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THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
PERIOD OF THE REPUBLIC
THE
ROMAN FESTIVALS
OP 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
Pontoon
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1899
All rights reserved
B00934
7. l.Sff
OXFORD ! HORACE HART
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
FRATRIS FILIIS
I .C . H . F
H .G . C. F
BONAE SPEI ADOLESCENTIBUS
PREFACE
A WOED 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 con-
vinced 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 there-
fore 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
viii PREFACE
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 Eoman 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. Com-
pression 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 inter-
esting 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
PREFACE ix
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 pcracto,
Naviget hinc alia iam mihi linter aqua.
W. W. F.
OXFORD : Feb. 28, 1899.
CONTENTS
PAOB
INTRODUCTION ....... •••••>
CALENDAR ......... . . . 21
FESTIVALS OF MARCH .......... 33
„ „ APEII .......... 66
,i „ MAY ...... . . . .98
„ „ JUKE .......... 129
„ „ JUIT .......... 173
„ ,, AUGUST .......... 189
„ ,, SEFTEMBEK ......... 215
„ ,, OCTOBER .......... 336
„ ,, NOVEMBER ......... 352
„ ,, DECEMBER ... ...... 355
„ „ JAHUABY .......... 377
„ ,, FKBKUAKY ......... 398
CONCLUSION ............ 333
NOTES OH 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 Romische
Staatsterwaltung, second edition, edited by Wissowa (Berlin, 1885). It is
the sixth volume of the complete Handbuch der Romischen Alterthumer of
Mommsen and Marquardt.
Preller, or Preller-Jordan, stands for the third edition of Preller's
Romische Mythologie by H. Jordan (Berlin, 1881).
Myth. Lex. or Lex. stands for the Ausfiihrliches Lexicon der Oriechischen uncl
Romischen Mythoiagie, edited by W. H. Roscher, which as yet has only been
completed to the letter N.
Festus, or Paulus, stands for K. 0. Miiller's edition of the fragments of
Festus, De Significations Verborum, and the Excerpta ex Festo of Paulus
Diaconus ; quoted by the page.
INTRODUCTION
I. THE ROMAN METHOD OF RECKONING THE YEAR'.
THERE are three ways in which the course of the year may
be calculated. It can be reckoned —
r. 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 £
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
1 The difficult questions connected with this subject cannot be discussed
here. Since Mommsen wrote his JRvmische Chronologic it has at least been
possible to give an intelligible account of it, such as that in the Diet, of
Antiquities (second edition), in Marquardt's Slaatsverwaltung, iii. 281 foil.,
and in Bouche-Leclercq, Pontifes, p. 230 foil. There is a useful summary in
H. Peter's edition of Ovid's Fasti (p. 19). Mommsen's views have been
criticized by Huschke, DasRiJmischeJahr, and Hartmann, Der Rom. Kaknder :
the former* very unsafe guide, and the latter, unfortunately, an unfinished
and posthumous work. The chief ancient authority is Censorinus, De die
natali, a work written at the beginning of the third century A D., on the
ba..->is of a treatise of Suetonius.
2 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
other words, though the difference between a single solar year
and a single lunar year is more than 1 1 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 peiiod 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 1 9 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=365A. 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, truces1, &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 '2. 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 them-
1 Chron. 48 foil. ; Marq. 284 and notes.
2 Huschke, op. cit. 8 foil. ; Hartmann, p. 13.
INTRODUCTION 3
selves 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) '.
It consisted of 1 2 months, of which March, May, July, October
had 31 days, and the rest 29, except Februaiy, 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 ~, 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 n 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 there-
fore necessary to work in the solar principle ; and this was
done 3 by a somewhat rude expedient, not unlike that of the
Athenian Octaeteris, and probably derived from it 4. 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,
1 Censorinus, De die natali, 20. 4.
1 Mommsen (Cfiron. 13) believes it to have been a Pythagorean doctrine
which spread in Southern Italy. Hartmann, on the contrary, calls it an
old Italian one adopted by Pythagoras. See a valuable note in Schwegler,
Rom. Gesch. i. 561, inclining to the latter view.
1 Probably by the Decemvirs, B.C. 450, who are said to have made some
alteration in the calendar (Macrob. i. 13. 2i>.
* See Diet. Ant. i. 337 and 342. It is highly probable that there wa-
a still older plan, which gave way to this at the time of the Decemvirate :
the evidence for this, which is conjectural only, is stated by Mommsen in
the first chapter of his Chronologic. The number of days in this cycle (also
of 4 years) is computed at 1475, and the average in each year at 368^.
B a
4 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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
(TerminaUa}1. The total number of days in the cycle was
1465, or about i 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 Eepublic.
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 veiy 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. i, 45 B. c.J
— a day henceforward to be that of the new year— with a cycle
of 4 years of 365 days3 ; in the last of which a single day was
added, after the TerminaUa. 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 Eussia and by the Greek Church generally.
1 Or, according to Mommsen, in alternate years after the 23rd and
24th, i.e. in the year of 378 days 23 days were inserted after the
TerminaUa; in the year of 377 days 22 days were inserted after the
24th (Regifughtm}. Thus February would in the one case have 23, and
in the other 24 days ; the remaining 5 and 4 being added to the
intercalated period. The object of the Decemvirs (if it was they who
made this change) in this curious arrangement was, in part at least, to
keep the festival of the god Terminus on its original day (Mommsen,
Chron. 38). Terminus would budge neither from his seat on the Capitol
(Liv. i. 55) nor from his place in the calendar.
1 Probably in order that the beginning of the year might coincide with
a new moon ; which actually happened on Jan. i, 45, and was doubtless
regarded as a good omen.
' He added 10 days to the normal year of 355: January, Sextilis,
December, receiving two ; April, June, September, November, one only.
These new days were placed at the end of the months, so that the days
ou which religious festivals fell might remain as before.
INTRODUCTION 5
II. ORDER OF MONTHS IN THE YEAR.
That the Roman year originally began with March is certain ],
not only from the evidence of the names of the months, whiclv.
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 i , 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 2. It was not on January i,
but on March i, 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
religion3. March i, 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 i4.
It was probably not till 153 B. c., when the consuls began
to enter on office on January i, 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
1 Mommsen, CJirvn. 220. In no other Italian calendar of which we have
any knowledge is March the first month (ib. 218 foil.) : but there cannot
be much doubt that these too had undergone changes. Festus (150),
representing Vcrrius Flaccus, says, ' Martius inensis initium fuit anni et
in Latio et post Romam conditam,' &c.
2 Huschke, RiJm. Jahr, n foil.
* See below, under March r.
4 Mommsen, Cliron. 103 foil.
6 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 Eomaii 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 peTfecting. 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, Src. ; 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 in-
dicated 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 esfc, lani mensis et ante fuit.
Qui sequitur lanum, veteris fuit ultimus anni,
Tu quoque sacrorum, Termine, finis eras.
Primus enim lani mensis, quia ianua prima est ;
Qui sacer est imis manibus, imus erat.
Postmodo creduntur spatio distantia longo
Tempora bis quini continuasse viri.
INTRODUCTION 7
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,
Mai'ch, 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 OP THE MONTH.
The Eomans, 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 appear-
ance of the crescent ' 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
1 Not the real new moon, which is invisible. The period between the
new moon and the first quarter varies.
8 THE KOMAN FESTIVALS
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, luno Covella. Septem dies te calo luno
Covella". All the Kalends were sacred to Juno, whose con-
nexion with the moon is certain though not easy to explain.
With the Nones, which were sacred to no deity, all uncer-
tainty 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 recog-
nition of the continuous light of the two great heavenly bodies
during the whole twenty-four hours2. On the Nones the Hex
sact'orum (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 Eoman
week or nundinal period of eight days, which is indicated in all
the calendars by the letters A to H. TJhe nundinae were
market days, on which the rustic population ' came into Rome ;
whether they were also feast days (fcriae) 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, N>, 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 faslus, means that on the day so marked civil
and especially judicial business might be transacted without
fear of divine displeasure3. 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
1 Varro, L. L. 6. 37. This was the method before the publication of the
calendar by Flavius : Macr. i. 15. 9. The meaning of Covella is doubtful ;
it has generally been connected with cavus and tcot\is, and explained of
the ' hollow ' crescent of the new moon. See Roscher, Lex. s.v. luno 586.
2 Aust, s.v. luppiter, in Roscher's Lexicon, p. 655.
Varro, L. L. 6. 29 ' Dies fasti, per quos praetoribus omniu verba
(i.e. do, dico, addico) sine piaculo licet fari.'
INTRODUCTION 9
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 '.
C (comitiaKs) means that the day f.o marked was one on
which the comitia might meet2, 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', 'tristi omine et infames
impeditique, in quibus et res divinas facere et rein 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 postrhhiani or days following
the Kalends, Nones and Ides, because two terrible defeats had
occurred on such days4. 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.
N? 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 Festus8. No one has yet
determined for certain the origin of the sign, and discussion of
the various conjectures would be here superfluous6. It appears
1 Liv. 9. 46.
2 Macr. i. 16. 14. Cp. the mutilated note of Verrius in Fasti Ptaenestini
(Jan. 3).
3 Cell. 4. 9. 5. Varro, L. L. 6 29. 30.
1 Livy, 6. i. ii. Macrob. i. 16. 22.
* Festus 165. See Mommsen's restoration of the passage in C. I. L.
290 B. ; another, less satisfactory, in Huschke, Rom. Jahr, 240.
6 Momnuen (C. I. L. 290, A) still holds to his view that NP is only an
old form of N, brought into use for purposes of differentiation. His
10 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 N* 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'1. 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. v
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. -, but is F in Maff. April 23
( Vinalia) is FP in Caer. but N? in Maff. and F in Praen.
Aug. 19 (Vinalia rustica) is FP in Maff. and Amit, F in Antiat.
•and Allif., IP in Vail. Mommseii explains FP as fastus prin-
cipio, 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 per-
formed 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 Eomans
themselves.
criticism of other views makes it difficult to put faith in them ; but
I cannot help thinking that the object of the mark was not only to
distinguish the religious character of the days from those marked N, but
to show that civil business might be transacted on them after the
sacrificial rites were over, owing to the rapid increase of legal business.
Ovid may be alluding to this, though confusing N» with EN, in Fasti
i. jjr, where the words, 'Nam simul exta deo data sunt, licet omnia
fari,' do not suit with Verrius' note on EN, but may really explain NP.
Fasti Praen., Jan. 10. Varro, L. L. 6. 31. Macr. i. 16. 3.
1 For the names of the fragments of Fasti, see next section.
INTRODUCTION II
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 ' ; 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 2. 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 edict3.
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 munici-
1 ' Fastos circa forum in albo proposuit, ut quando lege agi posset
sciretur,' Liv. 9. 46. 5 ; Cic. Att. 6. i. 8. On the latter passage Mornmsen
has based a reasonable conjecture that the Fasti had been already pub-
lished in one of the last two of the Twelve Tables, and subsequently again
withdrawn. (Chron. 31 and note.)
3 Macrob. i. 12. 16.
3 C. I. L. 207 B. Petronius (Cena 30) suggests the way in which copies
might be set up in private houses. In municipia copies might be made
and given to the town by private persons (so probably were Maff. and
Praen.) or put up by order of the decuriones.
12 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
pal i ties such as Praeneste, Caere, Amiternum, and others as
far away as Allifae and Venusia ; four are of uncertain origin ' :
and one is a curious fragment from Cisalpine Gaul2. Most
of them are still extant on stone, but for a few we have
to depend on written copies of an original now lost 3. No clay
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 Maifeiaui ; and several others contain three or four months
nearly perfect 4. 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 , drawn
up by his own hand ; and the date 6 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
Including the Fasti Maffeiani. which is almost complete.
No. 20 in C. I. L. (Guidizzolenses), found at Guidizzolo between
M. ntua and Verona.
Maffeiani, Tusculani, Pinciani, Venusini.
Those of Caere, Praeneste, Amiternum, and Antiuin.
Suet, de Grammaticls, 19.
Circ. AD. 10 : cf. C. I. L. 206. There are a few additional notes
apparently by a later h:md.
INTRODUCTION 13
of bronze, which omit the individual days, but are of use
as showing the course of agricultural operations under the later
Empire1.
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 bo made to this second
edition.
