LIBERAE) ESQ.

Note: All the days from 12th to 19th are marked ludi, ludi Cer., or ludi
Ceriales, in Tusc. Maff. Praen. Vat., taken together: loid. Cereri in Esq.,
where the 18th only is preserved: loedi C in Caer. Philocalus has Cerealici
c. m. (circenses missus) xxiv on 12th and 19th.

The origin of the ludi Cereales, properly so called, cannot be proved to be
earlier than the Second Punic War. The games first appear as fully
established in B.C. 202[223]. But from the fact that April 19 is marked CER in
large letters in the calendars we may infer, with Mommsen[224], that there
was a festival in honour of Ceres as far back as the period of the monarchy.
The question therefore arises whether this ancient Ceres was a native Italian
deity, or the Greek Demeter afterwards known to the Romans as Ceres.
That there was such an Italian deity is placed almost beyond doubt by the
name itself, which all authorities agree in connecting with cerus = genius,
and with the cerfus and cerfia of the great inscription of Iguvium[225]. The
verbal form seems clearly to be creare[226]; and thus, strange to say, we
actually get some definite aid from etymology, and can safely see in the
earliest Ceres, if we recollect her identification with the Greek goddess of
the earth and its fruits, a deity presiding over or representing the generative
powers of nature. We cannot, however, feel sure whether this deity was
originally feminine only, or masculine also, as Arnobius seems to
suggest[227]. Judging from the occurrence of forms such as those quoted
above, it is quite likely, as in the case of Pales, Liber, and others, that this
numen was of both sexes, or of undetermined sex. So anxious were the
primitive Italians to catch the ear of their deities by making no mistake in
the ritual of addressing them, that there was a distinct tendency to avoid
marking their sex too distinctly; and phrases such as ‘sive mas sive femina,’
‘si deus si dea,’ are familiar to all students of the Roman religion[228].

We may be satisfied, then, that the oldest Ceres was not simply an
importation from Greece. It is curious however, that Ceres is not found
exactly where we should expect to find her, viz. in the ritual of the Fratres
Arvales[229]. Yet this very fact may throw further light on the primitive
nature of Ceres. The central figure of the Arval ritual was the nameless Dea
Dia; and in a ritual entirely relating to the fruits of the earth we can fairly
account for the absence of Ceres by supposing that she is there represented
by the Dea Dia—in fact, that the two are identical[230]. No one at all
acquainted with Italian ideas of the gods will be surprised at this. It is surely
a more reasonable hypothesis than that of Birt, who thinks that an old name
for seed and bread (i. e. Ceres) was transferred to the Greek deity who
dispensed seed and bread when she was introduced in Rome[231]. It is, in
fact, only the name Ceres that is wanting in the Arval ritual, not the numen
itself; and this is less surprising if we assume that the names given by the
earliest Romans to supernatural powers were not fixed but variable,
representing no distinctly conceived personalities; in other words, that their
religion was pandaemonic rather than polytheistic, though with a tendency
to lend itself easily to the influence of polytheism. We may agree, then, with
Preller[232], that Ceres, with Tellus, and perhaps Ops and Acca Larentia, are
different names for, and aspects of, the numen whom the Arval brothers
called Dea Dia. At the same time we cannot entirely explain why the name
Ceres was picked out from among these to represent the Greek Demeter.
Some light may, however, be thrown on this point by studying the early
history of the Ceres-cult.
The first temple of Ceres was founded, according to tradition, in
consequence of a famine in the year 496 B.C., in obedience to a Sibylline
oracle[233]. It was at the foot of the Aventine, by the Circus Maximus[234], and
was dedicated on April 19, 493, to Ceres, Liber and Libera, representing
Demeter, Dionysus, and Persephone.[235] Thus from the outset the
systematized cult of Ceres in the city was not Roman but Greek. The temple
itself was adorned in Greek style instead of the Etruscan usual at this
period[236]. How is all this to be accounted for?
Let us notice in the first place that from the very foundation of the temple it
is in the closest way connected with the plebs. The year of its dedication is
that of the first secession of the plebs and of the establishment of the tribuni
and aediles plebis[237]. The two events are connected by the fact, repeatedly

stated, that any one violating the sacrosanctitas of the tribune was to be
held sacer Cereri[238]; we are also told that the fines imposed by tribunes
were spent on this temple[239]. It was under the care of the plebeian aediles,
and was to them what the temple of Saturnus was to the quaestors[240]. Its
position was in the plebeian quarter, and at the foot of the Aventine, which
in B.C. 456 is said to have become the property of the plebs[241].
Now it can hardly be doubted that the choice of Ceres (with her fellow
deities of the trias), as the goddess whose temple should serve as a centre
for the plebeian community, had some definite meaning. That meaning must
be found in the traditions of famine and distress which we read of as
immediately following the expulsion of Tarquinius. These traditions have
often been put aside as untrustworthy[242], and may indeed be so in regard to
details; but there is some reason for thinking them to have had a foundation
of fact, if we can but accept the other tradition of the foundation of the
temple and its connexion with the plebs. It is likely enough that under
Tarquinius the population was increased by ‘outsiders’ employed on his
great buildings. Under pressure from the attack of enemies, and from a
sudden aristocratic reaction, this population, we may guess, was thrown out
of work, deprived of a raison d’être, and starved[243]; finally rescuing itself
by a secession, which resulted in the institution of its officers, tribunes and
aediles, the latter of whom some to have been charged with the duty of
looking after the corn-supply[244].
How the corn-supply was cared for we cannot tell for certain; but here again
is a tradition which fits in curiously with what we know of the temple and
its worship, though it has been rejected by the superfluous ingenuity of
modern German criticism. Livy tells us that in B.C. 492, the year after the
dedication of the temple, corn was brought from Etruria, Cumae, and Sicily
to relieve a famine[245]. We are not obliged to believe in the purchase of corn
at Syracuse at so early a date, though it is not impossible; but if we
remember that the decorations and ritual of the temple were Greek beyond
doubt, we get a singular confirmation of the tradition in outline which has
not been sufficiently noticed. If it was founded in 493, placed under
plebeian officers, and closely connected with the plebs; if its rites and
decorations were Greek from the beginning; we cannot afford to discard a
tradition telling us of a commercial connexion with Greek cities, the object
of which was to relieve a starving plebeian population.

And surely there is nothing strange in the supposition that Greek influence
gained ground, not so much with the patricians who had their own outfit of
religious armour, but with the plebs who had no share in the sacra of their
betters, and with the Etruscan dynasty which favoured the plebs[246]. We
may hesitate to assent to Mommsen’s curious assertion that the merchants
of that day were none other than the great patrician landholders[247]; we may
rather be disposed to conjecture that it was the more powerful plebeians,
incapable of holding large areas of public land, who turned their attention to
commerce, and came in contact with the Greeks of Italy and Sicily. The
position of the plebeian quarter along the Tiber bank, and near the spot
where the quays of Rome have always been, may possibly point in the same
direction[248].
To return to the Cerealia of April 19. We have still to notice a relic of
apparently genuine Italian antiquity which survived in it down to Ovid’s
time, and may be taken as evidence that there was a real Roman substratum
on which the later Greek ritual was superimposed.
Every one who reads Ovid’s account of the Cerealia will be struck by his
statement that on the 19th it was the practice to fasten burning brands to the
tails of foxes and set them loose to run in the Circus Maximus[249]:

Cur igitur missae vinctis ardentia taedis
Terga ferant volpes, causa docenda mihi est.

He tells a charming story to explain the custom, learnt from an old man of
Carseoli, an Aequian town, where he was seeking information while writing
the Fasti. A boy of twelve years’ old caught a vixen fox which had done
damage to the farm, and tied it up in straw and hay. This he set on fire, but
the fox escaped and burnt the crops. Hence a law at Carseoli forbidding—
something about foxes, which the corruption of the MSS. has obscured for
us[250]. Then he concludes:

Utque luat poenas gens haec, Cerialibus ardet;
Quoque modo segetes perdidit, ipsa perit.

We are, of course, reminded of Samson burning the corn of the
Philistines[251]; and it is probable that the story in each case is a myth
explanatory of some old practice like the one Ovid describes at Rome. But
what the practice meant it is not very easy to see. Preller has his explanation
ready[252]; it was a ‘sinnbildliche Erinnerung’ of the robigo (i. e. ‘red fox’),
which was to be feared and guarded against at this time of year. Mannhardt
thinks rather of the corn-foxes or corn-spirits of France and Germany, of
which he gives many instances[253]. If the foxes were corn spirits, one does
not quite see why they should have brands fastened to their tails[254]. No
exactly parallel practice seems to be forthcoming, and the fox does not
appear elsewhere in ancient Italian or Greek folk-tales, as far as I can
discover. All that can be said is that the fox’s tail seems to have been an
object of interest, and possibly to have had some fertilizing power[255], and
some curious relation to ears of corn. Prof. Gubernatis believes this tail to
have been a phallic symbol[256]. We need not accept his explanation, but we
may be grateful to him for a modern Italian folk-tale, from the region of
Leghorn and the Maremma, in which a fox is frightened away by chickens
which carry each in its beak an ear of millet; the fox is told that these ears
are all foxes’ tails, and runs for it.
Here we must leave this puzzle[257]; but whoever cares to read Ovid’s lines
about his journey towards his native Pelignian country, his turning into the
familiar lodging—

Hospitis antiqui solitas intravimus aedes,

and the tales he heard there—among them that of the fox—will find them
better worth reading than the greater part of the Fasti.

xi Kal. Mai. (Apr. 21). NP.[258]

PAR[ILIA]. (CAER. MAFF. PRAEN.)

ROMA COND[ITA] FERIAE CORONATIS OM[NIBUS]. (CAER.)

N[ATALIS] URBIS. CIRCENSES MISSUS XXIV. (PHILOC.)

[A note in Praen. is hopelessly mutilated, with the exception of the words
[259]
IGNES and PRINCIPIO AN[NI PASTORICII ?]]

The Parilia[260], at once one of the oldest and best attested festivals of the
whole year, is at the same time the one whose features have been most
clearly explained by the investigations of parallels among other races.
The first point to notice is that the festival was both public and private,
urban and rustic[261]. Ovid clearly distinguishes the two; lines 721-734 deal
with the urban festival, 735-782 with the rustic. The explanations which
follow deal with both. Pales, the deity (apparently both masculine and
feminine[262]) whose name the festival bears, was, like Faunus, a common
deity of Italian pasture land. A Palatium was said by Varro to have been
named after Pales at Reate, in the heart of the Sabine hill-country[263]; and
though this may not go for much, the character of the Parilia, and the fact
that Pales is called rusticola, pastoricia, silvicola, &c., are sufficient to
show the original non-urban character of the deity. He (or she) was a
shepherd’s deity of the simplest kind, and survived in Rome as little more
than a name[264] from the oldest times, when the earliest invaders drove their
cattle through the Sabine mountains. Here, then, we seem to have a clear
example of a rite which was originally a rustic one, and survived as such,
while at the same time one local form of it was kept up in the great city, and
had become entangled with legend and probably altered in some points of
ritual. We will take the rustic form first.
Here we may distinguish in Ovid’s account[265] the following ritualistic acts.

1. The sheep-fold[266] was decked with green boughs and a great wreath was
hung on the gate:

Frondibus et fixis decorentur ovilia ramis,
Et tegat ornatas longa corona fores.

With this Mannhardt[267] aptly compares the like concomitants of the
midsummer fires in North Germany, Scotland, and England. In Scotland,
for example, before the bonfires were kindled on midsummer eve, the
houses were decorated with foliage brought from the woods[268]. The custom
of decoration at special seasons, May-day, mid-summer, harvest, and
Christmas, is even now, with the exception of midsummer, universal, and is
probably descended from these primitive rites, by which our ancestors
sought in some mysterious way to influence the working of the powers of
vegetation.
2. At the earliest glimmer of daybreak the shepherd purified the sheep. This
was done by sprinkling and sweeping the fold; then a fire was made of
heaps of straw, olive-branches, and laurel, to give good omen by the
crackling, and through this apparently the shepherds leapt, and the flocks
were driven[269]. For this we have, of course, numerous parallels from all
parts of the world. Burning sulphur was also used:

Caerulei fiant vivo de sulfure fumi
Tactaque fumanti sulfure balet ovis[270].

3. After this the shepherd brought offerings to Pales, of whom there may
perhaps have been in the farmyard a rude image made of wood[271]; among
these were baskets of millet and cakes of the same, pails of milk, and other
food of appropriate kinds. The meal which followed the shepherd himself
appears to have shared with Pales[272]. Then he prays to the deity to avert all
evil from himself and his flocks; whether he or they have unwittingly
trespassed on sacred ground and caused the nymphs or fauni to fly from
human eyes; or have disturbed the sacred fountains, and used branches of a
sacred tree for secular ends. In these petitions the genuine spirit of Italian
religion—the awe of the unknown, the fear of committing unwittingly some

act that may bring down wrath upon you—is most vividly brought out in
spite of the Greek touches and names which are introduced. He then goes
on to his main object[273]:

Pelle procul morbos: valeant hominesque gregesque,
Et valeant vigiles, provida turba, canes.

Absit iniqua fames. Herbae frondesque supersint,
Quaeque lavent artus, quaeque bibantur, aquae.
Ubera plena premam: referat mihi caseus aera,
Dentque viam liquido vimina rara sero.
Sitque salax aries, conceptaque semina coniunx
Reddat, et in stabulo multa sit agna meo.
Lanaque proveniat nullas laesura puellas,
Mollis et ad teneras quamlibet apta manus.
Quae precor eveniant: et nos faciamus ad annum
Pastorum dominae grandia liba Pali.

This prayer must be said four times over[274], the shepherd looking to the
east and wetting his hands with the morning dew[275]. The position, the holy
water, and the prayer in its substance, though now addressed to the Virgin,
have all descended to the Catholic shepherd of the Campagna.
4. Then a bowl is to be brought, a wooden antique bowl apparently[276], from
which milk and purple sapa, i. e. heated wine, may be drunk, until the
drinker feels the influence of the fumes, and when he is well set he may
leap over the burning heaps:

Moxque per ardentes stipulae crepitantis acervos
Traiicias celeri strenua membra pede[277].

The Parilia of the urbs was celebrated in much the same way in its main
features; but the day was reckoned as the birthday of Rome, and doubtless
on this account it came under the influence of priestly organization[278]. It is
connected with two other very ancient festivals: that of the Fordicidia and
that of the ‘October horse.’ The blood which streamed from the head of the

horse sacrificed on the Ides of October was kept by the Vestals in the Penus
Vestae, and mixed with the ashes of the unborn calves burnt at the
Fordicidia; and the mixture seems to have been thrown upon heaps of
burning bean-straw to make it smoke, while over the smoke and flames men
and women leaped on the Palatine Hill[279]. The object was of course
purification; Ovid calls the blood, ashes, and straw februa casta, i. e. holy
agents of purification, and adds in allusion to their having been kept by the
Vestals:

Vesta dabit: Vestae munere purus eris.

Ovid had himself taken part in the rite; had fetched the suffimen, and leaped
three times through the flames, his hands sprinkled with dew from a laurel
branch. Whether the februa were considered to have individually any
special significance or power, it is hard to say. Mannhardt, who believed the
‘October horse’ to be a corn-demon, thought that the burning of its blood
symbolized the renewal of its life in the spring, while the ashes thrown into
the fire signified the safe passage of the growing crops through the heat of
the summer[280]; but about this so judicious a writer is naturally not disposed
to dogmatize. We can, however, be pretty sure that the purification was
supposed to carry with it protection from evil influences both for man and
beast, and also to aid the growth of vegetation. The theory of Mannhardt,
adopted by Mr. Frazer, that the whole class of ceremonies to which the
Parilia clearly belongs, i. e. the Easter and Midsummer fires and Need-fires
of central and northern Europe, may best be explained as charms to procure
sunshine,[281] has much to be said for it, but does not seem to find any
special support in the Roman rite.
It may be noted in conclusion that a custom of the same kind, and one
perhaps connected with a cult of the sun,[282] took place not far from Rome,
at Mount Soracte; at what time of year we do not know. On this hill there
was a worship of Apollo Soranus,[283] a local deity, to which was attached a
kind of guild of worshippers called Hirpi Sorani, or wolves of Soranus;[284]
and of these we may guess, from the legend told of their origin, that in order
to avert pestilence, &c., they dressed or behaved themselves like wolves.[285]
Also on a particular day, perhaps the summer solstice, these Hirpi ran
through the flames, ‘super ambustam ligni struem ambulantes non

aduruntur,’[286] and on this account were excused by a senatus consultum
from all military or other service. A striking parallel with this last feature is
quoted by Mannhardt, from Mysore, where the Harawara are degraded
Brahmins who act as priests in harvest-time, and make a living by running
through the flames unhurt with naked soles: but in this case there seems to
be no animal representation. Mannhardt tries to explain the Hirpi as
dramatic representations of the Corn-wolf or vegetation spirit.[287] On the
other hand, it is possible to consider them as survivals of an original clan
who worshipped the wolf as a totem[288]; a view adopted by Mr. Lang[289],
who compares the bear-maidens of Artemis at Brauron in Attica. But the
last word has yet to be said about these obscure animalistic rites.

ix Kal. Mai. (Apr. 23). FP (CAER.) NP (MAFF.) F (PRAEN.)[290]

VEIN[ALIA] (CAER.) VIN[ALIA] (MAFF. PRAEN. ESQ.)
Praen. has a mutilated note beginning IO[VI], and ending with [CUM LATINI
BELLO PREME]RENTUR A RUTULIS, QUIA MEZENTIUS REX ETRUS[CO]RUM
PACISCEBATUR, SI SUBSIDIO VENISSET, OMNIUM ANNORUM VINI FRUCTUM. (Cp.
Festus, 65 and 374, where it appears that libations of all new wine were
made to Jupiter.)
VENERI (CAER.)

[V]EBERI ERUC. [EXTR]A PORTAM COLLIN[AM]. (ARV.)

This day was generally known as Vinalia Priora, as distinguished from the
Vinalia Rustica of August 19. Both days were believed to be sacred to
Venus[291]; the earlier one, according to Ovid, was the foundation-day of the
temple of Venus Erycina, with which he connected the legend of Aeneas
and Mezentius. But as both Varro and Verrius are agreed that the days were
sacred, not to Venus but to Jupiter[292], we may leave the legend alone and
content ourselves with asking how Venus came into the connexion.
The most probable supposition is that this day being, as Ovid implies, the
dies natalis of one of the temples of Venus[293], the Vinalia also came to be
considered as sacred to the goddess. The date of the foundation was 181
B.C., exactly at a time when many new worships, and especially Greek ones,
were being introduced into Rome[294]. That of the Sicilian Aphrodite, under
the name of Venus, seems to have become at once popular with its Graecus
ritus and lascivia maior[295]; and the older connexion of the festival with
Jupiter tended henceforward to disappear. It must be noted, however, that
the day of the Vinalia Rustica in August was also the dies natalis of one if
not two other temples of Venus[296], and one of these was as old as the year
B.C. 293. Thus we can hardly avoid the conclusion that there was, even at an
early date, some connexion in the popular mind between the goddess and
wine. The explanation is perhaps to be found in the fact that Venus was
specially a deity of gardens, and therefore no doubt of vineyards[297]. An

interesting inscription from Pompeii confirms this, and attests the
connexion of Venus with wine and gardens, as it is written on a wine-jar[298]:

PRESTA MI SINCERU[M] ITA TE AMET QUE
CUSTODIT ORTU[M] VENUS.

The Vinalia, then, both in April and August, was really and originally sacred
to Jupiter. The legendary explanation is given by Ovid in 11. 877-900.
Whatever the true explanation may have been, the fact can be illustrated
from the ritual employed; for it was the Flamen Dialis[299] who ‘vindemiam
auspicatus est,’ i. e. after sacrificing plucked the first grapes. Whether this
auspicatio took place on either of the Vinalia has indeed been doubted, for
even August 19 would hardly seem to suit the ceremony Varro describes[300];
but the fact that it was performed by the priest of Jupiter is sufficient for our
purpose.
Of this day, April 23, we may guess that it was the one on which the wine-
skins were first opened, and libations from them made to Jupiter. These are
probably the libations about which Plutarch[301] asks ‘Why do they pour
much wine from the temple of Venus on the Veneralia’ (i. e. Vinalia)? The
same libations are attested by Verrius: ‘Vinalia diem festum habebant quo
die vinum novum Iovi libabant’[302]. After the libation the wine was tasted,
as we learn from Pliny[303]; and it seems probable that it was brought from
the country into Rome for this purpose only a few days before. Varro has
preserved an interesting notice which he saw posted in vineyards at
Tusculum: ‘In Tusculanis hortis (MSS. sortis) est scriptum: ‘Vinum novum
ne vehatur in urbem ante quam vinalia kalentur’[304]; i. e. wine-growers were
warned that the new wine was not to be brought into the city until the
Vinalia had been proclaimed on the Nones. It must, however, be added that
this notice may have had reference to the Vinalia in August; for Verrius, if
he is rightly reported by Paulus[305], gives August 19 as the day on which the
wine might be brought into Rome. Paulus may be wrong, and have
confused the two Vinalia[306]; but in that case we remain in the dark as to
what was done at the Vinalia Rustica, unless indeed we explain it as a rite
intended to secure the vintage that was to follow against malignant
influences. This would seem to be indicated by Pliny (H. N. 18. 284), where
he classes this August festival with the Robigalia and Floralia[307], and

further on quotes Varro to prove that its object was to appease the storms (i.
e. to be expected in September).
As regards the connexion of the vine-culture with Jupiter, it should be
observed that the god is not spoken of as Jupiter Liber, but simply Jupiter;
and though the vine was certainly introduced into Italy from Greece, we
need not assume that Dionysus, coming with it, was from the beginning
attached to or identified with Jupiter. The gift of wine might naturally be
attributed to the great god of the air, light, and heat; the Flamen Dialis who
‘vindemiam auspicatus est’ was not the priest of Jupiter Liber; nor does the
aetiological legend, in which the Latins avoid the necessity of yielding their
first-fruits to the Etruscan tyrant Mezentius by dedicating them to Jupiter,
point to any other than the protecting deity of Latium.[308]

VII Kal. Mai. (April 25). NP.

[ROB]IGALIA. (CAER. ESQ. MAFF. PRAEN.)
Note in Praen: FERIAE ROBIGO VIA CLAUDIA AD MILLIARIUM V NE ROBIGO
FRUMENTIS NOCEAT. SACRIFICIUM ET LUDI CURSORIBUS MAIORIBUS
MINORIBUSQUE FIUNT. FESTUS EST PUERORUM LENONIORUM, QUIA PROXIMUS
SUPERIOR MERETRICUM EST.

Robigo means red rust or mildew which attacks cereals when the ear is
beginning to be formed[309], and which is better known and more dreaded on
the continent than with us. This destructive disease is not caused by the
sun’s heat, as Pliny[310] tells us was the notion of some Italians, but by damp
acting in conjunction with a certain height of temperature, as Pliny himself
in fact explains it.
Robigus[311] is the spirit who works in the mildew; and it has been
conjectured that he was a form or indigitation of Mars[312], since Tertullian
tells us that ‘Marti et Robigini Numa ludos instituit’[313]. This is quite
consistent with all we know of the Mars of the farm-worship, who is
invoked to avert evil simply because he can be the creator of it[314]. The
same feature is found in the worship of Apollo, who had at Rhodes the cult-
title ἐρυθίβιος[315], or Apollo of the blight, as elsewhere he is Apollo
Smintheus, i. e. the power that can bring and also avert the pest of field-
mice.
Robigus had a grove of his own at the fifth milestone on the Via Claudia;
and Ovid relates in pretty verses how, as he was returning from Nomentum
(doubtless by way of his own gardens, which were at the junction of the Via
Claudia with the Via Flaminia near the Milvian bridge[316]), he met the
Flamen Quirinalis with the exta of a dog and a sheep to offer to the god[317].
He joined the procession, which was apparently something quite new to
him, and witnessed the ceremony, noting the meri patera, the turis acerra,
and the rough linen napkin[318], at the priest’s right hand. He versified the

prayer which he heard, and which is not unlike that which Cato directs the
husbandman to address to Mars in the lustration of the farm[319]:

Aspera Robigo, parcas Cerialibus herbis,
Et tremat in summa leve cacumen humo.

Tu sata sideribus caeli nutrita secundi
Crescere, dum fiant falcibus apta, sinas.

Parce, precor, scabrasque manus a messibus aufer,
Neve noce cultis: posse nocere sat est, &c.

Ovid then asked the flamen why a dog—nova victima—was sacrificed, and
was told that the dangerous Dog-star was in the ascendant[320]:

Est Canis, Icarium dicunt, quo sidere moto
Tosta sitit tellus, praecipiturque seges.
Pro cane sidereo canis hic imponitur arae,
Et quare pereat, nil nisi nomen habet.

In this, however, both he and the priest were certainly mistaken. Sirius does
not rise, but disappears on April 25, at sunset; and it is almost certain that
the sacrifice of the dog had nothing to do with the star. The real meaning of
the choice of victim was unknown both to priest and poet: but modern
research has made a reasonable attempt to recover it[321].
We are told[322] of a sacrifice of reddish sucking whelps, and of augury made
from their exta, which must have been closely connected with the
Robigalia, if not (in later times at least) identified with it. Originally it was
not on a fixed day, as is proved by an extract from the commentarii
pontificum quoted by Pliny[323]; but it is quite possible that for convenience,
as the religio of the urbs got more and more dissociated from the agriculture
in which it had its origin, the date was fixed for April 25—the rites of the
Robigalia being of the same kind, and the date suitable. The whelps were
red or reddish; and from the language of Festus, quoting Ateius Capito, we

gather that this colour was supposed to resemble that of the corn when ripe:
‘Rufae canes immolabantur, ut fruges flavescentes ad maturitatem
perducerentur’ (p. 285). We should indeed naturally have expected that the
rufous colour was thought to resemble the red mildew, as Mannhardt
explains it[324]; but we do not know for certain that these puppies were
offered to Robigus. In any case, however, we may perhaps see in them an
animal representation of the corn, and in the rite a piece of ‘sympathetic
magic’[325], the object of which was to bring the corn to its golden
perfection, or to keep off the robigo, or both. If we knew more about the
dog-offering at the grove of Robigus, we might find that it too, if not indeed
identical with the augurium, had a similar intention.
The red mildew was at times so terrible a scourge that the Robigalia must in
early Rome, when the population lived on the corn grown near the city,
have been a festival of very real meaning. But later on it became obscured,
and gave way to the races mentioned in the note in the Praenestine
calendar[326], and under the later empire to the Christian litania maior, the
original object of which was also the safety of the crops[327]. The 25th is at
present St. Mark’s day.

iv Kal. Mai. (apr. 28). NP.

LOEDI FLORÆ (CAER.) LUDI FLORÆ. (MAFF. PRAEN.)

v Non. Mai. (May 3). C.

FLORAE (VEN.).

On the intervening days were also ludi (C. I. L. 317).
Note in Praen. (Apr. 28): EODEM DIE AEDIS FLORAE, QUAE REBUS FLORESCENDIS
PRAEEST, DEDICATA EST PROPTER STERILITATEM FRUGUM.

This was not a very ancient festival and is not marked in the Calendars in
those large letters which are believed to indicate extreme antiquity[328]. Its
history seems to be as follows: in 238 B.C. in consequence of a dearth, the
Sibylline Books were consulted, and games in honour of Flora were held
for the first time by plebeian aediles[329]; also a temple was dedicated to her
ad circum maximum on April 28 of that year[330]. There seems to be a certain
connexion between the accounts of the institution of the Floralia and the
Cerialia. Dearth was the alleged cause in each case; and the position of the
temple of Flora near that of Ceres: the foundation by plebeian magistrates,
in this case the two Publicii[331], who as aediles were able to spend part of
the fines exacted from defaulting holders of ager publicus on this object[332]:
and the coarse character of the games as Ovid describes them, all seem to
show that the foundation was a plebeian one, like that of the Cerialia[333].
There may, however, have been something in the nature of ludi before this
date and at the same time of year, but not of a regular or public character.
Flora was beyond doubt an old Italian deity[334], probably closely related to
Ceres and Venus. There was a Flamen Floralis of very old standing[335]; and
Flora is one of the deities to whom piacula were offered by the Fratres
Arvales[336]—a list beginning with Janus and ending with Vesta. There is no
doubt, then, that there was a Flora-cult in Rome long before the foundation
of the temple and the games in 238; and though its character may have
changed under the influence of the Sibylline books, we may be able to
glean some particulars as to its original tendency.
In the account of Ovid and from other hints we gather—

1. That indecency was let loose[337] at any rate on the original day of the ludi
(April 28), which were in later times extended to May 3. The numen of
Flora, says Ovid, was not strict. Drunkenness was the order of the day, and
the usual results followed:

Ebrius ad durum formosae limen amicae
Cantat: habent unctae mollia serta comae.

The prostitutes of Rome hailed this as their feast-day, as well as the Vinalia
on the 23rd; and if we may trust a story told by Valerius Maximus[338], Cato
the younger withdrew from the theatre rather than behold the mimae
unclothe themselves, though he would not interfere with the custom. Flora
herself, like Acca Larentia, was said by late writers to have been a harlot
whose gains enabled her to leave money for the ludi[339]. These
characteristics of the festival were no doubt developed under the influence
of luxury in a large city, and grew still more objectionable under the
Empire[340]. But it is difficult to believe that such practices would have
grown up as they did at this particular time of year, had there not been some
previous customs of the kind existing before the ludi were regularly
instituted.
2. We find another curious custom belonging to the last days of the ludi,
which became common enough under the Empire[341], but may yet have had
an origin in the cult of Flora. Hares and goats were let loose in the Circus
Maximus on these days. Ovid asks Flora:

Cur tibi pro Libycis clauduntur rete[342] leaenis
Imbelles capreae sollicitusque lepus?

and gets the answer:

Non sibi, respondit, silvas cessisse, sed hortos
Arvaque pugnaci non adeunda ferae.

If we take this answer as at least appropriate, we may add to it the reflection
that hares and goats are prolific animals and also that they are

graminivorous. Flora as a goddess of fertility and bloom could have nothing
in common with fierce carnivora. But we are also reminded of the foxes
that were let loose in the Circus at the Cerialia[343], and may see in these
beasts as in the foxes animal representations of the spirit of fertility.
3. Another custom is possibly significant in something the same way. From
a passage in Persius we learn that vetches, beans, and lupines were scattered
among the people in the circus[344]. The commentators explain this as
meaning that they were thrown simply to be scrambled for as food; and we
know that other objects besides eatables were thrown on similar occasions,
at any rate at a later time[345]. But it is noticeable that among these objects
were medals with obscene representations on them; and putting two and
two together it is not unreasonable to guess that the original custom had a
meaning connected with fructification. Dr. Mannhardt[346] has collected a
very large number of examples of the practice of sprinkling and throwing
all kinds of grain, including rice, peas, beans, &c., from all parts of the
world, in the marriage rite and at the birth of children; amply sufficient to
prove that the custom is symbolic of fertility. Bearing in mind the time of
year, the nature of Flora, the character of the April rites generally, and the
occurrence of the women’s cult of the Bona Dea on May 1, viz. one of the
days of the ludi, we may perhaps conjecture that the custom in question was
a very old one—far older than the organized games—and had reference to
the fertility both of the earth and of man himself[347].

Feriae Latinae.

A brief account may be here given of the great Latin festival which usually
in historical times took place in April. Though it was not held at Rome, but
on the Alban Mount, it was under the direct supervision of the Roman state,
and was in reality a Roman festival. The consuls on their entrance upon
office on the Ides of March had to fix and announce the date of it[348]; and
when in 153 B.C. the day of entrance was changed to January 1, the date of
the festival does not seem to have been changed to suit it. The consuls must
be present themselves, leaving a praefectus urbi at Rome[349]; or in case of
the compulsory absence of both consuls a dictator might be appointed
Feriarum Latinarum causa. Only when the festival was over could they
leave Rome for their provinces.
It was therefore a festival of the highest importance to the Roman state. But
the ritual will show that it must in fact have been much older than that state
as we know it in historical times; it was a common festival of the most
ancient Latin communities[350], celebrated on the lofty hill which arose in
their midst, where dwelt the great protecting deity of their race. At what
date Rome became the presiding city at the festival we do not know. The
foundation of the temple on the hill was ascribed to the Tarquinii, and this
tradition seems to be borne out by the character of the foundations
discovered there, which resemble those of the Capitoline temple[351]. No
doubt the Tarquinii may have renovated the cult or even given it an
extended significance; but the Roman presidency must conjecturally be
placed still further back. Perhaps no festival, Greek or Roman, carries us
over such a vast period of time as this; its features betray its origin in the
pastoral age, and it continued in almost uninterrupted grandeur till the end
of the third century A.D., or even later[352].
The ritual as known to us was as follows[353]. When the magistrates or (their
deputies) of all the Latin cities taking part had assembled at the temple, the
Roman consul offered a libation of milk, while the deputies from the other
cities brought sheep, cheeses, or other such offerings. But the characteristic
rite was the slaughter of a pure white heifer that had never felt the yoke.

This sacrifice was the duty of the consul, who acted on behalf of the whole
number of cities. When it was concluded, the flesh of the victim was
divided amongst all the deputies and consumed by them. To be left out of
this common meal, or sacrament, would be equivalent to being excluded
from communion with the god and the Latin league, and the desire to obtain
the allotted flesh is more than once alluded to[354]. A general festivity
followed the sacrifice, while oscilla, or little puppets, were hung from the
branches of trees as at the Paganalia[355]. As usual in Italy, the least oversight
in the ceremony or evil omen made it necessary to begin it all over again;
and this occasionally happened[356]. Lastly, during the festival there was a
truce between all the cities, and it would seem that the alliance between
Rome and the Latins was yearly renewed on the day of the Feriae[357].
Some of the leading characteristics of the Italian Jupiter will be considered
further on[358]. But this festival may teach us that we are here in the presence
of the oldest and finest religious conception of the Latin race, which yearly
acknowledges its common kinship of blood and seals it by partaking in the
common meal of a sacred victim, thus entering into communion with the
god, the victim, and each other[359]. The offerings are characteristic rather of
a pastoral than an agricultural age, and suggest an antiquity that is fully
confirmed by the ancient utensils dug up on the Alban Mount[360]. As Helbig
has pointed out, the absence of any mention of wine proves that the origin
of the festival must be dated earlier than the introduction of the grape into
Italy. The white victim may be a reminiscence of some primitive white
breed of cattle. The common meal of the victim’s flesh is a survival from
the age when cattle were sacred animals, and were never slain except on the
solemn annual occasions when the clan renewed its kinship and its mutual
obligations by a solemn sacrament[361].
As Rome absorbed Latium, so Jupiter Latiaris gave way before the great
god of the Capitol, who is the symbol of the later victorious and imperial
Rome; but the god of the Alban hill and his yearly festival continued to
recall the early share of the Latins in the rise of their leading city, long after
the population of their towns had been so terribly thinned that some of them
could hardly find a surviving member to represent them at the festival and
take their portion of the victim[362].

MENSIS MAIUS.

Was the name of this month taken from a deity Maia, or had it originally
only a signification of growing or increasing, such as we might expect in a
word derived from the same root as maior, maiestas, &c.? The following
passage of Macrobius will show how entirely the Roman scholars were at
sea in their answer to this question[363]:
‘Maium Romulus tertium posuit. De cuius nomine inter auctores lata
dissensio est. Nam Fulvius Nobilior in Fastis quos in aede Herculis
Musarum posuit[364] Romulum dicit postquam populum in maiores
iunioresque diuisit, ut altera pars consilio altera armis rem publicam
tueretur, in honorem utriusque partis hunc Maium, sequentem Iunium
mensem uocasse[365]. Sunt qui hunc mensem ad nostros fastos a Tusculanis
transisse commemorent, apud quos nunc quoque uocatur deus Maius, qui
est Iuppiter, a magnitudine scilicet ac maiestate dictus[366]. Cingius[367]
mensem nominatum putat a Maia quam Vulcani dicit uxorem,
argumentoque utitur quod flamen Vulcanalis Kalendis Maiis huic deae rem
diuinam facit. Sed Piso uxorem Vulcani Maiestam non Maiam dicit uocari.
Contendunt alii Maiam Mercurii matrem mensi nomen dedisse, hinc
maxime probantes quod hoc mense mercatores omnes Maiae pariter
Mercurioque sacrificant[368]. Adfirmant quidam, quibus Cornelius Labeo
consentit, hanc Maiam cui mense Maio res diuina celebratur terram esse
hoc adeptam nomen a magnitudine, sicut et Mater Magna in sacris uocatur
adsertionemque aestimationis suae etiam hinc colligunt quod sus praegnans
ei mactatur, quae hostia propria est terrae. Et Mercurium ideo illi in sacris
adiungi dicunt quia uox nascenti homini terrae contactu datur, scimus autem
Mercurium uocis et sermonis potentem. Auctor est Cornelius Labeo huic
Maiae id est terrae aedem Kalendis Maiis dedicatam sub nomine Bonae
Deae et eandem esse Bonam Deam et terram ex ipso ritu occultiore
sacrorum doceri posse confirmat. Hanc eandem Bonam deam Faunamque et
Opem et Fatuam pontificum libris indigitari, &c.’