A word remains to be said about the Fasti of Ovid 2, which
is a poetical and often fanciful commentaiy 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 himself3 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
1 Menologium rusticum Colotianum, and Men. rusticum Vallense in
C. I.L. 280,281.
: Merkel's edition (1841), with its valuable Prolegomena, is indispens-
able ; very useful too is that by H. Peter, Leipzig, 1889.
1 Tristia, ii. 549.
14 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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
Actla 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 wrhich are here and there imbedded
in it. Still, when all is said, a student of the Koman 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 KEPUBLIC 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 ' ; 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 :
i. It is certain that Caesar and Ih's 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,
1 C. I. L. 297 foil, (de feriis).
INTRODUCTION 15
and the names of all festivals throughout the year. Later
on further additions were made, chiefly in the way of glorifica-
tion of the Emperors and their families ; but the skeleton
remained as it had been under the Kepublic.
2. It is almost certain that the Kepublican 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 Kepublic, except the second Carmentalia, the Saturnalia,
and the Cerealia l ; 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 ab-
breviated 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
1 To these \ve may perhaps add the Poplifugia and Lucaria in July, the
legends about which we can neither accept nor refute.
l6 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 \ i. e. of gentes and
curiae, of pagi (paganalia), montes (Septhnonthmi) 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 ponti-
fices, which, did we but possess them, would doubtless constitute
our one other most valuable record besides the Fasti them-
selves 2. 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 ". 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
1 See Festus, 245 ; and Did. Ant. s. v. Sacra.
2 Varro's works, de Antiquitatibus humanis and dirinis, and many others,
only survive in the fragments quoted by later authors.
•* Paul the deacon was one of the scholars who found encouragement at
the court of Charles the Great. His work is an abridgement of that
of Festus, not of Verrius himself. On Verrius and his epitumators, as
well as on the other writers who used his glosses, see H. Nettleship's
valuable papers in Essays in Latin Literature, p. 201 foil.
INTRODUCTION 17
many others, and also in Pliny's Natural History, and in some
of the Christian Fathers, especially St. Augustine and Ter-
tullian ; 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 ', who wrote in Greek a work de Mcnsibus 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
n- with much material for criticism ; and Dionysius of Hali-
carnassus. 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
linwan Questions, also contain much interesting matter, taken
from several sources, e.g. Jitba. the learned king of Mauritania,
but as a rule ultimately referable to Varro. Beyond these
(here 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 epigraph ical 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 these2, 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
1 For more information about Lydus see Bury, Later Roman Empire, ii.
183. and below under March 14.
2 They will be found in Bachelor's Umbrica (containing the processional
inscription of Iguvium with commentary and translation), and Heuzen's
Ada Fratrum Arvalium.
l8 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
nineteenth. The chief writers will be quoted as occasion
demands ; here can only be mentioned, honoris causa, the
writings of Ambrosch, Preller, Schweglei, Marquardt ', and of
some of the writers in the Mythological Lexicon, edited by
Koscher. especially Professor Wissowa of Berlin, whose short
but pithy articles, as well as his treatises de Fcriis and de
Dis Indigetibus are models of scholarly investigation '•'. Of late,
too. anthropologists and folk-lorists have had something to say
about Roman religious antiquities ; of these, the most con-
spicuous 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
1 Trailer's RomiscJie Mythologie (ed. 3, by H. Jordan) and Marquardt's
third volume of his Staatsceritaltung (ed. Wissowa) are both masterpieces,
not only in matter but in manner.
2 Among the others may especially be mentioned Aust, a pupil of
Wissowa, to whom we owe the excellent and exhaustive article on
Jupitor ; and R Peter, the author of the article Fortuna and others, who
largely reflects the views of the late Prof. Reifferscheid of Breslau.
INTEODUCTION 19
the last two centuries of the Kepublic, 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 '. 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 over-
shadowed, first by the cult of the Caesars 2 ; secondly, by the
steadily increasing influence of foreign and especially of Oriental
cults ; and lastly, by Christianity itself3.
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
1 'Hoc paene ununa superest sincerum documentum,' Wissowa, de
Perils, p. i.
8 This is well illustrated in the Ada Fratrum Anxtlium referred to above.
* A succinct account of these tendencies will he found in Marquardt,
p. 72 foil. There is a French translation of this invaluable volume.
G 2
20 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
practice of religious rites1. But if it is true, as it undoubtedly
is. that in dealing with the Eoman religion we must begin
with the cult 2, and that for the cult the one ' sincerum docu-
mentum ' 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 Eoman 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. 1 5). 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 repre-
sent in every case the most ancient calendar of the Republic,
and small capitals the additamenta ex fastis.
1 A short account of these will be found in the author's articles in the
new edition of Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities, on 'Sacra,' 'Sacerdos,' ami
' Sacnficium.' On the domestic rites, there is an excellent book in Italian,
which might well be translated: II Culto privato di Roma aniica, by Prof.
De-Msirchi of Milan, of which only Part I, La Religione nella vita domestica,
has as yet appeared.
* Marqnardt, Staatsrencaifung, in. p. 2.
MENSIS MARTIUS
Fasti antiquissimi.
Additamenta
ex fastis.
Additamenta ex
scriptoribus.
1 KAL. IP
2 F
i. Feriae Marti.
luuoni Luciiiae.
i . M; 1 1 roiial ia (?).
3 C
4 C
5 C
G IP
7 KON. F
7. Vediovi.
F
9 C
10 C
9. Anna aucilia
movent.
11 C
12 C
v
13 EN
14 IP
15 EID. IP
16 F
17 IP
18 C
EQUIRRIA
( LIBKKALIA
( AGONIA
14 (or 15?). Feriae
Marti.
15. Feriae Ainiao
Fereimae.
14. Mamuralia ^?).
16 (and 1 7 ?). Sacra
Argeorurn.
19 N
QUINQUAXBUS
19. Feriae Marti.
20 C
21 C
22 N
23 IP
TUBILUSTKIUJ1
24 Q.K.C. F
25 C
20 C
27 IP
28 C
29 C
30 C
31 C
31. Lunac in Avcu-
tino.
21
MEXSIS APRILIS
Fasti antiquissimi.
Addi/amenta
ex fastis.
Additamenta ex
scriptoribus.
1 KAL. F
2 F
3 C
4 C
5 RON. N
6 IP
4. Matri Magnae.
4-10. Ludi Mega-
lesiaci.
5. Fortunae publicae
citeriori in eolle.
i. Veneralia(?).
Fortunae virili
in balneis
(Verr.Flacc.).
7 N
8 N
9 N
10 N
11 N
9-10 or 10-11. Ora-
culum Fortunae
patet (at Prae-
neste).
12 N
12-19. Ludi Cereal es
13 EID. IP
H N
15 JP
FORDICIDIA
1G N
17 N
18 N
19 N
20 N
CEUEALIA
19. Cereri Libero
Liberae.
21 IP
22 N
PAKILIA
at. Natalis urbis
(PhUoc.).
23 IP
24 C
25 IP
26 F
VINALIA
ROBIGALIA
23. VeneriErycinae.
lovi.
25. SacriQcium et
ludi.
24. Ferine Latinae
(conceptivae)
usually about
this time.
27 C
28 M>
29 C
28. Ludi Florae, to
V. Non. Mai.
(May 3).
28.Floralia(Plin.).
22
MENSIS MARTS
Fasti antiquissimi.
Additamenta
ex fastis.
Additamenta ex
scriptoribus.
1 KAL. F
2 F
3 C
i. Laribus (praestiti-
bus).
i. Dies natalis of
temple of Bona
Dea ^Ovid).
4 C
5 C
6 C
7 NON. JF
8 F
9 N
LEMURIA
10 C
11 N
LEMURIA
12 IP
13 N
LEMURIA
14 C
15 BID. IP
16 F
15. Feriae Tovi Mer-
curio Maiae.
15. Sacra Argeo-
rum(0vid, &c.).
17 C
18 C
19 C
20 C
21 *P
AGONIA
21. Vediovi.
22 N
23 IP
24 Q.R.C. F
TUBILUSTRIUM
23. Volcano.
25 C
26 C
27 C
25. Fortunae publi-
cae Populi Ro-
IlKUli.
28 C
29 C
30 C
31 C
29. Ambarvalla
(feriae concep-
tivae).
1 N. Maff. Cf. Mommsen, C. I. L. 294 b.
MENSIS IUNIUS
fasti antiguissimi.
Additamenta
ex fastis.
Additamenta ex
scriptoribus.
1 KAL. N
2 F
i. lunoni Monetae.
i. Kalendae faba-
riae (Plin.)
Ludi.
3 C
3. Bellonae in circo.
4 C
5 NON. N
5. Dio Fidio in colic.
6 N
7 N
8 N
9 N
*
VESTALIA
8. Menti in Capi-
tolio.
10 N
11 N
MATE A LI A
12 N
13 HD. IP
14 JN
13. Feriae lovi.
13. Quinquatrus
minusculae.
15 Q.ST.D. F
16 C
17 C
18 C
18. Annae sacrum.
19 C
20 C
20. Summano ad cir-
21 C
cum maximum.
22 C
23 C
24 C
24. Forti Fortunae.
25 C
26 C
27 C
28 C
29 F
1 F. Tusc. Cf.
Mommsen, C. 1. L. 294 b.
24
MENSIS QUINTILIS
Fasti antiquissimi.
Adilitamenta
ex fastis.
Additamenta ex
scriptoribus.
1 KAL. N
2 N
3 N
4 M>
5 IP
POPLIPUGIA
6 N
6-13. Ludi Apolli
7 KON. N
8 N
nares.
7. Nonae Capro-
tinae (Varro).
9 N
10 C
9. Vitulatio
(Varro).
11 C
12 C
13 C
14 C
14-19; Mereatus.
15 EID. M»
16 F
17 C
18 C
18. Dies Alliensis.
19 IP
LUCAEIA
20 C
21 IP
LUCAKIA
22 C
23 IP
NEPTUNALLA
24 N
25 IP
FUKEINALIA
26 C
27 C
28 C
29 C
30 C
31 C
30. Fortunae huius-
que dioi in cuiupo.
MEXSIS SEXTILIS
Fasti antiquissimi.
Additamenta
ex fastis.
Additamenta ex
scriptoribus.
1 KAL. F
2 JP
3 C
i. Spei ad forum
holitoriura.
i. Laribus compi-
talibus? (Ovid,
5. 147).
4 C
t
5 NON. F
6l F
5. Saluti in collo
Quir.
7 C
8 C
9 F
8 (or 9?) Soli Indi
giti in colle Quir.
10 C
11 C
12 C
13 EID. M>
14 F
15 C
16 C
17 IP
18 C
PORTUNALIA
12. Herculi invicto
ad circ. max.
13. Feriae lovi.
Dianae in Aven-
tino.
Vortumno in
Aventino, &c.
(see p. 198;.
17. lanoad t heat rum
Marcelli.
19* FP
VINALIA
20 C
21 TP
22 EN
CONSTTALIA
at. Conso in Aven-
tino.
23 JP
24 C
25 N>
VOLCANALIA
OPICONSIVIA
23. Volcano in circo
Flumiuio, &c.
24. Mundus patet
(Festus).
26 C
27 IP
VOLTURNALIA
28 C
29 F
N*. Antiat. N. minores 6.
* F. Antiat. Allif. N1 Vail.
MENSIS SEPTEMBER
Fasti antiquissimi.
Additamenta
ex fastis.
Additamenta ex
scriptoribus.
1 KAL. F
2 P
3 F
4 C
4-12. Ludi RomanL
5 NON. F
6 F
7 C
8 C
9 C
10 C
11 C
121 N
13 EID. IP
14 F
152 N
16 C
13. lovi epulum.
Feriae lovi.
14. Equorum pro-
batio.
15-19. Ludi Romani
in circo.
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
1 IP Vail. C. Antiat. C. I. L. 294.
37
1 C. Vail. Antiat.
MENSIS OCTOBER
Fasti antiquissimi.
Additamenta
ex fastis.
Addilamenta ex
scriptoribus.
1 KAL. H
2 F
3 C
i. Tigillo sororio ad
compitum Acili.
Fidei inCapitolio.
4 C
5 C
5. Muudus patet.
G1 C
7 SON. F
8 F
9 C
7. lovi fulguri.
lunoni Ciu'riti in
campo.
10 C
11 IP
12 C
XEDITRINALJA
13 IP
14 EN
FONTLNALIA
13. Feriae FontL
15 Ell). JP
10 F
17 C
15. Feriae lovi.
15. Sacrifice of
October horse
(Festus).