It is clear from this passage that the Romans themselves were not agreed,
either in the case of May or June, that the name of the month was derived
from a deity. No Roman scholar doubted that Martius was derived from
Mars, the characteristic god of the Roman race; but Maia was a deity
known apparently only to the priests and the learned. Had she been a
popular one, what need could there have been to question so obvious an
etymology? And if she were an obscure one, how could she have given her
name to a month? As a matter of fact March is the only month of which we
can be sure that it was named after a god. Even January is doubtful, June
still more so. The natural assumption about this latter word would be that it
comes from Juno, more especially as we find in Latium the words Junonius
and Junonalis as names of months[369]. But if Junius came from Juno, it must
have come by the dropping out of a syllable; and this, in the case of a long
and accented o, would be at least unlikely to happen[370]. Nor can we
discover any sufficient reason why the month of June should be called after
Juno; none at any rate such as accounts for the connexion of Mars with the
initial month of the year. This is enough to show that the derivation of June
from Juno must be left doubtful; and if so, certainly that of May from Maia.
In the case of this month, not only does the natural meaning of mensis
Maius suit well as following the mensis Aprilis, but there is no cult of a
deity Maia which is found throughout the month.
Any one who reads the passage of Macrobius with some knowledge of the
Roman theological system will hardly fail to conclude that Maia is only a
priestly indigitation of another deity, and that the name thus invented was
simply taken from the name of the month as explained above. This deity
was more generally known, as Macrobius implies, by the name Bona Dea,
and her temple was dedicated on the Kalends of May.
It is difficult to characterize the position of the month of May in the
religious calendar. It was to some extent no doubt a month of purification.
At the Lemuria the house was purified of hostile ghosts; the curious
ceremony of the Argei on the Ides is called by Plutarch the greatest of the
purifications; and at the end of the month took place the lustratio of the
growing crops. We note too that it was considered ill-omened to marry in
May, as it still is in many parts of Europe. The agricultural operations of the
month were not of a marked character. Much work had indeed to be done in
oliveyards and vineyards; some crops had to be hoed and cleaned, and the

hay-harvest probably began in the latter part of the month. In the main it
was a time of somewhat anxious expectation and preparation for the harvest
to follow; and this falls in fairly well with the general character of its
religious rites.

Kal. Mai. (May 1.) F.

LAR[IBUS]. (VEN.) L——. (ESQ.)

This was the day on which, according to Ovid[371], an altar and ‘parva signa’
had been erected to the Lares praestites. They were originally of great
antiquity, but had fallen into decay in Ovid’s time:

Bina gemellorum quaerebam signa deorum,
Viribus annosae facta caduca morae[372].

Ovid himself had apparently not seen the signa, though he looked for them;
and no doubt he took from Varro the description he gives. They had the
figure of a dog at their feet[373], and, according to Plutarch, were clothed in
dogs’ skins. Both Ovid and Plutarch explained the dog as symbolizing their
watch over the city; though Plutarch, following, as he says, certain Romans,
preferred to think of them rather as evil demons searching out and
punishing guilt like dogs. The mention of the skins is very curious, and we
can hardly separate it from the numerous other instances in which the
images of deities are known to have been clothed in the skins of victims
sacrificed to them[374]. We may indeed fairly conclude that the Lares were
chthonic deities, and as such were originally appeased, like Hekate in
Greece[375], by the sacrifice of dogs. We have already had one example of
the dog used as a victim[376]. Two others are mentioned by Plutarch[377]; in
one case the deity was the obscure Genita Mana, and in the other the
unknown god of the Lupercalia, both of which belong in all probability to
the same stratum of Italian religious antiquity as the Lares. Whether we
should go further, and infer from the use of the skins that the Lares were
originally worshipped in the form of dogs[378], is a question I must leave
undecided; the evidence is very scanty. There is no trace of any connexion
with the dog in the cult of the Lares domestici[379], or Compitales.

This is also the traditional day of the dedication of a temple to the Bona
Dea, on the slopes of the Aventine, under a big sacred rock. It is thus
described by Ovid[380]:

Est moles nativa loco. Res nomina fecit:
Appellant Saxum. Pars bona montis ea est.
Huic Remus institerat frustra, quo tempore fratri
Prima Palatinae signa dedistis aves.

Templa Patres illic oculos exosa viriles
Leniter acclivi constituere iugo.
Dedicat haec veteris Clausorum nominis heres,
Virgineo nullum corpore passa virum.
Livia restituit, ne non imitata maritum
Esset et ex omni parte secuta virum.

The allusion to Remus fixes the site on the Aventine. The date is
uncertain[381]; so too the alleged foundation by Claudia, which may be only
a reflection from the story of the part played by a Claudia in the
introduction of the Magna Mater Idaea to Rome[382]. The temple, as Ovid
says, was restored by Livia, in accordance with the policy of her husband,
also at an unknown date.
Of the cult belonging to this temple we have certain traces, which also help
us to some vague conception of the nature of the deity. It should be
observed that though in one essential particular, viz. the exclusion of men,
this cult was similar to that of December, it must have been quite distinct
from it, as the latter took place, not in a temple, but in the house of a
magistrate cum imperio[383].
1. The temple was cared for, and the cult celebrated, by women only[384].
There was an old story that Hercules, when driving the cattle of Geryon,
asked for water by the cave of Cacus of the women celebrating the festival
of the goddess, and was refused, because the women’s festival was going
on, and men were not allowed to use their drinking-vessels; and that this led
to the corresponding exclusion of women from the worship of Hercules[385].
The myth obviously arose out of the practice. The exclusion of men points
to the earth-nature of the Bona Dea; the same was the case in the worship of

the Athenian Demeter Thesmophoros. The earth seems always to be
spiritualized as feminine even among savage peoples[386], and the reason of
the exclusion of men is not difficult to conjecture, just as the exclusion of
women from the worship of Hercules is explained by the fact that Hercules
represents the male principle in the ancient Roman religion[387].
2. Macrobius[388] tells us that wine could not be brought into the temple suo
nomine, but only under the name of milk, and that the vase in which it was
carried was called mellarium, i. e. a vase for honey. A legend grew up to
account for the custom, to which we shall refer again, that Faunus had
beaten his daughter Fauna (i. e. Bona Dea) with a rod of myrtle because she
would not yield to his incestuous love or drink the wine he pressed on
her[389]. This may indicate a survival from the time when the herdsman used
no wine in sacred rites, but milk and honey only; Pliny tells us of such a
time[390], and his evidence is confirmed by the poets. In any case milk would
be the appropriate offering to the Earth-mother, and it is hard to see why it
should have been changed to wine, unless it were that life in the city and
Greek influence altered the character both of the Bona Dea and her
worshippers. The really rustic deities had milk offered them, e. g. Silvanus,
Pales, and Ceres. The general inference from this survival is that the Bona
Dea was originally of the same nature with these deities, but lost her
rusticity when she became part of an organized city worship.
3. Myrtle was not allowed in this temple; hence the myth that Faunus beat
his daughter with a myrtle rod[391]. But could the exclusion of myrtle by
itself have suggested the beating? Dr. Mannhardt answers in the negative,
and conjectures that there must have been some kind of beating in the cult
itself, which gave rise to the story[392]. Dr. Mannhardt never made a
conjecture without a large collection of facts on which to base it; and here
he depends upon a number of instances from Greece and Northern Europe,
in which man or woman, or some object such as the image of a deity, is
whipped with rods, nettles, strips of leather, &c., in order, as it would seem,
to produce fertility and drive away hostile influences. We shall see the same
peculiarity occurring at the Lupercalia in February[393], where its object and
meaning are almost beyond doubt. Many of these practices occur, it is
worth noting, on May-day. If the Bona Dea was a representative in any
sense of the fertility of women, as well as of the fructifying powers of the
earth—and the two ideas seem naturally to have run together in the

primitive mind—we may provisionally accept Dr. Mannhardt’s ingenious
suggestion. If it be objected that as myrtle was excluded from the cult it
could not have been used therein for the purpose of whipping, the answer is
simply that as being invested with some mysterious power it was tabooed
from ordinary use, but, like certain kinds of victims, was introduced on
special and momentous occasions.
4. The temple was a kind of herbarium in which herbs were kept with
healing properties[394]. A group of interesting inscriptions shows that the
Bona Dea did not confine her healing powers to cases of women, but cured
the ailments of both sexes[395]. This attribute of the goddess is borne out by
the presence of snakes in her temple, the usual symbol of the medicinal art,
and at the same time appropriate to the Bona Dea as an Earth-goddess[396]. It
is possible that this feature is a Greek importation; but on the whole I see no
reason why the female ministrants of the temple should not have exercised
such healing powers, or have sold or given herbs at request, even at a very
early period. No doubt Greek medicinal learning became associated with it,
but that the knowledge of simples was indigenous in Italy we have
abundant proof[397]; and that it should have been connected with no cult of a
deity until Aesculapius was introduced from Greece, is most improbable.
5. The sacrifice mentioned is that of a porca[398]. The pig is also the victim
in the worship of Ceres, of Juno Lucina[399] (as alternative for a lamb), and
as a piacular sacrifice in the ritual of the deity of the Fratres Arvales (Dea
Dia); it seems in fact, as in Greece, to be appropriate to deities of the earth
and of women. There is no reason to suppose that wherever it is found it
had a Greek origin; even in the cult of Ceres, which, as we saw, became
early overlaid with Greek practice[400], the pig may have been the victim
before that change took place. But it is a singular fact that in the worship of
the Bona Dea, either at the temple of the Aventine, or in the December rite
—more probably perhaps in the latter—the victim was called by a name
which looks suspiciously Greek, viz. Damium[401]. It seems that there was a
deity Damia who was worshipped here and there in Greece, and also in
Southern Italy, e. g. at Tarentum, where she had a festival called Dameia[402].
It looks as if this Greek deity had at one time migrated from Tarentum to
Rome, and become engrafted upon the indigenous Bona Dea; for we are
expressly told that Damia was identical with the Bona Dea, and that the
priestess of the latter was called Damiatrix[403]. Much has been written about

these very obscure names, without any very definite result; but it seems to
be generally agreed that the form of the word damiatrix indicates a high
antiquity for the Graecized form of the cult, and may indeed possibly
suggest an Italian origin for the whole group of names. In this uncertainty
conjectures are almost useless.
We have seen enough of the cult to gain some idea of the nature of this
mysterious deity, whose real name was not known, even if she had one[404].
We need not identify her with Vesta, as some have done[405], nor with Juno
Lucina, nor with any other female deity of the class to which she seems to
have belonged. She must at one time have been, whatever she afterwards
became, a protective deity of the female sex, the Earth-mother[406], a kindly
and helpful, but shy and unknowable deity of fertility. The name Bona Dea
is probably to be regarded as one indigitation of the Earth-spirit known by a
variety of other names and appearing in a number of different phases. There
is indeed a remarkable indefiniteness about the Italian female deities of this
class; they never gained what we may call complete specific distinctness,
but are rather half-formed species developed from a common type. They
form, in fact, an excellent illustration of the nature of that earliest stratum of
Roman religious belief which has been called pandaemonism—a belief in a
world of spiritual powers not yet grown into the forms of individual deities,
but ready at any moment, under influences either native or foreign, to take a
more definite shape.

VII. Id. Mai. (May 9). N.

LEM[VRIA]. (VEN. MAFF.)

V. Id. Mai. (May 11). N.

LEM[VRIA]. (TUSC. VEN. MAFF.)

III. Id. Mai. (May 13). N.

LEM[VRIA]. (TUSC. VEN. MAFF.)

The word Lemuria indicates clearly enough some kind of worship of the
dead; but we know of no such public cult on these three days except from
the calendars. What Ovid describes as taking place at this time is a private
and domestic rite performed by the head of the household[407]; and Ovid is
our only informant in regard to details. In historical times the public festival
of the dead was that of the dies parentales in February, ending with the
Feralia on the 21st. How, then, is it that the three days of the Lemuria
appear in those large letters in the ancient calendars, which, as we have
seen[408], indicate the public festivals of the religious system of the
Republic? There is no certain answer to this question. We can but guess that
the Lemuria was at one time, like the Feralia, a public festival, but
descended from a more ancient deposit of superstition which in historical
times was buried deep beneath the civilization of a developed city life[409].
Ovid himself implies that the Lemuria was an older festival than the
Feralia[410], and we may suppose him to be following Varro as a guide. And
if we compare his account of the grotesque domestic rites of the Lemuria
with those of February, which were of a systematic, cheerful, and even
beautiful character, we may feel fairly sure that the latter represents the
organized life of a city state, the former the ideas of an age when life was
wilder and less secure, and the fear of the dead and of demons generally
was a powerful factor in the minds of the people. If we may argue from
Ovid’s account, to be described directly, it is not impossible that the
Lemuria may have been one of those periodical expulsions of demons of
which Mr. Frazer has told us so much in his Golden Bough[411], and which
are performed on behalf of the community as well as in the domestic circle
amongst savage peoples. It is noticeable that the offering of food to the
demons is a feature common to these practices, and that it also appears in
those described by Ovid.

The difference of character in the two Roman festivals of the dead is
perhaps also indicated by the fact that the days of the Lemuria are marked
in the calendars with the letter N, while the Feralia is marked F or FP[412].
This may perhaps point to two different views of the attitude of the dead to
the living, affecting the character of the festival days; they are friendly or
hostile, as they have been buried with due rites and carefully looked after,
or as they have failed of these dues and are consequently angry and
jealous[413]. The latter of these attitudes is more in keeping with the notions
of uncivilized man, and of a life not as yet wholly brought under the
influence of the civilization of the city-state. To be more certain, however,
on this point, we must try and discover the real meaning of the word lemur.
The definition given by Porphyrio is ‘Umbras vagantes hominum ante diem
mortuorum atque ideo metuendas[414].’ Nonius has the following: ‘Lemures
larvae nocturnae et terrificationes imaginum et bestiarum[415].’ From these
passages it would seem that lemures and larvae mean much the same thing;
on the other hand Appuleius[416] implies that lemures is a general word for
spirits after they have left the body, while those that haunt houses are
especially called larvae. But on a question of this kind, the philosophical
and uncritical Appuleius is not to be weighed as an authority against either
Nonius or Porphyrio, who may quite possibly be here representing the
learning of the Augustan age; and a perusal of the whole of his passage will
show that he is simply trying to classify ghosts by the light of his own
imagination. Judging from the hints of the two other scholars, we may
perhaps conclude that lemures and larvae are to be distinguished as hostile
ghosts from manes, the good people (as the word is generally explained), i.
e. those duly buried in the city of the dead, and whom their living
descendants have no need to fear so long as they pay them their due rites at
the proper seasons as members of the family. And this conclusion is
confirmed by the curious etymology of Ovid[417], reproduced by Porphyrio,
deriving Lemuria from Remus. whose violent death was supposed to have
been expiated by the institution of the festival. The difficulty is to see why,
if the lemures were unburied, evil, or hostile spirits, a special festival of
three days should have been necessary to appease or quiet them; and I can
only account for this by supposing that such spirits were especially
numerous in an age of uncivilized life and constant war and violence, and
that they formed a large part of the whole world of evil demons whose
expulsion was periodically demanded. It may have been the case that at this

particular time in May, when the days were nefasti and marriages were ill-
omened, these spirits became particularly restless and needed to be laid.
Such an explanation as this of the Lemuria is on the whole preferable to that
which would regard it as the original Roman festival of all the dead; for
there is now abundant evidence that even in the earliest ages of Italian life
the practice of orderly burial in necropoleis was universal[418], and this is a
practice that seems inconsistent with a general belief in the dead as hostile
and haunting spirits.
The following is Ovid’s description of the way in which the ghosts were
laid at the Lemuria by the father of a family. At midnight he rises, and with
bare feet[419] and washed hands, making a peculiar sign with his fingers and
thumbs to keep off the ghosts, he walks through the house. He has black
beans in his mouth, and these he spits out as he walks, looking the other
way, and saying, ‘With these I redeem me and mine.’ Nine times he says
this without looking round; then come the ghosts behind him, and gather up
the beans unseen. He proceeds to wash again and to make a noise with brass
vessels; and after nine times repeating the formula ‘manes[420] exite paterni,’
he at last looks round, and the ceremony is over.
The only point in this quaint bit of ritual which need detain us is the use of
beans. We have had bean-straw used at the Parilia, and we shall find that
beans were also used at the festival of the dead in February. Assuredly it is
not easy to see what could have made them into such valuable ‘medicine.’
Beans were not a newly discovered vegetable. Their exclusion from the
rites of Demeter must have been of great antiquity, and the notions of the
Pythagoreans about them were probably based on very ancient popular
superstitions[421]. No one, as far as I know, has as yet successfully solved the
problem why beans had so strange a religious character about them[422]; they
probably were an ancient symbol of fertility, but it is impossible now to
discover how or why the ideas grouped themselves around them, which we
so constantly find both in Greece and Italy. If we ask why the ghosts picked
them up, or were supposed to do so, there is some reason for believing that
by eating them they might possibly hope to get a new lease of life[423].
Whatever was the real basis of the superstition, it was a widely spread one,
and ramified in more than one direction; the Roman priest of Jupiter, for
example, might not touch beans nor even mention them[424]. In his case the
taboo was no doubt very old, but might have grown out of some such

practice as that just described, all things ill-omened and mysterious being
carefully kept out of his reach.
The days from May 7 to 14 were occupied by the Vestal Virgins in
preparing the mola salsa, or sacred salt-cake, for use at the Vestalia in June,
on the Ides of September, and at the Lupercalia[425]. This was made from the
first ears of standing corn in a primitive fashion by the three senior Vestals,
and is no doubt, like most of their ritual, a relic of the domestic functions of
the daughters of the family. But we must postpone further consideration of
the Vestals and their duties till we come to the Vestalia in June.

Id. Mai. (May 15). NP.

FER[IAE] IOVI. MERCUR[IO] MAIAE. (VENUS[426].)
MAIAE AD CIRC[UM] M[AXIMUM]. (CAER.) MERC[URIO]. (TUSC.)

The very curious rite which took place on this day is not mentioned in the
calendars; it belonged to those which, like the Paganalia, were publica
indeed and pro populo, but represented the people as divided in certain
groups rather than the State as a whole[427]. But its obvious antiquity, and the
interesting questions which arise out of it, tempt me to treat it in detail, at
the risk of becoming tedious.
I have already mentioned[428] that there was a procession in March, as we
infer from the sacra Argeorum quoted by Varro, which went round the
sacella Argeorum, or twenty-four chapels situated in the four Servian
regions of the city[429]. What was done at these sacella we do not know; the
procession and its doings had become so obscure in Ovid’s time that he
could dispose of it in two lines of his Fasti, and express a doubt as to
whether it took place on one day or two[430]. Nor do we know what the
sacella really were. The best conjecture is that of Jordan, who has brought
some evidence together to show that they were small chapels or sacred
places where holy things were deposited until the time came round for them
to be used in some religious ceremony[431].
But on May 15 there was another rite in which the word Argei plays a
prominent part; and here the details have in part at least survived. The Argei
in this case are not chapels, but a number of puppets or bundles of rushes,
resembling (as Dionysius has recorded) men bound hand and foot, which
were taken down to the pons sublicius by the Pontifices and magistrates,
and cast into the river by the Vestal Virgins[432]. The Flaminica Dialis, the
priestess of Jupiter, was present at the ceremony in mourning. The number
of the puppets was probably the same as that of the sacella of the same
name[433].

Explanations of these rites were invented by Roman scholars. The sacella
were the graves of Greeks who had come to Italy with Hercules; and the
puppets represented the followers of Hercules who had died on their
journey and were to return home as it were by proxy[434]. Apart from the
theories of the learned, it was the fact that the common people at Rome
believed the puppets to be substitutes for old men, who at one time used to
be thrown into the Tiber as victims. Sexagenarios de ponte was a well-
known proverb which in Cicero’s time was explained by supposing that the
bridges alluded to were those over which the voters passed in the
Comitia[435]; but this view may at once be put aside. Those bridges were
certainly a comparatively late invention, while the proverb was of remote
antiquity.
But, given the details of the rite, and the popular belief about the old men as
victims, what explanation can we hope to arrive at? We may freely admit
that no satisfactory etymology of the word Argei is forthcoming; but this is
perhaps, in a negative sense, an advantage to our inquiry[436]. The Romans
derived it from the Greek Ἀργεῖοι; and to this etymology Mommsen is now
disposed to return. The writer of the article ‘Argei’ in the Mythological
Lexicon derived it from varka-s = ‘wolf’; others have believed it to come
from a root arg = ‘white’ or ‘shining,’ and though the termination eus is
hardly a Latin one, it may be that this is the true basis of the word[437].
Instead of prejudging the case by fanciful etymologies, or by attempting to
decide the question whether the Romans ever practised the rites of human
sacrifice, we will take the leading features of the ceremony, and see in what
direction they may on the whole direct us. That done, it may be possible to
sum up the debate, though a final and decisive verdict is not to be expected.
The features which demand attention are (1) the processional character of
the rites; (2) the presence of the Pontifices and the Vestals; (3) the mourning
of the Flaminica Dialis; (4) the rush-puppets and their immersion in the
Tiber.
1. We can hardly doubt that there was a procession to the pons sublicius,
though the fact is not expressly stated. We are tempted to believe that it
visited each sacellum, and there found, or possibly made, the puppet
(simulacrum), which thus represented the district of which the sacellum was
the sacred centre; and that it then proceeded, bearing the puppets, probably

by the Forum and Vicus Tuscus to the bridge[438]. Now if this feature can
help us at all—if we accept the connexion of the March and May
ceremonies and their processional character—it must point in the direction
of the purification of land or city, on the analogy of other Italian ceremonies
of the same kind. At the end of this month took place the Ambarvalia, when
the priests went round the land with prayer and sacrifice to ensure the good
growth of the crops; and we have a remarkable instance of the same kind of
practice in the celebrated inscription of Iguvium. Not only each city, but
each pagus, and even each farmer, duly purified his land in some such way,
cleansing it from the powers of evil and sterility, while at the same time the
boundaries were renewed in the memories of all concerned. Bearing this in
mind, and also the season of the year, we may fairly guess that the Argean
processions had some relation to agriculture, and to the welfare of the
precarious stock of wealth of an agricultural community.
2. The presence of the Pontifices and Vestals.—The former would be
present, partly as the representative sacred college of the united city[439],
partly as having under their special care the sacred bridge from which the
puppets were thrown. Whether or not the word pontifex be directly derived
from pons[440], it is certain that the ancient bridge, with its strong religious
associations, was under their care, and that the river was an object of their
constant liturgical attention[441]. It has been suggested that the whole
ceremony was one of bridge-worship[442]; but this view, as we shall see, will
hardly explain all the facts. It leaves the March rites unexplained, and also
the presence of the Vestals; nor does it seem to suit the season of the year.
The presence of the Vestals is more significant; and it was they, as it seems,
who performed the act of throwing the puppets from the bridge[443]. In all
the public duties performed by them (as we shall see more fully in dealing
with the Vestalia[444]) a reference can be traced to one leading idea, viz. that
the food and nourishment of the State, of which the sacred fire was the
symbol, depended for its maintenance on the accurate performance of these
duties. We have just seen that they spent the seven days preceding the Ides
of May in preparing their sacred cakes from the first ripening ears of corn.
We shall see them using these cakes in June, September, and at the
Lupercalia. At the Parilia and the Fordicidia they also take a prominent part,
both of them festivals relating to the fruitfulness of herds and flocks; so also
at the harvest festivals in August of Ops Consiva and Consus. And we can

hardly suppose that their presence at the rite under discussion should have a
different significance from that of their public service on all other
occasions. Even if we had no other evidence to go upon, we might on the
facts just adduced base a fair inference that this ceremony too had some
relation to the processes and perils awaiting the ripening crops.
3. The Flaminica Dialis had on this day to lay aside her usual bridal dress,
and to appear in mourning[445]. The same rule was laid down for her during
the ‘moving’ of the ancilia in March, and during the Vestalia up to the
completion of the purification of the temple of Vesta. It is not easy to see
what the meaning of this rule may have been. On the other two occasions
there is nothing to lead us to suppose that it was some such terrible rite as
human sacrifice which caused the change of costume; we need not therefore
suppose that it was so on May 15. But if all three occasions are times of
purification and the averting of evil influences: if they each mark the
conclusion of an old season, and the necessity of great care in entering on a
new one, we can better understand it. This was the case, as we saw, when in
March the Salii were pervading the city, and it was so also at the Vestalia,
which was preparatory to the ingathering of the crops. Some such critical
moment, I think, the day we are discussing must also have been. Some light
may be thrown on this aspect of the question by practices which have been
collected by Dr. Mannhardt from Northern Europe[446], some of which still
survive. I will give a single instance from Russia. At Murom on June 29 a
figure of straw, dressed in female clothing, is laid on a bier and carried to
the edge of a lake or river; it is eventually torn up and thrown into the river,
while the spectators hide their faces and behave as though they bewailed the
death of Kostroma. In another district on the same day an old man carried
out of the town a puppet representing the spring, and was followed by the
women singing mournful songs and expressing by their gestures grief and
despair.
4. The Puppets and their immersion in the Tiber.—There are two possible
explanations of this curious practice.
(1) The puppets were substitutes for human victims, and probably for old
men. The evidence for this view is—first, the Roman tradition expressed in
the saying sexagenarios de ponte[447], and supported by the fact that the
puppets appeared, to Dionysius at least, like men bound hand and foot[448];
secondly, the fact that human sacrifice was not entirely unknown at Rome,

though there is no trace of any such custom regularly recurring. We may
allow that Italy could not have been entirely free from a practice which
existed even in Greece, and also that the habit of substituting some object
for the original victim is common and well attested in religious history; but
whether either the Argei, or the oscilla or maniae, which are often
compared with the Argei, really had this origin, may well indeed be
doubted[449]. Thirdly, there is evidence that not only human sacrifice, but the
sacrifice of old men, was by no means unknown in primitive times. Passing
over the general evidence as to human sacrifice, we know that the old and
weak were sometimes put to death[450]. Being of no further use in the
struggle for existence, they were got rid of in various ways—an act perhaps
not so much of cruelty as of kindness, and under certain circumstances not
incompatible with filial piety[451]. The chief objections to this explanation
are—first, that it obliges us to ascribe to the early Romans a habit which
seems quite incompatible with their well-known respect for old age and
their horror of parricide; secondly, that it does not explain why a practice,
which can hardly have ever been a regularly recurring one, should have
passed into a yearly ceremony[452].
(2) The rite was of a dramatic rather than a sacrificial character[453], and
belongs to a class of which we have numerous examples both from Greek,
Teutonic, and Slavonic peoples. In Greece, or rather in Egypt, we have the
cult of Adonis, in which a puppet is immersed in the water amid wailings
and lamentations. In Greece proper semi-dramatic rites are found at
Chaeronea and Athens[454], though somewhat different in character to those
of the Argei and Adonis. Tacitus describes the immersion in water of the
image of the German goddess Nerthus[455]. But most significant are the
many examples, of which Mannhardt formed an ample collection, in which
puppets are found, made as a rule of straw, carried along in procession and
thrown into a river or water of some kind, often from a bridge[456].
Sometimes the place of these puppets is taken by a sheaf, a small tree, or a
man or boy dressed up in foliage or fastened in the sheaf[457]: but in almost
all cases the object is ducked in water or at least sprinkled with it, though
now and then it is burnt or buried. The best known example is that of the
Bavarian ‘Wasservogel,’ which is either a boy or a puppet, as the custom
may be in different places; he or it was decorated, carried round the fields at
Whitsuntide[458], and thrown from the bridge into the stream. So constant
and inconvenient was this kind of custom in the Middle Ages that a law of

1351, still extant, forbade the ducking of people at Erfurt in the water at
Easter and Whitsuntide[459]. In many of these cases the simulacrum may
have been substituted for a human being[460]; but I find none where the
notion of sacrifice survived, or where there was any trace of a popular
belief that the object was a substitute for an actual victim. What these
curious customs, according to Dr. Mannhardt, do really represent, is the
departure of winter and the arrival of the fruitful season, or possibly the
exhaustion of the vernal Power of vegetation after its work is done[461].
Two features in these old customs may strike us as interesting in connexion
with the Argei—(1) The fact that the central object is often either actually
an old man, or is at least called ‘the old one.’ A Whitsuntide custom at Halle
shows us, for example, a straw puppet called Der alte[462]. (2) The constant
occurrence of white objects in these customs; the puppet is called ‘the white
man with the white hair, the snow-white husband,’ or is dressed in a white
shirt[463]. In these expressions it is perhaps not impossible that we may find a
clue to the long-lost meaning of the word Argei. Can it be that the Roman
puppets were originally called ‘the white ones,’ i. e. old ones, from a root
arg = ‘white’[464]; and that from a natural mistake as to the meaning of the
word there arose not only the story about the Greek victims but also the
common belief about sexagenarii being thrown over the bridge?

We have to choose between the two explanations given above. I am, on the
whole, disposed to agree with Dr. Mannhardt, and in the absence of
convincing evidence as to the regular and periodical occurrence of human
sacrifice in ancient Italy, to regard these strange survivals as semi-dramatic
performances rather than sacrificial rites. This view, however, need not
exclude the possibility of the union of both drama and sacrifice at a very
remote period, probably before the Latins settled in the district.
The immersion in water, whether or no it involved the death of a victim, is
reasonably explained, on the basis of comparative evidence, to have been a
rain-spell[465]. In the cases already mentioned of Adonis, Nerthus, &c., this
idea seems the prominent one. I am inclined to think, however, that the
notion of purification was also present—the two uniting in the idea of
regeneration. Plutarch calls the Argean rite ‘the greatest of the
purifications,’ and he is here most probably reproducing the opinion of
Varro[466]. This is indicated by the presence of the priests and the Vestals, by

the processions, and by the mourning of the Flaminica Dialis, as we have
already seen. We may regard the rite as in fact a casting out of old things,
and in that sense a purification; and also at the same time as a spell or
earnest of rain and fertility in the ensuing year. The puppets were perhaps
hung in the sacella in the course of the procession in March, as a symbol of
the fertility then beginning, and cast into the river as ‘the old ones’ when
that fertility had reached its height[467].
In the last place, it might be asked in honour of what deity the rite was
performed. It is hardly necessary, and certainly is not possible, to answer a
question about which the Romans themselves were not agreed. Ovid and
Dionysius[468] believed it was Saturnus, probably following an old Greek
oracle which was known to Varro[469]. Verrius Flaccus thought it was Dis
Pater[470]. Modern writers have concluded on the general evidence of the rite
that it was the river-god Tiberinus; Jordan, however, regarded the question
as irrelevant[471]. We may agree with him, and at least return a verdict of non
liquet. If it was a sacrificial act, the ancient river-god is indeed likely
enough; if it was a quasi-dramatic one, it does not follow that any deity was
specially concerned in it. But we may go so far as to guess that it was
connected with the worship of those vaguely-conceived deities of
vegetation whose influence on the calendar we have been tracing since
March 1.
This same day is marked in one calendar as Feriae Iovi, Mercurio, Maiae.
The conjunction of these deities is to some extent accidental. In the first
place the Ides of every month were sacred to Jupiter; and the addition of
Mercurius is probably to be explained simply by the adaptation of a Greek
myth which made Hermes the son of Jupiter, suggesting the selection of the
Ides as an appropriate day for the cult of the Latin representative of
Hermes[472]. Mercurius, again, was associated with Maia, perhaps simply
because the dedication-day of his oldest temple in Rome (ad circum
maximum) was the Ides of the Mensis Maius[473]. The Roman Mercurius was
considered especially as the god of trade, and dated, like Ceres, from the
time when an extensive corn trade first began in Rome[474]. It is highly
probable that the Tarquinian dynasty had encouraged Roman trade, and that
the increase of population which was the result, together with the wars
which followed their expulsion, had occasioned a series of severe famines.
To this we trace the Roman knowledge of the Greek or Graeco-Etruscan

Hermes, through a trade in corn with Sicilian Greeks or Etruscans, and the
appearance of the god at Rome as Mercurius, the god of trade. His first
temple was dedicated in B.C. 495, and as in other cases, the dedication was
celebrated each year by those specially interested in the worship, in this
case the mercatores, who were already, at this early period, formed into an
organized guild[475].

xii Kal. Iun. (May 21). NP.

AGON[IA][476]. (ESQ. CAER. VEN. MAFF.)
VEDIOVI. (VEN.)

The other days sacred to Vediovis were January 1 and the Nones of March,
from which latter day we postponed the consideration of this mysterious
deity, in hopes of future enlightenment. But Vediovis is wrapped still, and
always will be, in at least as profound an obscurity for us as he was for
Varro and Ovid.
We have but his name to go upon, and two or three indistinct traces of his
cult. The name seems certainly to be Vediovis, i. e. apparently ‘the opposite
of,’ or ‘separated from,’ Jupiter (= Diovis); or, as Preller has it[477],
comparing, like Ovid, vegrandia farra (‘corn that has grown badly’),
vescus, &c., Jupiter in a sinister sense. But this last explanation must, on the
whole, be rejected. It is true that each deity has a sinister or threatening
aspect as well as a smiling one; but in no other case was this separately
personified, and the name, if its origin be rightly given as above (which is
not indeed certain), might be explained by the well-known Roman habit of
calling deities by their qualities and their business rather than by
substantival names. In this case the name would be negatively deduced
from that of one of the few gods who really had a name.
What we know of the cult is only this. First, it was peculiar, so far as we
know, to Rome and Bovillae[478]; secondly, the temples in Rome were in the
space between the arx and Capitolium, ‘inter duos lucos’[479], and another in
the Tiber island[480]—two places outside the Servian wall, and of importance
for the security of the city; thirdly, the god was represented as young,
holding arrows, and having a goat standing beside him, on account of which
characteristics he was usually, according to Gellius, identified with
Apollo[481]; fourthly, the usual victim was a goat which was sacrificed
humano ritu[482].

On such faint traces it will be obvious that no sound conclusion can be
based. The connexion with Bovillae and the gens Julia points to a genuine
Latin origin. The sites on the Capitol and the island do not lead to any
definite conclusion; in the former the god seems to have been connected
with the so-called Asylum, in the latter with Aesculapius; but both these
connexions may be accidental or later developments. Preller conjectured
cleverly that Vediovis was a god of criminals who might take refuge in
Rome and there find purification; but the idea of an Asylum, on which this
is based, is Greek, and of much later date than any age which could have
given a definite meaning to such a deity. We must here, as occasionally
elsewhere, give up the attempt to discover the original nature of this god.

x Kal. Iun. (May 23). NP.

TUBIL[USTRIUM]. (ESQ. CAER. VEN. MAFF.)
FER[IAE] VOLCANO. (VEN. AMIT.)

I have already explained[483] the view taken by Mommsen of the two pairs of
days, March 23 and 24 and May 23 and 24, accepting his theory that the
24th in each month was the day on which wills could be made and
witnessed in the Comitia calata, and that the 23rd in each month was the
day on which the tubae were lustrated by which the assembly was
summoned.
But May 23 is also marked in two calendars as feriae Volcano; and Ovid
has noticed this in a single couplet:[484]

Proxima Volcani lux est: Tubilustria dicunt;
Lustrantur purae, quas facit ille, tubae.

The difficult question of the original character of Volcanus must be
postponed until we come to his festival in August. We only need here to ask
whether Ovid was right in regarding Volcanus as the smith who made the
trumpets. This has been strenuously denied by Wissowa[485], who goes so far
as to believe that the deity originally invoked on this day was not Volcanus
but Mars—since the corresponding day in March was a festival of that deity
—and that Volcanus was at an early period thrust into his place under the
influence of Greek notions of Hephaestus as a smith who made armour and
also trumpets. Wissowa has, however, to throw over the two calendars
quoted above (Ven. Amit.) in order to support his argument—and so far we
are hardly entitled to go.
It is safer to take Volcanus as an ancient Roman deity whose cult was
closely connected with that of Maia, or the Bona Dea, and was prominent in
this month as well as in August. The Flamen Volcanalis sacrificed to the
Bona Dea on May 1; and Maia was addressed in invocations as Maia

Volcani[486]. The coincidence of this festival of his with the Tubilustrium I
take to have been accidental; but it led naturally, as the Romans became
acquainted with Greek mythology, to the erroneous view represented by
Ovid that Volcanus was himself a smith[487].

viii Kal. Iun. (May 25). C.

FORTUNAE P[UBLICAE] P[OPULI] R[OMANI] Q[UIRITIUM] IN COLLE QUIRIN[ALI].
(CAER.)