18 C
19 JP
20 C
ABMILWSTEIUM
21 C
22 C
23 C
24 C
25 C
26 C
27 C
28 C
29 C
30 C
31 C
1 N. AiitLit Cf. C. I. L. 294.
28
MENSIS NOVEMBER
Fasti antiquissimi.
Additamcnta
ex fastis.
Additamenta ex
scriptoribus.
1
KAL. F
2
F
3
C
4
c
4-17. Ludi plebeii.
5
F
G
NON. F
7
C
8
C
9
C
10
C
11
12
c
c
13. Ferine Tovi.
lovi epulum.
13
BID. IP
1 3 (or 14?). Feroniae
14
F
in campo.
Fortunne Primi-
15
16
C
C
geniae in colle.
14. Equorum pro-
batio.
17
C
18
C
18-20. Mercatus.
19
c
20
c
21
c
22
c
23
c
21
c
25
c
26
c
•27
c
28
c
29
F
MENSIS DECEMBER
Fasti antiquissimi.
Adilitamenta
ex fastis.
Additamenta ex
scriptoribus.
I KAL. N
i . Neptuno ) ad circ.
i. Fortunae mu-
Pietati \ max.
liebri(Dionys.).
2 N
3 N
3. Sacra Bonae
4 C
Deae (Plutarch,
. &c.).
5 NON. F
5. Faunalia rus-
6 F
tica (Horace).
7 C
8 C
8. Tiberino in in-
sula.
9 C
10 C
11 IP
12 EN
AG[ONIA] IN.
12. Conso in Aven-
ii. Septimontium
(Festus j Varro).
tino.
13 EID. IP
13. Telluri et Cereri
14 F
in Carinis.
15 IP
COXSUALIA
16 C
17 K>
SATURNALIA
18 C
19 IP
OPALIA
20 C
21 IP
DIVALIA
22 C
22. Laribus perm a-
23 IP
LARENIALIA
rinis in porticu
Minuuia.
24 C
25 C
26 C
27 C
28 C
29 F
MENSIS IANUARIUS
Fasti anliquissimi.
Additamenta
ex fastis.
Additamenta ex
scriptoribus.
1 KAL. F
2 F
i.Aesculapio ) iiiin-
Vediovi j sula.
3 C
4 C
3-5 (circa). Com-
pitalia or ludi
compitales.
5 xox. F
6 F
7 C
8 C
9 [IP]
AGONIA
10 EN
11 IP
12 C
CARMENTALIA
ir. 'luturnalia'
Serviub.
13 EID. IP
14 EN
15 IP
CARMEJiTALIA
«
16 C
17 C
18 C
19 C
20 C
21 C
22 C
23 C
24 C
25 C
26 C
24-26. Sementi vae
or Paganalia
(Ovid) (feriae
conceptivae).
27 C
28 C
27. Giistori et Pol-
luci (dedication of
temple).
29 F
MEXSIS FEBRUARIUS
Fasti antiquissimi.
Additamenta
ex fastis.
Additamenla ex
scriptoribus.
1 KAL. N
2 N
i. lunoni Sospitae
(Ovid).
3 N
,
4 N
5 NOW. IP
G N
5. Concordiae in arce
(Praen.).
7 N
8 N
9 N
10 N
11 N
12 N
13 BID. IP
14 N
13. Fauno in insula
(Esq.).
13 21. Parentalia.
15 IP
LUPERCALIA
16 EN
17 IP
18 C
19 C
QUIRINALIA
r7. Last day of
Fornacalia (fe-
ria« concepti-
vae). 'Stulto-
rum Jeriae '
20 ' C
(Paulus, &c.).
21 l FP
FERALIA
22 C
23 IP
TERMINALIA
24 N
REGIFUGIUM
25 ' C
26 EN
27 IP
EQUIRRIA
28 C
F. Maff.
32
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
l»i'i-iod, 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 Mains 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
D
34 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 Eonians 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 l. Some great numen is at work, quickening vegeta-
tion, 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 care-
fully 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 m the winter, or as
conquering the hostile powers that would hinder his activity.
Among civilized peoples these ideas only survive iu 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
1 See Nissen, Italienische Landeskunde, i. 404 ; Ovid, Fasti, 3. 235 —
Quid, quod hiems adoperta gelu tune denique cedit,
Et pereunt victae sole tepente nives,
Arboribus redeunt detonsae frigore frondes,
Uvidaque in tenero palinite gemma tumet :
Quaeque diu latuit, nunc se qua tollat in auras,
Fertilis occultas invenit herba vias.
Nunc fecundus ager : pecoris nunc hora creandi,
Nunc avis in ramo tecta laremquo parat.
Tempora hire colunt Latiae fecunda parentes
Quarum militiam votaque partus habet.
Here we have the fertility of man, beast, and crop, all brought together :
the poet in writing of March i. The Romans reckoned spring from
Favonius (Feb. 7) to about May 10 (Varro, R. R. i. 38) ; March i would
therefore usually be a day on which its first effects would be obvious to
every one.
MENSIS MARTIUS 35
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 Koman 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 com-
parative 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 i). N5.
FERIAE MARTI. (PRAEN.)
N MARTIS. (PHILOC.)
lUNfoJNI LUCINAE E^SjQUILIIS QUOD EO DIE AEDES El [DEDICAJTA
EST PER MATRONAS QUAM VOVERAT ALBANIA] . . . VEL
TTXOR ... SI PUERUM . . . [ATJQUE IPSA M]. . . . (PRAEN.)
This was the New Year's day of the Roman religious calendar.
From Macrobius l 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
1 Sat. i. 12. 6; Ovid, Fasti, 3. 135 foil.
D 2
36 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
civil New Year. Ovid alludes to the same rites, and adds the
Aedes Vestae as also freshly decorated J :
Neu dubites, primae fuerint quin ante Kalendae
Martis, ad haec animum signa referre poles.
Laurea flaminibus quae toto perstii.it anno
Tollitur, et frondes snnt in honore novae,
lanua tune regis posita viret arbore Phoebi ;
Ante tuas fit idem, curia prisca, fores.
Vesta quoque ut folio niteat velata recenti,
Cedit ab Iliacis laurea cana iocis.
The mention of these buildings carries us back to the very
earliest Rome, when the rex and his sons and daughters2
(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 con-
nexion of the decoration with the Mars-cult is probable, if not
certain ; the laurel was sacred to Mars, for in front of his
sacrarmm in the regia there grew two laurels 3, and it has been
conjectured that they supplied the boughs used on this day 4.
March i is also marked in the calendar of Philocalus as the
birthday of Mars (N = 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 basis5. 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
1 Ovid only mentions one 'curia': in Macrobius the word is in the
plural. Ovid must, 1 think, refer to the curia Saliorum on the Palatine
(Marq. 431 , as this was the day on which the Salii began their rites.
Macrobius may be including the curia of the (juirinal Salii (Preller,
i- 357^
* See below, on the Vestalia in June, p. 147.
8 Julius Obsequens, 19.
* Roscher, Myth. Lex. s.v. Mars, 2427. Roscher regards the use of laurel
in the Mars-cult as parallel with that in the Apollo-cult and not derived
from it. The point is not however certain. The laurel was used as an
dirorpoiraiov at the Robigalia, which seems closely connected with the
Mars-cult (Plin. N. H. 18. 161) ; here it could hardly have been taken over
from the worship of Apollo.
5 Mommsen, C. I. L. 254.
MENSIS MAETIUS 57
May 2 \ 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 :
Protinns haerentem decerpsi pollice florem ;
Tangitur et tacto concipit ilia sinu.
lamque gravis Thracen et laeva 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 * 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 3, 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 i was the birthday of Mars ; and that Ovid's stoiy
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 i might arise simply
1 Fasti, 5. 253. There is a good parallel in Celtic mythology : the wife
of Llew the Sun-hero was born of flowers (Rhys, CM. Myth. 384). The
myth is found in many parts of the world (L<ing, ii. 22, and note).
* By Usener, in his remarkable paper in Rhein. Museum, xxx. 215
foil., on ' Italische Mythen.' He unluckily made the mistake of supposing
that Ovid told this story under June i (i.e. nine months before the supposed
birthday of Mars). There i-i indeed a kind of conjunction of June and
Mars on June i, as both had temples dedicated on that day ; but neither
of these can well be earlier than the fourth century B. c., and no one
would have thought of them as having any bearing on the birth of Mars
but for Usener's blunder (Aust, dc Aedibus sacris Pop. Rom. pp. 8 and 10,
and his valuable note in Roscher's article on Mars, p. 2390). Usener also
adduces the derivation of Gradivus in Fest. 97 ' quia gramine sit ortus.'
* The practical Roman mind applied the myth chiefly to the history of
its state, and in such a way that its true mythic character was lost, or
nearly so. What became in Greece mythic literature became quasi-
history at Rome. Thus it is that Romulus is so closely connected with
Mars in legend : the race-hero and the race-god have almost a mythical
identity. The story of the she-wolf may be at least as much a myth of
the birth of Mars as Ovid's story of Juno, in spite of the fatherhood of
Mars in that legend.
38 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 ', but Juno had
no doubt always been especially the matrons' deity, and in
a sense represented the female principle of life 2. 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 husbands3, and entertained their slaves. In
fact the day was sometimes called the Matronalia4, 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 deities5. But we may
at any rate feel pretty sure that it was the Matronalia on
March i that suggested the motherhood of Juno and the birth
of Mars ; and we cannot, as Eoscher does, use the Matronalia
to show that these myths were old and native 6.
Yet another legend was attached to this day. It was said
that the original ancile, or sacred shield of Mars, fell down
from heaven7, or was found in the house of Numa8, on
March i. This was the type from which were copied the other
1 Aust, as quoted above. The date was probably 379 u. c. (Plin. N. H.
l6- 235).
2 Roscher in Lex. s. v. Juno, p. 576.
3 Marq. 571, where is a list of passages referring to these gifts. Some
are familiar, e.g Horace, Od. 3. 8, and Juvenal, 9. 53 (with the scholiast
in each case).
1 Schol. drug, on Horace, 1. c., and the scholiast on Juvenal, 1. c.
5 See e.g. the mysterious scene on a cista from Praeneste given in
Roscher, Lex. 2407, to which the clue seems entirely lost.
8 Lex. s.v. Mars, 2399 ; s. v. Juno, 584.
T Ovid, 3. 351 foil. ; Plut. Numa, 13. • Dion. Hal. a. 71.
MENSIS MARTIUS 39
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 hymn1. 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 sang2; in the latter we know that the word Mamurl
often occurred, which is now generally recognized as being only
a variant of the name Mars '. 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 Mortis in the Kegia*. 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 staff5 as they sang
their ancient hymns and performed their rhythmical dances.
The original object and meaning of all these strange per-
formances is now fairly well made out, thanks to the researches
of Miillenhoff, Mannhardt, Koscher, Frazer and others. Koscher,
in his comparison of Apollo and Mars 6. pointed out the like-
ness in the spring festivals of the two gods. At Delphi, at the
Theophania (yth of Bysios = March), there were decorations,
sacrifices, dances, and songs ; and of these last, some were
' Ovid, 1. c. 381 foil. * Mnrq. 430, and note.
3 Festus, p. 131 ; Usener in Rhein Mus. xxx. 209 foil. Wordsworth,
Fragments and Specimens of Early Latin, p 564 foil. Jordan (Preller, i. 336)
had however doubts about the identification of Mars and Mamurius.
4 The place is not quite certain. Ambrocch (Studien, 7), who believed
them to be part of the armour of the god, placed them in his sacrarium
in the king's house, with Serv. Aen. 7. 603, and this falls in with
Dionysius' version of the myth, that the shield was found in Numa's
house. With this view Preller agreed. Marquardt, (431) however,
believed they were part of the armour of the priests, and as such were
kept in the Curia Saliorum, which might also be called sacrarium Martis.
The question is not of the first importance.
5 Dionysius (a. 70. 2) says that each was girt with a sword, and carried
in his right hand, \v-f\rjv i) pa@8ov % TI TOIOV&' trtpov. Apparently,
assuming that he had seen the procession, he did not see or remember
clearly what these objects were. A relief from Anagnia (Annali del Inst.
1869, 70 foil.) shows them like a double drumstick, with a knob at
each end.
* See also i'yth. Lex. s. v. Mars, p. 2404 and Apollo, p. 425.
40 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
or invocations to the god to appear, some -nma-fs.