FORTUNÆ PUBLICÆ P[OPULI] R[OMANI] IN COLL[E]. (ESQ.)

FORTUNÆ PRIM[IGENIAE] IN COL[LE]. (VEN.)

This was the dedication-day of one of three temples of Fortuna on the
Quirinal; the place was known as ‘tres Fortunae[488].’ The goddess in this
case was Fortuna Primigenia, imported from Praeneste—of whom
something will be said later on[489]. The temple was vowed after the Second
Punic War in B.C. 204, and dedicated ten years later[490]. Our consideration of
Fortuna may be postponed till the festival of Fors Fortuna, an older Roman
form of the cult, on June 24.

Kal. Iun. (May 29). C.

The Ambarvalia, originally a religious procession round the land of the
early Roman community, the object of which was to purify the crops from
evil influences, does not appear in the Julian calendars, not being feriae
stativae; but it is indicated in the later rustic calendars by the words, Segetes
lustrantur. Its date may be taken as May 29[491]: and this fixity will not
appear incompatible with its character as a sacrum conceptivum, if we
accept Mommsen’s explanation of the way in which some feasts might be
fixed to a day according to the usage of the Italian farmer, but of varying
date according to the civil calendar[492].
There has been much discussion whether the Ambarvalia was identical with
the similar festival of the Fratres Arvales. On the ground that the acta
fratrum Arvalium seemed to prove a general similarity of the two in time
and place, and at least in some points of ritual, Mommsen, Henzen, and
Jordan answer in the affirmative[493]. On the other side there is no authority
of any real weight. The judicious Marquardt[494] found a difficulty in the
absence of any mention in the acta fratrum Arvalium of a lustratio in the
form of a procession; but it should be remembered (1) that we have not the
whole of the acta; (2) that it is almost certain that, as the Roman territory
continued to increase, the brethren must have dropped the duty of driving
victims round it, for obvious reasons. A passage in Paulus[495] places the
matter beyond doubt if we can be sure of the reading: ‘Ambarvales hostiae
dicebantur quae pro arvis a duodecim (MSS. duobus) fratribus
sacrificantur.’ As no duo fratres are known, the old emendation duodecim
seems certain, but will of course not convince those who disbelieve in the
identity of the Ambarvalia and the sacra fratrum Arvalium. The question is,
however, for us of no great importance, as the acta do not add to our
knowledge of what was done at the Ambarvalia.
The best description we have of such lustrations as the Ambarvalia is that of
Virgil; it is not indeed to be taken as an exact description of the Roman rite,
but rather as referring to Italian customs generally:

In primis venerare deos, atque annua magnae
Sacra refer Cereri laetis operatus in herbis,
Extremae sub casum hiemis, iam vere sereno.
Tum pingues agni, et tum mollissima vina;
Tum somni dulces densaeque in montibus umbrae.
Cuncta tibi Cererem pubes agrestis adoret,
Cui tu lacte favos et miti dilue Baccho,
Terque novas circum felix eat hostia fruges,
Omnis quam chorus et socii comitentur ovantes,
Et Cererem clamore vocent in tecta; neque ante
Falcem maturis quisquam supponat aristis,
Quam Cereri torta redimitus tempora quercu
Det motus inconpositos et carmina dicat[496].

It is not clear to what festival or festivals Virgil is alluding in the first few of
these lines[497]; probably to certain rustic rites which did not exactly
correspond to those in the city of Rome. But from line 343 onwards the
reference is certainly to Ambarvalia of some kind, perhaps to the private
lustratio of the farmer before harvest began, of which the Roman festival
was a magnified copy. His description answers closely to the well-known
directions of Cato[498]; and if it is Ceres who appears in Virgil’s lines, and
not Mars, the deity most prominent in Cato’s account, this may be
explained by the undoubted extension of the worship of Ceres, and the
corresponding contraction of that of Mars, as the latter became more and
more converted into a god of war[499].
The leading feature in the original rite was the procession of victims—bull,
sheep, and pig—all round the fields, driven by a garlanded crowd, carrying
olive branches and chanting. These victims represent all the farmer’s most
valuable stock, thus devoted to the appeasing of the god. The time was that
when the crops were ripening, and were in greatest peril from storms and
diseases; before the harvest was begun, and before the Vestalia took place in
the early part of June, which was, as we shall see, a festival preliminary to
harvest. Three times the procession went round the land; at the end of the
third round the victims were sacrificed, and a solemn prayer was offered in
antique language, which ran, in Cato’s formula of the farmer’s lustration, as
follows: ‘Father Mars, I pray and beseech thee to be willing and propitious

to me, my household, and my slaves; for the which object I have caused this
threefold sacrifice to be driven round my farm and land. I pray thee keep,
avert, and turn from us all disease, seen or unseen, all desolation, ruin,
damage, and unseasonable influence; I pray thee give increase to the fruits,
the corn, the vines, and the plantations, and bring them to a prosperous
issue. Keep also in safety the shepherds and their flocks, and give good
health and vigour to me, my house, and household. To this end it is, as I
have said—namely, for the purification and making due lustration of my
farm, my land cultivated and uncultivated—that I pray thee to bless this
threefold sacrifice of sucklings. O Father Mars, to this same end I pray thee
bless this threefold sacrifice of sucklings[500].’
Not only in this prayer, but in the ritual that follows, as also in other
religious directions given in the preceding chapters, we may no doubt see
examples of the oldest agricultural type of the genuine Italian worship.
They are simple rustic specimens of the same type as the elaborate urban
ritual of Iguvium, fortunately preserved to us[501]; and we may fairly assume
that they stood in much the same relation to the Roman ritual of the
Ambarvalia.
Of all the Roman festivals this is the only one which can be said with any
truth to be still surviving. When the Italian priest leads his flock round the
fields with the ritual of the Litania major in Rogation week he is doing very
much what the Fratres Arvales did in the infancy of Rome, and with the
same object. In other countries, England among them, the same custom was
taken up by the Church, which rightly appreciated its utility, both spiritual
and material; the bounds of the parish were fixed in the memory of the
young, and the wrath of God was averted by an act of duty from man,
cattle, and crops. ‘It was a general custom formerly, and is still observed in
some country parishes, to go round the bounds and limits of the parish on
one of the three days before Ascension-day; when the Minister,
accompanied by his Churchwardens and Parishioners, was wont to
deprecate the vengeance of God, beg a blessing on the fruits of the earth,
and preserve the rights and properties of the parish[502].’
At Oxford, and it is to be hoped in some other places, this laudable custom
still survives. But the modern clergy, from want of interest in ritual, except
such as is carried on within their churches, or from some strong distrust of
any merry-making not initiated by their own zeal, are apt to drop the

ceremonies; and there is some danger that even in Oxford the processions
and peeled wands may soon be things of the past. To all such ministers I
would recommend the practice of the judicious Hooker, as described by his
biographer, Isaak Walton:

‘He would by no means omit the customary time of procession,
persuading all, both rich and poor, if they desired the preservation of
Love, and their Parish rights and liberties, to accompany him in his
Perambulation—and most did so; in which Perambulation he would
usually express more pleasant Discourse than at other times, and would
then always drop some loving and facetious Observations, to be
remembered against the next year, especially by the Boys and young
people; still inclining them, and all his present Parishioners, to
meekness and mutual Kindnesses and Love.’

At Charlton-on-Otmoor, near Oxford, there was a survival of the ‘agri
lustratio’ until recent years. On the beautiful rood-screen of the parish
church there is a cross, which was carried in procession through the
parish[503], freshly decorated with flowers, on May-day; it was then restored
to its place on the screen, and remained there until the May-day of the next
year. It may still be seen there, but it is no longer carried round, and its
decoration seems to have been transferred from May-day to the harvest-
festival[504].

MENSIS IUNIUS.

Kal. Iun. (June 1). N.

IUNONI MONETAE (VEN.)

FABARICI C[IRCENSES] M[ISSUS]. (PHILOC.)

On the name of the mensis Junius some remarks have already been made
under May 1. There is no sure ground for connecting it with Juno[505]. The
first day of June was sacred to her, but so were all Kalends; and if this was
also the dies natalis of the temple of Juno Moneta in arce, we have no
reason to suppose the choice of day to be specially significant[506]. We know
the date of this dedication; it was in 344 B.C. and in consequence of a vow
made by L. Furius Camillus Dictator in a war against the Aurunci[507]. Of a
Juno Moneta of earlier date we have no knowledge; and, in spite of much
that has been said to the contrary, I imagine that the title was only given to a
Juno of the arx in consequence of the popular belief that the Capitol was
saved from the attack of the Gauls (390 B.C.) by the warning voices of her
sacred geese. What truth there was in that story may be a matter of doubt,
but it seems easier to believe that it had a basis of fact than to account for it
aetiologically[508]. There may well have been an altar or sacellum[509] of Juno
on the arx, near which her noisy birds were kept[510]; and when a temple was
eventually built here in 344 B.C., it was appropriately dedicated to Juno of
the warning voice. From the fact that part of this temple was used as a
mint[511], the word Moneta gradually passed into another sense, which has
found its way into our modern languages[512].
One tradition connected the name of the month with M. Junius Brutus, who
is said to have performed a sacrum on this day after the flight of Tarquinius,
on the Caelian Hill[513]. This sacrum had no connexion with Juno, and the
tradition which thus absurdly brings Brutus into the question shows plainly
that the derivation from Juno was not universally accepted[514]. The real
deity of the Kalends of June was not Juno, but an antique goddess whose
antiquity is attested both by the meagreness of our knowledge of her, and
the strange confusion about her which Ovid displays. Had Carna been more
successful in the struggle for existence of Roman deities, we might not have

been so sure of her extreme antiquity; but no foreign cult grafted on her
gave her a new lease of life, and by the end of the Republic she was all but
dead.
What little we do know of her savours of the agricultural life and folk-lore
of the old Latins. Her sacrifices were of bean-meal and lard[515]; and this day
went by the name of Kalendae fabariae[516], ‘quia hoc mense adultae fabae
divinis rebus adhibentur.’ The fact was that it was the time of bean-
harvest[517]; and beans, as we have already seen, were much in request for
sacred purposes. ‘Maximus honos fabae,’ says Pliny[518], alluding to the
value of the bean as food, to its supposed narcotic power, and its use in
religious ritual. We have already found beans used in the cult of the dead
and the ejection of ghosts from the house[519]; and Prof. Wissowa has of late
ingeniously conjectured that this day (June 1) was concerned with rites of
the same kind[520]. He quotes an inscription, a will in which a legacy is left
‘ut rosas Carnar[iis] ducant’[521]. Undoubtedly the reference here is to rites
of the dead (cf. Rosalia), and Mommsen may be right in suggesting that by
Carnar[iis] is meant the Kalends of June. But it is going a little too far to
argue on this slender evidence, even if we add to it the fact that the day was
nefastus, that the festival of Carna was of the same kind as the Parentalia,
Rosalia, &c.; a careful reading of Ovid’s comments seems to show that
there were curious survivals of folk-lore connected with the day and with
Carna which cannot all be explained by reference to rites of the dead.
Ovid does indeed at once mislead his readers by identifying Carna and
Cardea, and thus making the former the deity of door-hinges, and bringing
her into connexion with Janus[522]. But we may guess that he does this
simply because he wants to squeeze in a pretty folk-tale of Janus and
Cardea, for which his readers may be grateful, and which need not deceive
them. When he writes of the ritual of Carna[523]—our only safe guide—he
makes it quite plain that he is mixing up the attributes of two distinct
deities. He brings the two together by contriving that Janus, as a reward to
Cardea for yielding to his advances, should bestow on her not only the
charge of cardines, but also that of protecting infants from the striges[524],
creatures of the nature of vampires, but described by Ovid as owls, who
were wont to suck their blood and devour their vitals. But this last duty
surely belonged to Carna, of whom Macrobius says ‘Hanc deam vitalibus
humanis praeesse credunt’: and thus Carna’s attribute is conjoined with

Cardea’s. The lines are worth quoting in which Ovid describes the charms
which are to keep off the striges, for as preserving a remnant of old Italian
folk-lore they are more interesting than the doubtful nature of an obscure
deity[525]:

Protinus arbutea[526] postes ter in ordine tangit
Fronde, ter arbutea limina fronde notat:
Spargit aquis aditus—et aquae medicamen habebant—
Extaque de porca cruda bimenstre tenet[527].
Atque ita ‘noctis aves, extis puerilibus’ inquit
‘Parcite: pro parvo victima parva cadit.
Cor pro corde, precor, pro fibris sumite fibras.
Hanc animam vobis pro meliore damus.’
Sic ubi libavit, prosecta sub aethere ponit,
Quique adsint sacris, respicere illa vetat[528].
Virgaque Ianalis de spina ponitur alba[529]
Qua lumen thalamis parva fenestra dabat.
Post illud nec aves cunas violasse feruntur,
Et rediit puero qui fuit ante color.

Having told his folk-tale and described his charms, Ovid returns to Carna,
and asks why people eat bean-gruel on the Kalends of June, with the rich fat
of pigs. The answer is that the cult of Carna is of ancient date, and that the
healthy food of man in early times is retained in it[530].

Sus erat in pretio; caesa sue festa colebant.
Terra fabas tantum duraque farra dabat.
Quae duo mixta simul sextis quicunque Kalendis
Ederit, huic laedi viscera posse negant.

This was undoubtedly the real popular belief—that by eating this food on
Carna’s day your digestion was secured for the year. Macrobius[531] makes
the practice into a much more definite piece of ritual. ‘Prayers are offered
to this goddess,’ he says, ‘for the good preservation of liver, heart, and the
other internal organs of our bodies. Her sacrifices are bean-meal and lard,
because this is the best food for the nourishment of the body.’ Ovid is here

the genuine Italian, Macrobius the scholar and theologian: both may be
right.
Whatever, then, may be the meaning or etymology of the name Carna, we
may at least be sure that the cult belongs to the age of ancient Latin
agriculture[532], since it was in connexion with her name that the popular
belief survived in Ovid’s time of the virtue of bean-eating on the Kalends of
June.
We learn from Ovid (line 191) that this same day was the dies natalis of the
temple of Mars extra portam Capenam, i. e. on the Via Appia—a favourite
spot for the mustering of armies, and the starting-point for the yearly
transvectio equitum[533]. I have already alluded to the baseless fabric of
conjecture built on the conjunction of Mars and Juno on this day[534]; and
need here only repeat that in no well-attested Roman myth is Mars the son
of Juno, or Juno the wife of Jupiter. And it is even doubtful whether June 1
was the original dedication-day of this temple of Mars: the Venusian
calendar does not mention it, and Ovid may be referring to a re-dedication
by Augustus[535]. There is absolutely no ground for the myth-making of
Usener and Roscher about Mars and Juno: but it is to the credit of the latter
that he has inserted in his article on Mars a valuable note by Aust, in which
his own conclusions are cogently controverted.

III. Non. Iun. (June 3). C.

BELLONÆ IN CIRC[O] FLAM[INIO]. (VEN.)

This temple was vowed by the Consul Ap. Claudius in an Etruscan war[536]
(296 B.C.): the date of dedication is unknown. In front of the temple was an
area of which the truly Roman story is told[537], that being unable to declare
war with Pyrrhus with the orthodox ritual of the fetiales, as he had no land
in Italy into which they could throw the challenging spear[538], they caught a
Pyrrhan soldier and made him buy this spot to suit their purpose. Here stood
the ‘columella’ from which henceforward the spear was thrown[539].
The temple became well known as a suitable meeting-place for the Senate
outside the pomoerium, when it was necessary to do business with generals
and ambassadors who could not legally enter the city[540]. But of the goddess
very little is known. There is no sufficient reason to identify her with that
Nerio with whom we made acquaintance in March, as is done too
confidently by the writer of the article in Roscher’s Lexicon[541].

Prid. Non. Iun. (June 4). C.

HERC[ULI] MAGN[O] CUSTO[DI]. (VEN.)

SACRUM HERCULI. (RUST.)

This temple also was near the Circus Flaminius[542]. It was a foundation of
Sulla’s, 82 B.C., and the cult was Greek, answering to that of Ἡρακλῆς
ἀλεξίκακος[543].

Non. Iun. (June 5). N.[544]

DIO FIDIO IN COLLE. (VEN.)

The temple on the Quirinal of which this was the dies natalis is said by
Dionysius[545] to have been vowed by Tarquinius Superbus, and dedicated by
Sp. Postumius in B.C. 466. But that there was a fanum or sacellum of this
deity on or near the same site at a much earlier time is almost certain; such
a sacellum ‘ad portam Sanqualem’ is mentioned, also by Dionysius[546], as
ἱερὸν Διὸς Πιστίου, and we know that in many cases the final aedes or
templum was a development from an uncovered altar or sacred place.
Dius Fidius, as the adjectival character of his name shows, was a genuine
old Italian religious conception, but one that in historical times was buried
almost out of sight. Among gods and heroes there has been a struggle for
existence, as among animals and plants; with some peoples a struggle
between indigenous and exotic deities, in which the latter usually win the
day, and displace or modify the native species[547]. What laws, if any, govern
this struggle for existence it is not possible to discern clearly; the result is
doubtless the survival of the fittest, if by the fittest we understand those
which flourish best under the existing conditions of society and thought; but
it would hardly seem to be the survival of those which are most beneficial
to the worshipping race. Among the Romans the fashionable exotic deities
of the later Republic and Empire had no such ethical influence on the
character of the people as those older ones of the type of Dius Fidius, who
in historical times was known to the ordinary Roman only through the
medium of an old-fashioned oath.
Ovid knows very little about Dius Fidius[548]:

Quaerebam Nonas Sanco Fidione referrem,
An tibi, Semo pater: cum mihi Sancus ait
‘Cuicunque ex illis dederis, ego munus habebo;
Nomina trina fero, sic voluere Cures.’

He finds three names for the deity, but two would have sufficed; the only
individual Semo known to us is Sancus himself. The Semones, so far as we
can guess, were spirits of the ‘pandaemonic’ age, nameless like the Lares
with whom they are associated in the hymn of the Fratres Arvales[549]; but
one only, Semo Sancus, seems to have taken a name and survived into a
later age, and this one was identified with Dius Fidius. Aelius Stilo, the
Varro of the seventh century A. U. C., seems to have started this
identification[550]. Varro does not comment on it; but Verrius accepted it: he
writes of an ‘aedes Sancus, qui deus Dius Fidius vocatur’[551]. The evidence
of inscriptions is explicit for a later period; an altar, for example, found near
the supposed site of his temple on the Quirinal, bears the inscription ‘Sanco
Sancto Semon[i] deo fidio sacrum’[552]. And there is nothing in the words
Sancus and Fidius to forbid the identification, for both point to the same
class of ideas—that of the bond which religious feeling places on men in
their duties to, and contracts with, each other. They are in fact two different
names for the same religious conception. It is interesting to find them both
occurring in the great processional inscription of Iguvium in Umbria: Fisus
or Fisovius Sancius, who is there invoked next after Jupiter, seems to unite
the two deities in a single name[553]. This conjunction would seem to save us
from the necessity of discussing the question whether Sancus, as has often
been insisted on by scholars both ancient and modern[554], was really the
Sabine form of Dius Fidius; for if in Umbria the two are found together, as
at Rome, there is no reason why the same should not have been the case
throughout central Italy. The question would never have been asked had the
fluid nature of the earliest Italian deities and the adjectival character of their
names been duly taken account of. We are all of us too apt to speak of this
primitive spirit-world in terms of a later polytheistic theology, and to
suppose that the doubling of a name implies some distinction of origin or
race.
Dius Fidius, then, and Semo Sancus are both Latin names for the same
religious conception, the impersonality of which caused it to lose vitality as
new and anthropomorphic ideas of the divine came into vogue at Rome. But
there is at least some probability that it survived in a fashion under the
name of an intruder, Hercules; and the connexion with Hercules will show,
what we might already have guessed, that the religious conception we are
speaking of was very near akin to that of Jupiter himself.

There is clear evidence that the best Roman scholars identified not only
Dius Fidius with Semo Sancus, but both of these with Hercules. Varro, in a
passage already quoted, tells us that Stilo believed Dius Fidius to be the
Sabine Sancus and the Greek Hercules; Verrius Flaccus, if his excerptors
represent him rightly, in two separate glosses identified all these three[555].
Again, the Roman oaths me dius fidius and me hercule are synonymous;
that the former was the older can hardly be doubted, and the latter must
have come into vogue when the Greek oath by Heracles became familiar.
Thus the origin of me hercule must be found in a union of the
characteristics of Hercules with those of the native Dius Fidius. It is worth
noting that in pronouncing both these oaths it was the custom to go out into
the open air[556]. Here is a point at which both Hercules and Dius Fidius
seem to come into line with Jupiter; for the most solemn oath of all was per
Iovem (lapidem), also taken under the light of heaven[557], as was the case
with the oath at the altar of Ζεὺς Ἑρκεῖος in Greece[558]. Yet another point of
conjunction is the ara maxima at the entrance to the Circus Maximus,
which was also a place where oaths were taken and treaties ratified[559]; this
was the altar of Hercules Victor, to whom the tithes of spoil were offered;
and this was also associated with the legend of Hercules and Cacus. In the
deity by whom oaths were sworn, and in the deity of the tithes and the
legend, it is now acknowledged on all hands that we should recognize a
great Power whom we may call Dius Fidius, or Semo Sancus, or the Genius
Iovius, or even Jupiter himself[560]. Tithes, oaths, and the myth of the
struggle of light with darkness, cannot be associated with such a figure as
the Hercules who came to Italy from Greece; tithes are the due of some
great god, or lord of the land[561], oaths are taken in the presence of the god
of heaven, and the great nature myth only descends by degrees to attach
itself to semi-human figures.
We are here indeed in the presence of very ancient Italian religious ideas,
which we can only very dimly apprehend, and for the explanation of which
—so far as explanation is possible—there is not space in this work. But
before we leave Dius Fidius, I will briefly indicate the evidence on which
we may rest our belief (1) that as Semo Sancus, he is connected with Jupiter
as the god of the heaven and thunder; and (2) that as Hercules he is closely
related to the same god as seen in a different aspect.

1. In the Iguvian inscription referred to above Sancius in one place appears
in conjunction with Iovius[562]; and, as we have seen, it is also found in the
same ritual with Fisu or Fisovius. In this same passage of the inscription
(which is a manual of ritual for the Fratres Attidii, an ancient religious
brotherhood of Iguvium), the priest is directed to have in his hand an urfita
(orbita), i. e. either disk or globe; and this urfita has been compared[563], not
without reason, with the orbes mentioned by Livy[564] as having been made
of brass after the capture of Privernum and placed in the temple of Semo
Sancus. If we may safely believe that such symbols occur chiefly in the
worship of deities of sun and heaven, as seems probable, we have here
some evidence, however imperfect, for the common origin of Sancus and
Jupiter.
Again, there was in Roman augural lore a bird called sanqualis avis, which
can hardly be dissociated from the cult of Sancus; for there was also an
ancient city gate, the porta Sanqualis, near the sacellum Sancus on the
Quirinal[565]. Pliny’s language about this bird shows that this bit of ancient
lore was almost lost in his time; but at the same time he makes it clear that
it was believed to belong to the eagle family, which played such an
important part in the science of augury. The only concrete fact that seems to
be told us about this bird is that in B.C. 177 one struck with its beak a sacred
stone at Crustumerium—a stone, it would seem, that had fallen from
heaven, i. e. a thunder-stone or a meteorite[566].
Bearing this in mind, we are not surprised to find further traces of a
connexion between Sancus and thunderbolts. There was at Rome a decuria
of sacerdotes bidentales, in close association with the cult of Sancus. Three
votive altars are extant, dedicated to the god by this decuria[567]; two of them
were found on the Quirinal, close to the site of the sacellum Sancus. Now
the meaning of the word bidental shows that the decuria had as its duty the
care of the sacred spots which had been struck by thunderbolts; such a spot,
which was also called puteal from its resemblance to a well fenced with a
circular wall, bore the name bidental, presumably because two-year-old
sheep (bidentes) were sacrificed there[568]. Consequently we again have
Sancus brought into connexion with the augural lore of lightning, which
made it a religious duty to bury the bolt, and fence off the spot from profane
intrusion. Yet another step forward in this dim light. A bidental was one
kind of templum, as we are expressly told[569]; and the temple of Sancus

itself seems to have had this peculiarity. Varro says that its roof was
perforatum, so that the sky might be seen through it[570]. In a fragment of
augural lore, apparently genuine though preserved by a writer of late date,
the caeli templum seems to have been conceived as a dome, or a ball (orbis)
cut in half, with a hole in the top[571]. We may allow that we are here getting
out of our depth; but the general result of what has been put forward is that
Sancus = Dius Fidius was originally a spirit or numen of the heaven, and a
wielder of the lightning, closely allied to the great Jupiter, whose cult,
combined with that of Hercules, had almost obliterated him in historical
times.
Finally, it would seem that those moral attributes of Jupiter which give him
a unique position in the Roman theology as the god of truth, order, and
concord, belonged at one period also to Sancus as Dius Fidius; for in his
temple was kept the most ancient treaty of which the Romans knew, that
said to have been made by Tarquinius Superbus with Gabii, which
Dionysius must himself have seen[572], and which he describes as consisting
of a wooden clypeus, bound with the hide of a sacrificed ox, and bearing
ancient letters. Here also was the reputed statue of Gaia Caecilia or
Tanaquil, the ideal Roman matron; of which it has been conjectured, rashly
perhaps, but by an authority of weight, that it really represented a
humanized female form of Dius Fidius, standing to him as the Junones of
women stood to the Genii of men, or as Juno in the abstract to Genius in the
abstract[573].
2. The last sentence of the preceding paragraph may aptly bring us to our
second point, viz. the relation to Jupiter of Dius Fidius as = Hercules. Those
who read the article ‘Dius Fidius’ in Roscher’s Lexicon will be struck by the
fact that so cautious a writer as Professor Wissowa should boldly identify
this deity, at the very outset of his account, with the ‘Genius Iovis’; and this
conjecture, which is not his own, but rather that of the late Professor
Reifferscheid of Breslau[574], calls for a word of explanation.
More than thirty years ago Reifferscheid published a paper in which he
compared certain points in the cults of Juno and Hercules, of which we
have a meagre knowledge from Roman literature, with some works of art of
Etruscan or ancient Italian origin (i. e. not Greek), and found that they
seemed to throw new and unexpected light on each other.

The Roman women, we are told[575], did not swear by Hercules, but by ‘their
Juno’; the men swore by Hercules, Dius Fidius, or by their Genius[576].
Women were excluded from the cult of Hercules at the ara maxima[577]; men
were excluded, not indeed from the cult of Juno, but (as Reifferscheid puts
it) ‘from that of Bona Dea, who was not far removed from Juno[578].’ At the
birth of a child, a couch (lectus) was spread in the atrium for Juno, a mensa
for Hercules[579]. The bride’s girdle (cingulum) seems to have given rise to a
cult-title of Juno, viz. Cinxia, while the knot in it which was loosed by the
bridegroom at the lectus genialis was called the nodus herculaneus[580].
Now Reifferscheid believed that he found the same conjunction of Juno and
Hercules in several works of art, which may be supposed to be reflections
from the same set of ideas which produced the usages just indicated. In the
most important of these there is indeed no doubt about it; this is a mirror of
Etruscan workmanship[581], in which three figures are marked with the Latin
names Iovei (Jupiter), Iuno and Hercele. Jupiter sits on an altar in the
middle, and with his right hand is touching Juno, who has her left hand on
his shoulder; Hercules stands with his club, apparently expectant, on the
left. From certain indications in the mirror (for which I must refer the reader
to the illustration on p. 2259 of Roscher’s Lexicon) Reifferscheid concluded
that Jupiter was here giving Juno in marriage to Hercules; and, in spite of
some criticism, this interpretation has been generally accepted[582]. In other
works of art he found the same conjunction, though no names mark the
figures; in these Hercules and Juno, if such they be, appear to be contending
for the mastery, rather than uniting peacefully in wedlock[583]. This
conjunction, or opposition, of Juno and Hercules, is thus explained by
Reifferscheid. The name Juno represents the female principle in human
nature[584]; the ‘genius’ of a woman was called by this name, and the cult of
Juno as a developed goddess shows many features that bear out the
proposition[585]. If these facts be so, then the inference to be drawn from the
conjunction or opposition of Juno and Hercules is that the name Hercules
indicates the male principle in human nature. But the male principle is also
expressed in the word Genius, as we see e. g. in the term lectus genialis;
Hercules therefore and Genius mean the same thing—the former name
having encroached upon the domain of the latter, as a Latinized form of
Heracles, of all Greek heroes or divinities the most virile. And if Hercules,
Semo Sancus and Dius Fidius are all different names for the same idea, then

the word Genius may be taken as equivalent to the two last of these as well
as to Hercules[586].
But why does Reifferscheid go on to tell us that this Genius, i. e. Hercules =
Sancus = Dius Fidius, is the Genius Iovis? How does he connect this many-
titled conception with the great father of the sky? As a matter of fact, he has
but slender evidence for this; he relies on the mirror in which he found
Jupiter giving Juno to Hercules, and on the conjecture that the Greek
Hercules, the son of Zeus, would easily come to occupy in Italy the position
of Genius, if the latter were, in an abstract form and apart from individual
human life, regarded as the Genius of Jupiter[587]. And in this he is followed
by Wissowa and other writers in Roscher’s Lexicon.
It would perhaps have been wiser not to go so far as this. He has already
carried us back to a world of ideas older than these varying names which so
often bewilder us in the Roman worship—to a world of spirits, Semones,
Lares, Cerri, ghosts of deceased ancestors, vegetation demons, and men’s
‘other souls.’ When he talks of a Genius Iovis[588], he is surely using the
language of later polytheism to express an idea which belonged, not to a
polytheistic age, but to that older world of religious thought. He is doing, in
fact, the very thing which the Romans themselves were doing all through
the period of the Republic—the one thing which above all others has made
the study of their religious ideas such a treacherous quagmire for the
modern student.

vi Id. Iun. (June 8). N.

MENTI IN CAPITOLIO. (VEN. MAFF. VI MINORES.)

The temple of Mens was vowed by T. Otacilius (praetor) in 217 B.C., after
the battle of Trasimenus ‘propter neglegentiam caerimoniarum
auspiciorumque[589],’ and dedicated in 215 B.C., by the same man as duumvir
aedibus dedicandis[590]. The vow was the result of an inspection of the
Sibylline books, from which we might infer that the goddess was a
stranger[591]. If so, who was she, and whence? Reasoning from the fact that
in the same year, in the same place, and by the same man, a temple was
dedicated to Venus Erycina[592], Preller guessed that this Mens was not a
mere abstraction, but another form of the same Venus; for a Venus
Mimnermia or Meminia is mentioned by Servius[593], ‘quod meminerit
omnium.’
However this may be, the foundation of a cult of Mens at so critical a
moment of their fortunes is very characteristic of the Roman spirit of that
age; it was an appeal to ‘something not themselves which made for
righteousness’ to help them to remember their caerimoniae, and not to
neglect their auspicia. It is remarkable that this temple of Mens was restored
by M. Aemilius Scaurus probably amid the disasters of the Cimbrian war a
century later[594].

vii Id. Iun. (June 7). N.

VESTA APERIT. (PHILOC.)

v Id. Iun. (June 9). N.

VESTALIA. (TUSC. VEN. MAFF.)

xvii Kal. Quinct. (June 15). N.

VESTA CLUDITUR. (PHILOC.)

xvii Kal. Quinct. (June 15). Q. St. D. F.

It would seem from these notes in the calendars, and from passages in Ovid
and Festus[595], that both before and after the day of the true Vestalia there
were days set apart for the cult of the goddess, which were nefasti and also
religiosi[596]. Ovid’s lines are worth quoting; he consults the Flaminica
Dialis[597] about the marriage of his daughter:

Tum mihi post sacras monstratur Iunius idus
Utilis et nuptis, utilis esse viris,
Primaque pars huius thalamis aliena reperta est,
Nam mihi sic coniunx sancta Dialis ait;
‘Donec ab Iliaca placidus purgamina Vesta
Detulerit flavis in mare Thybris aquis,
Non mihi detonsos crines depectere buxo,
Non ungues ferro subsecuisse licet,
Non tetigisse virum, quamvis Iovis ille sacerdos,
Quamvis perpetua sit mihi lege datus.
Tu quoque ne propera. Melius tua filia nubet
Ignea cum pura Vesta nitebit humo.’

What is the meaning of this singular aspect of the Vesta-cult? Why should
these days be so ill-omened or so sacred that during them marriages might
not be celebrated, and the priestess of Jupiter might not hold any intercourse
with her husband, cut her hair, or pare her nails? And what is the
explanation of the annotation Q[uando] St[ercus] D[elatum] F[as][598], which
on the 15th indicated the breaking of the spell, and a return to ordinary
ways of life? Before attempting to answer these questions, it will be as well
to say a few words about the nature and probable origin of the worship of
Vesta. Owing to the remarkable vitality and purity of this cult throughout
the whole of Roman history, we do not meet here with those baffling
obscurities which so often beset us in dealing with deities that had lost all
life and shape when Roman scholars began to investigate them. And yet we

know that we are here in the presence of rites and ideas of immemorial
antiquity.
In an article of great interest in the Journal of Philology for 1885[599], Mr. J.
G. Frazer first placed the origin of the cult in a clear light for English
scholars. By comparing it with similar practices of existing peoples still in a
primitive condition of life, he made apparent the real germ of the institution
of the Vestal Virgins. Helbig, in his Italiker in der Poebene[600], had already
recognized that germ in the necessity of keeping one fire always alight in
each settlement, so that its members could at any time supply themselves
with the flame, then so hard to procure at a moment’s notice; and Mr. Frazer
had only to go one step further, and show that the task of keeping this fire
alight was that of the daughters of the chief. This step he was able to take,
supported by evidence from Damaraland in South Africa, where the
priestess of the perpetual fire is the chief’s daughter; quoting also the
following example from Calabria in Southern Italy: ‘At the present day the
fire in a Calabrian peasant’s house is never (except after a death) allowed to
die quite out, even in the heat of summer; it is a bad omen if it should
chance to be extinguished, and the girls of the house, whose special care it
is to keep at least a single brand burning on the hearth, are sadly dismayed
at such a mishap.’ The evidence of the Roman ius sacrum quite confirms
this modern evidence; the Vestals were under the patria potestas of the
pontifex maximus, who represented in republican times the legal powers of
the Rex, and from this fact we may safely argue that they had once been the
daughters of the primitive chief. The flamines too, or kindlers, as being
under the potestas of the pontifex, may be taken as representing the sons of
the primitive household[601]. But from various reasons[602] the duties of the
flamines became obsolete or obscure; while those of the Vestals remained to
give us an almost perfect picture of life in the household of the oldest
Latins.
From the first, no doubt, the tending of the fire was in some sense a
religious service, and the flame a sacred flame[603]. There must have been
many stages of growth from this beginning to the fully developed Vesta of
the Republic and Empire; yet we can see that the lines of development were
singularly simple and consistent. The sacred fire for example was
maintained in the aedes Vestae, adjoining the king’s house[604] (regia); and
the penus Vestae, which must originally have contained the stores on which

the family depended for their sustenance, was always believed to preserve
the most sacred and valuable objects possessed by the State[605].
We return to the Vestalia, of which the ritual was as follows. On June 7, the
penus Vestae, which was shut all the rest of the year, and to which no man
but the pontifex maximus had at any time right of entry, was thrown open to
all matrons. During the seven following days they crowded to it
barefoot[606]. Ovid relates his own experience[607]:

Forte revertebar festis Vestalibus illa
Qua nova Romano nunc via iuncta foro est.
Huc pede matronam vidi descendere nudo:
Obstipui tacitus sustinuique gradum.

The object of this was perhaps to pray for a blessing on the household. On
plain and old-fashioned ware offerings of food were carried into the temple:
the Vestals themselves offered the sacred cakes made of the first ears of
corn plucked, as we saw, in the early days of May[608]; bakers and millers
kept holiday, all mills were garlanded, and donkeys decorated with wreaths
and cakes[609].

Ecce coronatis panis dependet asellis
Et velant scabras florida serta molas.

On June 15 the temple (aedes, not templum) was swept and the refuse taken
away and either thrown into the Tiber or deposited in some particular
spot[610]. Then the dies nefasti came to an end; and the 15th itself became
fastus as soon as the last act of cleansing had been duly performed:
‘Quando stercus delatum fas.’
In this account of the ritual of these days, two features claim special
attention: (1) the duties of the Vestals in connexion with the provision of
food; (2) the fact that the days were religiosi, as is illustrated by the
prohibition of marriage and the mourning of the Flaminica Dialis. That
these two features were in some way connected seems proved by the
cessation of the mourning when the penus Vestae was once more closed.