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 ',
at Ortygia2 near Ephesus, at Tegyra. and elsewhere. At
Ortygia the Kov/jiji-f? 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, brandish-
ing of arms, and even firing of guns are thought efficacious in
driving out evil spirits which bring hurt of some kind to man-
kind or to the crops which are the fruits of his labour 3. 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 Eomans 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 note4 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: (r) the
routing out of demons of all kinds in order to collect them for
transference to the human scapegoat, Mamurius Veturius (see
1 Virg. Aen. 4. 143.
2 Strabo, 639 foil. The same also appear in the cult of Zeus ; Preller-
Robert, Greek Myth. i. 134.
3 G. B. ii. 157-182 ; Tylor, Prim. CuH. i. 298 foil. Wo have survivals at
Rome, not only in the periodic Salian rites, but on particular occasions ;
Martial 12. 57. 15 (of an eclipse) ; Ovid, Fasti, 5 441 ; Tibull. i. 8. 21 ;
Tac. Ann. i. 28 (this was in Germany). I have known the church bells
rung at Zermatt in order to stop a continuous downpour of rain in
hay-harvest.
* 0. B. ii. 210.
MENSIS MARTIUS" 4!
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 ', 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 point2.
The Salii in these processions wertv clothed in a trabea and
tunica picta 3, 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 with4. 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 Mars5. 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 Quirinus6* The antiquity of the priest-
1 Jordan, Krit. Beitrage, p. 203 foil. 2 Cato, R. R. 143.
3 Liv. i. 20. Cp. 9. 40. where the chosen Samnite warriors wore tunicae
tersicolores. In each case the dress is a religious one, of the same character
as that of the triumphator. and would have its ultimate origin in the
war-paint of savages, which probably also has a religious signification.
The trabea was the old short cavalry coat.
4 See Marq. 432, and Did. of Antiq. s. Y. Salii for details.
s Fest. 131. The fragments may be seen in Wordsworth's Fragments and
Specimens of Early Latin, pp. 564 foil. In the chief fragment the name of
Janus seems almost certainly to occur (cf. Lydus, 4. 2) ; and in another
Lucetius ( = Iupiter?). Juno and Minerva are also mentioned. See Diet,
of Antiq. s. v. Salii. It is curious that Mars is more prominent in the song
of the Arval Brothers.
• Liv. 5. 53. 7.
42 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
hood 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 '.
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
suns2 (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 Komans.
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 *, which,
1 Dionysius, 2. 71.
a Usener in Rhein. Mus. xxx. 218 ; Roscher, Lex. s.v. Mars 2419, can only
quote two very vague and doubtful passages from late writers in support
of the view that the shields were symbols of the months : Lydus 4. 2,
who says that the Salii sang in praise of Janus, Kara rov TWV Ira^tKuv
HT/VUIV apiOn6v; and Liber glossarum, Cod. Vat. Palat. 1773 f. 40 v. :
Ancilia : scuta unius anni.
3 For the evidence on this point, and others connected with the Salii,
I must refer the reader to Mr. G. E. Marindin's excellent article 'Salii'
in the new edition of Smith's Did of An'iquifies, the most complete and at
the same time sensible account that has appeared in recent years. (The
article ' Ancilia ' in the new edition of Pauly's lieal-Encyd. is dis-
appointing.) Dionysius, Varro, and Plutarch are all at one about the
shape of the shields, and Mr. Marindin is quite right in insisting that
Ovid does not contradict them. (See the passages quoted in the article.)
The coins of Licinius Stolo and of Antoninus Pius (Cohen, Med. Cons.
MENSIS MARTIUS 43
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.
. . . [VEDIJOVI. 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 fcriae has been suggested1,
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 2. 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 dedicated3. 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 arcc. See
also on Jan. i.
vn ID. MART. (MARCH 9). C.
ARMA ANCILIA MOVENT. (PHILOC.)
As we have seen, the first ' moving ' of the ancilia was on
the ist. This is the second mentioned in the calendars ;
plate xxiv. 9, 10, and Med. Imp. ii, no. 467) give the same peculiar shape.
The bronze of Domitian, A.D. 88 (Cohen, Med. Imp. i. plate xvii), and the
coins of Sanquinius, B.C. 16 (both issued in connexion with ludi saeculares^,
on which are figures supposed to be Salii with round shields, have
certainly been misinterpreted (e. g. in Marq. 431). See note at end of this
work.
1 Jordan, in Commentationes in hon. Mamms. p. 365. There could not be
ferine on this day, as it was a diesfastus.
* Fast. 3. 439 'Una nota est Marti Nonis ; sacrata quod illis Templa
putant lucos Vediovis ante duos.' 3 Aust, de Aedibus sacris, p. 33.
44 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 24th1, 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 Saliorwn, of which two were
probably the Curia Saliorum on the Palatine and the Sacrarium
Martis in the Regia*.
PEID. ID. MART. (MARCH 14). N?.
EQU1RR[IA]. (MAFF. VAT. ESQ.)
FERIAE MARTI. (VAT.)
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. Wissowa4,
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 \ 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
1 Polyb. 21. 10 (13^ ; Liv. 37. 33.
* See his article in Diet. Ant. He further suggests that in Philocalus"
note ancilia is an adjective, and that arma ancilia means the shields
only, as the spears of Mars do not seem to have been used by the Salii.
3 The day is of course not given in these almanacs; but the position is
between Isidis navigium (March 5) and Liberalia (March 17).
* de Feriis, ix. foil. Cp. C. I. L. 311.
* The usual sacrifice to Jupiter on the Ides is also mentioned by
Wissowa in this connexion ; but I should hardly imagine that it would
have had a sufficiently popular character to cause any such alteration as
he is arguing for. But the first full moon of the year may have become
over-crowded witli rites ; and it was the day on which at one time the
consuls entered on office, B.C. 222 to 154 (Mommsen, Chron. 102 nnd
notes).
MENSIS MABTIUS 45
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 other1 ; 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. 1 5, 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, vis. 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*. 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 Kome. 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
1 Wissowa takes both as lustrations of cavalry. Mommsen, C. I. L. 332,
disnpprovcs of Wissowa's reasoning about this day.
1 C. I. L. 311.
46 THE KOMAN FESTIVALS
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 '.
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 Koman belief and ritual ". This view
rests almost entirely on a statement of a still later writer,
Laurentius Lydus of Apamea, who wrote a work, de Mcnsibus,
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
supposed3, for the i4th — 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 Eomans when they
substituted the new shields (made by Mamurius) for those that
had fallen from heaven 4.
This is clearly a late form of the Mamurius-myth : in all the
earlier accounts"' only one ancile is said to have fallen from
heaven. Lydus seems rather to be thinking of twelve original
ones", and twelve copies — perhaps of the Palatine and Colline
ancilia respectively. If the form of the myth, then, is of late
1 C I. L. 254.
2 Cf. Usener's article on Italian Myths in EJtein. Mus vol. xxx — a most
interesting and suggestive piece of work, which, however, needs to be
read with a critical mind, and has been too uncritically used by later
writers, e.g. Roscher in his article on Mars. Frazer (G. B. ii. 208) adopts
his conclusions about Mamurius, but, with his usual care, points out some
of the difficulties in a footnote. 3 TJsener, p. 211.
* Lydus, 3. 29 and 4. 36. The words are rather obscure, but the meaning
is fairly obvious. See Usener's paraphrase, p. 210.
* See above, p. 38.
6 Cp. what he says of the Salii singing of Janus Kara rbv rwv 'I
^ifVuiv dptOfjLUl> (4. 2 .
MENSIS MARTIUS 47
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 maims,
Qtii me tarn 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 ', 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 2 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 Felix3: 'alii (we should probably read Salii)
incedunt pilcati, scuta vetera4 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
1 e.g. in Numa 13.
2 Ann. 7. 188. Thilo and Hagen seem to think that Servius wrote
peltas (shields) on the evidence of one MS , wrongly, I think.
3 Octatius, 24. 3. * What is the meaning of vetera here ?
48 THE ROJffAN FESTIVALS
was beaten, why is he not mentioned, and why did they, as
Servius says (and the conlext 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 niy labour will be lightened if I may
borrow his account ' :
'Every year on March 14 a man clad in skins was led in
procession through the streets of Home, beaten with long white
rods, and driven out of the city. He was called Mamurius
Veturius2, that is, "the old Mars," and as the ceremony took
place on the day preceding the first full moon of the old Roman
year 3 (which began on March i ), 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 ex-
clusively. . . . 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 4," if the view here taken of the latter custom is correct.
1 Golden Bough, ii. 208.
2 Mr. Frazer is careful to point out in a note that Lydus only mentions
the name Mamurius. But as we know that Mamurius was called Veturius
in the Salian hymn, and as Veturius may perhaps mean old, it is inferred
that the skin-clad man was ' the old Mars.' The argument is shaky ;
its only strength lies in the Slavonic and other parallels.
3 Lydus is thought to have made a mis'.ake in attributing it to
the isth (Ides) ; if so, he may have confused other matters in this
curious note. But he is certainly explicit enough here (4. 36^, and refers
to the usual sacrifice to Jupiter on the Ides, and to ' public prayers for
the salubrity of the coming year,' which we may be sure would be on the
Ides, and not on a day of even number. I do not ft- el at all sure that
Lydus was wrong as to the date, the more so as the Ides of May (which
month has a certain parallelism with March) is the date of another
curious ceremony of th;s primitive type, that of the Argei.
4 This was first noticed by Grimm (Teutonic Mythology, Eng. Trans.,
vol. ii. 764 foil.). Since then Mannhardt (Baumkultus, 410 foil.) and
MENSIS MARTIUS 49
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 oLl god of vegetation. It is possible that cere-
monies 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 cere-
mony, the representative of the god appears to have been
treated, not only as a deity of vegetation, but also as a scape-
goat '. 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 Rome2.'
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 —mis-
interpreted and possibly altered under the influence of the
Mr. Frazer (G. S. i. 257 foil, and 264 foil.) have worked it out and
explained it (see especially i. 275). It is generally believed that
Death, or whatever be the name applied to the human being or figure
expelled in these rites, signifies the extinct spirit of vegetation of the
jwst year. I agree with Mr. Frazer, as against Usener and Roscher
(Lex. s. v. Mars), that it is not any abstract conception of the year, or at
least was not such originally.
1 This fusion of two apparently different ideas in a single ceremony
has previously been explained by Mr. Frazer, pp. 205 foil. On p. 210 he
notices the curious and well-authenticated rite of driving out hunger at
Chaeronea (Plutarch, Quaest. Coniiv. 6. 8), which -would offer an interesting
parallel to the Roman, if we could but be sure of the details 'of the latter.
Another from Delphi (Plut. Quaest. Grace. 12 , mentioned by Usener, does
not seem to me conclusive; but that of the 'man in cowhide' from the
Highlands (G. B. ii. 145) is singularly like the Roman rite as Lydus
describes it, and took place on New Yeai's eve.
* See above, p. 47.
50 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 Koman priesthood1. 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). N?.
FERIAE2 ANNAE PERENNAE VIA FLAM[lNIAJ AD LAPIDEM
PRIMJUM]. (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 Koman
customs which it could not understand.
On this day, Ovid tells us s, the ' plebs ' streamed out to the
' festum geniale ' of Anna Perenna, and taking up a position
in the Campus Marti us, not far from the Tiber4, and lying
1 I am the more disposed to suspect Lydus' account, as in the same
sentence he mentions a sacrifice which is conducted by priests of the
Magna Mater Idaca : ifpartvov 8e KCU ravpov l£tTri vatp ruv kv rofs opfaiv
d-ypuiv, -ftyovuivov rov ap\itpt<us nal raiv KavT]<p6pcai> -rfjs uijTp6xov jjytro 8t KCU
dvOpajiros K.r.\. For the difficulties of this passage, and suggested emenda-
tions, see Mommsen, C.I.L. 312, note on Id. Mart; Marq. 394, notes.
What confusion of cults may not have taken place, either in Lydus' mind
or in actual fact ?
* Both these notes are additamenta : Anna does not appear in the large
letters of the Numan calendar. We cannot, however, infer from this that
her festival was not an ancient one ; for, as Wissowa points out, the same
is the case with the very primitive rite of the 'October horse' (de ferns, xii).
The day is only marked EID in Maff. Vat., the two calendars in which
this part of the month is preserved ; i. e. the usual sacrifice to Jupiter on
the Ides was indicated (cp. Lydus, 4. 36), and the Ides fixed for the isth.