1. It needs but little investigation to discover that, though the germ of the
cult was doubtless the perpetual fire in the king’s house, the cult itself was
by no means confined to attendance on the fire; and this was so probably
from the very first. The king’s daughters fetched the water from the spring,
both for sacred and domestic purposes; and this duty was kept up
throughout Roman history, for water was never ‘laid on’ to the house of the
Vestals, but carried from a sacred fountain[611]. They also crushed the corn
with pestle and mortar, and prepared the cakes for the use of the family—
duties which survived in all their pristine simplicity in the preparation of the
mola salsa in the early days of May[612]; and they swept the house, as the
Vestals afterwards continued to cleanse the penus Vestae, on June 15. The
penus, or store-closet of the house, was under their charge; on the state of
its contents the family depended for its comfort and prosperity, and from the
very outset it must have had a kind of sacred character[613]. The close
connexion of Vesta and her ministrants with the simple materials and
processes of the house and the farm is thus quite plain; and we may trace it
in every rite in which they took any part. The Fordicidia and the Parilia in
April were directly concerned with the flocks and herds of the community;
in May the festival of the Bona Dea and the mysterious ceremony of the
Argei point to the season of peril during the ripening of the crops. After the
Vestalia the Vestals were present at the Consualia and the festival of Ops
Consiva in August, which, as we shall see, were probably harvest festivals;
and on the Ides of October the blood of the ‘October horse’ was deposited
in their care for use at the Fordicidia as a charm for fertility. So constant is
the connexion of Vesta with the fruits of the earth, that it is not surprising
that some Roman scholars[614] should have considered her an earth goddess;
especially as, in a volcanic region, the proper home of fire would be thought
to be beneath the earth. But such explanations, and also the views of
modern scholars who have sought to find in Vesta a deity of abstract ideas,
such as ‘the nourishing element in the fire’[615], are really superfluous. The
associations which grew up around the sacred hearth-fire can all be traced
to the original germ, if it be borne in mind that the fire, the provision-store,
and the protecting deities of that store, were all placed together in the centre
of the house, and that all domestic operations, sacrificial or culinary, took
place at or by means of, the necessary fire. ‘What is home but another word
for cooking?’ Nor must we forget that the living fire was for primitive man
a mysterious thing, and invested from the first with divine attributes[616].

2. The fact that from the 5th to the 15th the days were not only nefasti but
also religiosi is not easy to explain. It is true that in two other months,
February and April, we find a parallel series of dies nefasti in the first half
of the month; in February it extended from the Kalends to the Lupercalia
(15th), and in April from the Nones to the Vinalia (23rd)[617]. But these days
in February and April were nefasti in the ordinary sense of the word, i. e.
the cessation of judicial business, and we are not told of them that they were
also religiosi, or that the Flaminica Dialis lay during them under any special
restrictions, as in the days we are speaking of. On the other hand, we find to
our surprise that the other days on which this priestess was forbidden to
comb hair or cut nails were not even nefasti in the ordinary sense, viz. those
of the ‘moving’ of the ancilia and of the ceremony of the Argei[618]: so that
we are baffled at every point in looking for a solution to the calendar.
But there is one fact that is quite clear, namely, that the tempus nefastum
was in some way or other the result of the purification of the aedes Vestae,
since it ceased at the moment the last act of cleansing was completed. Now
it does seem to be the case that among some peoples living by agriculture
but as yet comparatively uncivilized, special importance is attached to the
days immediately before harvest and the gathering of the first-fruits—at
which time there is a general cleaning out of house, barns, and all
receptacles and utensils, and following upon this a period of rejoicing. Mr.
Frazer, in his Golden Bough has collected some examples of this practice,
though he has not brought them together under one head or given them a
single explanation. The most striking, and at the same time the best attested,
example is as follows[619]:
‘Among the Creek Indians of North America, the busk, or festival of
firstfruits, was the chief ceremony of the year. It was held in July or August,
when the corn was ripe, and marked the end of the old year and the
beginning of the new one. Before it took place none of the Indians would
eat or even handle any of the new harvest.... Before celebrating the Busk,
the people provided themselves with new clothes and new household
utensils and furniture; they collected their old clothes and rubbish, together
with all the remaining grain and other old provisions, cast them together in
one common heap and consumed them with fire. As a preparation for the
ceremony all the fires in the village were extinguished, and the ashes swept
clean away. In particular the hearth or altar of the temple was dug up, and

the ashes carried out.... Meanwhile the women at home were cleaning out
their houses, renewing the old hearths, and scouring all the cooking vessels
that they might be ready to receive the new fire and the new fruits. The
public or sacred square was carefully swept of even the smallest crumbs of
previous feasts, for fear of polluting the first-fruit offerings. Also every
vessel that had contained any food during the expiring year was removed
from the temple before sunset.’ A general fast followed, we are told; ‘and
when the sun was declining from the meridian, all the people were
commanded by the voice of a crier to stay within doors, to do no bad act,
and to be sure to extinguish and throw away every spark of the old fire.
Universal silence now reigned. Then the high priest made the new fire by
the friction of two pieces of wood, and placed it on the altar under the green
arbour. This new fire was believed to atone for all past crimes except
murder. Then a basket of new fruits was brought; the high priest took out a
little of each sort of fruit, rubbed it with bear’s oil, and offered it together
with some flesh to the bountiful spirit of fire as a first-fruit offering and an
annual oblation for sin.... Finally the chief priest made a speech, exhorting
the people to observe their old rites and customs, announcing that the new
divine fire had purged away the sins of the past year, and earnestly warning
the women that if any of them had not extinguished the old fire, or had
contracted any impurity, they must forthwith depart lest the divine fire
should spoil both them and the people.’
The four chief points in this very interesting account are, (1) the extremely
solemn and critical character of the whole ceremonial, as indicated in the
general fast; (2) the idea of the necessity of purification preparatory to the
reception of first-fruits, a purification which seems to extend to human
beings as well as to houses, receptacles, and utensils; (3) the renewal of the
sacred fire, which was coincident with the beginning of a new year; (4) the
solemn reception of the first-fruits. Comparing these with Roman usage, we
notice that the first two are fully represented at the Vestalia, the one by the
religious character of the days, and the mourning of the Flaminica Dialis,
the other by the cleansing of the penus Vestae, and the careful removal of
all its refuse. The third is represented, not at the Vestalia, but at the
beginning of the year on March 1, when the sacred fire was renewed, as we
saw, in the primitive fashion by the friction of two pieces of wood, and the
temple of Vesta was adorned with fresh laurels, as was the case also with
the altar in the American example just quoted. The fourth point is

represented neither in March nor June, but rather by the plucking of the first
ears of corn by the Vestals before the Ides of May, from which they made
the sacred salt-cakes of sacrifice.
Now we need not go the length of assuming that the Roman ceremonies of
March, May and June were three parts of one and the same rite which in
course of time had been separated and attached to different periods of the
year; though this indeed may not be wholly impossible. But we may at least
profitably notice that all the four striking features of the Indian ceremony
are found in the cult of Vesta, and descended no doubt to the later Romans
from an age in which both the crops, the fire and the store-houses were
regarded as having much the same sacred character as they had for the
Creek Indians.
To me indeed it had seemed probable, even before the publication of Mr.
Frazer’s Golden Bough, that the cleansing of the penus Vestae was nothing
but a survival of a general purification of store-houses, barns, utensils, and
probably of all the apparatus of farming, including perhaps human beings,
before the completion of the harvest which was now close at hand. The date
of the Vestalia is indeed too early to let us suppose it to have been a real
harvest festival, nor had it any of the joyous character found in such rites;
and, as we shall see, the true harvest festivals are to be found in the month
of August. The corn harvest in middle Italy took place in the latter half of
June and in July[620]; and, as is everywhere still the practice, the festivals
proper did not occur until the whole work of harvesting was done. But at
the time of the Vestalia the crops were certainly ripening; in May we have
already had the plucking of the first ears by the Vestals, and the lustratio
segetum which has been described under the head of Ambarvalia on May
28.
I must leave to anthropologists the further investigation of the ideas
underlying the ritual we have been examining; it is something to have been
able to co-ordinate it with rites which are so well attested as those of the
Creek Indians, and which admit without difficulty of a reasonable
interpretation[621].

iii Id. Iun. (June 11). N.

MAT[RALIA]. (TUSC. VEN. MAFF.)
MATR[I] MATUTÆ. (VEN.)
MATRALIA. (PHILOC.)

The temple of which this day was apparently the dies natalis dated from the
Veientine War, 396 B.C., and was the result of a vow made by L. Furius
Camillus[622]. An earlier temple was attributed to Servius Tullius; but it is
extremely improbable that anything more than a sacellum or altar existed at
such an early date[623]. The cult of Mater Matuta was widely extended in
Italy, and clearly of genuine and ancient Italian origin; she can be separated
with certainty from the Greek goddess Leucothea with whom Ovid mixes
her up, and from whom she derived a connexion with harbours which did
not originally belong to her[624]. The evidence for the wide spread of her cult
consists of (1) two extremely old inscriptions from Pisaurum in Umbria, of
which Mommsen observes, ‘lingua meram vetustatem spirat’[625]; (2) certain
inscriptions and passages of Livy which prove that her worship existed
among the Volsci, in Campania, and at Praeneste[626]. At Satricum she was
apparently the chief deity of the place and probably also at Pyrgi, the port of
Caere in Etruria[627]. The cult seems to have had some marked peculiarities,
of which one or two fragments have come down to us. Only the wife of a
first marriage could deck the image of the goddess[628]; no female slaves
were allowed in the temple except one, who was also driven out of it with a
box on the ear, apparently as a yearly recurring memorial of the rule[629]; the
sacred cakes offered were cooked in old-fashioned earthenware[630]; and,
lastly, the women are said to have prayed to this goddess for their nephews
and nieces in the first place, and for their own children only in the
second[631]. All that can be deduced from these fragments is that the Mater
Matuta was an ancient deity of matrons, and perhaps of the same type as
other deities of women such as Carmenta, Fortuna, and Bona Dea[632]. The
best modern authorities explain her as a goddess of the dawn’s light and of
child-birth, and see a parallel in Juno Lucina[633]; and Mommsen has pointed

out that the dawn was thought to be the lucky time for birth, and that the
Roman names Lucius and Manius have their origin in this belief[634].
Lucretius shows us that in his day Mater Matuta was certainly associated
with the dawn[635]:

roseam Matuta per oras
Aetheris auroram differt et lumina pandit.

We should, however, be glad to be more certain that Matuta was originally a
substantive meaning dawn or morning. Verrius Flaccus[636] seems to have
believed that the words mane, maturus, matuta, manes, and mānus, all had
the meaning of ‘good’ contained in them; so that Mater Matuta might after
all be only another form of the Bona Dea, who is also specially a woman’s
deity. But this cult was not preserved, like that of Vesta, by being taken up
into the essential life of the State, and we are no longer able to discern its
meaning with any approach to certainty.
It is noticeable that this day was, according to Ovid[637], the dedication of a
temple of Fortuna, also in foro boario: but no immediate connexion can be
discovered between this deity and Mater Matuta. This temple was
remarkable as containing a wooden statue, veiled in drapery, which was
popularly believed to represent Servius Tullius[638], of whose connexion
with Fortuna we shall have more to say further on. No one, however, really
knew what the statue was; Varro and Pliny[639] write of one of Fortuna
herself which was heavily draped, and may have been the one in this
temple. Pliny says that the statue of Fortuna was covered with the togae
praetextae of Servius Tullius, which lasted intact down to the death of
Seianus; and it is singular that Seianus himself is said to have possessed a
statue of Fortuna which dated from the time of Servius[640], and which
turned its face away from him just before his fall. Seianus was of Etruscan
descent, we may remember; Servius Tullius, or Mastarna, was certainly
Etruscan; and among Etruscan deities we find certain shrouded gods[641].
These facts seem to suggest that the statue (or statues, if we cannot refer all
the passages above quoted to one statue) came from Etruria, and was on
that account a mystery both to the learned and the ignorant at Rome. To us
it must also remain unexplained[642].

Id. Iun. (June 13). NP.

FERIAE IOVI. (VEN.)

IOVI. (TUSC.)

To these notes in the calendars we may add a few lines from Ovid:

Idibus Invicto sunt data templa Iovi.
Et iam Quinquatrus iubeor narrare minores:
Nunc ades o coeptis, flava Minerva, meis.
Cur vagus incedit tota tibicen in urbe?
Quid sibi personae, quid stola longa volunt?

All Ides, as we have seen, were sacred to Jupiter; they are so noted in the
surviving calendars in May, June, August, September, October and
November, and were probably originally so noted in all the months[643]. On
this day the collegium or guild of the tibicines feasted in the temple of
Jupiter Capitolinus[644]. The temple referred to by Ovid of Jupiter Invictus as
having been dedicated on this day may possibly have been one of two
mentioned by Livy as dedicated on the Capitol in B.C. 192[645]; but the
coincidence of a dedication-day with the Ides may perhaps suggest a higher
antiquity[646].
For the right meaning and derivation of the word Quinquatrus the reader is
referred to what has been already said under March 19. June 13 was usually
called Quinquatrus minusculae, not because it was really Quinquatrus (i. e.
five days after the Ides), but because through the feast of the tibicines it was
associated with their patron Minerva[647], in whose temple on the Aventine
they met, apparently before they set out on the revelling procession to
which Ovid refers[648]. Varro makes this clear when he writes ‘Quinquatrus
minusculae dictae Iuniae Idus ab similitudine maiorum’[649], i. e. it was not
really Quinquatrus, but was popularly so called because the other festival of
Minerva and her followers bore that name. Verrius Flaccus was equally

explicit on the point: ‘Minusculae Quinquatrus appellantur quod is dies
festus est tibicinum, qui colunt Minervam cuius deae proprie festus dies est
Quinquatrus mense Martio’[650].
The revelry of the tibicines, during which they wore the masks and long
robes mentioned by Ovid, was explained by a story which the poet goes on
to tell, and which is told also by Livy and by Plutarch with some
variations[651]; how they fled to Tibur in anger at being deprived by Appius
Claudius the censor of their feast in the Capitol: how they were badly
missed at Rome, tricked and made drunk by a freedman at Tibur, and sent
home unconscious on a big waggon. The story is genuinely Roman in its
rudeness and in the rough humour which Ovid fully appreciates; the
favourite feature of a secession is seen in it, and also the peaceful settlement
of difficulties by compromise and contract. I see no reason why it should
not be the echo of an actual event, though in detail it is obviously intended
to explain the masks and the long robes. These are to be seen represented on
a coin of the gens Plautia[652], to which the fierce censor’s milder colleague
belonged, who negotiated the return of the truants. Plutarch calls the ‘stolae
longae’ women’s clothes; but it is more natural to suppose that they were
simply the dress of Etruscan pipe-players of the olden time[653].
The story well shows the universal use of the tibia in all sacred rites; the
tibicines were indispensable, and had to be got back from Tibur by fair
means or foul. As Ovid says:

Cantabat fanis, cantabat tibia ludis,
Cantabat maestis tibia funeribus.

The instrument was probably indigenous in Italy, and the only indigenous
one of which we know. ‘The word tibia,’ says Professor Nettleship[654], ‘is
purely Italian, and has, so far as I can find, no parallel in the cognate
languages.’ Müller, in his work on the Etruscans, does indeed assume that
the Roman tibicines were of Etruscan origin, which would leave the
Romans without any musical instrument of their own. The probability may
rather be that it was the general instrument of old Italy, specially cultivated
by the one Italian race endowed with anything like an artistic temperament.

xii Kal. Iun. (June 20). C.

SUMMAN[O] AD CIRC[UM] MAXIM[UM]. (VEN. ESQ. AMIT.)

To this note may be added that of Ovid[655]:

Reddita, quisquis is est, Summano templa feruntur,
Tum cum Romanis, Pyrrhe, timendus eras.

The date of the foundation of the temple of Summanus was probably
between 278 and 275 B.C.[656]; the foundation was the result of the
destruction by lightning, no doubt at night, of a figure of Jupiter on the
Capitol[657]. Who was this Summanus? Ovid’s language, quisquis is est,
shows that even in his time this god, like Semo Sancus, Soranus, and others,
had been fairly shouldered out of the course by more important or pushing
deities. In the fourth century A.D. S. Augustine[658], well read in the works of
Varro and the Roman antiquarians, could write as follows: ‘Sicut enim apud
ipsos legitur, Romani veteres nescio quem Summanum, cui nocturna
fulmina tribuebant, coluerunt magis quam Iovem—sed postquam Iovi
templum insigne ac sublime constructum est, propter aedis dignitatem sic
ad eum multitudo confluxit, ut vix inveniatur, qui Summani nomen, quod
audire iam non potest, se saltem legisse meminerit.’ In spite of the decay
and disappearance of this god we may believe that the Christian Father has
preserved the correct tradition as to his nature when he tells us that he was
the wielder of the lightning of the night, or in other words a nocturnal
Jupiter. We do in fact find a much earlier statement to the same effect
traceable to Verrius Flaccus[659]. Varro also mentions him and classes him
with Veiovis, and with the Sabine deities whom he believed to have been
brought to Rome by Tatius[660]. There is, however, no need to suppose with
Varro that he was Sabine, or with Müller that he was Etruscan[661]; the name
is Latin and probably = Submanus, i. e. the god who sends the lightning
before the dawn.

It is interesting to find the wheel symbol here again, as is noticed by Gaidoz
in his Studies of Gallic Mythology[662]. We can hardly doubt that the
Summanalia which Festus explains as ‘liba farinacea in modum rotae
ficta[663]‘, were cakes offered or eaten on this day: it is hard to see what
other connexion they could have had. Mr. Arthur Evans has some
interesting remarks[664] on what seem to be moulds for making religious
cakes of this kind, found at Tarentum; they are decorated, not only with the
wheel or cross, but with many curious symbols. ‘It is characteristic,’ he
writes, ‘in a whole class of religious cakes that they are impressed with a
wheel or cross, and in other cases divided into segments as if to facilitate
distribution. This symbolical division seems to connect itself with the
worship of the ancestral fire rather than with any solar cult. In a modified
form they are still familiar to us as “hot-cross buns.”’ Summanus, however,
does not seem to have had anything to do with the ancestral fire.

viii Kal. Quinct. (June 24). C.

FORTI FORTUNAE TRANS TIBER[IM] AD MILLIAR[IUM] PRIM[UM] ET SEXT[UM].
(AMIT.)

FORTIS FORTUNAE. (VEN. PHILOC.)

SACRUM FORTIS FORTUNAE. (RUST.)

Ovid writes of this day as follows[665]:

Ite, deam laeti Fortem celebrate, Quirites!
In Tiberis ripa munera regis habet.
Pars pede, pars etiam celeri decurrite cymba,
Nec pudeat potos inde redire domum.
Ferte coronatae iuvenum convivia lintres:
Multaque per medias vina bibantur aquas.
Plebs colit hanc, quia, qui posuit, de plebe fuisse
Fertur, et ex humili sceptra tulisse loco.
Convenit et servis; serva quia Tullius ortus
Constituit dubiae templa propinqua deae.

H. Peter, in his additional notes to Ovid’s Fasti[666], has one so lucid on the
subject of the temples of Fors Fortuna mentioned in this passage that I
cannot do better than reproduce it. ‘We find three temples of the goddess
mentioned, all of which lay on the further side of the Tiber. The first was
that of Servius Tullius mentioned by Varro in the following passage[667]:
“Dies Fortis Fortunae appellatus ab Servio Tullio rege, quod is fanum Fortis
Fortunae secundum Tiberim extra urbem Romam dedicavit Iunio mense.”
The second is one stated by Livy[668] to have been built by the consul
Spurius Carvilius in 460 B.C. near the temple of Servius. The third is
mentioned by Tacitus[669] as having been dedicated at the end of the year 17
A.D. by Tiberius, also on the further side of the Tiber in the gardens of
Caesar. Of these three temples the third does not concern us in dealing with

Ovid’s lines, because it was completed and dedicated long after the
composition of the sixth book of the Fasti, perhaps at a time when Ovid
was already dead; we have to do only with the first two. Now we find in the
Fasti of Amiternum[670] the following note on the 24th of June: “Forti
Fortunae trans Tiberim ad milliarium primum et sextum”; and this taken
together with Ovid suggests that either besides the temple of Carvilius there
were two temples of Fors Fortuna attributed to Servius, or (and this appears
to me more probable) the temple of Carvilius itself was taken for a
foundation of Servius as it had the same dedication-day and was in the same
locality. In this way the difficulties may be solved.’ I am disposed to accept
the second suggestion of Peter’s; for, as Mommsen has remarked[671], it is
quite according to Roman usage that Carvilius should have placed his
temple close to a much more ancient fanum of the same deity; i. e. the
principle of the locality of cults often held good through many centuries.
Many cults of Fortuna were referred to Servius Tullius, but especially this
one, because, as Ovid says, it was particularly a festival of the plebs of
which he was the traditional hero; and also because it was open to slaves, a
fact which was naturally connected with the supposed servile birth of this
king. The jollity and perhaps looseness of the occasion seemed to indicate a
connexion between the lower stratum of population and the worship of
Fortuna: ‘On foot and in boats,’ says Ovid, ‘the people enjoyed themselves
even to the extent of getting drunk.’ We are reminded in fact of the plebeian
license of the festival of Anna Perenna in March[672]. It is perhaps worth
noting that on June 18 the calendar of Philocalus has the note Annae
Sacrum, which unluckily finds no corroboration from any other source.
Whether it was an early popular cult, whether it was connected in any way
with that of Fors Fortuna, and whether both or either of them had any
immediate relation to the summer solstice, are questions admitting
apparently of no solution.
It has rarely happened that any Roman cult has been discussed at length in
the English language, especially by scholars of unquestionable learning and
resource. But on the subject of Fortuna, and Fors Fortuna, an interesting
paper appeared some years ago by Prof. Max Müller in his volume entitled
Biographies of Words[673], which I have been at great pains to weigh
carefully. The skill and lucidity with which the Professor’s arguments are,
as usual, presented, make this an unusually pleasant task.

He starts, we must note, with a method which in dealing with Italian deities
has been justly and emphatically condemned[674]; he begins with an
etymology in order to discover the nature of the deity, and goes on to
support this by selecting a few features from the various forms of the cult.
This method will not of course be dangerous, if the etymology be absolutely
certain; and absolute certainty, so far as our present knowledge reaches, is
indeed what the Professor claims for his. Though we may doubt whether the
science of Comparative Philology is as yet old and sure enough to justify us
in violating a useful principle in order to pay our first attentions to its
results, we may waive this scruple for the present and take the etymology in
this case at the outset.
The Professor alludes to the well-known and universally accepted
derivation of Fors and Fortuna from ferre, but rejects it: ‘I appeal to those
who have studied the biographies of similar Latin words, whether they do
not feel some misgiving about so vague and abstract a goddess as “Dea
quae fert,” the goddess who brings.’ But feeling the difficulty that Fortuna
may not indeed have been originally a deity at all, but an abstract noun
which became a deity, like Fides, Spes, &c., in which case his objection to
the derivation from ferre would not apply, he hastens to remove it by trying
to show from the early credentials of Fortuna, that she did not belong to this
latter class, but has characteristics which were undoubtedly heaven-born.
The process therefore was this: the ordinary etymology, though quite
possible, is vague and does not seem to lead to anything; is there another to
be discovered, which will fulfil philological requirements and also tell us
something new about Fortuna? And are there any features to be found in the
cult which will bear out the new etymology when it is discovered?
He then goes on to derive the word from the Sanskrit root HAER, ‘to glow,’
from which many names expressive of the light of day have come: ‘From
this too comes the Greek Χάρις with the Χάριτες, the goddess of morning;
and from this we may safely derive fors, fortis, taking it either as a mere
contraction, or a new derivative, corresponding to what in Sanskrit would
be Har-ti, and would mean the brightness of the day, the Fortuna huiusce
diei.’
So much for the etymological argument; on which we need only remark, (1)
that while it may be perfectly possible in itself, it does not impugn the
possibility of the older derivation; (2) that it introduces an idea ‘bright,’

hardly less vague and unsubstantial than that conveyed by ‘the thin and
unmeaning name’ she who brings or carries away. When, indeed, the
Professor goes on, by means of this etymology, to trace Fortuna to a
concrete thing, viz. the dawn, he is really making a jump which the
etymology does not specifically justify. All he can say is that it would be ‘a
most natural name for the brightest of all goddesses, the dawn, the morning,
the day.’
He looks, however, for further justification of the etymology to the cult and
mythology of Fortuna. From among her many cult-names he selects two or
three which seem suitable. The first of these is Fortuna huiusce diei. This
Fortuna was, he tells us, like the Ushas of the Veda, ‘the bright light of each
day, very much like what we might call “Good morning.”’ But as a matter
of fact all we know of this Fortuna is that Aemilius Paullus, the victor of
Pydna, vowed a temple to her in which he dedicated certain statues[675]; that
Catulus, the hero of Vercellae, may have repaired or rebuilt it, and that on
July 30, the day of the latter battle, there was a sacrifice at this temple[676].
Whatever therefore was the origin of this cult (and it may date no further
back than Pydna) it seems to have been specially concerned, as its name
implies, with the events of particular famous days. It is pure guesswork to
imagine that its connexion with such days may have arisen from an older
meaning, viz. the bright light of each day. Nothing is more natural than the
huiusce diei, if we believe that this Fortuna simply represented chance, that
inexplicable power which appealed so strongly to the later sceptical and
Graecized Roman, and which we see in the majority of cult-names by
which Fortuna was known in the later Republic. The advocate of the dawn-
theory, on the other hand, has to account for the total loss in the popular
belief of the nature-meaning of the epithet and cult—a loss which is indeed
quite possible, but one which must necessarily make the theory less obvious
and acceptable than the ordinary one.
Secondly, the Professor points out, that on June 11, the day of the Matralia,
Fortuna was worshipped coincidently with Mater Matuta—the latter being,
as he assumes beyond doubt, a dawn-goddess. But we have already seen
that this assumption is not a very certain one[677]; and we may now add that
the coincident worship must simply mean that two temples had the same
dedication-day, which may be merely accidental[678].

But the chief argument is based on the cult of Fortuna Primigenia, ‘the first-
born of the gods,’ as he translates the word, in accordance with a recent
elaborate investigation of its meaning[679]. This cult does indeed show very
curious and interesting characters. It belonged originally to Praeneste,
where Fortuna was the presiding deity of an ancient and famous oracle.
Here have been found inscriptions to Fortuna, ‘DIOVO[S] FILEA[I]
[680]
PRIMOGENIA[I],’ the first-born daughter of Jupiter . Here also, strange to
[681]
say, Cicero describes an enclosure sacred to Jupiter Puer, who was
represented there with Juno as sitting in the lap of Fortuna ‘mammam
appetens.’ This very naturally attracted Prof. Max Müller’s keenest
attention, and he had no difficulty in finding his explanation: Fortuna is ‘the
first-born of all the bright powers of the sky, and the daughter of the sky;
but likewise from another point of view the mother of the daily sun who is
the bright child she carries in her arms.’ This is charming; but it is the
language and thought, not of ancient Italians, but of Vedic poets. The great
Latin scholar, who had for years been soaking his mind in Italian
antiquities, will hardly venture on an explanation at all: ‘haud ignarus quid
deceat eum qui Aboriginum regiones attingat[682].’
I shall have occasion later on[683] to say something of this very interesting
and mysterious cult at Praeneste. At present I must be content with pointing
out that it is altogether unsafe to regard it as representative of any general
ideas of ancient Italian religion. As Italian archaeologists are aware,
Praeneste was a city in which Etruscan and Greek influences are most
distinctly traceable, and in which foreign deities and myths seem to have
become mixed up with native ones, to the extreme bewilderment of the
careful inquirer[684]. We may accept the Professor’s explanation of it with all
respect as a most interesting hypothesis, but as no more than a hypothesis
which needs much more information than we as yet possess to render it
even a probable one.
By his own account the Professor would not have been led so far afield for
an explanation of Fortuna if he had not been struck by the apparent
difficulty involved in such a goddess as ‘she who brings.’ Towards the
removal of this difficulty, however, the late Mr. Vigfusson did something in
a letter to the Academy of March 17, 1888[685]. He equated Fors and Fortuna
with the Icelandic buror, from a verb having quite as wide and general a
meaning as fero, and being its etymological equivalent. ‘There is a

department of its meanings,’ he tells us, ‘through which runs the notion of
an invisible, passive, sudden, involuntary, chance agency’; and another, in
which bera means to give birth, and produces a noun meaning birth, and so
lucky birth, honour, &c. The two ideas come together in the Norse notion of
the Norns who presided at the birth of each child, shaping at that hour the
child’s fortune[686].
It is rather to the ideas of peoples like the early Teutons and Celts that we
must look for mental conditions resembling those of the early Italians, than
to the highly developed poetical mythology of the Vedas; and it is in the
direction which Mr. Vigfusson pointed out that I think we should search for
the oldest Italian ideas of Fortuna and for the causes which led to her
popularity and development. In a valuable paper, to which I shall have
occasion to refer again, Prof. Nettleship[687] suggested that Carmenta (or
Carmentes) may be explained with S. Augustine[688] as the goddess or
prophetess who tells the fortunes of the children, and that this was the
reason why she was especially worshipped by matrons, like Mater Matuta,
Fortuna and others. The Carmentes were in fact the Norns of Italy. Such a
practical need as the desire to know your child’s fortunes would be quite in
harmony with what we know of the old Italian character; and I think it far
from impossible that Fortuna, as an oracular deity in Italy, may have been
originally a conception of the same kind, perhaps not only a prophetess as
regards the children, but also of the good luck of the mother in childbirth.
Perhaps the most striking fact in her multifarious cults is the predominance
in them of women as worshippers. Of the very Fortuna Primogenia of
whom we have been speaking Cicero tells us that her ancient home at
Praeneste was the object of the special devotion of mothers[689]. The same
was the case with Fortuna Virilis, Muliebris, Mammosa, and others.
If we look at her in this light, there is really no difficulty in understanding
why what seems to us at first sight a very vague conception, ‘the goddess
who brings,’ should not have meant something very real and concrete to the
early Italian mind. And again, if that be so, if Fortuna be once recognized as
a great power in ways which touched these essential and practical needs of
human nature, we may feel less astonishment at finding her represented
either as the daughter or the mother of Jupiter. Such representation could
indeed hardly have been the work of really primitive Italians; it arose, one
may conjecture, if not from some confusion which we cannot now unravel,

from the fame of the oracle—one of the very few in Italy—and the
consequent fame of the goddess whose name came to be attached to that
oracle. Or, as Jordan seems to think, it may have been the vicinity of the
rock-oracle to the temple of Jupiter which gave rise to the connexion
between the two in popular belief; a belief which was expressed in terms of
relationship, perhaps under Greek influence, but certainly in a manner for
the most part absent from the unmythological Italian religion. Why indeed
in the same place she should be mother as well as daughter of Jupiter (if
Cicero be accurate in his account, which is perhaps not quite certain) may
well puzzle us all. Those who cannot do without an explanation may accept
that of Prof. Max Müller, if they can also accept his etymology. Those who
have acquired what Mommsen has called the ‘difficillima ars nesciendi,’
will be content with Jordan’s cautious remark, ‘Non desunt vestigia
divinum numen Italis notum fuisse deis deabusve omnibus et hoc ipso in
quo vivimus mundo antiquius[690].’
But Fortuna has not only been conjectured to be a deity of the dawn; she
has been made out to be both a moon-goddess and a sun-goddess. For her
origin in the moon there is really nothing of any weight to be urged; the
advocate of this view is one of the least judicious of German specialists,
and his arguments need not detain us[691]. But for her connexion with the sun
there is something more to be said.
The dedication day of the temple of Fors Fortuna was exactly at the summer
solstice. It is now St. John the Baptist’s day, and one on which a great
variety of curious local customs, some of which still survive, regularly
occur; and especially the midsummer fires which were until recently so
common in our own islands. Attention has often been drawn to the fondness
for parallelism which prompted the early Christians to place the birth of
Christ at the winter solstice, when the days begin to grow longer, and that of
the Baptist—for June 24 is his reputed birthday as well as festival—at the
summer solstice when they begin to shorten; following the text, ‘He must
increase and I must decrease[692].’ Certainly the sun is an object of special
regard at all midsummer festivals, and is supposed to be often symbolized
in them by a wheel, which is set on fire and in many cases rolled down a
hill[693]. Now the wheel is of course a symbol in the cult of Fortuna, and is
sometimes found in Italian representations of her, though not so regularly as
the cornucopia and the ship’s rudder which almost invariably accompany

her[694]. Putting this in conjunction with the date of the festival of Fors
Fortuna, the Celtic scholar Gaidoz has concluded that Fortuna was
ultimately a solar deity[695]. The solar origin of the symbol was, he thinks,
quite forgotten; but the wheel, or the globe which sometimes replaces it,
was certainly at one time solar, and perhaps came from Assyria. If so (he
concludes), the earliest form of Fortuna must have been a female double of
the sun.
All hints are useful in Roman antiquities, and something may yet be made
of this. But it cannot be accepted until we are sure of the history and
descent of this symbol in the representations of Fortuna; it is far from
impossible that the wheel or globe may in this case have nothing more to do
with the sun than the rudder which always accompanies it. In any case it
can hardly be doubted that it is not of Italian origin; it is found, e. g. also in
the cult of Nemesis, who, like Tyche, Eilithyia, and Leucothea, is probably
responsible for much variation and confusion in the worship of Italian
female deities[696]. As to the other fact adduced by Gaidoz, viz. the date of
the festival, it is certainly striking, and must be given its full weight. It is
surprising that Prof. Max Müller has made no use of it. But we must be on
our guard. It is remarkable that we find in the Roman calendars no other
evidence that the Romans attached the same importance to the summer
solstice as some other peoples; the Roman summer festivals are concerned,
in accordance with the true Italian spirit, much more with the operations of
man in dealing with nature than with the phenomena of nature taken by
themselves. It is perhaps better to avoid a hasty conclusion that this festival
of Fors Fortuna was on the 24th because the 24th was the end of the
solstice, and rather to allow the equal probability that it was fixed then
because harvest was going on. Columella seems to be alluding to it in the
following lines[697]:

Sed cum maturis flavebit messis aristis
Allia cum cepis, cereale papaver anetho
Iungite, dumque virent, nexos deferte maniplos,
Et celebres Fortis Fortunae dicite laudes
Mercibus exactis, hilaresque recurrite in hortos.

The power of Fortuna as a deity of chance would be as important for the
perils of harvest as for those of childbirth; and it is in this connexion that
the Italians understood the meaning of that cornucopia which is perhaps her
most constant symbol in art[698].
Lastly, there is a formidable question, which may easily lead the unwary
into endless complications, and on which I shall only touch very briefly.
How are we to explain the legendary connexion between the cult of Fortuna
and Servius Tullius? That king, the so-called second founder of Rome, was
said, as we have seen, to have erected more than one sanctuary to Fortuna,
and was even believed to have had illicit dealings with the goddess
herself[699]. The dedication-day of Fors Fortuna was said to have been
selected by him, and, as Ovid describes it, was a festival of the poorer kind
of people, who thus kept up the custom initiated by the popular friend of the
plebs.
Since the Etruscan origin of Servius Tullius has been placed beyond a doubt
by the discovery of the famous tomb at Vulci, with the paintings of Cales
Vibenna released from his bonds by Mastarna[700], which has thus confirmed
the Etruscan tradition of the identity of Mastarna and Servius preserved by
the emperor Claudius in his famous speech[701], it would seem that we may
consider it as highly probable that if Servius did really institute the cult of
Fortuna at Rome, that cult came with him from Etruria. This by no means
compels us to look on Fortuna as an Etruscan deity only; but it seems to be
a fact that there was an Etruscan goddess who was recognized by the
Romans as the equivalent of their Fortuna[702]. This was Nortia, a great deity
at Volsinii, as is fully proved by the remains found there[703]; and we may
note that the city was near to and in close alliance with Vulci, where the
tomb was found containing the paintings just alluded to. Seianus, a native
of Volsinii[704], was supposed to be under the protection of this deity, and, as
we have already seen, to possess an ancient statue of her.
In her temple a nail was driven every year as in the temple of Jupiter
Capitolinus[705], and hence some have concluded that she was a goddess of
time. It cannot, however, be regarded as certain whether this nail-driving
was originally symbolical only, or at all, of time; it may quite as well
remind us of the famous Fortuna of Antium and the ‘clavos trabales’ of
Horace’s Ode[706]. However this may be, it is a fair guess, though it must be
made with hesitation, that the Fortuna of Servius was the equivalent of this

Nortia, to whom the Roman plebs gave a name with which they were in
some way already familiar. Mastarna continued to worship his native deity
after he was settled in Rome; and the plebs continued to revere her, not
because of his luck, which was indeed imperfect, but simply because she
was his protectress[707]. If we try to get beyond this we lose our footing; and
even this is only conjecture, though based upon evidence which is not
entirely without weight.

MENSIS QUINCTILIS.

The festivals of this month are so exceedingly obscure that it seems
hopeless to try to connect them in any definite way with the operations
either of nature or of man. We know that this was the time when the sun’s
heat became oppressive and dangerous; statistics show at the present day
that the rate of mortality rises at Rome to its greatest height in July and
August, as indeed is the case in southern latitudes generally. We know also
that harvest of various kinds was going on in this month: ‘Quarto intervallo
inter solstitium et caniculam plerique messem faciunt,’ writes Varro (R. R.
1. 32). We should have expected that the unhealthy season and the harvest
would have left their mark on the calendar; but in the scantiness of our
information we can find very few traces of their influence. We here lose the
company of Ovid, who might, in spite of his inevitable ignorance, have
incidentally thrown some ray of light upon the darkness; but it is clear that
even Varro and Verrius knew hardly anything of the almost obsolete
festivals of this month. The Poplifugia, the Lucaria, the Neptunalia, and the
Furrinalia, had all at one time been great festivals, for they are marked in
large capitals in the ancient calendars; but they had no more meaning for
the Roman of Varro’s time than the lesser saints’-days of our calendar have
for the ordinary Englishman of to-day. The ludi Apollinares, of much later
date, which always maintained their interest, did not fall upon the days of
any of these festivals, or obliterate them in the minds of the people; they
must have decayed from pure inanition—want of practical correlation with
the life and interests of a great city.

iii Non. Quinct. (July 5). NP.

POPLIF[UGIA]. (MAFF. AMIT. ANT.)
FERIAE IOVI. (AMIT.)

The note ‘feriae Iovi’ in the calendar of Amiternum is confirmed in a
curious way, by a statement of Dio Cassius[708], who says that in B.C. 42 the
Senate passed a decree that Caesar’s birthday should be celebrated on this
day[709], and that any one who refused to take part in the celebration should
be ‘sacer Iovi et Divo Iulio.’ But we know far too little of the rites of this
day to enable us to make even a guess at the meaning of its connexion with
Jupiter. It is just worth noting that two days later we find a festival of Juno,
the Nonae Caprotinae; the two days may have had some connexion with
each other, being separated by an interval of one day, as is the case with the
three days of the Lemuria, the two days of the Lucaria in this month, and in
other instances[710]; and their rites were explained by two parts of the same
aetiological story—viz. that the Romans fled before the Fidenates on the
5th, and in turn defeated them on the 7th[711]. But we are quite in the dark as
to the meaning of such a connexion, if such there was. Nor can we explain
the singular fact that this is the only festival in the whole year, marked in
large capitals in the calendars, which falls before the Nones[712].
There is hardly a word in the whole calendar the meaning of which is so
entirely unknown to us as this word Poplifugia. Of the parallel one, the
Regifugium in February, something can be made out, as we shall see[713];
and it is not unlikely that the ritualistic meaning concealed in both may be
much the same. But all attempts to find a definite explanation for Poplifugia
have so far been fruitless, with the single exception perhaps of that of
Schwegler[714], who himself made the serious blunder of confounding this
day with the Nonae Caprotinae. It is true that the two days and their rites
were confused even in antiquity, but only by late writers[715]; the calendars,
on the other hand, are perfectly plain and so is Varro[716], who proceeds from
the one to the other in a way that can leave no doubt that he understood
them as distinct.

The simple fact is that the meaning of the word Poplifugia had wholly
vanished when the calendar began to be studied. Ingenuity and fancy, as
usual, took the place of knowledge, and two legends were the result—the
one connecting the word with the flight of the Romans from an army of
their neighbours of Fidenae, after the retirement of the Gauls from the
city[717]; the other interpreting it as a memorial of the flight of the people
after the disappearance of Romulus in the darkness of an eclipse or sudden
tempest[718]. The first of these legends may be dismissed at once; the large
capitals in which the name Poplifugia appears in the fragments of the three
calendars which preserve it, are sufficient evidence that it must have been
far older than the Gallic invasion[719]. The second legend might suggest that
the story itself of the death of Romulus had grown out of some religious rite
performed at this time of year; and it was indeed traditionally connected
with the Nones of this month[720]. But that day is unluckily not the day of the
Poplifugia, which it is hardly possible to connect with the disappearance of
Romulus. There may, however, have been a connexion between the rites of
the two days, as has been pointed out above; and this being so, it is worth
while to notice a suggestion made by Schwegler, in spite of the fact that he
confused the two days together. He saw that the disappearance of Romulus
was said to have occurred while he was holding a lustratio of the
citizens[721], and concluded that the Poplifugia may have been an ancient rite
of lustration—an idea which other writers have been content to follow
without always giving him the credit of it[722].
Such a rite may very well be indicated by the following sentence of
Varro[723]—the only one which gives us any solid information on the
question: Aliquot huius diei vestigia fugae in sacris apparent, de quibus
rebus antiquitatum libri plura referunt. It seems not unreasonable to guess
that the rite was one of those in which the priest, or in this case, as it would
seem, the people also, fled from the spot after the sacrifice had been
concluded. As the slayer of the ox at the Athenian Bouphonia (which
curiously enough took place just at this same time of year) fled as one
guilty of blood, so it may possibly have been that priest and people at Rome
fled after some similar sacrifice, and for the same reason[724]. Or it may have
been that they fled from the victim as a scapegoat which was destined to
carry away from the city some pollution or pestilence. It is interesting to
find at Iguvium in Umbria some ‘vestigia fugae,’ not of the people, indeed,
but of victims, at a lustratio populi which seems to have had some object of

this kind[725]. Heifers were put to flight, then caught and killed, apparently in
order to carry off evils from the city[726], as well as to represent and secure
the defeat of its enemies. Such performances seem especially apt to occur at
sickly seasons[727]; and as the unhealthy season began at Rome in July[728], it
is just possible that the Poplifugia was a ceremony of this class.

Non. Quinct. (July 7). N.

This day does not appear as a festival in the old calendars; but the late one
of Silvius[729] notes it as Ancillarum Feriae, or Feast of Handmaids, and
adds the explanatory story which is found also in Plutarch and
Macrobius[730]. The victorious Fidenates having demanded the surrender of
the wives of the Romans, the latter made over to them their ancillae,
dressed in their mistresses’ robes, by the advice of a certain Philotis, or
Tutula[731], one of the handmaids. Ausonius alludes to the custom that gave
rise to the story:

Festa Caprotinis memorabo celebria Nonis
Cum stola matronis dempta teget famulas[732].

Plutarch also tells us that on this day the ancillae not only wore the
matron’s dress, but had license for what may be described as a game of
romps; they beat each other, threw stones at each other, and scoffed at the
passers by[733].
This last point supplies us with a possible clue both to the origin of the
custom and the explanatory legend. One of the most frequent customs at
harvest-time used to be, and still is in some places, for the harvesters to
mock at, and even to use roughly, any stranger who appears on the field;
frequently he is tied up with straw, even by the women binding the sheaves,
and only released on promise of money, brandy, &c.; or he is ducked in
water, or half-buried, or in pretence beheaded[734]. The stranger in such cases
is explained as representing the spirit of the corn; the examples collected by
Mannhardt and Mr. Frazer seem fairly conclusive on this point[735]. The
wearing of the matron’s dress also seems to be a combination of the familiar
practices of the winter Saturnalia with harvest customs, which in various
forms is by no means uncommon[736], though I have not found a case of
exchange of dress after harvest.
Thus it would seem possible that we have here a relic of Italian harvest-
custom; and this is confirmed by the statement of Tertullian that there was

on this day a sacrifice to the harvest-god Consus[737], at his underground
altar in the Circus Maximus, of which we shall have more to say under Aug.
21 (Consualia). It is worth noting here that just as the legend of the Rape of
the Sabines was connected with the Consualia[738], so the analogous story of
the demand of the Fidenates for Roman women is associated with the
Ancillarum Feriae, and the day of the sacrifice to Consus. This not only
serves to connect together the two days of Consus-worship, but suggests
that harvest was a favourable opportunity for the practice of capturing
wives in primitive Italy, when the women were out in the fields, and might
be carried off by a sudden incursion.
This day was also known as Nonae Caprotinae, because the women,
presumably those who had been helping at the harvest, both bond and
free[739], sacrificed to Juno Caprotina under a wild fig-tree (caprificus) in the
Campus Martius[740]. Juno Caprotina was a Latin goddess, of great renown
at Falerii[741], where the goat from which she took her name appears in the
legend of her cult. The character of Juno as the representative of the female
principle of human life[742] suits well enough with the prominence of women
both in the customs and legends connected with the day; and the fig-tree
with its milky juice, which was used, according to Macrobius, in the
sacrifice to Juno instead of milk, has also its significance[743]. Varro adds
that a rod (virga) was also cut from this tree[744], without telling us for what
purpose it was used; and it has been ingeniously conjectured that it was
with this that the handmaids beat each other as Plutarch describes, to
produce fertility, just as at the Lupercalia the women were beaten with
strips cut from the skins of the victims (amiculum Junonis). But this is mere
conjecture, and Varro’s statement is too indefinite to be pressed[745].

viii Id. Quinct. (July 8). N.

‘Piso ait vitulam victoriam nominari, cuius rei hoc argumentum profert,
quod postridio nonas Iulias re bene gesta, cum pridie populus a Tuscis in
fugam versus sit (unde Populifugia vocantur), post victoriam certis
sacrificiis fiat vitulatio[746].’
I must be content with quoting this passage, and without comment; it will
suffice to show that the meaning of the word ‘vitulatio’ was entirely
unknown to Roman scholars. Why they should not have connected it with
vitulus I know not: we may remember that in the Iguvian ritual vituli seem
to have performed the function of scapegoats[747]. If the vitulatio is in any
way to be connected with the Poplifugia, as it was indeed in the legend as
given by Macrobius above, it may be worth while to remember that that day
is marked in one calendar as ‘feriae Iovi,’ and that the vitulus (heifer) was
the special victim of Jupiter[748].

Prid. Non. Quinct.—iii Id. Quinct. (July 6-13).

LUDI APOLLINARES.

All these days are marked ‘ludi’ in Maff. Amit. Ant.; the 6th ‘ludi
Apoll[ini],’ and the 13th ‘ludi in circo.’
These games[749] were instituted in 212 B.C., for a single occasion only, at the
most dangerous period of the war with Hannibal, when he had taken
Tarentum and invaded Campania. Recourse was had to the Sibylline books
and to the Italian oracles of Marcius, and the latter answered as follows[750]:
‘Hostes Romani si expellere voltis, vomicamque quae gentium venit longe,
Apollini vovendos censeo ludos, qui quotannis Apollini fiant,’ &c. The
games were held, as we may suppose, on the analogy of the ludi plebeii,
originally on the 13th day of the month[751], and were, in course of time,
extended backwards till in the Julian calendar we find them lasting from the
6th to the 13th. They had a Greek character from the first; they were
superintended by the Decemviri sacris faciundis, who consulted the
Sibylline books and organized the ritual of foreign cults; and they included
scenic shows, after the Greek fashion, as well as chariot races[752].
It was matter of dispute whether in this year, 212, Apollo was expected to
show his favour to Rome as a conqueror of her foe or as an averter of
pestilence in the summer heats; both functions were within his range. But in
208 we are told that the ludi were renewed by a lex, made permanent, and
fixed for July 13 in consequence of a pestilence[753]; and we may fairly
assume that this was, in part at least, the cause of their institution four years
earlier. What little we know of the traditions of Apollo-worship at Rome
points in the same direction. His oldest temple in the Flaminian fields,
where, according to Livy, a still more ancient shrine once stood[754], was
vowed in 432 B.C. in consequence of a pestilence; and the god had also the
cult-title Medicus[755]. The next occasion on which we meet with the cult is
that of the first institution of a lectisternium in 397 B.C., Livy’s account of
which is worth condensing[756]. That year was remarkable for an extremely

cold winter, which was followed by an equally unhealthy summer,
destructive to all kinds of animals. As the cause of this pestilence could not
be discovered, the Sibylline books were consulted; the result of which was
the introduction of a lectisternium, at which three couches were laid out
with great magnificence, on which reposed Apollo and Latona, Diana and
Hercules, Mercurius and Neptunus, whose favour the people besought for
eight days.
The cult of Apollo, though thus introduced in its full magnificence at Rome
in historical times, was, ‘so old in Italy as almost to give the impression of
being indigenous[757].’ Tradition ascribed to Tarquinius Superbus the
introduction from Cumae of the Sibylline oracles, which were intimately
connected with Apollo-worship; and that Etruscan king may well have been
familiar with the Greek god, who was well known in Etruria as Aplu[758],
and who was worshipped at Caere, the home of the Tarquinian family,
which city had a ‘treasury’ at Delphi[759]. The Romans themselves,
according to a tradition which is by no means improbable, had very early
dealings with the Delphic oracle.
It does not seem certain that Apollo displaced any other deity when
transplanted to Rome. It has been thought that the obscure Veiovis became
clothed with some of Apollo’s characteristics, but this is extremely
doubtful[760]. The mysterious deity of Soracte, Soranus, is called Apollo by
Virgil[761]; this, however, is not a true displacement, like that, e. g., of the
ancient Ceres by the characteristics of Demeter, but merely a poetical
substitution of a familiar name for an unfamiliar one which was
unquestionably old Italian.
It does not seem probable that in the Republican period the cult of Apollo
had any special influence, either religious or ethical, for the Roman people
generally. It was a priestly experiment—a new physician was called in at
perilous times, according to the fashion of the Roman oligarchy, either to
give advice by his oracles, or to receive honours for his benefits as
ἀλεξίκακος. It is in the age of Augustus that the cult begins to be important;
the family of the Caesars was said to have had an ancient connexion with
it[762], and after the victory at Actium, where a temple of Apollo stood on the
promontory, Augustus not only enlarged and adorned this one, but built
another on the Palatine, near his own house, to Apollo Palatinus. But for the

‘Apollinism’ of Augustus, and for the important part played by the god in
the ludi saeculares of B.C. 17, I must refer the reader to other works[763].

xiv Kal. Sext. (July 19). NP.

LUCAR[IA]. (MAFF. AMIT.)

xii Kal. Sext. (July 21). NP.

LUCAR[IA]. (MAFF. AMIT.)

Here, as in the next two festivals we have to consider, we are but ‘dipping
buckets into empty wells.’ The ritual, and therefore the original meaning of
this festival, is wholly lost to us, as indeed it was to the Romans of Varro’s
time. Varro, in his list of festivals, does not even mention this one; but it is
possible that some words have here dropped out of his text[764]. The only
light we have comes at second-hand from Verrius Flaccus[765]. ‘Lucaria festa
in luco colebant Romani, qui permagnus inter viam Salariam et Tiberim
fuit, pro eo, quod victi a Gallis fugientes[766] e praelio ibi se occultaverint.’
This passage reminds us of the story explanatory of the Poplifugia, and
might suggest, as in that case, an expiatory sacrifice and flight of the people
from a scapegoat destined to carry away disease. But here we know of no
vestigia fugae in the cult, such as Varro tells us were apparent at the
Poplifugia.
The only possible guess we can make must rest on the name itself, taken
together with what Festus tells us of the great wood once existing between
the Via Salaria and the Tiber, in which the festival was held—a wood which
no doubt occupied the Pincian hill, and the region afterwards laid out in
gardens by Lucullus, Pompeius, and Sallust the historian. Lucaria is formed
from lucar as Lemuria from lemur; and lucar, though in later times it meant
‘the sum disbursed from the aerarium for the games[767],’ drawn probably
from the receipts of the sacred groves, may also at one time itself have
meant a grove. An inscription from the Latin colony of Luceria shows us
lucar in this sense[768]:

IN · HOCE · LUCARID · STIRCUS · NE · IS · FUNDATID, &c.

Now there can be no doubt about the great importance of woods, or rather
of clearings in them, in the ancient Italian religion. ‘Nemus and lucus,’ says
Preller[769], ‘like so many other words, remind us of the old Italian life of

woodland and clearing. Nemus is a pasturage, lucus a “light” or clearing[770],
in the forest, where men settled and immediately began to look to the
interests of the spirits of the woodland, and especially of Silvanus, who is at
once the god of the wild life of the woodland and of the settler in the forest
—the backwoodsman.’ The woods left standing as civilization and
agriculture advanced continued to be the abodes of numina, not only of the
great Jupiter, who, as we shall see, was worshipped in groves all over
Italy[771], and of Diana, who at Aricia bore the title of Nemorensis, but of
innumerable spirits of the old worship, Fauni, Silvani, and other
manifestations of the idea most definitely conceived in the great god
Mars[772]. But men could not of course know for certain what spirits dwelt in
a wood, whose anger might be roused by intrusion or tree-felling; and old
Cato, among his many prescriptions, material and religious, gives one in the
form of an invocation to such unknown deities if an intrusion had to be
made. It is worth quoting, and runs as follows[773]: ‘Lucum conlucare
Romano more sic oportet. Porco piaculo facito. Sic verba concipito: Si
Deus, si Dea es, quoium illud sacrum est, uti tibi ius siet porco piaculo
facere, illiusce sacri coercendi ergo. Harumce rerum ergo, sive ego, sive
quis iussu meo fecerit, uti id recte factum siet. Eius rei ergo te hoc porco
piaculo immolando bonas preces precor, uti sies volens propitius mihi,
domo familiaeque meae, liberisque meis. Harumce rerum ergo macte hoc
porco piaculo immolando esto.’
Applying these facts to the problem of the Lucaria, though necessarily with
hesitation, and remembering the position of the wood and the date of the
festival, we may perhaps arrive at the following conclusion; that this was a
propitiatory worship offered to the deities inhabiting the woods which
bordered on the cultivated Roman ager. The time when the corn was being
gathered in, and the men and women were in the fields, would be by no
means unsuitable for such propitiation. It need not have been addressed to
any special deity, any more than that of Cato, or as I believe, the ritual of
the Lupercalia[774]; it belonged to the most primitive of Roman rites, and
partly for that reason, partly also from the absorption of land by large
private owners[775], it fell into desuetude. The grove of the Fratres Arvales
and the decay of their cult (also addressed to a nameless deity) offers an
analogy on the other side of Rome, towards Ostia.

Such a hypothesis seems not unreasonable, though it is based rather on
general than particular evidence. It is at any rate better than the wild
guessing of one German inquirer, who is always at home when there is no
information. Huschke[776] believes that the words Lucaria and Luceres (the
ancient Roman tribe-name) are both derived from lucus because the Lucaria
take place in July, which is the auspication-month of the Luceres. And there
are two days of this festival, because the Luceres owed protection both to
the Romani and Quirites (Rhamnes and Tities) and therefore worshipped
both Janus and Quirinus.

x Kal. Sext. (July 23). NP.

NEPT[UNALIA]. (PINC. MAFF.)
FERIAE NEPTUNO. (PINC. ALLIF.)

The early history of Neptunus is a mystery, and we learn hardly anything
about him from his festival. We know that it took place in the heat of
summer, and that booths or huts made of the foliage of trees were used at it,
to keep the sun off the worshippers—and that is all[777]. Neither of these
facts suggests a sea-god, such as we are accustomed to see in Neptune; yet
they are hardly strong enough to enable us to build on them any other
hypothesis as to his character or functions. Nor does his name help us.
Though it constantly appears in Etruscan art as the name of a god who has
the characteristics of the Greek Poseidon, it is said not to be of genuine
Etruscan origin[778]. If this be so, the Etruscans must have borrowed it from
some people who already used it of a sea-god when the loan was made; but
one does not see why this great seafaring people should have gone outside
the language of their own religion for a name for their deity of the sea.
In the ancient cult-formulae preserved by Gellius[779], Neptunus is coupled
with a female name Salacia; and of this Varro writes ‘Salacia Neptuni a
salo’—an etymology no doubt suggested by the later identification of
Neptunus with Poseidon. Salacia is in my opinion rather to be referred to
salax (‘lustful,’ &c.), and, like Nerio Martis[780], to be taken as indicating the
virile force of Neptunus as the divine progenitor of a stock[781]. This seems
to be confirmed by the fact that this god was known as Neptunus pater, like
Mars, Janus, Saturnus, and Jupiter himself[782]; all of whom are associated in
cult or legend with the early history of Latin stocks.
When Neptunus first meets us in Roman history, he has already put on the
attributes of the Greek Poseidon; this was in B.C. 399, at the first
lectisternium, where he is in company with Apollo and Latona, Diana and
Hercules, and is specially coupled with Mercurius (= Hermes)[783]. What
characteristics of his suggested the identification, either here or in Etruria,

we cannot tell. We find no trace of any evidence connecting him with the
sea; and the coupling with Hermes need mean no more than that both this
god and Poseidon found their way to Rome through the medium of Greek
trade.
It has recently been conjectured[784] that the object of both the Lucaria and
Neptunalia was to avert the heat and drought of July, and to propitiate the
deities of water and springs, of whom Neptunus (judging from his
identification with Poseidon) may possibly have been one; but this is no
more than a vague guess, which its author only puts forward ‘with all
reserve.’

viii Kal. Sext. (July 25). NP.

FURR[INALIA]. (PINC. ALLIF. MAFF.)
FERIAE FURRINAE (PINC. ALLIF.)

It seems to be the lesson of the festivals of July that there was an early stage
of the Roman religion which had lost all meaning for the Romans
themselves when they began to inquire into the history of their own
religion. Of this last festival of the month we know no single item in the
cult, and therefore have nothing substantial to guide us. It seems almost
certain that even Varro and Verrius Flaccus[785] knew nothing of the festival
but its name as it stood in the calendar. Nor did they know anything of the
goddess Furrina or Furina. Varro is explicit; he says that she was celebrated
‘apud antiquos,’ for they gave her an annual festival and a flamen, but that
in his day there were hardly a dozen Romans who knew either her name or
anything about her.
Varro is no doubt right in arguing from the festival and the flamen to the
ancient honour in which she was held; and these facts also tend to prove
that she was a single deity, and quite distinct from the Furiae with whom the
later Romans as well as the Greeks naturally confounded her—an inference
which is confirmed by the long u indicated by the double r in the
calendars[786].
There is therefore nothing but the etymology to tell us anything about the
goddess, and from this source we cannot expect to learn anything certain.
Preller plausibly suggested a connexion with fur, furvus, and fuscus, from a
root meaning dark or secret; and if this were correct she might be a deity of
the under-world or of the darkness. Bücheler in his Umbrica[787] suggested a
comparison with the Umbrian furfare = februare (‘to purify’), which will at
least serve to show the difficulty of basing conclusions on etymological
reasoning. Jordan conjectured that the festival had to do with the averting of
dangerous summer heat[788]—a conclusion that is natural enough, but does
not seem to rest on any evidence but its date. Lastly, Huschke[789], again in

his element, boldly asserts that the Furrinalia served to appease the deities
of revenge who hailed from the black region of Vediovis—wrongly
confusing Furrina and the Furiae. It will be quite obvious from these
instances that it is as hopeless as it is useless to attempt to discover the
nature of either goddess or festival by means of etymological reasoning.

MENSIS SEXTILIS.

August is with us the month when the corn-harvest is begun; in Italy it is
usually completed in July, and the final harvest-festivals, when all the
operations of housing, &c., have been brought to a close, would naturally
have fallen for the primitive Roman farmer in the sixth month. The Kalends
of Quinctilis would be too early a date for notice to be given of these; some
farmers might be behindhand, and so cut off from participation. The
Kalends of Sextilis would do well enough; for by the Nones, before which
no festival could be held, there would be a general cessation from labour.
No other agricultural operations would then for a time be specially
incumbent on the farmer[790].
Before the Ides we find no great festival in the old calendar, though the
sacrifice on the 12th at the ara maxima was without doubt of great
antiquity. The list begins with the Portunalia on the 17th; and then follow,
with a day’s interval between each, the Vinalia Rustica, Consualia,
Volcanalia, Opeconsivia, and Volturnalia. The Vinalia had of course nothing
to do with harvest, and the character of the Portunalia and Volturnalia is
almost unknown; but all the rest may probably have had some relation to
the harvesting and safe-keeping of crops, and the one or two scraps of
information we possess about the Portunalia bear in the same direction.
Deities of fire and water seem to be propitiated at this time, in order to
preserve the harvest from disaster by either element. The rites are secret and
mysterious, the places of worship not familiar temples, but the ara maxima,
the underground altar of Consus, or the Regia; which may perhaps account
for the comparatively early neglect and decadence of some of these feasts.
We may also note two other points: first, the rites gather for the most part in
the vicinity of the Aventine, the Circus Maximus, and the bank of the Tiber;
which in the earliest days must have been the part of the cultivated land
nearest the city[791], or at any rate that part of it where the crops were stored.
Secondly, there is a faint trace of commerce and connexion between Rome

and her neighbours—Latins and Sabines—both in the rites and legends of
this month, which may perhaps point to an intercourse, whether friendly or
hostile, brought about by the freedom and festivities of harvest time.

Non. Sext. (Aug. 5). F. (NP. ant.)

SALUTI IN COLLE QUIRINALE SACRIFICIUM PUBLICUM. (VALL.)

SALUTI IN COLLE. (AMIT. ANT.)

NATALIS SALUTIS. (PHILOC.)

The date of the foundation of the temple of Salus was 302 B.C., during the
Samnite wars[792]. The cult was probably not wholly new. The Augurium
Salutis, which we know through its revival by Augustus, was an ancient
religious performance at the beginning of each year, or at the accession of
new consuls, which involved, first the ascertaining whether prayers would
be acceptable to the gods, and secondly the offering of such prayers on an
auspicious day[793]. Two very old inscriptions also suggest that the cult was
well distributed in Italy at an early period[794]. Such impersonations of
abstract ideas as Salus, Concordia, Pax, Spes, &c., do not belong to the
oldest stage of religion, but were no doubt of pontifical origin, i. e.
belonged to the later monarchy or early republic[795]. We need not suppose
that they were due to the importation of Greek cults and ideas, though in
some cases they became eventually overlaid with these. They were
generated by the same process as the gods of the Indigitamenta[796]—being
in fact an application to the life of the state of that peculiarly Roman type of
religious thought which conceived a distinct numen as presiding over every
act and suffering of the individual. This again, as I believe, in its product
the Indigitamenta, was an artificial priestly exaggeration of a very primitive
tendency to see a world of nameless spirits surrounding and influencing all
human life.
The history of the temple is interesting[797]. Not long after its dedication its
walls were painted by Gaius Fabius, consul in 269 B.C., whose descendants,
among them the historian, bore the name of Pictor, in commemoration of a
feat so singular for a Roman of that age[798]. It was struck by lightning no
less than four times, and burnt down in the reign of Claudius. Livy[799] tells
us that in 180 B.C., by order of the decemviri a supplicatio was held, in

consequence of a severe pestilence, in honour of Apollo, Aesculapius, and
Salus; which shows plainly that the goddess was already being transformed
into the likeness of the Greek ῾Υγίεια, and associated rather with public
health than with public wealth in the most general sense of the word.

vi Id. Sext. (Aug. 9). F. (allip.) NP. (amit. maff. etc.)

SOLI INDIGITI IN COLLE QUIRINALE. (AMIT. ALLIF.)

SOL[IS] INDIGITIS IN COLLE QUIRINALE SACRIFICIUM PUBLICUM. (VALL.)

There was an ancient worship of Sol on the Quirinal, which was believed to
be of Sabine origin. A Solis pulvinar close to the temple of Quirinus is
mentioned, and the Gens Aurelia was said to have had charge of the cult[800].
But the Sol of August 9 is called in the calendars Sol Indiges. What are we
to understand by this word, which appears in the names Di Indigetes,
Jupiter Indiges, or Indigetes simply? The Roman scholars themselves were
not agreed on the point; the general opinion was that it meant ‘of or
belonging to a certain place,’ i. e. fixed there by origin and protecting it[801].
This view has also been generally adopted, on etymological or other
grounds, by modern writers, including Preller[802]. Recently a somewhat
different explanation has been put forward in the Mythological Lexicon,
suggested by Reifferscheid in his lectures at Breslau. According to this
view, Indiges (from indu and root ag in agere) was a deity working in a
particular act, business, place, &c., of men’s activity, and in no other; it is of
pontifical origin, like its cognate indigitamenta, and is therefore not a
survival from the oldest religious forms[803].
The second of these explanations does not seem to help us to understand
what was meant by Sol Indiges; and its exponent in the Lexicon, in order to
explain this, falls back on an ingenious suggestion made long ago by
Preller. In dealing with Sol Indiges, Preller explained Indiges as = index,
and conjectured that the name was not given to Sol until after the eclipse
which foretold the death of Caesar, comparing the lines of Virgil (Georg. 1.
463 foll.):

Sol tibi signa dabit. Solem quis dicere falsum
Audeat? ille etiam caecos instare tumultus
Saepe monet, fraudemque et operta tumescere bella.
Ille etiam exstincto miseratus Caesare Romam:
Cum caput obscura nitidum ferrugine texit,
Impiaque aeternam timuerunt saecula noctem.

Preller may be right; and if he were, we should have no further trouble in
this case. In the pre-Julian calendar, on this hypothesis, the word Indiges
was absent. This is also the opinion of the last scholar who, so far as I
know, has touched the question; but Wissowa[804], with reason as I think,
reverts to the first explanation given above of the word Indiges (‘of or
belonging to a certain place’), and believes that the word, when added to
Sol in the Julian calendar, was simply meant to distinguish the real
indigenous Sun-god from foreign solar deities.

Prid. Id. Sext. (Aug. 12). C.

HERCULI INVICTO AD CIRCUM MAXIM[UM]. (ALLIF. AMIT.)

[HERCULI MAGNO CUSTODI IN CIRCO FLAMIN[IO] (VALL.) is generally taken as a
confusion with June 4[805].]

This is the only day to which we can ascribe, on the evidence of the
calendars, the yearly rites of the ara maxima, and of the aedes Herculis in
the Forum boarium. These two shrines were close together; the former just
at the entrance of the Circus maximus, the latter, as has been made clear by
a long series of researches, a little to the north-east of it[806]. We are led to
suppose that the two must have been closely connected in the cult, though
we are not explicitly informed on the point.
The round temple indicates a very ancient worship, as in the case of the
aedes Vestae, and the legends confirm this. The story of Hercules and
Cacus, the foundation-legend of the cult, whatever be its origin, shows a
priesthood of two ancient patrician families, the Potitii and Pinarii[807].
Appius Claudius, the censor of 312 B.C., is said to have bribed the Potitii,
the chief celebrants, to hand over their duties to public slaves[808]; but in the
yearly rites, consisting chiefly in the sacrifice of a heifer, these were
presided over by the praetor urbanus, whose connexion with the cult is
attested by inscriptions[809]. That there was at one time a reconstruction of
the cult, especially in the direction of Greek usage, seems indeed probable;
for the praetor wore a laurel wreath and sacrificed with his head uncovered
after the Greek fashion[810]. But there is enough about it that was genuine
Roman to prove that the foundation-legend had some of its roots in an
ancient cult; e. g. at the sacred meal which followed the previous sacrifice
in the evening, the worshippers did not lie down but sat, as was the most
ancient practice both in Greece and Italy[811]. Women were excluded, which
is in keeping with the Italian conception of Hercules as Genius, or the deity
of masculine activity[812]. The sacrifice was followed by a meal on the
remainder, which was perhaps an old practice in Italy, as in Greece. In this
feature, as in two others, we have a very interesting parallel with this cult,

which does not seem to have been noticed, in the prescription given by Cato
for the invocation of Mars on behalf of the farmer’s cattle[813]. After
prescribing the material of the offering to Mars Silvanus, he goes on as
follows: ‘Eam rem divinam vel servus, vel liber licebit faciat. Ubi res divina
facta erit, statim ibidem consumito. Mulier ad eam rem divinam ne adsit,
neve videat quomodo fiat. Hoc votum in annos singulos, si voles, licebit
vovere.’ Here we have the eating of the remainder[814], the exclusion of
women, and the participation in the cult by slaves; the exclusion of women
is very curious in this case, and seems to show that such a practice was not
confined to worships of a sexual character. It is also worth noting that just
as Cato’s formula invokes Mars Silvanus, so in Virgil’s description of the
cult of the ara maxima[815], we find one special feature of Mars-worship,
namely the presence of the Salii[816]. It is hardly possible to suppose that
Virgil here was guilty of a wilful confusion: is it possible, then, that in this
cult some form of Mars is hidden behind Hercules, and that the Hercules of
the ara maxima is not the Genius after all, as modern scholars have
persuaded themselves?
But what marks out this curious cult more especially from all others is the
practice of offering on the ara maxima ‘decumae’ or tithes, of booty,
commercial gains, sudden windfalls, and so on[817]. The custom seems to be
peculiar to this cult, though it is proved by inscriptions of Hercules-cults
elsewhere in Italy—e. g. at Sora near Arpinum, at Reate, Tibur, Capua and
elsewhere[818]. But these inscriptions, old as some of them are, cannot prove
that the practice they attest was not ultimately derived from Rome. At
Rome, indeed, there is no question about it; it is abundantly proved by
literary allusions, as well as by fragments of divine law[819]. Was it an urban
survival from an old Italian rural custom, or was it an importation from
elsewhere?
In favour of the first of these explanations is the fact that the offering of
first-fruits was common, if not universal, in rural Italy[820]. They are not,
indeed, known to have been offered specially to Hercules; but the date,
Aug. 12, of the sacrifice at Rome might suggest an original offering of the
first-fruits of the Roman ager, before the growth of the city had pushed
agriculture to some distance away. Now first-fruits are the oldest form of
tribute to a god as ‘the lord of the land,’ developing in due time into fixed
tithes as temple-ritual becomes more elaborate and expensive[821]. In their

primitive form they are found in all parts of the world, as Mr. Frazer has
shown us in an appendix to the second volume of his Golden Bough[822]. It is
certainly possible that in this way the August cult of the ara maxima may be
connected with the general character of the August festivals; that the
offering of the first-fruits of harvest gave way to a regulated system of
tithes[823], of which we find a survival in the offerings of the tenth part of
their booty by great generals like Sulla and Crassus. As the city grew, and
agriculture became less prominent than military and mercantile pursuits, the
practice passed into a form adapted to these—i. e. the decumae of military
booty or mercantile gain[824].
But there is another possibility which must at least be suggested. The myth
attached to the ara maxima and the Aventine, that of Hercules and Cacus,
stands alone among Italian stories, as the system of tithe-giving does among
Italian practices. We may be certain that the practice did not spring from the
myth; rather that an addition was made to the myth, when Hercules was
described as giving the tenth of his booty, in order to explain an unusual
practice. Yet myth and practice stand in the closest relation to each other,
and the strange thing about each is that it is unlike its Italian kindred.
Of late years it has become the fashion to claim the myth as genuine Italian,
in spite of its Graeco-Oriental character, on the evidence of comparative
mythology[825]: but no explanation is forthcoming of its unique character
among Italian myths, all of which have a marked practical tendency, and a
relation to some human institution such as the foundation of a city. They are
legends of human beings and practices: this is an elemental myth familiar in
different forms to the Eastern mind. Again, the Hercules of the myth has
nothing in common with the genuine Italian Hercules, whom we may now
accept as = genius, or the masculine principle—as may be seen from the
sorry lameness of the attempt to harmonize the two[826]. Beyond doubt there
was an Italian spirit or deity to whom the name Hercules was attached: but
there is no need to force all the forms of Hercules that meet us into exact
connexion with the genuine one. We have seen above that the Hercules of
the ara maxima may possibly have concealed Mars himself, in his original
form of a deity of cattle, pasture, and clearings. But there is yet another
possible explanation of this tangled problem.
The Roman form of the Cacus-myth, in which Cacus steals the cattle from
Hercules, and tries to conceal his theft by dragging them backwards into his

cave by their tails, has recently been found in Sicily depicted on a painted
vase, whither, as Professor Gardner has suggested, it may have been
brought by way of Cyprus by Phoenician traders[827]; and the inference of so
cautious an archaeologist is, apparently, that the myth may have found its
way from Sicily to the Tiber. Nothing can be more probable; for it is certain
that even before the eighth century B.C. the whole western coast of Italy was
open first to Phoenician trade and then to Greek. And we are interested to
find that the only other traces of the myth to be found in Italy are located in
places which would be open to the same influence. From Capua we have a
bronze vase on which is depicted what seems to be the punishment of Cacus
by Hercules[828]; and a fragment of the annalist Gellius gives a story
connecting Cacus with Campania, Etruria, and the East[829]. At Tibur also,
which claimed a Greek origin, there is a faint trace of the myth in an
inscription[830].
Now assuming for a moment that the myth was thus imported, is it
impossible that the anomalies of the cult should be foreign also? That one
of them at least which stands out most prominently is a peculiarly Semitic
institution; tithe-giving in its systematized form is found in the service of
that Melcarth who so often appears in Hellas as Herakles[831]. The
coincidence at the Aventine of the name, the myth, and the practice, is too
striking to be entirely passed over—especially if we cannot find certain
evidence of a pure Italian origin, and if we do find traces of all three where
Phoenicians and Greeks are known to have been. We may take it as not
impossible that the ara maxima was older than the traditional foundation of
Rome, and that its cult was originally not that of the characteristic Italian
Hercules, but of an adventitious deity established there by foreign
adventurers.