The additional notes, according to Wissowa, were for the use of the
priests ; but, considering the popular character of the festival, I am
inclined to doubt this rule holding good in the present instance.
* Ovid, Fasti, 3. 523 foil.
4 'Via Flaminia ud lapldem primum' (Vat.) : this would be near the
present Porta del Popalo, and close to the river.
MENSIS MARTIUS 5!
about on the grass in pairs of men and women, passed the day
in revelry and drinking '. 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 gesticu-
lation and dancing. The result of these performances was
naturally that they returned to the city in a state of intoxica-
tion. Ovid tells us that he had seen this spectacle himself2.
Whether there was any sacrificial rite in immediate connexion
with these revels we do not know. Macrobius indeed tells
us3 that sacrifice was offered in the month of March to Anna
Perenna ' ut annare perannareque commode liceat ' 4 ; and
Lydus, that on the Ides there were tvxal S^oo-tat imp rov vyiewbv
yeviadat TOV fvtavrov ; 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 R 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 know-
ledge ; 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
Creditor, et stagnis occuluisse suis.
1 See Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 240, for the jovial
character of some primitive forms of religion, and the absence of a sense
of sin.
2 Ov. 1. c. 541 'Occurri nuper : visa est inihi digna relatu Pompa,
Senem potuin pota trahebat anus.
3 Sat. i. 12. 6. Cp. Lydus, de Mens. 4. 36.
4 Annare perennare is to complete the circle of the year : cp. Suet.
Vespas. 5 ' puella nata non perennavit.' Anna Perenna herself is probably
a deity manufactured out of these words, and the idea they conveyed
(cf. Janus Patulcius and Clusius, Carmenta Prorsa Postverta) ; not exactly
a deity of the year, but one whom it would be desirable to propitiate at the
beginning of the year.
5 Ov. I.e. 545 foil. Sil. Ital. 8. 50 foil. Ovid also says that some thought
she was the moon, 'quia mensibus impleat annum' (3. 657): but this
notion has no value, except as indicating the belief that she represented
the circle of the year.
E 2
52 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
Her companions traced her footsteps to the bank : she seemed
to tell them
Placidi sum nympha Numici,
Amne porenne latens Anna Perenna vocor.
This tale led Klausen l 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
banks2, 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 3. All genuine Koman 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 4. 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 repre-
sented 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
1 Aeneas und die Penaten, ii. 717 foil. The cautious Merkel long ago
repudiated such fancies ; preface to Ovid's Fasti, p. 177.
* Liv. i. 2. The Punic Anna is now thought to be a deity = Dido
— Elissa : see Rossbach in the new edition of Pauly's Encyd. i. 2223.
s Her grove was not even on the Tiber-bank, but somewhere between
the Via Flaminia and the Via Salaria, i.e. in the neighbourhood of the
Villa Borghese : as we see from the obscure lines of Martial, 4. 64. 17 (he
is looking from the Janiculum) :
Et quod virgineo cruore gaudet
Annae pomit'erum nemus Perennao.
Ill i in' Flaminiae Salariaeque
Gestator patet essedo taceute, &c.
There is no explanation ot virgineo cruore : but I would rather retain it than
adopt even H. A. J. Munro's virgine nequiore. See Friedlander, ad loc.
4 This seems to be Usener's suggestion, p. 207.
MENSIS MARTIUS 53
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 l how Mars, once in love with
Minerva 2, 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 Koman 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 anthropo-
morphic. Granted that Anna or Perenna3 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 4.
Yet another story is told by Ovid of an Anna 5, 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" selling liba on the i;th
1 Fasti, 3. 675.
* No doubt this should be Nerio : see below on March 17.
3 There is some ground for believing that the two words implied two
deities on occasion or originally : Varro, Sat. Menipp. fr. 506 ' Te Anna ac
Peranna' (Riese, p. 219).
4 Wissowa (de Feriis x) thinks Ovid's tale mere nugae : but this learned
scholar never seems to be able to comprehend the significance of folk-lore.
* Fasti, 3 66 1 foil.
' Varro (L. L. 6. 14" calls them 'sacerdotes Liberi,' by courtesy, we may
54 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
(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
Annona1; 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 Home
through Greek channels 2.
xvi KAL. APR. (MARCH 17). IP.
LIB[EEALIA]. (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. n)3. 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 Liberalia4 ; the other name seems to have been known
to the priests only, and more especially to the Salii Collini or
Agonenses \ who must have had charge of the sacrifice.
Wissowa seems to be right in thinking (de Fcriis 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
presume : and it is noticeable that Ovid describes this old Anna as wear-
ing a mitra, which, in Propert. v. (iv.) 2. 31, is characteristic of Bacchus :
'Cinge caput mitra : speciem furabor lacchi.'
Op. cit. 208.
See Pauly, Encyd. vol. i. 2223. This is Wissowa's opinion.
See on Jan. 9.
Cic. ad Fam. 12. 25. i ; Alt. 9. 9. 4 ; Auct. BeU. Hisp. 31.
Varro, L. L.6. 14 'In libris Saliorum, quorum cognomen Agonensium,
forsitan hie dies ideo appellatur potius Agonia.' So Masurius Sabinus (in
Macrob. Sat. i. 4. 15), ' Liberal him dies a poutificibus agonium Martiale
appellatur.'
MENSIS MARTIUS 55
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 '. 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.2 If this were so it would not bo 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 a. In that case Liber
may have been an emanation or off-shoot from Jupiter, as
Silvanus probably was from Mars4. 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 5.
1 See above, p. 53, where I have expressed a doubt whether this
custom originally belonged to the Liberalia. It is alluded to in Ovid,
Fasti, 3. 725 foil., and Varro, L. L. 6. 14.
* This is the view of Wissowa in Myth. Lex. s. v. Liber, 2022. Cp. Aust,
Lex. s. v. luppiter, 662.
1 It is only once attested of Roman worsh ip. viz. in the calendar of the
Fratres Arvales (Sept. i ' lovi Libero, lunoni Reginae in Aventino,'
'.' /. L. i. 214) ; but is met with several times among the Osco-Sabellian
peoples.
4 So Hehn. Kidturpjlanzen, &c., p. 70 foil. But Helm is only thinking
of the later Liber, whom he considers an 'emanation ' from Jupiter Liber
= Dionysus, introduced with the vine from Greece. See Aust, Lex. s. v.
luppiter, 662.
* See on April 23.
56 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
This was also the usual day on -which boys assumed the toga
virilis (toga recta, pura, tibcra) :.
Restat ut inveniam qunre toga libera detur
Lucifero pueris, candide Bacche, tuo.
Sive quod es Liber, vestis quoque libera per te
Sumitur et vitae liberioris iter1.
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 2; 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 themselves3.
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 *.
On this day also, according to Ovid, and also on the previous
one, some kind of a procession 'went to the Argei'5; 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 5. What these were we never
1 Ovid, Fasti, 3. 771 foil. * Marq. Prtratlebcn, i. 122 note 2.
3 Ovid, 1. c., 783 foil. ; Marq. 1. c. and 123, 124. Military service began
anciently at seventeen (Tubero, ap. Gell. 10. 28) : though even praetextati
sometimes served voluntarily (Marq. op. cit. 131). Even if not called out
at once, the boys would begin the practice of arms from the assumption
of the toga virilis.
* Marq. op. cifc. 124. Libero in Ca[pitolio], Farn. For luventas, Dion.
Hal. 3. 69, 4. 15.
* This result is obtained by comparing Ovid, Fasti, 3. 791
Itur ad Argoos — qui sint, sua pagina dicet —
Hac, si commemini, praeteritaque die.
(where he refers to his description of the rite of May 15. and appears to
identify the simulacra and sacel'a^, with Gell. N. A. 10. 15, who says that
the Flaminica Dialis, ' cum it ad Argeos ' was in mourning dress : also
MENSTS MARTIUS 57
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. xrv APR. (MARCH 19). IP CAER. VAT. N. MAFF.
QUINQiVATRUS]. (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 me DIES
F.ST POST DIEM V IDUS . QUOJD IN LATIO POST [iDUS DIES
SIMILI FERE RATIONE DECLIJNAREKTUR.
FERIAE MARTI (VAT.)
[SALI] FACIUNT IN COMITIO 8ALTUS [ADSTANTIBUS POJNTIFICIBUS
ET TRIBJUNIS] cELERfuMJ. Praen., in which we find yet
another note : ARTIFICUM DIES [QUOD MINERVAE] AEDIS IN
AVENTINO EO DIE EST [DEDICATAJ.
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 ' that the Comitium was the scene
with the fragments of the ' Sacra Argeorum ' in Varro, L. L. 5. 46-54.
These have been sho\yn by Jordan (Topogr. ii. 271 foil.) to be fragments of
an itinerary, meant for the guidance of a procession, an idea first suggested
by O. Muller. The further questions of the route taken, and the distri-
bution of the sacella in the four Servian regiones, are very difficult, and
need not be discussed here. See Mommsen, Stoatsrecht, Hi. 123 foil.
1 L. L. 5. 85 ' Salii a salitaudo, quod facere in comitio in sacris quot-
annis et solent et debent.'
58 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
of some of their performances, though he does not mention
which. More light is thrown on the matter by the grammarian
Charisius ', who, in suggesting an explanation of the name
Quinquatrus by which this day was generally known, remarks
that it was derived from a verb qninquare, to purify, ' quod eo die
arma ancilia lustrari sint solita.' His etymology is undoubtedly
wrong, but the reason given for it is valuable 2. 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 ' 3.
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 October4, 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 Prae-
iiestine calendar, from which it is clear that the tribuni celcrum
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 s ; 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
1 i. p. 81 (KeilX Why the Comitium was the scene does not appear.
Preller has suggested a reason (i. 364), which is by no means convincing.
2 It was adopted by Usener (p. 222, note 6), but has obtained no
further support. For another curious etymology of the latter part of the
word -atrus, which, however, does not assist us here, see Deecke, Falisker,
p. go (Dies aler = dies alter -postridie).
3 Wissowa.rfe Ferns, ix. 4 Mommsen, in C. I. L. 312.
* Mommsen, R. H. i. 78, note i.
MENSIS MARTIU9 59
speak, performing the service ; but in later times the Salii
alone were left, and their arms alone lustrated, though possibly
individuals representing the ancient triluni celcrum may have
appeared as congregation.
But this day was generally known as Quinquatrus, simply
because it was the fifth day after the Ides ' ; 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 calendar2, though in this instance alone the day following
the interval appeal's in the calendars as Quinquatrus. The
term was no doubt a pontifical one, and the meaning was
unknown to the common people ; in any casj 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 ipth came to be considered as sacred to Minerva3,,
because a temple to that goddess was consecrated on this day,
on the Caelian or the Aventine, or possibly both*. There
is no obvious connexion between Mars and Minerva ; and
it is now thought probable that Minerva has here simply taken
1 Festus, 254 'Quinquatrus appellari quidam putnnt a numero dierum
qui fere his (^feriis iis) celebrantur : qui scilicet errant tarn hcrcule
qua in qui triduo Saturnalia, et totidem diebus Compitalia ; nam omnibus
his singulis diebus limit sacra. Forma autem vocabuli eius exemplo
multorum populorum Italicorum enuntiata est, quod post diem quintum
Iduum est is dies festus, ut apud Tusculanos Triatrus,' &c.
* Wissowa, op. cit. viii. We find one in April, between the Fordicidia
(April 15) and Cerialia (April 19).
3 Ovid, Fasti, 3. 809 ' Una dies media est, et limit sacra Minervae,' &c,
* Ovid, Faxti, 3. 835 foil.
Caelius ex alto qua mons descend it in aequmn,
Hie ubi non plana est sed prope plana via,
Parva licet videas Captae delubra Minervae
Quae dea natali cot-pit habere suo.
As from the note in Praen. we learn that March 19 was also the dedi-
cation-day of Minerva on the Aventine, there must either be a confusion
between the two, or both had the same foundation-day. About the day of
Minerva Capta there is no doubt ; for that of Minerva on the Aventine
see Aust, de Aedibus, p. 43.
60 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 '. This conclusion is strengthened by
a note of Porphyrion on Horace Epist. ii. 2. 209 ' Maio mense
religio est nubere, et etioin Martio, in quo de nuptiis habito
certamine a Minerva Mars victus est : obtenta virginitate
Neriene est appellata.' As Neriene must = Nerio2. 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 :I.