Id. Sext. (Aug. 13). NP.

FER[IAE] IOVI. (AMIT. ALLIF.)

DIANAE IN AVENTINO. (AMIT. VALL. ANT. ALLIF.)

SACRUM DEANAE. (RUST.) NATALIS DIANES. (PHILOC.)

VORTUMNO IN AVENTINO. (AMIT. ALLIF.)

HERC[ULI] INVICTO AD PORTAM TRIGEMINAM. (ALLIF.)

CASTORI POLLUCI IN CIRCO FLAMINIO. (AMIT. ALLIF.)

FLORAE AD C[IRCUM] MAXIMUM. (ALLIF.)

All Ides, as we have seen, were sacred to Jupiter; and it does not seem that
there is here any further significance in the note ‘feriae Iovi.’ Though there
was a conjunction here of many cults, this day was best known as that of
the dedication of the temple of Diana on the Aventine, which was
traditionally ascribed to Servius Tullius. There are interesting features in
this cult, and indeed in the worship of this goddess throughout Latium and
Italy. For the most famous of all her cults, that of Aricia[832], I need only
refer to Mr. Frazer’s Golden Bough—the most elaborate and convincing
examination of any ancient worship that has yet appeared. Of the goddess in
general it will be sufficient to say here that whatever be the etymology of
her name or the earliest conception of her nature—and both are very far
from certain—she was for the old Latins second only to Jupiter Latiaris in
the power she exercised of uniting communities together and so working in
the cause of civilization. This was the ease with the cult on the Aventine, as
it was also with that at Aricia[833].
About the political origin of the temple on the Aventine tradition was
explicit[834]. Livy says that Servius Tullius persuaded the chiefs of the Latins
to build a temple of Diana in conjunction with the Romans; and Varro calls
it ‘commune Latinorum Dianae templum.’ The ‘lex templi,’ or ordinance
for the common worship of Romans and Latins, was seen by Dionysius—so

he declares—written in Greek characters and preserved in the temple[835].
The horns of a cow[836], hung up in front of this temple, gave rise to legends,
one of which is preserved by Livy, and seems to bring the Sabines also into
the connexion. This temple was, then, from the beginning in some sense
extra-Roman, i. e. did not belong to the purely Roman gentile worship. And
it had other characteristics of the same kind; it was specially connected with
the Plebs and with slaves, and as, in the case of the neighbouring temple at
Ceres, there was a Greek character in the cult from the beginning.
I. The Connexion with the Plebs. The position on the Aventine would of
itself be some evidence of a non-patrician origin; so also the traditional
ascription to Servius Tullius as the founder. More direct evidence seems
wanting[837], but it is not impossible that the temple marks a settlement of
Latins in this part of the city.
II. The Connexion with Slaves. The day was a holiday for slaves[838], perhaps
after the work of harvest. There was one other Latin goddess, Feronia, who
was especially beloved by emancipated slaves[839]; and as Feronia was a
deity both of markets and harvests, there is something to be said for the
suggestion[840] that both slave holidays and slave emancipation would find a
natural place on occasions of this kind. It would seem also that this temple
was an asylum for runaway or criminal slaves—a fact which slips out in
Festus’ curious reproduction of a gloss of Verrius Flaccus[841]: ‘Servorum
dies festus vulgo existimatur Idus Aug., quod eo die Servius Tullius, natus
servus, aedem Dianae dedicaverit in Aventino, cuius tutelae sint cervi, a quo
celeritate fugitivos vocent servos.’ The stag, as the favourite beast of Diana,
may perhaps have a Greek origin; but the inference from the false
etymology remains the same.
III. The Greek Character in the Cult. As in the case of Ceres, the temple-
foundations of this age might naturally have a Greek character, owing to the
foreign relations of the Etruscan dynasty in Rome[842]. We have already
noticed the lex templi, said to have been written in Greek characters. It is a
still more striking fact that there was in this temple a ξόανον, or wooden
statue of Diana, closely resembling that of Artemis at Massilia, which was
itself derived from the famous temple at Ephesus[843]. The transference to
Diana of the characteristics of Artemis was no doubt quite natural and easy;
for, hard as it is to distinguish the Greek and Italian elements in the cult, we
know enough of some at least of the latter to be sure that they would easily

lend themselves to a Greek transformation. This transformation must have
begun at a very early period, for in B.C. 398 we find Diana already
associated with Apollo and Latona, in the first lectisternium celebrated at
Rome, where she certainly represented Artemis[844].
On the whole this temple and its cult seem a kind of anticipation of the
great temple on the Capitol, in marking an advance in the progress of Rome
from the narrow life of a small city-state to a position of influence in
Western Italy. The advance of the Plebs, the emancipation of slaves, the
new relations with Latin cities, and the introduction of Greek religious ideas
are all reflected here. New threads are being woven into the tissue of
Roman social and political life.
The close relation of Diana to human life is not very difficult to explain.
Like Fortuna, Juno Lucina, Bona Dea, and others, she was a special object
of the worship of women; she assisted the married woman at childbirth[845];
and on this day the Roman women made a special point of washing their
heads[846]—an unusual performance, perhaps, which has been explained by
reference to the sanctity of the head among primitive peoples[847]. But
Diana, like Silvanus, with whom she is found in connexion[848], was no
doubt originally a spirit of holy trees and woods, i. e. of wild life generally,
who became gradually reclaimed and brought into friendly and useful
relations with the Italian farmer, his wife, and his cattle[849].
This was also the dies natalis of another temple on the Aventine, that of
Vortumnus, which was dedicated in B.C. 264 by the consul M. Fulvius
Flaccus[850]. About the character of this god there is fortunately no doubt.
Literature here comes to our aid, as it too rarely does: Propertius[851]
describes him elaborately as presiding over gardens and fruit, and Ovid[852]
tells a picturesque story of his love for Pomona the fruit-goddess, whose
antiquity at Rome is proved by the fact that she had a flamen of her own[853].
The date, August 13, when the fruit would be ripe, suits well enough with
all we know of Vortumnus.
The god had a bronze statue in the Vicus Tuscus, and perhaps for that
reason was believed to have come to Rome from Etruria[854]. But his name,
like Picumnus, is beyond doubt Latin, and may be supposed to indicate the
turn or change in the year at the fruit-season[855]; and if he really was an

immigrant, which is possible, his original cult in Etruria was not Etruscan
proper, but old Italian.
Three other dedications are mentioned in the calendars as occurring on Aug.
13: to Hercules invictus ad portam trigeminam; to Castor and Pollax in
circo Flaminio; and to Flora ad circum maximum. Of these cults nothing of
special interest is known, and the deities are treated of in other parts of this
work.

xvi Kal. Sept. (Aug. 17). NP.

PORT[UNALIA]. (MAFF. AMIT. VALL.)
TIBERINALIA. (PHILOC.)
FERIAE PORTUNO. (AMIT. ANT.)
PORTUNO AD PONTEM AEMILIUM. (AMIT. VALL. ALLIF.)
IANO AD THEATRUM MARCELLI. (VALL. ALLIF.)

Who was Portunus, and why was his festival in August? Why was it at the
Pons Aemilius, and where was that bridge? Can any connexion be found
between this and the other August rites? These questions cannot be
answered satisfactorily; the scraps of evidence are too few and too doubtful.
We have here to do with another ancient deity, who survives in the
calendars only, and in the solitary record that he had a special flamen. This
flamen might be a plebeian[856], which seems to suit with the character of
other cults in the district by the Tiber, and may perhaps point to a somewhat
later origin than that of the most ancient city worships.
There are but two or three texts which help us to make an uncertain guess at
the nature of Portunus. Varro[857] wrote ‘Portunalia et Portuno, quoi eo die
aedes in portu Tiberino facta et feriae institutae.’ Mommsen takes the portus
here as meaning Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber, and imagines a yearly
procession thither from Rome on this day[858]. This of course is pure
hypothesis; but if, as he insists, portus is rarely or never used for a city
wharf on a river such as that at Rome, we may perhaps accept it
provisionally; but in doing so we have to yield another point to Mommsen,
viz. the identity of Portunus and Tiberinus. In the very late calendar of
Philocalus this day is called Tiberinalia, and from this Mommsen infers the
identity of the two deities[859].
But it may be that the original Portunus had no immediate connexion either
with river or harbour. We find a curious but mutilated note in the Veronese
commentary on Virgil[860]: ‘Portunus, ut Varro ait, deus port[uum
porta]rumque praeses. Quare huius dies festus Portunalia, qua apud veteres
claves in focum add ... mare institutum.’ Huschke[861] here conjectured

‘addere et infumare,’ and inferred that we should see in Portunus the god of
the gates and keys which secured the stock of corn, &c., in storehouses.
Wild as this writer’s conjectures usually are, in this case it seems to me
possible that he has hit the mark. If the words ‘claves in focum’ are genuine,
as they seem to be, we can hardly avoid the conclusion that something was
done to keys on this day; perhaps the old keys of very hard wood were held
in the fire to harden them afresh[862]. It is worth noting that according to
Verrius[863] Portunus was supposed ‘clavim manu tenere et deus esse
portarum.’ This would suit very well with harvest-time, when barns and
storehouses would be repaired and their gates and fastenings looked to—
more especially as it is not unlikely that the word portus originally meant a
safe place of any kind, and only as civilization advanced became specially
appropriated to harbours[864]. This appropriation may have come about
through the medium of storehouses near the Tiber; and it was long ago
suggested by Jordan that these were under the particular care of
Portunus[865].
If Portunus were really a god of keys and doors and storehouses, it would
be natural to look for some close relation between him and Janus. But what
can be adduced in favour of such a relation does not amount to much[866];
and it may have been merely by accident that this was the dedication-day of
a temple of Janus ‘ad theatrum Marcelli’[867].

xiv Kal. Sept. (Aug. 19). FP. (MAFF. AMIT.) F.

(ANT. ALLIF.) NP. (VALL.[868])

VIN[ALIA]. (MAFF. VALL. AMIT. ETC.)
FERIAE IOVI. (ALLIF.)

VENERI AD CIRCUM MAXIMUM. (VALL.)

The ‘Aedes Veneris ad Circum Maximum’ alluded to in the Fasti Vallenses
was dedicated in 295 B.C., and the building was begun at the expense of
certain matrons who were fined for adultery[869]. As has been already
explained, no early connexion can be proved between Venus and wine or
the vintage[870]; though both August 19 and April 23, the days of the two
Vinalia, were dedication-days of temples of the goddess.
The difficult question of the two festivals called Vinalia has been touched
upon under April 23. The one in August was known as Vinalia Rustica[871],
and might naturally be supposed to be concerned with the ripening grapes.
It has been conjectured[872] that it was on this day, which one calendar marks
as a festival of Jupiter, that the Flamen Dialis performed the auspicatio
vindemiae, i. e. plucked the first grapes, and prayed and sacrificed for the
safety of the whole crop[873]. If it be argued that August 23 was too early a
date for such a rite, since the vintage was never earlier than the middle of
September, we may remember that the Vestal Virgins plucked the first ears
of corn as early as the first half of May for the purpose of making sacred
cakes, some weeks before the actual harvest[874].
But it is certainly possible that both Vinalia have to do with wine, and not
with the vintage. Festus says that this day was a festival because the new
wine was then first brought into the city[875]; and this does not conflict with
Varro[876], who tells us that on this day fiunt feriati olitores—for it would
naturally be a day of rejoicing for the growers. Mommsen, with some
reason, refers these passages to the later custom of not opening the wine of
the last vintage for a year[877], in which case the year must be understood

roughly as from October to August. He would, in fact, explain this second
Vinalia as instituted when this later and more luxurious custom arose, the
old rule of a six months’ period surviving in the April ceremony. If we ask
why the August Vinalia are called Rustica, Mommsen answers that the
country growers were now at liberty to bring in their wine.
It is difficult to decide between these conflicting views. When an authority
like Mommsen bids us beware of connecting the Vinalia Rustica with the
auspicatio vindemiae, we feel that it is at our peril that we differ from him.
He is evidently quite unable to look upon such a date as August 19 as in any
way associated with the vintage which followed some weeks later. Yet I
cannot help thinking, that this association is by no means impossible; for
the grapes would by this time be fully formed on the vines, and the next few
weeks would be an anxious time for the growers[878]. Ceremonies like that of
the Auspicatio, intended to avert from crops the perils of storm or disease,
are known sometimes to take place when the crops are still unripe. I have
already alluded to the proceedings of the Vestals in May. Mr. Frazer, in an
Appendix to his Golden Bough[879], gives a curious instance of this kind
from Tonga in the Pacific Ocean, where what we may call the auspicatio of
the Yam-crop took place before the whole crop was fit for gathering. It was
celebrated ‘just before the yams in general are arrived at a state of maturity;
those which are used in this ceremony being planted sooner than others, and
consequently they are the firstfruits of the yam season. The object of this
offering is to ensure the protection of the gods, that their favour may be
extended to the welfare of the nation generally and in particular to the
productions of the earth, of which yams are the most important.’

xii Kal. Sept. (Aug. 21). NP.

CONS[UALIA]. (PINC. MAFF. VALL. ETC.)
CONSO IN AVENTINO SACRIFICIUM. (VALL.)

There was a second festival of Consus on Dec. 15; but the note ‘Conso in
Aventino’ there appears three days earlier, Dec. 12. The temple on the
Aventine was a comparatively late foundation[880]; but as the cult of this old
god became gradually obscured, it seems to have been confused with the
most ancient centre of Consus-worship, the underground altar in the Circus
maximus, ‘ad primas metas’[881]. It is with this latter that we must connect
the two Consualia. What the altar was like we do not exactly know; it was
only uncovered on the festival days. Dionysius calls it a τέμενος, Servius a
‘templum sub tecto’; and Tertullian, who explicitly says that it was ‘sub
terra,’ asserts that there was engraved on it the following inscription:
‘Consus consilio, Mars duello, Lares coillo[882] potentes.’ Wissowa remarks
that this statement ‘is not free from suspicion’; and we may take it as pretty
certain that if it was really there it was not very ancient. The false
etymology of Consus, and the connexion of Mars with war, both show the
hand of some comparatively late interpreter of religion; and the form of the
inscription, nominative and descriptive, is most suspiciously abnormal.
For the true etymology of Consus we are, strange to say, hardly in doubt;
and it helps us to conjecture the real origin of this curious altar. Consus is
connected with ‘condere’[883], and may be interpreted as the god of the
stored-up harvest; the buried altar will thus be a reminiscence of the very
ancient practice—sometimes of late suggested as worth reviving for hay—
of storing the corn underground[884]. Or if this practice cannot be proved of
ancient Italy, we may aptly remember that sacrifices to chthonic deities
were sometimes buried; a practice which may in earliest times have given
rise to the connexion of such gods with wealth—when agricultural produce
rather than the precious metals was the common form of wealth[885]. Or
again we may combine the two interpretations, and guess that the corn

stored up underground was conceived as in some sense sacrificed to the
chthonic deities.
If these views of the altar are correct, we might naturally infer that the
Consualia in August was a harvest festival of some kind. Plutarch[886] asks
why at the Consualia horses and asses have a holiday and are decked out
with flowers; and such a custom would suit excellently with harvest-home.
Unluckily in the only trace of this custom preserved in the calendars, it is
attributed to the December festival, and is so mutilated as to be useless for
detail[887].

FERIAE CONSO EQUI ET [MULI FLORIBUS CORONANTUR].
QUOD IN EIUS TU[TELA SUNT].
[ITA]QUE REX EQUO [VECTUS].

The amplifications here are Mommsen’s, the first two based on Plutarch’s
statement. It is a difficulty, as regards the first, that the middle of December
would be a bad time for flowers: perhaps this did not occur to the great
scholar. I would suggest that either Verrius’ note is here accidentally
misplaced, or that the lacunae must be filled up differently. In any case I do
not think we need fear to refer Plutarch’s passage to the Consualia of
August, and therefore to harvest rejoicings on that day.
The connexion of the Consus-cult with horses was so obvious as to give rise
eventually to the identification of the god with Poseidon Hippios. It is
certain that there were horse-races in the Circus maximus at one of the two
Consualia, and as Dionysius[888] connects them with the day of the Rape of
the Sabines, which Plutarch puts in August, we may be fairly sure that they
took place at the August festival. Mules also raced—according to Festus[889],
because they were said to be the most ancient beasts of burden. This looks
like a harvest festival, and may carry us back to the most primitive
agricultural society and explain the origin of the Circus maximus; for the
only other horse-races known to us from the old calendar were those of
Mars in the Campus Martius on Feb. 27 and March 13[890]. We may suppose
that when the work of harvest was done, the farmers and labourers enjoyed
themselves in this way and laid the foundation for a great Roman social
institution[891].

Once more, it is not impossible that in the legendary connexion of the Rape
of the Sabine women with the Consualia[892] we may see a reflection of the
jollity and license which accompanies the completion of harvest among so
many peoples. Romulus was said to have attracted the Sabines by the first
celebration of the Consualia. Is it not possible that the meeting of
neighbouring communities on a festive occasion of this kind may have been
a favourable opportunity for capturing new wives[893]? The sexual license
common on such occasions has been abundantly illustrated by Mr. Frazer in
his Golden Bough[894].
Before leaving the Consualia we may just remark that Consus had no
flamen of his own, in spite of his undoubted antiquity; doubtless because
his altar was underground, and only opened once or perhaps twice a year.
On August 21 his sacrifice was performed, says Tertullian[895], by the
Flamen Quirinalis in the presence of the Vestals. This flamen seems to have
had a special relation to the corn-crops, for it was he who also sacrificed a
dog to Robigus on April 25[896], to avert the mildew from them; and thus we
get one more confirmation from the cult of the view taken as to the
agricultural origin of the Consualia.

x Kal. Sept. (Aug. 23). NP.

VOLCANALIA. (PINC. MAFF. VALL. ETC.)
VOLCANO IN CIRCO FLAMINIO. (VALL.)
VOLCANO. (PINC.)

(A mutilated fragment of the calendar of the Fratres Arvales gives QUIR[INO]
IN COLLE, VOLK[ANO] IN COMIT[IO]. OPI OPIFERÆ IN ..., [NYMP]HIS(?) IN CAMPO).

Of the cult of this day, apart from the extracts from the calendars, we know
nothing, except that the heads of Roman families threw into the fire certain
small fish with scales, which were to be had from the Tiber fishermen at the
‘area Volcani’[897]. We cannot explain this; but it reminds us of the fish
called maena, with magical properties, which the old woman offered to
Tacita and the ghost-world at the Parentalia[898]. Fish-sacrifices were rare;
and if in one rite fish are used to propitiate the inhabitants of the
underworld, they seem not inappropriate in another of which the object is
apparently to propitiate the fire-god, who in a volcanic country like that of
Rome must surely be a chthonic deity.
The antiquity of the cult of Volcanus is shown by the fact that there was a
Flamen Volcanalis[899], who on May 1 sacrificed to Maia, the equivalent, as
we saw, of Bona Dea, Terra, &c. With Volcanus we may remember that
Maia was coupled in the old prayer formula preserved by Gellius (13.23)—
Maia Volcani. From these faint indications Preller[900] conjectured that the
original notion of Volcanus was that of a favouring nature-spirit, perhaps of
the warmth and fertilizing power of the earth. However this may be, in later
times, under influences which can only be guessed at, he became a hostile
fire-god, hard to keep under control. Of this aspect of him Wissowa has
written concisely at the conclusion of his little treatise de Feriis. He
suggests that the appearance of the nymphs[901] in the rites of this day
indicates the use of water in conflagrations, and that Ops Opifera was
perhaps invoked to protect her own storehouses. The name Volcanus

became a poetical word for devouring fire as early as the time of Ennius,
and is familiar to us in this sense in Virgil[902]. After the great fire at Rome in
Nero’s time a new altar was erected to Volcanus by Domitian, at which (and
at all Volcanalia) on this day a red calf and a boar were offered for
sacrifice[903]. At Ostia the cult became celebrated; there was an ‘aedes’ and a
‘pontifex Volcani’ and a ‘praetor sacris Volcani faciundis.’ In August the
storehouses at Ostia would be full of new grain arrived from Sicily, Africa,
and Egypt, and in that hot month would be especially in danger from fire;
an elaborate cult of Volcanus the fire-god was therefore at this place
particularly desirable.
The aedes Volcani in circo Flaminio was dedicated before 215 B.C.; the
exact date is not known[904]. Its position was explained by Vitruvius[905] as
having the object of keeping conflagrations away from the city. Mr. Jevons,
in his Introduction to a translation of Plutarch’s Quaestiones Romanae[906],
has argued from this position, outside the pomoerium, and from a doubtful
etymology, that the cult of Volcanus was a foreign introduction; but the
position of the temple is no argument, as has been well shown by Aust[907],
and the chief area Volcani, or Volcanal, was in the Comitium, in the heart of
the city[908].

ix Kal. Sept. (Aug. 24). Mundus Patet.

This does not appear in the calendars. We learn from Festus[909] that on this
day, on Oct. 5, and Nov. 8, the ‘mundus’ was open. This mundus was a
round pit on the Palatine, the centre of Roma quadrata[910]—the concave
hollow being perhaps supposed to correspond to the concave sky above[911].
It was closed, so it was popularly believed, by a ‘lapis manalis’ (Festus s.
v.). When this was removed, on the three days there was supposed to be free
egress for the denizens of the underworld[912].
I am much inclined to see in this last idea a later Graeco-Etruscan accretion
upon a very simple original fact. O. Müller long ago suggested this—
pointing out that in Plutarch’s description of the foundation of Roma
quadrata the casting into the trench of first-fruits of all necessaries of life
gives us a clue to the original meaning of the mundus. If we suppose that it
was the penus of the new city—a sacred place, of course—used for storing
grain, we can see why it should be open on Aug. 24[913]. Nor is it difficult to
understand why, when the original use and meaning had vanished, the
Graeco-Etruscan doctrine of the underworld should be engrafted on this
simple Roman stem. Dis and Proserpina claim the mundus: it is ‘ianua
Orci,’ ‘faux Plutonis’[914]—ideas familiar to Romans who had come under
the spell of Etruscan religious beliefs.

viii Kal. Sept. (Aug. 25). NP.

OPIC[ONSIVIA]. (ALLIF. MAFF. VALL.)
OPICID. (PINC.) The last two letters must be a cutter’s error.

Feriae Opi; Opi Consiv. in Regia. (Arv.) The last four words seem to belong
to Aug. 26 (see Mommsen ad loc.).

This festival follows that of Consus after an interval of three days; and
Wissowa[915] has pointed out that in December the same interval occurs
between the Consualia (15th) and the Opalia (19th). This and the epithet or
cognomen Consiva, which is fully attested[916], led him to fancy that Ops
was the wife of Consus, and not the wife of Saturnus, as has been generally
supposed both in ancient and modern times[917]. We may agree with him that
there is no real evidence for any primitive connexion of Saturnus and Ops
of this kind; as far as we can tell the idea was adopted from the relation of
Cronos and Rhea. But there was no need to find any husband for Ops; the
name Consiva need imply no such relation, any more than Lua Saturni,
Moles Martis, Maia Volcani, and the rest[918], or the Tursa Iovia of the
Iguvian inscription so often quoted. Both adjectival and genitive forms are
in my view no more than examples of the old Italian instinct for covering as
much ground as possible in invoking supernatural powers[919]; and this is
again a result of the indistinctness with which those powers were
conceived, in regard both to their nature and function. A distinct
specialization of function was, I am convinced, the later work of the
pontifices. Ops and Consus are obviously closely related; and Wissowa is
probably right in treating the one as a deity ‘messis condendae,’ and the
other as representing the ‘opima frugum copia quae horreis conditur.’ But
when he goes further than this, his arguments ring hollow[920].
Of the ritual of the Opiconsivia we know only what Varro tells us[921]:
‘Opeconsiva dies ab dea Ope Consiva, quoius in Regia sacrarium, quod
ideo actum (so MSS.) ut eo praeter Virgines Vestales et sacerdotem
publicum introeat nemo.’ Many conjectures have been made for the

correction of ‘quod ideo actum’[922]; but the real value of the passage does
not depend on these words. The Regia is the king’s house, and represents
that of the ancient head of the family: the sacrarium Opis was surely then
the sacred penus of that house—the treasury of the fruits of the earth on
which the family subsisted. It suits admirably with this view that, as Varro
says, only the Vestals and a ‘publicus sacerdos’ were allowed to enter it—i.
e. the form was retained from remote antiquity that the daughters of the
house were in charge of it[923]—the master of the house being here
represented by the sacerdos—the rex sacrorum or a pontifex. In this
connexion it is worth while to quote a passage of Columella[924] which
seems to be derived from some ancient practice of the rural household: ‘Ne
contractentur pocula vel cibi nisi aut ab impube aut certe abstinentissimo
rebus venereis, quibus si fuerit operatus vel vir vel femina debere eos
flumine aut perenni aqua priusquam penora contingant ablui. Propter quod
his necessarium esse pueri vel virginis ministerium, per quos promantur
quae usus postulaverit.’

vi Kal. Sept. (Aug. 27). NP.

VOLT[URNALIA]. (ALLIF. MAFF. VALL.)
FERIAE VOLTURNO. (ARV. INTER ADDITA POSTERIORA.)

VOLTURNO FLUMINI SACRIFICIUM. (VALL.)

Of this very ancient and perhaps obsolete rite nothing seems to have been
known to the later Latin scholars, or they did not think it worth comment.
Varro mentions a Flamen Volturnalis, but tells us nothing about him. From
the occurrence of the name for a river in Campania it may be guessed that
the god in this case was a river also; and if so, it must be the Tiber. This is
Mommsen’s conclusion, and the only difficulty he finds in it is that (in his
view) Portunus is also the Tiber[925]. Why did he not see that the same river-
god, even if bearing different names, could hardly have two flamines? I am
content to see in Volturnus an old name for the Tiber, signifying the winding
snake-like river[926], and in Portunus a god of storehouses, as I have
explained above.
Here, then, we perhaps have a trace of the lost cult of the Tiber, which
assuredly must have existed in the earliest times—and the flamen is the
proof of its permanent importance. When the name was changed to Tiber
we do not know, nor whether ‘Albula’ marks an intermediate stage between
the two; but that this was the work of the pontifices seems likely from
Servius[927], who writes ‘Tiberinus ... a pontificibus indigitari solet.’ Of a
god Tiberinus there is no single early record.
It should just be mentioned that Jordan[928], relying on Lucretius, 5. 745,
thought it probable that Volturnus might be a god of whirlwinds; and
Huschke[929] has an even wilder suggestion, which need not here be
mentioned.

MENSIS SEPTEMBER.

The Calendar of this month is almost a blank. Only the Kalends, Nones and
Ides are marked in the large letters with which we have become familiar; no
other festival is here associated with a special deity. But the greater part of
the month is occupied with the ludi Romani (5th to 19th)[930], and the 13th
(Ides), as we know from two Calendars, was not only, like all Ides, sacred
to Jupiter, but was distinguished as the day of the famous ‘epulum Jovis,’
and also as the dies natalis of the great Capitoline temple.
The explanation of the absence of great festivals in this month is
comparatively simple. September was for the Italian farmer, and therefore
for the primitive Roman agricultural community, a period of comparative
rest from urgent labour and from religious duties; for no operations were
then going on which called for the invocation of special deities to favour
and protect. A glance at the rustic calendars will show this well enough[931].
The messes which figure in July and August have come to an end, and the
vintage does not appear until October. There is of course work to be done,
as always, but it is the easy work of the garden and orchard. ‘Dolia
picantur: poma legunt: arborum oblaqueatio.’ Varro, who divides the year
for agricultural purposes into eight irregular periods, has little to say of the
fifth of these, i. e. that which preceded the autumn equinox. ‘Quinto
intervallo inter caniculam et aequinoctium autumnale oportet stramenta
desecari, et acervos construi, aratro offringi, frondem caedi, prata irrigua
iterum secari[932].’
This was also the time when military work would be coming to an end. In
early times there were of course no lengthy campaigns; and such fighting as
there was, the object of which would be to destroy your enemies’ crops and
harvest, would as a rule be over in August. Even in later times, when
campaigns were longer, the same would usually be the case; and the
performance of vows made by the generals in the field, and also their

vacation of office, would naturally fall in this month. We find, in fact, that
the ludi which occupied so large a number of September days, had their
origin in the performance of the vota of kings or consuls after the close of
the wars[933]; and we have evidence that the Ides of September was the day
on which the earliest consuls laid down their office[934]. There was, in fact,
every opportunity for a lengthened time of ease; the people were at leisure
and in good temper after harvest and victory; even the horses which took
part in the games were home from war service or resting from their labours
on the farm[935].
It is not strictly within the scope of this work to describe the ludi Romani,
which in their fully organized form were of comparatively late date; but
their close connexion with the cult of Jupiter affords an opportunity for
some remarks on that most imposing of all the Roman worships.
The ludi Romani came in course of time, as has been said above, to extend
from the 5th to the 19th; they spread out in fact on each side of the Ides[936],
the day on which took place the ‘epulum Jovis’ in the Capitoline temple. As
this day was also the dies natalis of the same temple, and that on which the
nail was driven into the wall of the cella Jovis[937], we have a very close
connexion between the ludi and the cult of Jupiter. The link is to be found in
the fact that in the ludi votivi, which were developed into ludi Romani, the
vows were made and paid to the supreme god of the State[938]. We have from
a later time the formula of such a vow preserved by Livy[939]. ‘Si duellum
quod cum rege Antiocho sumi populus iussit id ex sententia senatus
populique Romani confectum erit, tum tibi, Iuppiter, populus Romanus
ludos magnos dies decem continuos faciet, donaque ad omnia pulvinaria
dabuntur de pecunia, quantam senatus decreverit: quisquis magistratus eos
ludos quando ubique faxit, hi ludi recte facti donaque data recte sunto.’
The epulum Jovis, thus occurring in the middle of the ludi, is believed by
some writers to have originally belonged to the Ides of November and to the
ludi plebeii, as it does not happen to be alluded to by Livy in connexion
with the ludi Romani, and our first notice of it in September is in the
Augustan calendars[940]. But it is surely earlier than B.C. 230, the received
date of the ludi plebeii, and of the circus Flaminius in which they took
place. We may agree with the latest investigator of the Jupiter-cult that the
origin of the epulum is to be looked for in a form of thanksgiving to Jupiter
for the preservation of the state from the perils of the war season, and that

no better day could be found for it than the foundation-day of the Capitoline
temple[941]. This epulum was one of the most singular and striking scenes in
Roman public life. It began with a sacrifice; the victim is not mentioned,
but was no doubt a heifer, and probably a white one[942]. Then took place the
epulum proper[943], which the three deities of the Capitol seem to have
shared in visible form with the magistrates and senate. The images of the
gods were decked out as for a feast, and the face of Jupiter painted red with
minium, like that of the triumphator. Jupiter had a couch, and Juno and
Minerva each a sella, and the meal went on in their presence[944].
Now an investigator of the Roman religious system is here confronted with
a difficult problem. Was this simply a Greek practice like that of the
lectisternium, and one which began with the Etruscan dynasty and the
foundation of the Capitoline temple with its triad of deities? Or is it possible
that in the cult of the Roman Jupiter there was of old a common feast of
some kind, shared by gods and worshippers, on which this gorgeous ritual
was eventually grafted?
Marquardt has gone so far as to separate the epulum Jovis altogether from
the lectisternia, and apparently also from the inundation of Greek
influence[945]. It answers rather, he says, to such domestic rites as the
offering to Jupiter Dapalis described thus by Cato in the De Re Rustica[946]:
‘Dapem hoc modo fieri oportet. Iovi dapali culignam vini quantum vis
polluceto. Eo die feriae bubus et bubulcis, et qui dapem facient. Cum
pollucere oportebit, sic facies. Iupiter dapalis, quod tibi fieri oportet, in
domo familia mea culignam vini dapi, eius rei ergo macte hac illace dape
pollucenda esto. Manus interluito. Postea vinum sumito. Iupiter dapalis,
macte istace dape pollucenda esto. Macte vino inferio esto. Vestae, si voles,
dato[947]. Daps Iovi assaria pecuina, urna vini lovis caste.’
I confess that I do not see wherein lies the point of the comparison of this
passage with the ceremony of the epulum; and Marquardt himself does not
attempt to elaborate it. There is no mention here of a visible presence of
Jupiter in the form of an image, which is the one striking feature of the
epulum. Marquardt, as it seems to me, might better have adduced some
example from old Italian usage of the belief that the gods were spiritually
present at a common religious meal—a belief on which might easily be
engrafted the practice of presenting them there in actual iconic form. Ovid,
for example, writes thus of the cult of the Sabine Vacuna[948]:

Ante focos olim scamnis considere longis
Mos erat, et mensae credere adesse deos.
Nunc quoque cum fiunt antiquae sacra Vacunae,
Ante Vacunales stantque sedentque focos.

Or again in the sacra of the curiae, if Dionysius reports them rightly[949], we
find a clear case of a common meal in which the gods took part. He tells us
that he saw tables in the ‘sacred houses’ of the curiae spread for the gods
with simple food in very primitive earthenware dishes. He does not mention
the presence of any images of the gods, but it is probable from his
interesting description that each curia partook with its gods of a common
meal of a religious character, and one not likely to have come under Greek
influence[950].
This last example may suggest a hypothesis which is at least not likely to do
any serious harm. Let it be remembered that each curia was a constituent
part of the whole Roman community. We might naturally expect to find a
common religious meal of the same kind in which the whole state took part
through its magistrates and senate. This is just what we do find in the
epulum Jovis, though the character of its ceremonial is different; and it is
certainly possible that this epulum had its origin in a feast like that which
Dionysius saw, but one which afterwards underwent vital changes at the
hands of the Etruscan dynasty of Roman kings. I am strongly inclined to
believe that it was under the influence of these kings that the meal came to
take place on the Capitol, and in the temple of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva,
which they intended to be the new centre of the Roman dominion[951]; and to
them also I would ascribe the presence at the feast of the three deities in
iconic form. It may be that before that critical era in Roman history the
epulum took place not on the Capitol but in the Regia, which with the
temple of Vesta hard by formed the oldest centre of the united Rome; and
that the presence of Jupiter[952] or any other god was there a matter of belief,
like that of Vacuna with the Sabines, and not of the actual evidence of
eyesight.
But this conjecture is a somewhat bold one; and it seems worth while to
take this opportunity of examining more closely into the cult of Jupiter,
with the object of determining whether the great god was apt, in any part of

Italy but Etruria, to lend himself easily to anthropomorphic ideas and
practices[953].
The cult of Jupiter is found throughout Italy under several forms of the
same name, with or without the suffix -piter = pater, which, so far as we can
guess, points to a conception of the god as protector, if not originator, of a
stock. This paternal title, which was applied to other deities also, does not
necessarily imply an early advance beyond the ‘daemonistic’ conception of
divine beings; it rather suggests that some one such being had been brought
into peculiarly close relations with a particular stock, and does no more than
indicate a possibility of further individual development in the future[954]. The
‘father’ in this case has no wife, though we find the word ‘mater’ applied to
goddesses[955]; Juno is undoubtedly the female principle, but she is not, as
has so often been imagined, the wife of Jupiter. The attempt to prove this by
arguing from the Flamen Dialis and his wife the Flaminica cannot succeed:
the former was the priest of Jupiter, but his wife was not the priestess of
Juno[956]. There is indeed a certain mysterious dualism of male and female
among the old Italian divinities, as we know from the locus classicus in
Gellius (N. A. 13. 23. 2); but we are not entitled to say that the relation was
a conjugal one[957].
Before we proceed to examine traces of the oldest Jupiter in Rome and
Latium let us see what survivals are to be found in other parts of Italy.
In Umbria we find Jovis holding the first place among the gods of the great
inscription of Iguvium, which beyond doubt retains the primitive features of
the cult, though it dates probably from the last century B.C., and records rites
which indicate a fully developed city-life[958]. His cult-titles here are
Grabovius, of which the meaning is still uncertain, and Sancius, which
brings him into connexion with the Semo Sancus and Dius Fidius of the
Romans. The sacrifices and prayers are elaborately recorded, but there is no
trace in the ritual of anything approaching to an anthropomorphic
conception of the god, unless it be the apparent mention of a temple[959]. No
image is mentioned, and there is no sign of a common meal. The titles of
the deities too have the common old-Italian fluidity, i. e. the same title
belongs to more than one deity[960]. Everything points to a stage of religious
thought in which the personality of gods had no distinct place. The centre-
point of the cult seems to be a hill, the ocris fisius, within the town of
Iguvium, which reminds us of the habits of the Greek Zeus and the physical

or elemental character—unanthropomorphized—which seems to belong to
that earlier stage in his worship[961].
It is on a hill also that we find the cult among the Sabellians. An inscription
from Rapino in the land of the Marrucini tells us of a festal procession in
honour of ‘Iovia Ioves patres ocris Tarincris,’ i. e. Jovia (Juno?) belonging
to the Jupiter of the hill Tarincris[962].
Among the Oscan peoples the cult-title Lucetius is the most striking fact.
Servius[963] says: ‘Sane lingua Osca Lucetius est Iuppiter dictus a luce quam
praestare hominibus dicitur.’ The same title is found in the hymn of the
Roman Salii[964], and is evidently connected with lux; Jupiter being beyond
doubt the giver of light, whether that of sun or moon. So Macrobius[965]:
‘Nam cum Iovem accipiamus lucis auctorem, unde et Lucetium Salii in
carminibus canunt et Cretenses Δία τὴν ἡμέραν vocant, ipsi quoque Romani
Diespitrem appellant ut diei patrem. Iure hic dies Iovis fiducia vocatur,
cuius lux non finitur cum solis occasu, sed splendorem diei et noctem
continuat inlustrante luna,’ &c. The Ides of all months, i. e. the days of full
moon, were sacred to Jupiter. But in all ceremonies known to us in which
the god appears in this capacity of his, there is, as we might expect, no trace
whatever of a personal or anthropomorphic conception.
The Etruscan Tina, or Tinia, is now generally identified, even
etymologically, with Jupiter[966]. The attributes of the two are essentially the
same, though one particular side of the Etruscan god’s activity, that of the
lightning-wielder, is specially developed. But Tina is also the protector of
cities, along with Juno and Minerva (Cupra and Menvra); and it is in
connexion with this function of his that we first meet with a decided
tendency towards an anthropomorphic conception. Even here, however, the
stimulus can hardly be said to have come from Italy. ‘The one fact,’ says
Aust[967], ‘which is at present quite clear is that the oldest Etruscan
representations of gods can be traced back to Greek models. Tinia was
completely identified in costume and attributes with the Greek Zeus by
Etruscan artists.’ The insignia of Etruscan magistrates were again copied
from these, and have survived for us in the costume of the Roman
triumphator[968], and in part in the insignia of the curule magistrate, i. e. in
sceptrum, sella, toga palmata, &c., and in the smearing of the face of the
triumphator with minium.

Coming nearer to Rome we find at Falerii, a town subject to Roman and
Sabellian as well as Graeco-Etruscan influence, the curious rite of the ἱερὸς
γάμος described by Ovid (Amores, 3. 13), and found also in many parts of
Greece[969]. In this elaborate procession Juno is apparently the bride, but the
bridegroom is not mentioned. At Argos, Zeus was the bridegroom, and the
inference is an obvious one that Jupiter was the bridegroom at Falerii. But
this cannot be proved, and is in fact supported by no real evidence as to the
old-Italian relation of the god and goddess. The rite is extremely interesting
as pointing to what seems to be an early penetration of Greek religious
ideas and practices into the towns of Western Italy; but it has no other
bearing on the Jupiter-question, nor are we enlightened by the little else we
know of the Falerian Jupiter[970].
But at Praeneste, that remarkable town perched high upon the hills which
enclose the Latin Campagna to the north, we find a very remarkable form of
the Jupiter-cult, and one which must be mentioned here, puzzling and even
inexplicable as it certainly is. The great goddess of Praeneste was Fortuna
Primigenia—a cult-title which cannot well mean anything but first-born[971];
and that she was, or came to be thought of as, the first-born daughter of
Jupiter is placed beyond a doubt by an inscription of great antiquity first
published in 1882[972]. But this is not the only anomaly in the Jupiter-
worship of Praeneste. There was another cult of Fortuna, distinct,
apparently, from that of Fortuna Primigenia, in which she took the form not
of a daughter but of a mother, and, strange as it may seem, of the mother
both of Jupiter and Juno. On this point we have the explicit evidence of
Cicero (de Divinatione, 2. 85), who says, when speaking of the place where
the famous ‘sortes’ of Praeneste were first found by a certain Numerius
Suffustius: ‘Is est hodie locus saeptus religiose propter Iovis pueri
(sacellum?) qui lactens cum Iunone Fortunae in gremio sedens, castissime
colitur a matribus.’ Thus we have Fortuna worshipped in the same place as
the daughter and as the mother of Jupiter; and nowhere else in Italy can we
find a trace of a similar conception of the relations either of these or any
other deities. We cannot well reject the evidence of Cicero, utterly
unsupported though it be: we must face the difficulty that we have here to
account for the occurrence of a Jupiter who is the child of Fortuna and also
apparently the brother of Juno, as well as of a Jupiter who is the father of
Fortuna.

As regards this last feature, the fatherhood of Jupiter, Jordan says
emphatically[973]—and no scholar was more careful in his judgements—that
in the whole range of Italian religions ‘liberorum procreatio nulla est
unquam’: and he would understand ‘filia’ in the inscription quoted above in
a metaphorical rather than a physical sense. Yet however we choose to think
of it, Mommsen is justified in remarking[974] on the peculiarly
anthropomorphic idea of Fortuna (and we may add of Jupiter) at which the
Latins of Praeneste must have arrived, in comparison with the character of
Italian religion generally.
Even more singular than this is the sonship of Jupiter and the fact that he
appeared together with Juno in the lap of Fortuna ‘mammae appetens.’
Cicero’s language leaves no doubt that there was some work of art at
Praeneste in which the three were so represented, or believed to be
represented. Yet there are considerations which may suggest that we should
hesitate before hastily concluding that all this is a genuine Italian
development of genuine Italian ideas.
1. Italy presents us with no real parallel to this child-Jupiter though in
Greece we find many. Jordan has mentioned three possible Italian parallels,
but rejected them all: Caeculus Volcani, the legendary founder of Praeneste,
Hercules bullatus, and the beardless Veiovis. The attributes of the last-
named are explained by a late identification with Apollo[975]; Hercules
bullatus is undoubtedly Greek: the story of the birth of Caeculus is a
foundation-legend, truly Italian in character, but belonging to a different
class of religious ideas from that we are discussing. To these we may add
that the boy-Mars found on a Praenestine cista is clearly of Etruscan origin,
as is shown by Deecke in the Lexicon, s. v. Maris.
2. Cicero’s statement is not confirmed by any inscription from Praeneste.
Those which were formerly thought to refer to Iupiter Puer[976] are now
proved to belong to Fortuna as Iovis puer (= filia). It is most singular that
Fortuna should be thus styled Iovis puer in the same place where Jupiter
himself was worshipped as puer; still more so that in one inscription (2868)
the cutter should have dropped out the ‘s’ in Iovis, so that we actually read
Iovi puero. It may seem tempting to guess that the name Jupiter Puer arose
from a misunderstanding of the word puer as applied to Fortuna: but the
evidence as it stands supplies no safe ground for this.

3. The fact that Cicero describes a statue is itself suspicious, in the absence
of corroborative evidence of any other kind[977]: for it suggests that the cult
may have arisen, and have taken its peculiar form, as a result of the
introduction of Greek or Graeco-Etruscan works of art. In Praeneste itself,
and in other parts of Latium and of Campania, innumerable terra-cottas
have been found[978], of the type of the Greek κουροτρόφος, i. e. a mother,
sitting or standing, with a child, and occasionally two children[979] in her lap.
These may, indeed, be simply votive offerings, to Fortuna and other deities
of childbirth: but such objects may quite well have served as the foundation
from which the idea of Fortuna and her infants arose. There is a passage in
Servius which seems to me to show a trace of a similar confusion elsewhere
in this region of Italy. ‘Circa hunc tractum Campaniae colebatur puer
Iuppiter qui Anxyrus dicebatur quasi ἄνευ ξυροῦ, id est sine novacula: quia
barbam nunquam rasisset: et Iuno virgo quae Feronia dicebatur[980].’ True,
the Jupiter of Anxur is a boy or youth[981], not an infant: but the passage
serves well to show the fluidity of Italian deities, at any rate in regard to the
names attached to them. That this puer Iuppiter was originally some other
deity, and very possibly a Greek one, I have little doubt: while Juno Virgo,
Feronia, Fortuna, Proserpina, all seem to slide into each other in a way
which is very bewildering to the investigator[982]. This is no doubt owing to
two chief causes—the daemonistic character of the early Italian religion, in
which many of the spiritual conceptions were even unnamed; and, secondly,
the confusion which arose when Greek artistic types were first introduced
into Italy. Two currents of religious thought met at this point, perhaps in the
eighth and following centuries B.C.; and the result was a whirlpool, in which
the deities were tossed about, lost such shape as they possessed, or got
inextricably entangled with each other. The French student of Praenestine
antiquities writes with reason of ‘the negligence with which the Praenestine
artists placed the names of divinities and heroes on designs borrowed from
Greek models, and often representing a subject which they did not
understand[983].’
4. And lastly, there is no doubt that Praeneste, in spite of its lofty position
on the hills, was at an early stage of its existence subject to foreign
influences, like so many other towns on or near the western coast of central
Italy. This has been made certain by works of art found in its oldest
tombs[984]. Whether these objects came from Greece, Phoenicia, Carthage,
or Etruria, the story they tell is for us the same, and may well make us

careful in accepting a statement like that of Cicero’s without some
hesitation. There was even a Greek foundation-legend of Praeneste, as well
as the pure Italian one of Caeculus[985]. Evidence is slowly gathering which
points to a certain basis of fact in these foundation-stories—of fact, at least,
in so far as they seem to indicate that the transformation of the early Italian
community into a city and a centre of civilization was coincident with the
era of the introduction of foreign trade.
While, then, we cannot hope as yet to account for the singular anomaly in
the Jupiter-cult, which is presented to us at Praeneste, we may at least
hesitate to make use of it in answering the main question with which we set
out—viz. how far we can find in the cult of the genuine Italian Jupiter any
tendency towards an anthropomorphic conception of the god. Before we
return to Rome a word is needed about the Latin Jupiter. The Latin festival
has already been described[986]: it will be sufficient here to point out that
none of its features show any advance towards an anthropomorphic
conception of Jupiter Latiaris. The god here is of the same type as at
Iguvium, one whose sanctuary—whatever it may originally have been—is
in a grove on a hill-top[987], the conspicuous religious centre of the whole
Latin stock inhabiting the plain below. Of this stock he is the uniting and
protecting deity; and when once a year his sacred victim is slain, after
offerings have been made to him by the representatives of each member of
the league, it is essential that each should also receive (and probably
consume through its deputies) a portion of the sacrificial flesh (carnem
petere). This, the main feature, and other details of the ritual, point to a
survival from a very early stage of religious culture, and one that we may
fairly call aniconic. The victim, a white heifer, the absence of wine in the
libations, and the mention of milk and cheese among the offerings, all
suggest an origin in the pastoral age; and it would seem that foreign ideas
never really penetrated into this worship of a pastoral race. The objects that
have been found during excavations near the site of the ancient temple[988]
show that, as in the worship of the Fratres Arvales and in that of the curiae,
so here, the most antique type of sacred vessels remained in use.
Undoubtedly there was in later times a temple, and also a statue of the
god[989]: and it is just possible that, as Niebuhr supposed[990], these were the
goal of an ancient Alban triumphal procession, older than the later
magnificent rite of the Capitol. But we know for certain that the ancient

cult here suggests neither gorgeous ritual nor iconic usage. We see nothing
but the unadorned practices of a simple cattle-breeding people.
Coming now once more to Rome itself, where of course we have fuller
information, fragmentary though it be, we find sufficiently clear indications
of an ancient cult of Jupiter showing characteristics of much the same kind
as those we have already noticed as being genuine Italian.
In the first place the cult is associated with hills and also with trees. It is
found on that part of the Esquiline which was known as lucus Fagutalis or
Fagutal: here there was a sacellum Iovis ‘in quo fuit fagus arbor quae Iovis
(so MSS.) sacra habebatur[991]‘: and the god himself was called Fagutalis.
Not far off on the Viminal, or hill of the osiers, there was also an altar of
Jupiter Viminius, which we may suppose to have been ancient[992]. The
mysterious Capitolium vetus on the Quirinal may be assumed as telling the
same tale, though in historical times the memory of the cult there included
Minerva and Juno with Jupiter, i. e. the Etruscan ‘Trias.’ Lastly, on the
Capitol itself was the temple of Jupiter Feretrius, reputed to be the oldest in
Rome[993]. It was attributed to Romulus, who, after slaying the king of the
Caeninenses, dedicated the first spolia opima on an ancient oak ‘pastoribus
sacram,’ and at the same time ‘designavit templo Iovis fines cognomenque
addidit deo.’ The oak, we may assume, was the original dwelling of the god,
and upon it were fixed the arms taken from the conquered enemy as a
thank-offering for his aid[994]. In this case we seem to be able to guess the
development of the cult from this beginning in the tree-worship of primitive
‘pastores.’ The next step would be the erection of an altar below the tree, in
a small enclosure, i. e. a sacellum of the same kind as those of the Argei or
the Sacellum Larum[995]. The third stage would be the building of the aedes
known to us in history, which Cornelius Nepos says had fallen into decay in
his time, and was rebuilt by Augustus on the suggestion of Atticus. Even
this was a very small building, for Dionysius saw the foundations of it and
found them only fifteen feet wide. This oldest cult of Jupiter was
completely overshadowed by the later one of the Etruscan Trias—the
aniconic by the iconic, the pure Italian by the mongrel ritual from Etruria.
That this Jupiter Feretrius[996] was the great Jupiter of pre-Etruscan Rome
seems to be proved by his connexion with oaths and treaties, in which he
resembles the god of the Latin festival. To him apparently belonged the
priestly college of the Fetiales, who played so important a part in the

declaring of war and the making of treaties: at any rate it was from his
temple that the lapis silex and the sceptrum were taken which accompanied
them on their official journeys[997]. It has been supposed that this lapis silex
was a symbol of the god himself, like the spear of Mars in the Regia, and
other such objects of cult[998]. ‘We recognize here the primitive forms of a
nature-worship, in which the simple flint was sufficient to bring up in men’s
minds the idea of the heavenly power of lightning and thunder,’ i. e. the flint
if struck would emit sparks and remind the beholder of lightning. Unluckily
the existence of a stone in this temple as an object of worship is not clearly
attested. Servius (Aen. 8. 641) says that the Fetials took to using a stone
instead of a sword to slay their victims with, ‘quod antiquum Iovis signum
lapidem silicem putaverunt esse.’ The learned commentator makes a
mistake here which will be obvious to all archaeologists, in putting the age
of iron before that of stone; but it has not been equally clear to scholars that
he by no means implies his belief that Jupiter was ever worshipped under
the form of a stone. He only says that the Fetials fancied that this was so:
and the whole passage has an aetiological colouring which should put us on
our guard[999]. It is not supported by any other statement or tradition, except
an allusion in S. Augustine[1000] to a ‘lapis Capitolinus,’ which is surely the
stone of Terminus (see below): and by the oath ‘per Iovem lapidem,’ which
has been interpreted by some as meaning ‘Jupiter in the form of a stone.’
But this interpretation is at least open to grave doubt; and in the absence of
clearer evidence for the ‘Iuppiter lapis’ of the temple it is better to
understand the oath as being sworn by the god and also by the stone, ‘two
distinct aspects of the transaction being run together,’ in a way not
uncommon in Latin formulae[1001].
It only remains to conjecture what the ‘silex’ or ‘lapis’ was which the
Fetials took from the temple together with the sceptrum. Helbig has
attempted to prove that it was not a survival of the stone age, e. g. an axe of
stone. Had that been so, he argues, the Roman antiquaries, who were
acquainted with such implements[1002], would have noticed it: and those who
describe the rites of the Fetials would have stated that the stone was
artificially sharpened. But this negative argument is not a strong one; and I
am rather inclined to agree with the suggestion of Dr. Tylor[1003], that it was
a stone celt believed to have been a thunder-bolt. There may indeed have
been more than one of these kept in the temple, for in B.C. 201 the Fetials
who went to Africa took with them each a stone[1004] (privos lapides silices)

along with their ‘sagmina,’ &c. This fact seems to me to prove that the
silices, like the sagmina and sceptrum, were only part of the ritualistic
apparatus of the Fetials[1005], and not objects in which the god was supposed
to be manifested. The idea that he was originally worshipped in the form of
a stone may well have arisen from this use of stones in the ritual, especially
if those stones were believed to be in some way his handiwork[1006]. We may
think then of the cult of Jupiter Feretrius as an example of primitive tree-
worship, but we are not justified in going further and finding him also in the
form of a stone.
There is yet another stone that may have belonged to the earliest Roman
cult of Jupiter, but the connexion is not very certain. ‘The (rite of)
Aquaelicium,’ says Festus[1007], ‘is when rain is procured (elicitur) by certain
methods, as for example when the lapis manalis is carried into the city.’
This stone lay by the temple of Mars, outside the Porta Capena; we learn
from other passages that it was carried by the pontifices[1008], but we are not
told what they did with it within the walls. It has been ingeniously
suggested that this rain-spell, as we may call it, was a part of the cult of
Jupiter Elicius, to whom there was an altar close by under the Aventine[1009],
the cult-title being identical with the latter part of the word
‘aquaelicium[1010].’ We may agree that the stone had nothing to do with the
temple of Mars, which happened to be near it, and also that any such rain-
spell as this would be more likely to belong to the cult of Jupiter than of any
other deity. The heaven-god, who launches the thunder-bolt, is naturally and
almost everywhere also the rain-giver[1011]: and that this was one of the
functions of Jupiter is fully attested, for later times at least[1012].
But it must be confessed that the evidence is very slight[1013]: and it is as
well here to remember that the further we probe back into old Italian rites,
the less distinctly can we expect to be able to connect them with particular
deities. The formula ‘si deus, si dea es’ should always be borne in mind in
attempting to connect gods and ceremonies. And this ceremony, like that of
the Argei[1014] (which also wants a clearly-conceived deity as its object), is
obviously a survival from a very primitive class of performances which Mr.
Frazer has called acts of ‘sympathetic magic[1015].’ I am indebted to the
Golden Bough for a striking parallel to the rite of the lapis manalis, among
many others which more or less resemble it. ‘In a Samoan village a certain
stone was carefully housed as the representative of the rain-making god:

and in time of drought his priests carried the stone in procession and dipped
it in a stream[1016].’ What was done with the lapis manalis we are not told,
but it is pretty plain from the word ‘manalis,’ and from the fragments of
explanation which have come down to us from Roman scholars, that it was
either the object of some splashing or pouring, or was itself hollow and was
filled with water which was to be poured out in imitation of the desired
rain[1017]. Such rites need not necessarily be connected by us with the name
of a god: and the Jupiter Elicius, with whom it is sought to connect this one,
was always associated by the Romans not with this obsolete rite, but with
the elaborated science of augury which was in the main Etruscan[1018].
But this discussion has already been carried on as far as the scope of this
work permits. It may be completed by any one who has the patience to
work through Aust’s exhaustive article, examining his conclusions with the
aid of his abundant references; but I doubt if anything will be found,
beyond what I have mentioned, which bears closely on the question with
which we set out. That question was, whether the distinctly
anthropomorphic treatment of Jupiter in the ‘epulum Iovis’ could be
explained by any native Italian practice in his cult (as Marquardt tried to
explain it), or must be referred with Aust to foreign, i. e. Graeco-Etruscan,
influence. I am driven to the conclusion that Aust is probably right. There is
no real trace in Italy of an indigenous iconic representation of Jupiter. Trees
and hills are apparently sacred to him, and possibly stones, though this last
is doubtful: we find a sacrificial meal at the Latin festival, but no sign that
he takes part in it as an image or statue. Elsewhere, as at Praeneste, peculiar
representations of him arouse strong suspicions of foreign iconic influence.
I think, on the whole, that the Italian peoples owed the sacred image to
foreign works of art: and that the ‘epulum Iovis’ was introduced from
Etruria by the Etruscan dynasty which built the Capitoline temple. It may,
indeed, have been engrafted upon an earlier sacrificial meal like that of the
feriae Latinae, or that of the curiae, or the rustic one of Jupiter dapalis: but,
if so, the meal was one at which the ancient Romans were content to
believe, as Ovid says, that the gods were present, and did not need, like the
Greeks, the evidence of their eyes to help out their belief. Their gods were
still aniconic when the wave of foreign ideas broke over them. We may say
of the earliest Roman cult of Jupiter what Tacitus asserts of the Germans of
his day[1019]: ‘nec cohibere parietibus deos neque in ullam humani oris
speciem adsimulare ex magnitudine caelestium arbitrantur: lucos ac nemora

consecrant, deorumque nominibus appellant secretum illud quod sola
reverentia vident.’

September 13 was also the day on which, according to Livy[1020] and Verrius
Flaccus[1021], a nail (clavus) was driven annually by the ‘Praetor maximus’
into the wall of the cella of Minerva in the Capitoline temple, in obedience
to an old lex which was fixed up on the wall of the temple adjoining this
same cella. But Mommsen’s trenchant criticism[1022] of the locus classicus
for this subject in Livy has made it almost certain that the Roman scholars
were here in error: that the ceremony was not an annual one, but took place
once in a century, in commemoration of a vow made in 463 B.C., to
commemorate the great pestilence of that year, which carried off both the
consuls and several other magistrates[1023]: that it had no special connexion
with the cult of Jupiter, and was not intended, as is generally supposed, to
mark the years as they passed. The nail is really the symbol of Fortuna or
Necessitas; the rite was Etruscan, and was also celebrated at Volsinii in the
temple of the Etruscan deity of Fate; when brought to Rome it was very
naturally located in the great temple of the Etruscan Trias, the religious
centre of the Roman state. Originally a dictator was chosen (i. e. Praetor
maximus) clavi figendi causa; and when the dictatorship was dropped after
the Second Punic War, the ceremony was allowed to fall into oblivion. Later
on the Roman antiquarians unearthed and misinterpreted it, believing it to
have been a yearly rite of which the object was to mark the succession of
years. This brief account of Mommsen’s view may suffice for the purpose
of this work: but the subject is one that might with advantage be
reinvestigated.

MENSIS OCTOBER.

In the Italy of historical times, the one agricultural feature of this month
was the vintage. The rustic calendars mark this with the single word
vindemiae[1024]. The vintage might begin during the last few days of
September, but October was its natural time, though it is now somewhat
earlier: this point is clear both from Varro and Pliny[1025]. But the old
calendars have preserved hardly a trace of this; and in fact the only feast
which we can in any way connect with wine making (the Meditrinalia on
the 11th) is obscure in name and its ritual unknown to us. We may infer that
the practice of viticulture was a comparatively late introduction; and this is
borne out by such facts as the absence of wine in the ritual of the Latin
festival[1026], and the words of a lex regia (ascribed to Numa) which forbade
wine to be sprinkled on a funeral pile[1027]. Pliny also expressed a decided
opinion that viticulture was multo serior: and lately Hehn[1028] has traced it
to the Italian Greeks on etymological grounds. It can hardly have become a
common occupation in Latium before the seventh or possibly even the
eighth century B.C.
Probably if Ovid had continued his Fasti to the end of the year we might
have learnt much of interest about this month: as it is, we have only scraps
of information about a very few primitive rites, only one of which can be
said to be known to us in any detail; and the interpretation of that one is
extremely doubtful.

Kal. Oct. (October 1). N.

[FIDEI] IN CAPITOLIO. TIGILL[O] SOROR[IO] AD COMPITUM ACILI. (ARV.)

The sacrifice here indicated to Fides in the Capitol is clearly the one which
Livy ascribes to Numa[1029]: ‘Et soli Fidei sollemne instituit. Ad id sacrarium
flamines bigis, curru arcuato (i. e. ‘covered’) vehi iussit, manuque ad
digitos usque involuta rem divinam facere: significantes fidem tutandam,
sedemque eius etiam in dextris sacratam esse.’ Dionysius also mentions the
foundation, without alluding to the peculiar ritual, but dwelling on the
moral influence of the cult both in public and private life[1030].
The personification of a moral idea would hardly seem likely to be as old as
Numa; yet there are points in the ritual which suggest a high antiquity, apart
from tradition. It was the three chief flamines who thus drove to the Capitol
—i. e. those of Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus; these at least were the three
who had been just instituted by Numa (Liv. 1. 20), and to them Livy must
be referring. As has been often pointed out, the presence of flamines at a
rite is always evidence of its antiquity; and in this case they may have
represented the union of the two communities of Septimontium and
Quirinal in a common worship on the Capitol, this central point being
represented by the Flamen Dialis. The curious fact that the right hands of
these flamens were wrapped up to the fingers in white cloth is another
obvious sign of antiquity, and is explained as meaning that the right hand,
which was given to another in pledging one’s word, then as now[1031], was
pure and clean, as was the mind of the pledger[1032]. A sacred object, statue
or victim, was often thus wrapped or tied with fillets (vittae); and the
μύσται in the Eleusinian mysteries seem to have worn a crocus-coloured
band on the right hand and right foot[1033]. The statue of the goddess in her
temple had probably the right hand so covered, if at least we are at liberty
so to interpret the words of Horace, ‘albo Fides velata panno’[1034].
A word about the tigillum sororium[1035]. What this was, and where it was,
can be made out with some certainty; beyond that all is obscure. It was a
beam, renewed from time to time, let into the opposite walls of a street

which led down from the Carinae to the Vicus Cyprius, now the via del
Colosseo[1036]. It remained till at least the fourth century A.D. It is now
generally explained as a primitive Janus-arch, apparently on the ground that
one of the altars below it was to Janus Curiatius[1037]. As it seems, however,
to have been a single beam, without supports except the street walls[1038], I
am unable to understand this conclusion; and as the Roman antiquaries
never supposed it to be such, we can hardly do so safely. They believed it to
be a memorial of the expiation undergone by the legendary Horatius for the
murder of his sister. Acquitted by the people on appeal, he had to make
religious expiation, and this he did by the erection of an altar to Janus
Curiatius, and another to Juno Sororia[1039], and by passing under a yoke,
which was afterwards represented by the tigillum.
We may leave the tigillum as really inexplicable, unless we are to accept the
suggestion of Roscher[1040], that the germ of the legend is to be found in the
practice of creeping through a split tree to get rid of spell or disease. The
two altars demand a word.
Livy’s language seems to suggest that these were in the care of the gens
Horatia[1041]: ‘Quibusdam piacularibus sacrificiis factis, quae deinde genti
Horatiae tradita sunt.’ If so, perhaps the whole legend of Horatius, or at any
rate its connexion with this spot, arose out of this gentile worship of two
deities, of whom the cult-titles were respectively Curiatius and Sororia. The
coincidence of Janus and Juno is natural enough; both were associated with
the Kalends[1042]. But the original meaning of their cult-titles at the Tigillum
remains unknown. All we can say is that the Janus of the curiae and the
Juno of a sister may certainly have given point to a legend of which the
hero was acquitted by the Comitia Curiata for the murder of a sister[1043].

3 Non. Oct. (October 5). C.

This was one of the three days on which the mundus was open: see on
August 24.

Non. Oct. (October 7). F.

[1044]
IOVI FULGURI, IUNONI CURRITI IN CAMPO. (ARV. PAUL.)

Of these worships in Rome nothing else is known. Iuno Curitis is the
goddess of Falerii, whose supposed ἱερὸς γάμος was referred to above[1045].

v Id. Oct. (October 11). NP.

MEDITR[INALIA]. (SAB. MAFF. AMIT.)
FERIAE IOVI. (AMIT.)

This was the day on which the new wine was tasted. There is no real
evidence of a goddess Meditrina. The account in Paulus is as follows: ‘Mos
erat Latinis populis, quo die quis primum gustaret mustum, dicere ominis
gratia “Vetus novum vinum bibo, veteri novo morbo medeor.” A quibus
verbis etiam Meditrinae deae nomen conceptum, eiusque sacra Meditrinalia
dicta sunt[1046].’ Varro had already given the same account: ‘Octobri mense
Meditrinalia dies, dictus a medendo, quod Flaccus flamen Martialis dicebat
hoc die solitum vinum novum et vetus libari et gustari medicamenti causa:
quod facere solent etiam nunc multi quom dicunt: Novum vetus vinum
bibo, novo veteri vino morbo medeor.’
Note a. A parallel practice of tasting both old and new crops is to be found
in the ritual of the Fratres Arvales, who in May ‘fruges aridas et virides
contigerunt,’ i. e. the old grain and the new[1047].
Note b. The belief that the new wine (mustum) was wholesome and non-
inebriating is discussed charmingly by Plutarch (Quaest. Conv. vii. 1).
Note c. Mommsen, C. I. L. 1. 2. 332, points out that the real deity here
concerned was doubtless Jupiter: see under Vinalia, p. 86.

iii Id. Oct. (October 13). NP.

FONT[INALIA]. (SAB. MAFF. AMIT. MIN. IX.)
FERIAE FONTI. (AMIT.)

All we know of this very ancient festival is contained in a few words of
Varro[1048]: ‘Fontinalia a Fonte, quod is dies feriae eius; ab eo tum et in
fontes coronas iaciunt et puteos coronant.’
The holiness of wells and springs is too familiar to need illustration here.
The original object of the garlanding was probably to secure abundant
water.
It is generally assumed that there was a god Fons or Fontus, to whom this
day was sacred. There was a delubrum Fontis[1049]; an ara Fonti on the
Janiculum[1050]; and a porta Fontinalis in the Campus Martius. Fons also
appears with Flora, Mater Larum, Summanus, &c., in the ritual of the
Fratres Arvales[1051]. The case seems to be one of those in which multiplicity
passes into a quasi-unity: but Fons did not survive long in the latter stage.

Id. Oct. (Oct. 15). NP.

EQUUS AD NIXAS FIT. (PHILOC.)

No calendar but the late one of Philocalus mentions the undoubtedly
primitive rite of horse-sacrifice which took place on this day. Wissowa has
tried to explain this difficulty, which meets us elsewhere in the Calendar, e.
g. on the Ides of May (Argei), June 1 (festival of Carna)[1052]. Where two
festivals fell on the same day, both would not be found in calendars which
were meant for the use, not of the pontifices themselves, but of the
unlearned vulgar; for the latter would not be able to distinguish, or to get
one clear name for the day, and confusion would result. Now all Kalends
and Ides were sacred to Juno and Jupiter respectively; all other rites falling
on these days would stand a chance of being omitted, unless indeed they
were noticed in later annotations such as we find cut in smaller letters in the
Fasti Praenestini and others.
Luckily the entry in Philocalus’ calendar is supplemented sufficiently from
other sources. The earliest hint we get comes from the Greek historian
Timaeus, and is preserved in a fragment of the twelfth book of Polybius[1053].
Timaeus after the Greek fashion connects the horse-sacrifice with the
legend of Troy and the wooden horse: but he also tells us the important
detail that on a certain day a war-horse was killed with a spear in the
Campus Martius[1054]. The passage is no doubt characteristic of Timaeus,
both in regard to the detail, and the mythology which Polybius despised.
But though we do not know that Timaeus was ever at Rome, we may hope
that he was correct in the one particular which we do not learn from other
sources, viz. the slaughter of the horse with the sacred weapon of Mars.
Fuller information comes from Verrius Flaccus, as represented in the
epitomes of Festus and Paulus Diaconus[1055]. On this day there was a two-
horse chariot race in the Campus Martius; and the near horse of the winning
pair was sacrificed to Mars—killed with a spear, if we may believe
Timaeus. The place is indicated in Philocalus’ calendar as ‘ad nixas,’ i. e.
the ciconiae nixae, which seem to have been three storks carved in stone

with bills crossing each other[1056]: this however was non-existent under the
Republic. The real scene of the sacrifice must have been an old ‘ara Martis,’
and that there was such an altar in the Campus we know for certain, though
we cannot definitely fix its position[1057]. The tail of the horse was cut off
and carried with speed to the Regia so that the warm blood might drip upon
the focus or sacred hearth there. The head also was cut off and decked with
cakes; and at one time there was a hard fight for its possession between the
men of the two neighbouring quarters of the Via Sacra and the Subura. If
the former carried off the prize, they fixed it on the wall of the Regia; if the
latter, on the turris Mamilia[1058].
It is probable[1059], though not quite certain, that the congealed blood from
the tail was used, together with the ashes of the unborn calves sacrificed on
the Fordicidia, as ‘medicine’ to be distributed to the people at the Parilia on
April 21.
The rite of the ‘October-horse’ had been adequately described and in some
degree explained by Preller, Marquardt, Schwegler, and others[1060], before
the late Dr. Mannhardt took it in hand not long before his death[1061].
Mannhardt studied it in the light of his far-reaching researches in folk-lore,
and succeeded in treating it as all such survivals should be treated, i.e. in
bringing it into relation with the practices of other peoples—not so much by
way of explaining its original meaning precisely, as in order to make some
progress by its help towards an understanding of the attitude of primitive
man to the supernatural. His conclusions have been generally accepted, and,
with very slight modifications, are to be found in Mr. Frazer’s Golden
Bough (ii. 64), and in Roscher’s article ‘Mars’ in the Mythological Lexicon
(2416). Recently, however, they have been called in question by no less a
person than Prof. Wissowa[1062] of Berlin, who seems to take a different view
of the Mars-cult from that at which we thought we had at last safely arrived:
it may be as well therefore to give yet another account of Mannhardt’s
treatment of the question, and to follow his track somewhat more
elaborately than Mr. Frazer. It does not of course follow that he has said the
last word; but it is as well to begin by making clear what he has said.
1. This is the last of the series of harvest festivals, as we may call them
generically. We have had the Ambarvalia and the plucking of the first ears
by the Vestals in May: the Vestalia in June[1063]; the festivals of Consus and
Ops Consiva in August; and lastly we find this one coming after all the

fruits of the land have been gathered in. In this respect it is parallel to the
Pyanepsia and Oschophoria of the Greeks, to the Jewish feast of
Tabernacles[1064], and to the true Michaelmas harvest-festivals of modern
Europe, which follow at an interval the great variety of quaint harvest
customs which occur at the actual in-gathering. Even now in the Roman
Campagna there is a lively festival of this kind in October.
It should be noticed that the harvest character of the rite was suggested to
Mannhardt by the passage from Paulus (220), from which we learn that the
head of the sacrificed horse was decked with cakes, like those of the live
draught-animals at the Vestalia and Consualia and feriae Sementivae [q. v.].
This, Paulus adds, was done ‘quia id sacrum fiebat ob frugum eventum,’
which last words can hardly mean anything but ‘on account of the past
harvest[1065].’ There are, I may add, two points open to doubt here, which
Mannhardt does not point out: (1) the reason here given may be only a
guess of Verrius’, and not one generally understood at Rome[1066]. (2) The
concluding words of the gloss seem to make no sense, a fact which throws
some doubt on the whole passage. The rite is ‘ob frugum eventum,’ yet ‘a
horse, and not an ox, is the victim, because a horse is suited for war, and an
ox is not[1067].’ However this may be understood, we need not quarrel with
the conclusion[1068], that the real meaning of the adornment was to show that
the head was an object possessed of power to procure fertility—an
inference confirmed by the eagerness of the rival city-quarters to get
possession of it.
2. The sacrificed horse represented a Corn-spirit. The Corn-spirit was
Mannhardt’s chief discovery, and its various forms are now familiar to
English readers of Frazer’s Golden Bough, and of Farnell’s Cults of the
Greek States. Almost every common animal, wild or tame, may be found to
represent the Corn-spirit at harvest-time in one locality or another, where
the nomadic age has given place to an agricultural one; or a man, woman,
boy or puppet represents the animal, and so indirectly the Corn-spirit[1069].
Mannhardt produces from his stores of folk-lore many instances in which
the horse thus figures, including the hobby-horse which in old England used
to prance round the May-pole. Those examples, however, are not strong
enough to convince us that the October horse was a Corn-spirit, though they
prove well enough that the Corn-spirit often took this shape[1070]. But we

must remember that he is only suggesting an origin in the simple rites of the
farm, indicating a class of ideas to which this survival may be traceable[1071].
He does, however, produce an example which has one or two features in
common with the Roman rite, only in this case the animal is a goat instead
of a horse. In Dauphiné a goat is decked with ribbons and flowers and let
loose in the harvest-field. The reapers run after it, and finally the farmer
cuts off its head[1072], while his wife holds it. Parts of its body (we are not
told whether the head is among them) are kept as ‘medicine’ till the next
harvest. So too the head, and also the tail and the blood, of the October
horse were the seat of some great Power; but whether this was a vegetation-
spirit does not seem satisfactorily shown.
3. The chariot-race was an elaborated and perhaps Graecized form or
survival of the simple race of men and women so often met with in the
harvest-field, often in pursuit of a representative of the Corn-spirit.
Mannhardt gives examples from France and Germany of races in pursuit of
cock, calf, kid, sheep, or whatever shape may be the one in vogue for the
Corn-spirit; often the animal is in some way decorated for the occasion.
Two of a rather different kind may be mentioned here, though they occur,
not on the harvest-field, but at Whitsuntide and Easter respectively; but they
show how horse-races may originate in the customs of the farm. In the
Hartz the farm-horses, gaily decorated, are raced by the labourers for
possession of a wreath, which is hung on the neck of the winning horse. In
Silesia the finest near horse of the team, decorated by the girls, is ridden
(raced?) round the boundary of the farm, and then round a neighbouring
village, while Easter hymns are sung. We have already noticed the racing of
horses and mules at the Consualia in August: according to Dionysius, these
too were decked out with flowers[1073]. Mannhardt makes also a somewhat
lengthy digression to point out the possibility that in the original form of the
Passover (on which was afterwards engrafted the Jahvistic worship and the
history of the escape from Egypt) a race or something of the kind may be
indicated by the custom of eating the victim with the loins girt.
There is undoubtedly a possible origin for the horse-racing of Greeks and
Romans in the customs of the farm at different seasons of the year, and I
accept Mannhardt’s view so far, with a probability, not certainty, as to the

Corn-spirit. We may perhaps be able to trace the development of the custom
a little further in this case.
4. The horse’s head, fixed on the Regia or the turris Mamilia, is the effigy of
the Corn-spirit, which is to bring fertility and to keep off evil influences for
the year to come.[1074]
Examples of this practice of fixing up some object after harvest in a
prominent place in farm or village are so numerous as almost to defy
selection, and are now familiar to all students of folk-lore[1075]. Sometimes it
is a bunch of corn or flowers, as in the Greek Eiresione[1076], and to this day
at Charlton-on-Otmoor, where it is placed over the beautiful rood-screen in
the church. Such bunches are often called by the name of some animal;
occasionally their place is taken by the effigy of an animal’s head, e. g. that
of a horse[1077], which in course of time becomes a permanency.
5. The cutting off the tail is explained by the idea that a remnant of the body
of the representative of the Corn-spirit is sufficient to produce this spirit
afresh in the vegetation of the coming year.
The examples Mannhardt quotes are numerous, and only gain force when
brought together: I must refer the reader to his work for them[1078]. The word
tail not only occurs frequently in harvest customs (e. g. the cutter of the last
sheaf is called the wheat-tail or barley-tail[1079]), but there is little doubt that
virtue was believed to reside in a tail[1080]. Who knows but that the
preservation of the fox’s brush by fox-hunters has some origin of this kind?
6. The use made of the blood, which was kept and mixed with the ashes of
the unborn calves of the Fordicidia, and with sulphur and bean-straw as a
medicine to be distributed to the people at the Parilia, tells its own story
without need of illustration (see on April 15 and 21). The blood was the
life[1081]; the fire and sulphur-fumes were to purify and avert evil. Both men
and beasts leapt over the fire into which this mixture was thrown at the
Parilia, to gain new life and strength, and to avert the influences which
might retard them.
Finally, Mannhardt has some remarks on the origin of the rite, which were
suggested by Schwegler and Ambrosch[1082]. The Campus Martius, the scene
of the sacrifice, was originally terra regis, cultivated for him by the
people[1083]. When the king was the chief farmer, the horse’s head was

carried to his house (regia) and fixed thereon, and the tail allowed to drip on
to his hearth. When the neighbouring community of the Subura was united
with that of the Palatine, the seat of the oldest community, the remembrance
of their duality survived in the contest for the head: if the men of the Subura
won it, they fixed it on the turris Mamilia, which may have been the
dwelling of their own chief. Such contests are even now well known, or
have[1084] but lately disappeared; and some of them may owe their origin to a
fight for the Corn-spirit. Mannhardt gives some examples—one very
curious one from Granada, and one from Brittany. At Derby, Hawick,
Ludlow, and other places in this country, they or the recollection of them
may still be found.
On the whole we may agree with him that the rite was in its origin one of
the type to which he has referred it—a final harvest festival of the Latin
farm. There is yet, however, a word to be said. He does not treat it from the
point of view of the Roman calendar, and thus fails to note the turn it took
when Latin farmers became Roman citizens. Wissowa, on the other hand,
takes the calendar as his sole basis for judging of it, and with a strange
perversity, as it seems to me, brushes Mannhardt’s conclusions aside, and
would explain the rite simply as a sacrifice to the god of war[1085]. Now
doubtless it had come to be this in the organized city-calendar, as Mars
himself began to be brought into prominence in a new light, as the iuvenes
of the community came to be more and more employed in war as well as
agriculture, and as the Campus Martius came to be used as an exercising-
ground for the armed host. The Calendars show us a curious
correspondence between the beginning and the end of the season of arms, i.
e. the middle of March and the middle of October, which leaves little doubt
of the change which had taken place in the accepted character of the rites of
the two periods by the time the Numan calendar was drawn up. This
correspondence has already been noted[1086]; it may be here briefly referred
to again.
On March 14[1087] there was a horse-race in the Campus Martius; on the 19th
(Quinquatrus) was the lustratio armorum for the coming war-season, as is
seen from the fact that the ancilia of the Salii at least—if not all arms—
were lustrata on that day[1088]. So too on October 15 there was a horse-race,
as we have seen, in the Campus Martius, and on the 19th we find the
Armilustrium in the oldest calendars[1089], a name which tells its own tale.