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. Tatius4. 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
i pth *". Are we to find here a fragment of real Italian
mythology, or an elaborate example of the Graecizing anthro-
pomorphic 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
1 Prcller, i. 342; Usener, Eh. Jfws., xxx. 221 ; Roscher, Myth. Lex. s. T.
Mars, 2410; Lyd. de Mens. 4. 42; Gell. 13. 23 (from Gdlii Annales) is the
lucus cJassicus for Nerio.
2 Nerio gen. Nerienis (Gell. 1. c., who compares Anio Anienis).
8 Ovid, Fasti, 3. 850 : '/or# sacrificare deae,' though clearly meant to
refer to Minerva, is thought to be a reminiscence of a characteristic of
Nerio (' the strong one '), attached to her supplanter.
4 Aul. Gell. I.e. * Usener, 1. c., passim.
MENSIS MARTIUS 6l
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 '. Aulus Gellius begins by
quoting a comprecatio from the book of the Libri sacerdotunt
populi Ttovnani. ' In his scriptum est : Luam Saturni, Salaciam
Neptuni, Horam Quirini, Virites Quirini, Maiam Volcani,
Heriem lunonis, 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 character-
istic of the deity with whose name they are joined or some
mode of his operation 2 ; and Gellius himself, working 011 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 Liciuius
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
1 H. Jordan expressed a somewhat different view in his Symbolae ad
hist. Ital. religionum aittrac, p. 9. He thinks that ' volgari opinione homi-
nuiu feminini numinis cum masculo coniunctionem non potuisse lion pro
coniugali aestimari.' But this would seem to imply that the opinio
volgaris was a mistaken one : and if so, how should it have arisen but
under Greek influence?
• Mommsen, in a note on the Feriale Cumanum (Hermes, 17. 637}, calls
them iceibliche HHfsgottinmn ; and this is not far removed from the view
1 have expressed in the text. The other alternative, viz that we have
in the?e names traces of an old Italian anthropomorphic age. with
a mythology, is in my view inadmissible. I see in them survivals of
a mode of thought about the supernatural which might easily lend itself
to a fo:e:gn anthropomorphizing influence.
62 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 (i) 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 Eoman.
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, 1 8th to 23rd, became permanently
associated with Minerva. The igth was the dedication-day
of at least one of her temples, and counted as her birthday ] :
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-players2. 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). N*.
TUBILUSTiKIUM]. (CAER. MAFF. VAT. FARN. MIN. in.)
TUBILUSTRIUM. (PHILOC.)
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
RUIN IS PALAJTI IJNCENSI A GALLIS REPERTAM, QUA ROMULUS
URBEM INAUGURAVERIT.
1 Ovid, Fasti, 3. 835 foil.
2 Wissowa in Lex. s. v. Minerva 2986 : a model article, to which the
reader must be referred for further information about Minerva.
3 Lydus, 4. 42, adds ' Nerine,' and further tells us that this was the last
day on which the ancilia were ' moved ' (KIVTJOIS riov oirAwp). The Salii
were also active on the 24th (Fest. 278).
MENSIS MARTIUS 63
ix KAL. APR. (MARCH 24). IP.
Q.K.C.F. (VAT. CAER.)
Q.REX.C.F. (MAFF. PRAEN.)
Note in Praen. : HUNC DIEM PLERIQUE PERPERAM INTERPRE-
TANTES PUTANT APPELLARLl] QUOD EO DIE EX COMITIO FUGERIT
[REX : K]AM NEQUE TARQUINIUS ABUT EX COMITIO [URBIS], ET
ALIO QUOQUE MENSE EADEM STJNT [iDEMQUE SIGNIFICANT.
QUJARE COMITIIS PERACT1S IUDICIJA FIERI INDICA[RI IIS MAGIS
PUTAMUSJ '.
These two days must be taken in connexion with the
2 3rd and 24th of May, which are marked in the calendars
in exactly the same way. The explanation suggested by
Mommson is simple and satisfactory2; the 24th of March and
of May were the two fixed days on which the comitia curiata
met for the sanctioning of wills 3 under the presidency of the
Rex. The 23rd in each month, called Tubilustrium, would
be the day of the lustration of the tulae or tuli 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 4. It was used chiefly in military s and
1 The note is thus completed by Mommsen from Varro, L. L. 6. 31
' Dies qui vocatur sic, Quando Hex Comitiavit Fas, is dictus ab eo quod
eo die rex sacrificulus itat [we should probably read litat] ad comitium, ad
quod tempus est nefas, ab eo fas' (see Marq. 323, note 8). The MS. lias
' dicat ad comitium.' If we adopt litat with Hirschfeld and Jordan, we
are not on that account committed to the belief corrected in Praen.,
that it was on this day and May 24 that the Rex fled after sacrificing in
comitio (see Hartmann, Rom. Kid. i6a foil.). The question will be dis-
cussed under Feb. 24.
* Horn. Chronol. p. 241 ; Staatsrecht, Hi. 375.
3 Gaius, 2. 101 ' Comitia calata quae bis in anno testamentis faciendis
destinata erant.' Cp. Maine, Ancient Law, 199.
4 It may have been of Etruscan origin : Muller-Deecke. Etrusker, ii. 206.
A special kind of tuba seems to have been used at funerals : Gell. N. A.
20. 2 ; Marq. Privatleben, i. 341.
5 For the military use, Liv. ii. 64. They were also used in sacris
Saliaribus Paul. 19, s. v. Armilustrium. Wissowa (de Feriis xv) mentions
a relief in which the Salii are preceded by tubicines laureati (published in
St. Petersburgh by E. Schulze, 1873;.
64 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 out1,
come in abruptly and look as if something had dropped out :
' Lutatius quidem clavam earn ait esse in ruinis Pala[ti ijncensi
a Gallis repertam, qua Romulus urbem inauguraverit.' This
clava must be the lituus of Romulus, mentioned by Cicero2,
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 tula incurva. The latter was in use
as well as the ordinary straight tuba5 ; 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 wo 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 repre-
1 C. I. L. 313. He is of opinion that the note was among those ' non tarn
a Verrio scriptas quain male ex scriptis eius exceiptus.'
2 de Din. i. 17. 30. 3 Varro, L.L. 5. 91.
MENSIS MARTIUS 65
sents the characteristics of the early Koman 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 — (i) 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 APBILIS.
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 natural1.
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 cleaned2,
but must for the most part be left to the protection of the gods.
The oldest festivals of the month, the Kobigalia and Fordicidia,
clearly had this object. So also with the cattle ; ovcs lustrantur,
say the rustic calendars 3 ; and such a lustratio of the cattle
of the ancient Komans survived in the ceremonies of the
Parilia.
Thus, if we keep clear of fanciful notions, such as those of
Huschke4, 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 ncfasti B, and its festivals
1 Varro, L. L. 6. 33 ; Censorinus, 2. 20. Verrius Flaccus in the heading
to April in Fasti Praen. : . . . ' quia fruges flores animaliaque et maria et
terrae aperiuntur.' Moinmsen, Chron. 222. Ovid quaintly forsakes the
scholars to claim the month for Venus (Aphrodite), Fasti, 4. 61 foil. I do
not know why Mr. Granger should call it the boar-month (from oper),
in his Worship of the Romans, p. 294.
2 Segetes runcari, Varro, R. R. i. 30. Columella's instructions are of the
same kind (n. a).
3 C. l.L. 280. * Eom. Jahr, 216.
s February has thirteen, all but two between Kal. and Ides. The Nones
and Ides are IP. April has thirteen between Nones and aand ; or fourteen
if we include the ipth, which is IP in Caer. The Ides are IP, Nones N.
MENSIS APRILIS 67
are of a cathartic character, while March and May have some
points in common ; but beyond this we cannot safely venture.
The later Eomans would hardly have connected April with
Venus *, 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 2, 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. (APEIL i). F.
VENERALIA : LUDI. (PHILOC.)
Note in Praen. : 'FREQUENTER MULIERES SUPPLICANT FOR-
TUNAE VIRILI, HUMIL1ORES ETIAM IN BALINEIS, QUOD IN 118
EA PARTE CORPOR[ls] UTIQUE VIRI NUDANTUR, QUA FEMINARUM
GRATIA DESIDERATUR.'
Lydus3 seems to have been acquainted with this noteof 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
1 See the fragmentary heading to the month in Fasti Praen. ; Ovid, I.e. ;
Lydus, 4. 45 ; Tutela Veneris, in rustic calendars ; Veneralia (April i ),
Philocalus.
2 Varro, R. K i. i. 6: 'Item adveneror Minervam et Venerem, quarum
unius procuratio oliveti, alterius hortoi-um.' Cp. L. L. 6. 20 'Quod tum
(Aug. 19) dedicata aedes et horti ei deae dicantur i c tum fiant feriati
holitores.' Cf. Preller, Myth. i. 434 foil. The oldest Venus-temple was in
the low ground of the Circus Maximus (B.C. 295). Venus, like Ceres, may
have been an old Roman deity of the plebs, but she never entered into
the State-worship in early times. Macrob. i. 12. 12 quotes Cincius
(de Fastis) and Varro to prove that she had originally nothing to do with
April, and that there was no diesfestus or insigne sacrificium in her honour
during the month.
3 4. 45 Tais roivvv Ka\avSats a.nf>i\\iats al ffffifal *y v CIIKUV vvtp oftovotas KCU
/3iov auHppovos (rifj.uv ^r|V ' A.<ppoSirr)v al 5i TOV ir^rfOovs ywaiKts iv rots rwv
fabpwv tiaXavfioa (\OVOVTO, itpos Ofpairtiav avriji ftvpaiiy iffTf/jintvai, K.T.\.
Cp. Macrob. i. 12. 15.
F 2
68 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
we should insert with Mommsen1, 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 i 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'2. 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 amal-
gamation 3.
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 men4.
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 5. How
old this curious custom was we cannot guess. Plutarch6
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 7, 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 virgin um mulierumque uiens a libidine ad pudici-
1 C.Li. 315.
2 We shall find some reason for believing that in the early Republican
period new cults came in rather through plebeian than patrician agency
(see below, on Cerealia). But in the period of the new nobilitas the
lower classes seem rather to have held to their own cults, while the upper
social stratum was more ready to accept new ones. See below, on
April 4, for the conditions of such acceptance. The tendency is to be
explained by the wide and increasing sphere of the foreign relations of
the Senatorial government.
s Fasti, 4. 133-164.
* Ovid, 1. c. 149 foil.
s Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 456.
' Quaest. Rom. 74.
7 Ovid, 1. c., 4. 160 ' Inde Venus verso nomina cprde tenet.'
MENSIS APRILIS 69
tiam converteretur1.' Macrobius insists that Venus had originally
no share in the worship of this day or month 2 ; she must
therefore have been introduced into it as a foreigner. Robert-
son Smith 3 has shown some ground for the conjecture that
she was the Cyprian Aphrodite (herself identical with the
Semitic Astarte), who came to Kome by way of Sicily and
Latium. For if Lydus can be trusted, the Roman ceremony
of April i was found also in Cyprus, on the same day, witli
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 4.
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 DBA MEGALE APPELLATUR.
NOBILIUM MUTITATIONES CENARUM SOLITAE SUNT FRE-
QUENTER 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 histoiy 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
Phrygias. Attains, 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 people6.
1 Aust, de Aedibus sacris, p. 28. About a century earlier a statue of this
Venus was said to have been erected (Val. Max. 8. 15. 12; Plin. H. N. 7.
120), as Wisbowa pointed out in his Essay, 'de Veneris Simulacris,' p. 12.
a See above, p. 67, note 2.
s Religion of the Semites, p. 450 foil. * Preller, i. 446.
* Livy, 29. 10 and 14 ; Ovid (Fasti, 4. 259 foil.) has a fanciful edition
of the story which well illustrates the character of his work, and that of
the legend-mongers ; cp. Preller, ii. 57.
' Preller, ii. 55.
70 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 '.
The stone was deposited in the temple of Victory on the
Palatine on April 4 2. 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 3. 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 4 ; all Romans
were forbidden by a senatus consultum to take any part in the
service of the goddess \ The temple dedicated thirteen years
later on April io6 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
classes7, while the plebs waited for its festivities till the
ensuing Cerealia. The later and more extravagant develop-
ments of the cult did not come in until the Empire8.
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
1 Plin. H. N. 18. 16 ; Arnobius, 7. 49. a Livy, 29. io, 14.
s See above, Introduction, p. 7.
4 de Harusp. Resp. 12. 24 ' Qui uni ludi ne verho quidem appellantur
Latino, ut vocabulo ipso et appetita religio externa et Matris Magnae
nomine suscepta declaretur.'