The inference is that the horse-races on Oct. 15 and March 14 had much the
same origin, and it is just this which induces Wissowa to slight Mannhardt’s
explanation of the former. He thinks that on each day the horses, like the
arms, were lustrated (p. x.), i. e. before the war-season began, and after it
was over. This is likely enough; but might not the same have been the case
with the horses of the farm? The Roman farmer’s year began with March,
and the heavy work of carrying, &c., would be over in October. I am
disposed to think that we must look on organized war-material as a
development later than the primitive times to which Mannhardt would carry
us back, a side of Roman life which only in course of time became highly
specialized.
We must never forget that the oldest Roman calendar is the record of the
life of an agricultural people. So much is clear on the face of it; and in some
instances, as in the Ambarvalia, Vestalia, Consualia, and in the October rite
we have been discussing, something of the original intent can be made out
from researches into modern folk-lore or savage custom. Yet this calendar is
at the same time the table of feasts of a fully developed city-state, and in the
process of its development the original meaning of the feasts was often lost,
or they were explained by some mythical or historical event, or again they
themselves may have changed character as the life of the people changed
from an agricultural to a political one. In the rite of the October horse we
may see an agricultural harvest custom taking a new shape and meaning as
the State grew to be accustomed to war, just as Mars, originally perhaps the
protector of man, herds, and crops alike, becomes—it may be even before
Greek influence is brought to bear upon him—the deity of warriors and
war-horses, of the yearly renewed strength of a struggling community[1090].
It is looking with modern eyes at the institution of an old world if we try to
separate the Roman warrior from the Roman husbandman, or the warlike
aspect of his god from his universal care for his people.

xiv Kal. Nov. (October 19). NP.

ARM[ILUSTRIUM]. (ARV. SAB. MAFF. AMIT. ANT.)

The first three letters of this word, which alone appear in the calendars, are
explained by Varro and Verrius: ‘Armilustrium ab eo quod in armilustrio
armati sacra faciunt ... ab ludendo aut lustro, quod circumibant ludentes
ancilibus armati[1091].’ This passage may be taken as referring both to March
19 and Oct. 19, and as showing that the Salii with the sacred shields were
active on both days. This can also be inferred from the fact that in 190 B.C. a
Roman army, on its march into Asia, had to halt at the Hellespont, ‘quia
dies forte, quibus ancilia moventur. religiosi ad iter inciderant’[1092]—its
commander Scipio being one of the Salii. It can be shown that this was in
the autumn, as the army did not leave Italy till July 15[1093]. It may be taken
as certain, then, that this was the last day on which the Salii appeared, and
that arma and ancilia were now purified[1094], and put away for the winter.
There are no festivals in any way connected with Mars from this day to the
Roman new year, March 1. As Roscher has remarked, his activity, like that
of Apollo, is all in the warm season—the season of vegetation and of arms.
His priests, who seem in their dances, their song, and their equipment, to
form a connecting link between his fertilizing powers and his warlike
activity, are seen no more from this day till his power is felt again on the
threshold of spring.
We learn from Varro[1095] that the place of lustratio on this day was the
Aventine ‘ad circum maximum.’ I can find no explanation of this: we know
of no Mars-altar in that part of Rome, which was the seat of the cults of
Hercules and Consus. It was probably the last point in a procession of the
Salii[1096].

MENSIS NOVEMBER.

Of all the months in the Roman year November is the least important from
a religious point of view. It was the month of ploughing and sowing—not of
holiday-time[1097]; then, as now, it was a quiet month, and in the calendars,
with the exception of the ludi plebeii, not a festival appears of any
importance. Later on, the worship of Isis gained a hold upon the month[1098],
which remained open to intruders long after city-life had taken the place of
November agricultural operations.
The ludi plebeii, as a public festival, date from 220 B.C.; they took place in
the Circus Flaminius, which was built in that year[1099]; they and the epulum
Iovis (Nov. 13) are first mentioned by Livy four years later. The epulum has
already been discussed in connexion with the ludi Romani. The plebeian
games were probably at first on a single day (Nov. 13), and were gradually
extended, like the ludi Romani; finally, they lasted from Nov. 4 to Nov.
17[1100].
The 8th was one of the three days on which the mundus was open: see
under Oct. 5.

Id. Nov. (Nov. 13). NP.

[1101]
FERONIAE IN CAMPO . (ARV., a later addition to the original.)
FORTUNAE PRIMIGENIAE IN COLLE. (ARV., a later addition to the original.)

This is the only mention we have of Feronia in Rome. She was a goddess of
renown in Latium and central Italy, but never made her mark at Rome, as
did others of her kind—Diana, Fortuna, Ceres, Flora—all of whom appear
there with plebeian associations about them, as not belonging to the earliest
patrician community[1102]. It is curious to find this Feronia too in the
calendar only in the middle of the ludi plebeii, and probably on the day
which was the original nucleus of the games. We may either date the cult
from the establishment of the ludi or guess that it was there before them,
and was subsequently eclipsed by the cult of Jupiter.
The latter is perhaps the more probable conjecture; for the little that we
know of the cult elsewhere points to a possible origin of the games which
has not, so far as I know, been noticed. They took place, be it remembered,
in the Circus Flaminius, which was in the Campus Martius; where also was
this cult of Feronia. Now the most famous shrine of Feronia in Italy, that of
Trebula Mutusca, was the centre of a great fair or market held on the feast-
days of the goddess[1103], and on the whole her attributes seem to be those of
a deity of fertility and plenty[1104]. Is it impossible that she had also some
share in a fair in the Campus Martius long before the establishment of the
ludi?
The connexion of Feronia with the plebs seems suggested not only by her
position in the calendar, but by the devotion of libertini[1105]. In the year 217
B.C. the Roman freedwomen collected a sum of money as a gift to
Feronia[1106]; though this offering need not be taken as destined for the
Roman goddess, but rather for her of Soracte, to whom first-fruits and other
gifts were frequently offered. The temple of Feronia at Terracina was
specially devoted to the manumission of slaves, of which the process, as
described by Servius, presents at least one feature of special interest[1107].

Manumissions would take place on public occasions, such as markets, when
the necessary authorities and witnesses were to be easily found, and the
temple of the market-goddess was at hand; and this may be the original
point of relation between this cult and the Roman plebs, which was beyond
doubt by the third century B.C. largely composed of descendants of
manumitted slaves.
The conjunction of Feronia on this day with Fortuna Primigenia (in colle) is
curious, as both were goddesses of Praeneste, where Feronia in legend was
the mother of Erulus, a daemon with threefold body and soul, who had to be
killed three times by Evander[1108]. The date of the introduction of this cult
of Fortuna at Rome is 204 B.C.[1109]

MENSIS DECEMBER

In the middle of winter, until well on in January, the Roman husbandman
had comparatively little to do. Varro[1110] writes of sowing lilies, crocuses,
&c., and of cleaning out ditches and pruning vines, and such light
operations of the farm. Columella[1111] tells us that the autumn sowing
should be ended by the beginning of December, though some sow beans in
this month; and in this he agrees with the rustic calendars which mention,
besides this operation, only the manuring of vineyards and the gathering of
olives.
It is not unnatural, then, that we should find in this ‘slack time’[1112] several
festivals which are at once antique and obscure, and almost all of which
seem to carry us back to husbandry and the primitive ideas of a country life.
On the night of the 3rd or thereabouts was the women’s sacrifice to the
Bona Dea; on the 5th the rustic Faunalia in some parts of Italy, though
probably not in Rome; on the 15th the winter Consualia; on the 17th the
Saturnalia; and on the 19th the Opalia; and so on to the Compitalia and
Paganalia. All this is in curious contrast with the absence of festivals in the
busy month of November.

Women’s Sacrifice to the Bona Dea.

This fell, in the year 63 B.C., on the night between Dec. 3 and 4, if we may
trust Plutarch and Dio[1113]; but the date does not seem to have been a fixed
one[1114]. The rite does not appear in the calendars, and, though attended by
the Vestals, did not take place in the temple of the goddess, but in the house
of a consul or praetor, ‘in ea domo quae est in imperio[1115].’ It seems to have
been in some sense a State sacrifice, i. e. it was ‘pro populo Romano’
(according to Cicero); but it was not ‘publico sumptu’[1116], and it was never
woven into the calendar by the pontifices, or it could hardly have occurred
between the Kalends and the Nones. Its very nature would exclude the
interference of the pontifical college, and there would be no need to give
public notice of it.
The character of the goddess and her rites have already been discussed
under May 1. All that need be said of the December sacrifice is that it was
clearly a survival from the time when the wife of the chief of the
community—himself its priest—together with her daughters (represented in
later times by the Vestals), and the other matrons, made sacrifice of a young
pig or pigs[1117] to the deity of fertility, from all share in which men were
rigorously excluded. It must have been originally a perfectly decorous rite,
and so have continued to the famous sacrilege of Clodius; it was only under
the empire that it became the scene of such orgies as Juvenal describes in
his second and sixth satires[1118].

Non. Dec. (Dec. 5). F.

Here we have another festival unknown to the calendars, the Faunalia
rustica, as it has been called. Our knowledge of it comes from the familiar
ode of Horace (iii. 18), and from the comments of the scholiasts thereon:

Faune, Nympharum fugientum amator,
Per meos fines et aprica rura
Lenis incedas abeasque parvis
Aequus alumnis,

Si tener pleno eadit haedus anno,
Larga nec desunt Veneris sodali
Vina craterae, vetus ara multo
Fumat odore.

Ludit herboso pecus omne campo
Cum tibi Nonae redeunt Decembres;
Festus in pratis vacat otioso
Cum bove pagus;

Inter audaces lupus errat agnos;
Spargit agrestes tibi silva frondes;
Gaudet invisam pepulisse fossor
Ter pede terram.

No picture could be choicer or neater than this; for once it is a treat to have
our best evidence in the form of a perfect work of art. We are for a moment
let into the heart and mind of ancient Italy, as they showed themselves on a
winter holiday. There is an ancient altar—not a temple—to a supernatural
being who is not yet fully god, who can play pranks like the ‘Brownies’ and
do harm, but is capable of doing good if duly propitiated. On the Nones of
December, possibly of other months too[1119], he is coaxed with tender kid,
libations of wine, and incense[1120]; the little rural community of farmers

(pagus), with their labourers, take part in the rite, and bring their cattle into
the common pasture, plough-oxen and all. Then, after the sacrifice, they
dance in triple measure, like the Salii in March.
Horace is of course describing a rite which was entirely rural, as the word
pagus would indicate sufficiently, apart from other features. Unless he were
the god of the Lupercalia, which is open to much doubt[1121], Faunus was not
introduced into the city of Rome till 196 B.C., when the aediles very
appropriately built him a temple in the Tiber-island with money taken as
fines from defaulting pecuarii[1122], or holders of public land used for cattle-
runs. We may assume that his settlement in the city was suggested by the
pontifices, and that we have here a case of the transformation of a purely
rustic cult into an urban one by priestly manipulation. It is not impossible
that the idea that Faunus was the deity of the Lupercalia came in about the
same time[1123]. Both priests and annalists got hold of him, and did their best
to rob him of his true character as an intelligible and useful god of
woodland and pasture. He became a Rex Aboriginum[1124], and the third on
the list of mythical kings of Latium[1125]. He became identified with the
Greek Pan. But, in spite of all their efforts, Faunus would not tamely accept
his new position. We hear no more of the aedes in the island: the Roman
vulgus do not seem to have recognized him at the Lupercalia, and his
insertion in the legends had no political effect. The fact that not a single
inscription from Rome or its vicinity records his name shows plainly that he
never took the popular fancy as a deity with city functions: and the absence
of inscriptions in the country districts also, in most singular contrast to the
ubiquitous stone records of Silvanus-worship, seems to show that he
remained always much as wild as he was before the age of inscriptions
began, while the kindred deity was adopted into the organized life and
culture of the Italian and provincial farmer[1126].
It may be as well, before leaving the subject of this singular being, to sum
up under a very few heads what is really known about him. But so little is
known about the cult of Faunus—and indeed it can hardly be said that any
elaborate cult ever grew up around him—that it may be legitimate for once
first to glance at the etymological explanations of his name which have
been suggested by scholars.
(1) Faunus is connected with favere, and means ‘the kind or propitious one,’
like Faustus and Faustulus, and as some think, Favonius[1127] and Fons. This

derivation was known to Servius[1128]: ‘quidam Faunos putant dictos ab eo
quod frugibus faveant.’ It is not in itself inconsistent with what we know of
the rural Faunus, or with analogous supernatural beings, like the ‘good
people.’ It was accepted by Preller and Schwegler, and has affected their
conclusions about Faunus; e. g. Schwegler based on it the view, now
generally held, that Evander is a Greek translation of Faunus[1129].
(2) Faunus is from fari, i. e. the speaker, or foreteller. This too was known
to Latin scholars: thus Isidorus (perhaps from Varro[1130]), ‘fauni a fando,
ἀπὸ τὴς φωνῆς dicti, quod voce non signis ostendere viderentur futura.’ It
was revived not long ago by the late Prof. Nettleship: ‘Once imagine
Faunus as a “speaker,” and all becomes clear. He is not only the composer
and reciter of verses[1131], but generally the seer or wise man, whose superior
knowledge entitles him to the admiration and dread of the country folk who
consult him. But as his real nature and functions are superseded, his
character is misconceived: he becomes a divinity, the earliest king of
Latium, the god of prophecy, the god of agriculture.’ We may compare with
this Scaliger’s note on Varro, L. L. 7. 36: ‘The Fauni were a class of men
who exercised, at a very remote period, the same functions which belonged
to the Magi in Persia, and to the Bards in Gaul.’
(3) Faunus may = Favonius, which itself may come from the same root as
Pan (i. e. pu = purify). Thus Faunus, like Pan, might be taken as a
mythological expression of the ‘purifying breeze,’ the god of the gentler
winds[1132]. The characteristics of Faunus are of course very like those of
Pan; but as it is no easy matter to determine how far those of the Italian
were taken over by the Roman litterati from the Greek deity, and as the
etymology itself is confessedly a questionable one, this conjecture must be
left to take its chance.
But the first two are worth attending to, and each finds some support in
what we know of Faunus from other sources. Let us see in the next place
what this amounts to.
(1) There is fairly strong evidence that Faunus was not originally conceived
as a single deity, but as multiplex. Varro quotes the line of Ennius:

Versibus quos olim Fauni vatesque canebant,

and comments thus[1133]: ‘Fauni dii Latinorum, ita ut Faunus et Fauna sit.’
The evidence of Virgil, always valuable for rural antiquities, is equally
clear:

Et vos agrestum praesentia numina, Fauni,
Ferte simul Faunique pedem Dryadesque puellae[1134].

Servius has an interesting note on these lines: why, he asks, does the poet
put Faunus in the plural, when there is but one? We might be tempted to
think Virgil wrong and his commentator right, the poet representing Greek
ideas and the scholar Italian, but for a still more curious note of Probus on
the same passage: ‘Plures (Fauni) existimantur esse etiam praesentes:
idcirco rusticis persuasum est incolentibus eam partem Italiae quae
suburbana est, saepe eos in agris conspici.’ My belief is that these words
give us the genuine idea of Faunus in the rustic mind, surviving in central
Italy long after he had been appropriated as a conventional Roman deity.
We seem in the case of Faunus to be able to catch a deity in the process of
manufacture—of elevation from a lower, multiplex, daemonistic form, to a
higher and more uniform and more rigid one. Yet so excellent a scholar as
Wissowa holds exactly the opposite view, that there was but one Faunus,
and that his multiplication is simply the result of Roman acquaintance with
Pan and the Satyrs[1135]. It would have been more satisfactory if he had given
us an explanation from his point of view of the passage of Probus just
quoted, or had shown us how these Greek notions could have penetrated
into the rural parts of Italy.
(2) Another point which comes out distinctly—unless our Roman
authorities were wholly misled—is the woodland character of the Fauni. A
passage of Varro, of which I quoted the first words just now, goes on thus:
‘hos versibus quos vocant Saturnios in silvestribus locis traditum est solitos
fari futura, a quo fando Faunos dictos.’ This seems to be a genuine Italian
tradition. Virgil was not talking Greek when he wrote[1136]

Haec nemora indigenae Fauni Nymphaeque tenebant
Gensque virum truncis et duro robore nata,
Queis neque mos neque cultus erat, &c.

The poet imagines an ancient race, sprung from the trees themselves: a
‘genus indocile et dispersum montibus altis,’ living on the forest-clad
hills[1137], to whom foreign invaders brought the means of civilization. Why
should not this tradition be a native one? It is singularly in accord with the
most recent results of Italian excavation; for it is now absolutely certain that
the oldest inhabitants of central Italy dwelt on the hill-tops, and that the first
traces of foreign influence only occur in lower and later settlements[1138].
The valleys were still undrained and malarious. These earliest inhabitants
who have left their traces for the excavator, or a still older race scattered on
the hills after their invasion, may have been the traditional representatives
of what Preller has called ‘the period of Faunus[1139],’ regarded by the later
civilization, from their wild and woodland habits, as half demons and half
men. The name of the kindred Silvanus tells its own tale; and his actual
connexion with trees was even closer than that of Faunus[1140].
(3) A third well-attested point is the attribution to Faunus or the Fauni of
power for good or evil over the crops and herds, as we have seen it already
implied in Horace’s ode. Porphyrion[1141] in his commentary on this ode tells
us that Faunus, on the Nones of December, wishes the cattle, which are
under his protection, to be free from danger. Just before this passage he had
spoken of him as ‘deum inferum et pestilentem,’ thus giving us the dark and
hurtful side of his power as well as the bright and gracious. The same
combination of the powers of doing and averting harm is seen in Mars, as
we have already learnt from the hymn of the Arval Brethren and the
formula of prayers preserved by Cato[1142].
Under this head may be mentioned the belief that both Faunus and Silvanus
were dangerous for women, an idea which finds expression in the
significant word incubus, so often applied to them[1143]. We may perhaps
find a reason for the identification of Faunus as god of the Lupercalia in the
most striking feature of the festival—the pursuit of the women by the
creppi, who struck them with thongs in order to render them productive[1144].
(4) The last characteristic of the Fauni to be noticed is that they had the
power of foretelling the future. The verse of Ennius already quoted is the
earliest literary evidence we have of this; but the quaint story of the capture
of Picus and Faunus by Numa[1145], who caught them by making them drunk
with wine at the fountain where they came to drink, and compelled them as
the price of their liberty to reveal the art of staying a disaster, has an

unmistakeable old-Italian ring. The idea seems to have been, not that
Faunus was a ‘god of prophecy,’ as Preller seems to fancy, but that there
was an ancient race of Fauni, who might be coaxed or compelled to reveal
secrets. Sometimes indeed they ‘spoke’ of their own accord; when a Roman
army needed to be warned or encouraged on its march, their voice was
heard by all as it issued from thicket or forest. Cicero and Livy[1146] write of
these voices with a distinctness which (as it seems to me) admits of no
suspicion that they are inserting Greek ideas into Roman annals.
There are also traces to be found of a belief in the existence of local
woodland oracles of Faunus and his kind. It was in a grove sacred to Faunus
that Numa, in Ovid’s vivid description[1147], slew two sheep, the one to
Faunus, the other to Sleep, and after twice sprinkling water on his head, and
twice wreathing it with beech-leaves, stretched himself on the fleeces to
receive the prophetic inspiration as he slumbered. Almost every touch in
this story seems to me to be genuine; and especially the conditions
necessary to success—the continence of the devotee, and the removal of the
metal ring from the finger. Virgil, with something more of foreign
adornment, tells in exquisite verse what is really the same story as
Ovid’s[1148]. And a later poet writes of a sacred beech-grove, where under
like conditions of temperance, &c., the shepherds might find the oracles of
Faunus inscribed on the bark of a beech-tree[1149]. All this reminds us of
Dodona and the oldest Greek oracles: we have here the quaint methods of
primitive shepherds, appealing to prophetic powers localized in particular
woodland spots. Roman exigencies of state drew by degrees the whole of
the secrets of fore-knowledge into the hands of a priestly aristocracy, with
its fixed doctrine and methods of divination; but the country folk long
retained their faith in the existence of an ancient race, possessed of
prophetic power, which haunted forest and mountain.
These four points, taken together, i. e. the multiplicity of the Fauni, their
woodland character, and their supposed powers of productivity and
prophecy, seem by no means to exclude the possibility of the human origin
suggested long ago by Scaliger, and recently by Prof. Nettleship, though I
would shape the explanation somewhat differently. Wild men from the hills
and woods, for example, might well be supposed to be possessed of
supernatural powers, like the gipsies of modern times[1150]. And the striking
absence of any epigraphical survivals of a definite cult may possibly be

explained by a persistence of the belief in the Italian mind that Faunus was
never really and truly a god, but one of a race with some superhuman
attributes—a link in the chain that always in antiquity connected together
the human and the divine. Horace’s ode shows the divine element
predominating; some local Faunus has, so to speak, been caught and half
deified; and yet, even then, the process is hardly complete.
There is, however, another explanation of conceptions of this kind to which
I must briefly allude, which was based by Dr. Mannhardt on an exhaustive
examination of the attributes of creatures like the Fauni, as they occur in
various parts of Europe and elsewhere[1151]. The general result of his
investigation may be stated thus. Spirits which seem to have their origin in
woods and mountains find outward expression for their being in the wind;
so also do those which seem to have their origin in corn and vegetation
generally. We thus find three ingredients in their composition: (1) trees, (2)
corn, (3) wind. We have only to think how the invisible wind moves the
branches of the trees, or bows the corn before it, to see how closely, in the
eyes of men used to attribute life to inanimate things, the idea of the wind
might run together with that of objects to which it seems to give motion and
life. The result of its mysterious agency is the growth of a variety of
creatures of the imagination, often half bestial, like Pan and the Russian
Ljeschi, sometimes entirely animal, like the Rye-wolf and many another
animal corn-spirit now familiar to readers of Frazer’s Golden Bough;
sometimes entirely human, like Silvanus, perhaps Faunus himself[1152], or
the Teutonic ‘wild man of the woods.’ Mannhardt endeavours, not wholly
without success, to bring the attributes of Faunus into harmony with this
theory. His prophetic vox comes from the forest in which the wind raises
strange noises; his relation to crops and flocks is parallel to that of many
other spirits who can be traced to a woodland origin; and the word
Favonius, used for the western moist and fertilizing breeze, is kindred, if
not identical, with Faunus; and so on.
This theory, resting as it does on a very wide induction from unquestionable
facts, beyond doubt explains many of the conceptions of primitive
agricultural man; whether it can be applied satisfactorily to the Italian
Faunus is perhaps less evident. At present I rather prefer to think of the
Fauni as arising from the contact of the first clearers and cultivators of

Italian soil with a wild aboriginal race of the hills and woods. But on such
questions certainty is impossible, and dogmatism entirely out of place.

iii Id. Dec. (Dec. 11). NP.

AG. IN.... (AMIT.). AG[ONIA] (MAFF. PRAEN. ANT.)
[1153]
SEPTIMONTIA (PHILOC.). SEPTIMONTIUM, GUID. SILV.

For Agonia see on Jan. 9. This (Dec. 11) is the third day on which this
mysterious word appears in the calendars. The AG. IN. of the Amiternian
calendar was conjectured by Mommsen in the first edition of C. I. L., vol. i,
to indicate ‘Agonium Inui’[1154]; but in the new edition he withdraws this;
‘ab incertis coniecturis abstinebimus.’ This is done in deference to
Wissowa, who has pointed out that there is no other case in the calendars of
a festival-name inscribed in large letters being followed immediately by the
name of a deity[1155]. We must fall back on the supposition that AG. IN. ... is
simply a cutter’s error for the AGON. of three other calendars.
It is impossible to determine what was the relation between this agonium, or
solemn sacrifice, and the Septimontium or Septimontiale sacrum, which
appears only in very late calendars, or whether indeed there was any
relation at all. It is not absolutely certain that the so-called Septimontium
took place on this day. It was only a conjecture of Scaliger’s (though a
clever one) that completed the gloss in Festus on the word
‘Septimontium’[1156] [Septimontium dies ap]pellatur mense [Decembri qui
dicitur in f]astis agonalia. The word Septimontium suggested itself, as the
gloss occurred under letter S. Other support for the conjecture is found in
the two late calendars, and in a fragment of Lydus[1157], who connects the
two ceremonies.
But even if Scaliger’s conjecture be right, it does not follow that the
Agonium was identical with or was part of the Septimontiale sacrum. The
latter does not appear in the old calendars, as it was not ‘pro populo,’ but
only ‘pro montibus’ (see below); and if it was there represented by the word
Agonium, it is not easy to see how the latter should have found its way into
the calendar. It seems better to conclude that the two were distinct.

About the Septimontium itself we have just enough information to divine its
nature, but without details. The word is used by Varro both in a
topographical and a religious sense: ‘Ubi nunc est Roma, erat olim
Septimontium; nominatum ab tot montibus, quos postea urbs muris
comprehendit[1158].’ Here he implies that the old name for Rome was
Septimontium; but this is only a guess based on the name of the festival:
‘Dies Septimontium nominatur ab his septem montibus, in quis sita urbs
est; feriae non populi sed montanorum modo, ut Paganalia, quae sunt
aliquoius pagi[1159].’
The montes here meant are the three divisions of the Palatine, viz. Palatium,
Cermalus, Velia; the three of the Esquiline, viz. Mons Oppius, Mons
Cispius, and the Fagutal, together with the lower ground of the Subura[1160].
I believe that Mommsen is right in thinking that these were never political
divisions—in other words, that they were not originally distinct
communities[1161], but probably religious divisions of a city which began on
the Palatine, and gradually took in new ground on the Esquiline. The same
process can be traced at Falerii, and at Narce a few miles above it; what we
seem to see is not the accretion of villages—not συνοικισμός—but the
extension of a city from one strong position to another[1162]. This is
especially clear at Narce, where it is distinctly proved by the pottery found
in the excavations, that the hill (Monte li Santi) subsequently added to the
original city was not co-eval with the latter as a settlement; i. e. that it was
the absorption by an older settlement of a probably uninhabited position
which here took place, and not the synoecizing of distinct political
communities[1163]. In the later Rome the montani of the seven districts,
together with the pagani, or inhabitants of what had originally been the
farm-country around Rome, formed the united city[1164]. It is most interesting
to find that the earliest divisions, i. e. of the montes, were imitated in the
foundation of some colonies—we should find them probably in many if we
had the necessary information[1165].
All we know of the cult of the montani on this day is as follows: (1) There
was a sacrifice on the Palatium (which seems to have been the first in
dignity of the montes) by the Flamen Palatualis[1166]; but we do not know to
what deity, and can only guess that it was Pales, or Palatua[1167]. (2) On this
day no carts or other vehicles drawn by beasts of burden were allowed in
the city, as we learn from Plutarch, who asks the reason of this, and gives

some quaint answers[1168]. But the explanations are useless to us, and we
cannot even guess whence Plutarch drew his knowledge of the fact, unless
it was from personal observation. Let us remember, however, that this was a
feast of montani: is it not likely that this was a survival from a time when
the farm-waggons of the pagani really never ascended to the ‘hills’?

Prid. Id. Dec. (Dec. 12). EN.

Conso in Aventin[o]. (Amit.)

xviii (Ante Caes. xvi[1169]) Kal. Ian. (Dec. 15). NP.

CONS[UALIA]. (MAFF. PRAEN. AMIT. ANT.) FERIAE CONSO
(PRAEN. AMIT.)

For these see on Aug. 21. If the conclusions there arrived at are sound we
might guess that these winter rites of Consus arose from the habit of
inspecting the condition of the corn-stores in mid-winter[1170]. It is this day
that has the note attached to it in the Fasti Praenestini, ‘Equi et [muli
floribus coronantur] quod in eius tu[tela] ... itaque rex equo [vectus?],’
which was commented on under Aug. 21. See also under Aug. 25
(Opeconsivia); Wissowa, s. v. Consus, in Lex. Myth.; and de Feriis, vi foll.

xvi (Ante Caes. xiv[1171]) Kal. Ian. (Dec. 17). NP.

SATURNALIA. (MAFF. AMIT. GUID. RUST. PHILOC.)
FERIAE SATURNO. (MAFF. AMIT.)

SATURN[O] AD FO[RUM]. (AMIT.)

FERIAE SERVORUM. (SILV.)

This was the original day of the Saturnalia[1172], and, in a strictly religious
sense, it was the only day. The festival, in the sense of a popular holiday,
was extended by common usage to as much as seven days[1173]: Augustus
limited it to three in respect of legal business, and the three were later
increased to five[1174].
Probably no Roman festival is so well known to the general reader as this,
which has left its traces and found its parallels in great numbers of
mediaeval and modern customs[1175], occurring about the time of the winter
solstice. Unfortunately, it is here once more a matter of difficulty to
determine what features in the festival were really of old Latin origin, in
spite of information as to detail, which is unusually full; for both Saturnus
himself and his cult came to be very heavily overlaid with Greek ideas and
practice.
That Saturnus was an old agricultural god admits, however, of no doubt; the
old form of the word was probably Săĕturnus, which is found on an
inscription on an ancient vase[1176], and this leads us to connect him with
serere and satio; and popular tradition attributed to him the discovery of
agricultural processes[1177]. But the Roman of the historical age knew very
little about him, and cared only for his Graecized festival; like Faunus, he is
the object of no votive inscriptions in Rome and its neighbourhood[1178]; and
this conclusively proves that he was never what may be called popular as a
deity. As the first king of Latium there were plenty of legends about him, or
as the first civilizer of his people, the representative of a Golden Age[1179];
but no one has as yet thoroughly investigated these[1180], with a view to

distinguish any Italian precipitate in the mixture of elements of which they
certainly consist. We are still without the invaluable aid of the contributors
to Roscher’s Lexicon.
More promising at first sight is the tradition which connects him in Rome
itself with the Capitoline hill. Varro tells us positively that this hill was
originally called Mons Saturnius; and that there was once an oppidum there
called Saturnia, of which certain vestiges survived to his own time,
including a ‘fanum Saturni in faucibus,’ i. e. apparently the ara Saturni of
which Dionysius records that it was at the ‘root of the hill,’ by the road
leading to the summit[1181], in fact on the same spot where stood later the
temple of which eight columns are still standing. Close to this, it may be
noted, was a sacellum of Dis Pater[1182], the Latinized form of Plutus; in the
temple was the aerarium of later Rome[1183], and built into the rock behind,
the chambers of records (tabularia). But it would be idle to found upon
these facts or traditions any serious hypothesis as to the original nature of
the Roman cult of Saturn; all attempts must fail in the bewildering fog of
ancient fancy and ancient learning. Saturnus belongs, like Janus, with
whom he was closely connected in legend[1184], to an age into whose
religious ideas we cannot penetrate, and survived into Roman worship only
through Greek resuscitation[1185], and in the feast of the Saturnalia. All we
seem to see is that he is somehow connected with things that are put in the
earth[1186]—seed, treasure, perhaps stores of produce; to which may just be
added that the one spot in Rome at all times associated with him is close to
the market, and that market-days (nundinae) were said to be sacred to
him[1187]. The temple of Janus is also close by, and it is not impossible that
both these ancient gods had some closer relation to the Forum and the
business done there than we can at present understand with our limited
knowledge. Neither of them, it may be noted, had a flamen attached to his
cult; from which we may infer that they did not descend from the primitive
household or the earliest form of community, but rather represented some
place or process common to several communities, such as a forum and the
business transacted there[1188]. It is precisely such gods who figure in
tradition as kings, not of a single city, but of Latium.
But to turn to the festival; if the god was obscure and uninteresting, this was
not the case with his feast. It seems steadily to have gained in popularity
down to the time of the empire, and still maintained it when Macrobius