5 Dion. Hal. a. 19. A very interesting passage, in which, among other
comments, the historian points out that in receiving the goddess the
Romans eliminated Sutauav rtpOptiav jut>0i/ci)v.
* Aust, de Aedibus sacris, pp. 22 and 49.
7 Gell. 18. a. ir (patricii) ; cp. 2. 24. a (principes civitatis). Cp. Lydus,
4- 45 ! Verrius' note in Praen., ' Nobilium mutitationes cenarum solitae
sunt frequenter fieri,' &c.
' See Marq. 370 foil. The Ludi eventually extended from the 4th to
the loth inclusive (C. I.L. 314).
MENSIS APRILIS 7!
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.
xvn KAL. MAI. (APRIL 15). IP.
FORDflCIDlA]1. (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 curiac* ; 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 1 7. The cows were offered, as all authorities agree,
to Tellus3, 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 4, and their ashes were kept by the Vestals
for use at the Parilia a few days later \ 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 6.
1 Or Hordicidia, Fest. 102 ; Hordicalia, Varro, R. R. 2. 5. 6 ; Fordicalia,
Lydus, 4. 49. ' Forda ferens bos est fecundaque, dicta ferendo,' Ovid, Fasti,
4-631.
* Ovid, 1. c. 635 'Pars cadit arce lovis. Ter donas curia vaccas
Accipit, et largo sparsa cruore madet.' Cp. Varro, L. L. 6. 15. Preller,
ii. 6. understands Ovid's 'pars' as meaning more than one cow.
1 Ovid, L c. 633 ' Nunc gravidum pecus est, gravidae nunc semine
terrae ; Telluri plenae victima plena datur.'
1 Ovid, 1. c. 637
Ast ubi visceribus vitulos rnpuere ministri,
Sectaque fumosis exta dedere focis,
Igne cremat vitulos quae natu maxima Virgo,
Luce Palis populos purget ut ille cinis.
8 See below, p. 83.
8 This appears plainly in Ovid's account (Fasti, 4. 633 foil.), and also in
that of Lydus (4. 49) : irtpi rcL ffiropifia i/irip tverrjpias Itpdrfvov. Both doubtless
drew on Varro. Lydus adds one or two particulars, that the &p\itptis (?)
72 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 1 804. 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 \ This must be regarded as a survival of a rite which
was no doubt originally one of the same kind as the Roman.
in ID. APR. (APRIL n). N.
On this day2 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.
xin KAL. MAI. (APRIL 19). IP.
CER[IALIA]. (CAER. MAFF. PRAEN. ESQ.)
CERERI LIBERO (LIBERAE) ESQ.
Note : All the days from i2th to ipth are marked ludi, ludi
Cer., or ludi Ceriales, in Tusc. Maff. Praen. Vat., taken
together: loid. Cereri in Esq., where the i8th only is
preserved : loedi C in Caer. Philocalus has Cerealici c. m.
(circenses missus) xxiv on 1 2th and i pth.
The origin of the ludi Cereales, properly so called, cannot be
proved to be earlier than the Second Punic War. The games
scattered flowers among the people in the theatre, and went in procession
outside the city, sacrificing to Demeter at particular stations ; but he
may be confusing this festival With the Ambarvalia.
1 See Mannhardt, Myth. Forsch. 190 ; cp. Frazer, G. B. ii. 43.
3 Fasti Praen. ; C. I. L. 235, and Mommsen's note (where Apr. is mis-
printed Aug.). '[Hoc biduo sacrific]ium maximum Fortunae Prim[i]g.
utro eorum die oraclum patot, Ilviri vitulum I.'
MENSIS APRILIS 73
first appear as fully established in B.C. 202 '. But from the fact
that April 1 9 is marked CER in large letters in the calendars
we may infer, with Mommsen2, 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 3. The verbal form
seems clearly to be creare* ; 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 suggest5.
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 6.
We may be satisfied, then, that the oldest Ceres was not
simply an importation from Greece. It is curious, however,
1 Liv. 30. 39; Friediander in Marq. 500; Mommsen^ Mumioesen, p. 642,
note ; Staatsrecht, i. 586.
2 C. I. L. 298.
* In the Salian hymn duonus cents = creator bonus (of Janus): cf. Varro,
L L. 7. 26 ; Mommsen, Unteritalische Diulekten, 133. See articles cerus
(Wissowa) and Ceres (Birt) in Myth. Lex. ; Biicheler, Umbrica, 80 and 99.
* ' Ceres a creando dicta,* Serv. Georg. 1.7. It is worth noting that in
Nonius Marcellus, 44, cerrili = larvati, where cerus seems to mean a ghost.
If so, we have a good example of a common origin of ghosts and gods in
the animistic ideas of early Italy.
8 Arnob. 3. 40, quoting one Caesius, who followed Etruscan teaching,
and held that Ceres = Genius lovialis et Pales. See Preller-Jordan, i. 8r.
* Preller-Jordan, i. 62. They were not even certain whether the Genius
Urbis was masculine or feminine ; Serv. Aen. a. 351.
74 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
that Ceres is not found exactly where we should expect to find
her, viz. in the ritual of the Fratres Arvales '. 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 2. 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 3. 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 Eomans 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 4,
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 s. It was at the foot of the Aventine,
by the Circus Maximus", and was dedicated on April 19, 493,
to Ceres, Liber and Libera, representing Demeter, Dionysus,
1 Henzen, Ada Fr. An. p. 48. In later times Ceres took the place of
Mars at the Ambarvalia, under Greek influence.
* So Henzen, 1. c. and his Introduction, p. ix.
3 Myth Lex. s.v. Ceies, 86r. He does not, however, dogmatize, and has
little to adduce in favour of his opinion, save the statement of Servius
(Georg. 1.7) that ' Sabini Cererem Panem appellant.'
* Preller- Jordan, ii. 26.
* Aust, de Aedibus, pp. 5 and 40. Preller-Jordan, ii. 38.
6 Birt (Myth. Lex. 862) gives the authorities.
MENSIS APRILIS 75
and Persephone \ 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 2. 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
plebis3. 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* ; we are also told that the fines
imposed by tribunes were spent on this temple *. It was under
the care of the plebeian aediles, and was to them what the
temple of Saturnus was to the quaestors 6. 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 7.
Now it can hardly be doubted that the choice of Ceres (with
her fellow deities of the Mas), 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 tradi-
tions of famine and distress which we read of as immediately
following the expulsion of Tarquinius. These traditions have
often been put aside as untrustworthy 8, 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
1 The trios of itself would prove the Greek origin : cf. Kuhfeldt, de
Capitoliis, p. 77 foil.
2 Plin. H. N. 35. 154. The names of two Greek artists were inscribed
on the temple.
3 Mom m sen, Staatsrecht, ii.2 468, note.
4 Dion. Hal. 6. 89 ; 10. 42 ; Liv. 3. 55 says sacer loci, but the property
was to be sold at the temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera. The corn-
stealer also was facer Cereri.
'- Liv. 10. 23 ; 27. 6 ; 33. 25.
6 Mommsen, Hist. i. 284, note. Cp. Schwegler, Rom. Gesch. ii. 275,
note 3, who thinks of an aerarivm plebis there. See also i. 606 and ii. 278,
note 3. According to Liv. 3. 55 senatus consulta had to be deposited in
this temple.
7 Burn, Rome and the Campagna, p. 204 ; Liv. 3. 31 and 32 fin. ; cp.
10. 31.
8 e.g. by Ihne, vol. i. p. 160.
76 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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'etre, and
starved ' ; finally rescuing itself by a secession, which resulted
in the institution of its officers, tribunes and aediles, the latter
of whom seem to have been charged with the duty of looking
after the corn-supply 2.
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 3. 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 tradi-
tion 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
1 Schwegler, R. G. i. 783 foil.
2 Mommsen, Statitsrecht, ii.a 468, note 2, is doubtful as to the date of the
euro, annonae of the plebeian aediles. But Plin. H. N. 18. 3. 15 attributes
it to an aedile of earlier date than Spurius Maelius (B.C. 438) ; and though
the Consuls may have had the general supervision, the immediate cwra,
as far as the plebs was concerned, would surely lie with their officers.
Two points should be borne in mind here — (i) that the plebeian popula-
tion to be relieved would be a surplus population within the city, not the
farmer-population of the country ; (2) that it would probably be easier
to transport corn by sea than by land, as roads were few, and enemies all
around.
3 Dion. Hal. 7. i, exposes the absurdity of Roman annalists in attributing
the corn-supply to Dionysius ; but he himself talks of Gelo. Cp. Ihne,
i. 160. Ihne disbelieves the whole story, believing it to be copied from
events which happened long afterwards.
MENSIS APRILIS 77
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'. We may
hesitate to assent to Mommsen's curious assertion that the
merchants of that day were none other than the great patrician
landholders2 ; 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 Kome have always been, may
possibly point in the same direction s.
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 igih it was the practice to
fasten burning brands to the tails of foxes and set them loose
to run in the Circus Maximus 4 :
Cur igitur inissae vinctis ardentia taedis
Terga feraut 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
1 Ambrosch, Studien, p. 208. Tradition told that the Tarquinii had
stored up great quantities of corn in Rome, i.e. had fed their workmen.
Cp. Liv. i. 56 and a. 9.
1 Mommscn, R. H , bk. i. ch. 13 fin.
3 Seo under August 13 (below, p. 198) for the parallel foundation of the
temple of Diana on the Aventine, which also had a Greek and plebeian
character.
* Fasti, 4. 68r foil. Ovid does not distinctly say that the foxes were let
loose in the Circus, but seems to imply it.
78 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
corruption of the MSS. has obscured for us1. 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 Philistines1 ; 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 3 ; 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 4. If
the foxes were corn spirits, one does not quite see why they
should have brands fastened to their tails 5. 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 6, and some curious relation to ears of corn.
Prof. Gubernatis believes this tail to have been a phallic
symbol7. 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
1 ' Factum abiit, moniinenta maneut ; fnam vivere captamf
Nunc quoque lex volpem Oarseolana vetat.'
The best MSS. have 'nam dicere certam.' Bergk conjectured 'naraque
icere captam.' The reading given above is adopted from some inferior
MSS. by H. Peter (Leipzig, 1889), following Heinsius and Riese. Mr. S G.
Owen of Ch. Ch., our best authority on the text of Ovid, has kindly
sent me the suggestion namque ire repertam, comparing, for the use of ire,
Ovid, Am. 3. 6. 20 'sic aeternus eas.' This conjecture, which occurred
independently to myself, suits the sense and is close to the reading of
the best MSS.
* J. Grimm, Reinhardt der Fuchs, cclxix (quoted by Peter). Ovid's ex-
planation is of course wrong ; the story is beyond doubt meant to explain
the ritual, or a law to which the ritual gave rise.
3 Preller-Jordan, ii. 43. See under Robigalia.
* Myth. Fwsch. 107 foil.
* Ovid's word is terga, but he must, I think, mean ' tails.'
* Mannhardt, op. cit. 185 Cp. Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 408 ; ii. 3 and 28
(for fertilizing power of tail).
7 Zoological Mythology, ii. 138.
MENSIS APRILIS 79
ear of millet ; the fox is told that these ears are all foxes' tails,
and runs for it.
Here we must leave this puzzle1 ; but whoever cares to read
Ovid's lines about his journey towards his native Pelignian
country, his turning into the familiar lodging —
Hospilis 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). IP.2
PARflLIA1. (CAEB. MAFF. PRAEN.)
ROMA CONDriTA] FERIAE CORONATIS OMNIBUS]. (CAER.)
N[ATALIS] URBIS. CIRCENSES MISSUS xxiv. (PHILOC.)
[A note in Praen. is hopelessly mutilated, with the
exception of the words IGNES and PRINCIPIO AN[NI PAS-
TORICII 3 ?]
The Parilia4, 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 5. Ovid clearly distinguishes
1 It may be as well to note that the custom of tying some object in
straw — wheel, pole with cross-piece, man who slips out in time, &c. — and
then burning it and carrying it about the fields, is common in Europe
and elsewhere (Frazer, G B. ii. 246 foil.). At the same time animals are
sometimes burnt in a bonfire : e.g. squirrels, cats, foxes, &c. (G. B.ii. 283).
The explanation of Mimnhardt, adopted by Mr. Frazer, is that they were
corn-spirits burnt as a charm to secure sunshine and vegetation. If the
foxes were ever really let loose among the fields, damage might occa-
sionally be done, and stories might arise like that of Carseoli, or even
laws forbidding a dangerous practice.
2 In C. I. L. 315 this mark is confused with those of the 23rd.
3 The letters an also appear in a fragment of a lost note in Esq.
Mommsen quotes Ovid, Fasti, 4. 775, and Tibull. 2. 5. 81 for the idea of an
annus pastorum beginning on this day. I can find no explanation of it,
astronomical or other. Dion. Hal. i. 88 calls the day the beginning of
spring, which it certainly was not.
4 For the form of the word see Mommsen, C. I. L. 315. (In Varro, L. Z.
6. 15, it is Palilia.) Preller-Jordan, i. 416.
4 ' Palilia tarn privata quam publica sunt.' Varro, ap Schol. in Persium,
i. 75. See on Compitalia, below, p. 279.
8o THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 ') 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 Keate, in the heart
of the Sabine hill-country2 ; and though this may not go for
much, the character of the Parilia, and the fact that Pales
is called rusticola, pastoricia, silmcda, &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 3 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 account4 the following
ritualistic acts.
i. The sheep-fold5 was decked with green boughs and
a great wreath was hung on the gate :
Frondibus et fixis decorentur ovilia minis,
Et tegat ornatas longa corona fores.
With this Mannhardt 6 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
1 Serv. Georg. 3. i : ' Pales . . . dea est pabuli. Hanc . . . alii, inter quos
Varro, masculino genere vocant, ut hie Pales.' There can be no better
proof of the antiquity of the deity in Italy.
IL.L. 5. 53.
There was a flamen Palatualis (Varro, L. L. 7. 45, and Fest. 245') and an
offering Palatuar (Fest. 348), connected with a Dim Palatua of the Palatine,
who may have been the urban and pontifical form of Pales.
4 Ovid is borne out or supplemented by Tibull. 2. 5. 87 foil. ; Propert.
4. 4. 75 foil. ; Probus on Virg. Georg. 3. i ; Dionys. i. 88, &c.
* It is noticeable that sheep alone are mentioned in the ritual as Ovid
describes it
• A. W. F. p. 310. Cp. Frazer, (?. B. ii. 246 foil.
MENSIS APRILIS 8 1
foliage brought from the woods \ The custom of decoration
at special seasons, May-day, mid-summer, harvest, and Christ-
mas, 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 V 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 3.
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 4 ; among these were baskets of millet
and cakes of the same, pails of milk, and other food of appro-
priate kinds. The meal which followed the shepherd himself
appears to have shared with Pales 5. 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 dis-
turbed the sacred fountains, and used branches of a sacred tree
for secular ends. In these petitions the genuine spirit of Italian
1 Chambers' Journal, July, 1842. For the custom in London, Brand, Pop.
iniquities, p. 307.
3 So I understand Ovid : but in line 742 in mediis focis might rather
indicate a fire in the atr.um of the house, and so Mannhardt takes it. In
that case the fire over which they leaped (line 805) was made later on in
the ceremony.
3 Cp. Horn. Od. 22. 481 OTaf Otdov, "Yprjv, KOLKUIV a«oy, oifft Sf poi nvp,
'O<f>pa. Ottiwaoa fityapov.
* Tibull. 2. 5. 28 ' Et facta agresti lignea falce Pales.' Tib. seems here
be transferring a rustic practice of his own day to the earliest Romans
of the Palatine. But he may be simply indulging his imagination ; and
e cannot safely conclude that we have here a rude Italian origin of
ithropomorphic ideas of the gods.
* Ovid, Fasti, 4. 743-746, esp. ' dapibus resectis.' We can hardly escape
the conclusion that the idea of the common meal shared with the gods
vas a genuine Italian one ; it is found here, in the Tcrminalia (Ovid,
Fasti, a. 655), and in the worship of Jupiter. See on Sept. 13 and Feb. 23.
82 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 l :
Pellc 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 aero.
Sitque salax aries, conceptaque semina coniunx
Reddat, et in stabulo multa sit agna meo.
Lanaque proveniat nullas laesura puellas,
Moll is et ad teneras quamlibet apta manus.
Quae precor eveniant : et nos faciamus ad annum
Pustorum dominae grandia liba Pali.
This prayer must be said four times over2, the shepherd
looking to the east and wetting his hands with the morning
dew3. 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 *, 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 5.
The Parilia of the urbs was celebrated in much the same
way in its main features ; but the day was reckoned as the
1 Fasti, 4. 763 foil.
2 Four is unusual ; three is the common number in religious rites.
8 ' Conversus ad ortus Die quater, et vivo perlue rore manus.' Ovid may
perhaps be using ros for fresh water of any kind ; see H. Peter's note
i Pt. II, p. 70). But the virtues of dew are great at this time of year (e.g.
May-day). See Brand, Pop. Ant. 218, and Mannhardt, A. W.F. 312. Pepys
records that his wife went out to gather May-dew ; Diary, May 10. 1669.
4 The word is camella in Ovid, Fasti, 4. 779; cp. Petron. Sat, 135, and
Gell. N. A. 16. 7.
8 Or as Propertius has it (4. 4. 77) :
'Cumque super raros foeni flammantis acervos
Traiicit immundos ebria turba pedes.'
MENSIS APKILIS 83
birthday of Rome, and doubtless on this account it came under
the influence of priestly organization '. 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 Hill2. 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
summer3; 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
1 Ovid, Fasti, 4. 801 foil. ; Prop. 4. 4. 73 ; Varro, R. R. a. i . 9. Many
other references are collected in Schwegler, R. G. i. 444, note i. The
tradition was certainly an ancient one, and the pastoral character of the
rite is in keeping with that of the legend. It is to be noted that the
sacrificing priest was originally the Rex Sacrorum (Dionys. i. 88), a fact
which may well carry us back to the earliest Roman age.
* Ovid, Fasti, 4. 733 foil. ' Sanguis equi suffimen erit vitulique favilla,
Tertia res durae culmen inane fabae.' Whether the bonfire was burnt
on the Palatine itself does not seem certain, but it is a reasonable
conjecture.
3 He points out (p. 316) that the throwing of bones or burnt pieces of
an animal into the flames is common in northern Europe : hence bonfire
= bonefire.
O 2
84 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 sunshine1, 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 sun2,
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 Soranus3, a local deity, to which was attached
a kind of guild of worshippers called Hirpi Sorani, or wolves
of Soranus 4 ; 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 5. Also on a parti-
cular day, perhaps the summer solstice, these Hirpi ran
through the flames, ' super ambustam ligni struem ambulantes
non aduruntur V 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 7. On the other hand, it is possible
to consider them as survivals of an original clan who worshipped
1 A. W. F. 316 ; Frazer, G. B. ii. 274 foil.
2 Preller-Jordan, i. 268. Soranus is thought to be connected etymolo-
gically with Sol. With this, however, Deocke disagrees (Fatisker, 96).
1 So called by Virg. Aen. n. 785 andServ. ad loc. Who the deity really
was, we do not know. Apollo here had no doubt a Graeco-Etruscan
origin. Deecke (fali^ker, 93) thinks of Dis Pater or Vediovis ; quoting
Servius* account and explanation of the cult. That the god was Sabine,
not Etruscan, is shown by the word hirpi.
4 Or of Soracte, if Soranus = Soractnus (Deecke).
5 Serv. I.e. tells the aetiological legend. Cp. Plin. N.H. 7. it. It has
been dealt with fully by Mannhardt, A. W. F. 318 foil.
* Plin. 1. c. ; Varro Cap. Serv. 1. c.) asserted that they used a salve for
their feet which protected them. The same thing is said, I believe, of the
Harawara in India.
T According to Strabo, p. 226, this fire-ceremony took place in the
grove of Feronia, at the foot of the hill. Feronia may have been a corn-
er harvest-deity, and of this Mannhardt makes all he can. We may at
least guess that the rite took place at Midsummer.
MENSIS APRILIS 85
the wolf as a totem l ; a view adopted by Mr. Lang 2, who
compares the frm/'-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.) IP (MAFF.)
P (PRAEN.)'
VEIN[ALIA] (CAER.) VIN[ALIA] (MAFF. PRAEN. ESQ.)
Praen. has a mutilated note beginning io[vi], and ending
With [CUM LATINI BELLO PREMEJRENTUR A RUTULIS, QUIA
MEZENTIUS REX ETRUs[co]fiUM 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.)
ERUC. [EXTRJA PORTAM COLLINJAM]. (ART.)
This day was generally known as Vinalia Priora, as distin-
guished from the Vinalia Kustica of August 19. Both days
were believed to be sacred to Venus4 ; 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 8, 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
1 Cp. the cult of Zeus Lykaios in Arcadia ; Farnell, Cults of the Greek
Slates, i. 41.
2 Myth., Ritual, and Beligion, ii. 212.
* This peculiar notation is common to this day and Aug. 19 (the Vinalia
Rustica), and to the Feral ia (Feb. 21). See Introduction, p. 10.
4 Ovid, Fasti, 4. 877, asks : ' Cur igitur Veneris festum Vinalia dicant,
Quaeritis ? '
s Varro, L. L. 6. 16 ; Fest. 65 and 374. The latter gloss is: 'Vinalia
diem festum habebant, quo die vinum novum lovi libabant' Ovid, Fasti,
4. 899, after telling the Mezentius story (alluded to in the note in Praen.),
adds
Dicta dies hinc est Vinalia : luppiter illain
Vindicat, et festis gaudet incsse suis.
86 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
Ovid implies, the dies natalis of one of the temples of Venus *,
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 2. That of the Sicilian Aphrodite, under
the name of Venus, seems to have become at once popular with
its Graecus ritus and lasdvia maior3 ; and the older connexion
of the festival with Jupiter tended henceforward to disappear.
It must be noted, however, that the day of the Vinalia Eustica in
August was also the dies natalis of one if not two other temples
of Venus4, 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 5. 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 6 :
PRESTA MI SIKCERU[M] ITA TE AMET QUE
CTTSTODIT OETU[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 7 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
1 Ovid, Fasti, 4. 871
Templa frequentari Collinae proxima portae
Nunc decet ; a Siculo nomina colle tenent.
He seems to have confused this temple with that on the Capitol (Aust,
de Aedibus, 23).
8 Liv. 40. 34. 4.
* Aust, ib. p. 24. Varro wrote a satire 'Vinalia irtpl wppofiia'uav.' Plutarch
(<J. R. 45) confuses Vinalia and Veneralia.
4 Festus, 264 and 265 ; in the Vallis Murcia (or Circus maximus), and
the lucus Libitinae. (In 265, xiii Kal. Sept. should be xiv.) For the
date of the former temple, 293 B. c., Liv. 10. 31. 9.
1 Varro, R. R. T. i ; Fest. 265 ; Preller- Jordan, i. 441.
• C. I. L. iv. 2776.
7 Varro, L. L. 6. 16. See Myth. Lex. s. v. luppiter, 704 foil.
MENSIS APRILIS 87
to suit the ceremony Varro describes 1 ; 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 2 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 habe-
bant quo die vinum novum lovi libabant ' 3. After the libation
the wine was tasted, as we learn from Pliny4 ; 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 in-
teresting notice which he saw posted in vineyards at Tusculum :
'In Tusculanis hortis (MSS. eortis) est scriptum : 'Vinum no-
vum ne vehatur in urbem ante quam vinalia kalentur ' 6 ; 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 Paulus6, 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 7 ; 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.
1 8. 284), where he classes this August festival with the
Robigalia and Floralia 8, and further on quotes Varro to prove
1 Mommsen, C. 1. L. 326. Vindemia is the grape-harvest. Hartmann,
Rom. Kal, 138, differs from Mommsen on this point.
3 Q. R. 45. * Fest. 65. * H. N. 18. 287.
* L. L. 6. 16. Hartis is Mommsen's very probable emendation for sortis of
the MSS. O. Miiller has sacris, which is preferred by Jordan (Preller,
i. 196). 6 264.
7 Mommsen (C. I. L. 326) thinks that there is no mistake in the gloss ;
but that the Vinalia Rustica represent a later and luxurious fashion of
allowing a whole year to elapse before tasting the wine, instead of six
months. From the vintage, however (end of September or beginning of
October), to August 19 is not a whole year. See under August 19.
' 'Tria namque tempera fructibus metuebant, propter quod instituerunt
ferias diesque festos, Robigalia, Floralia, Vinalia.' That the Vinalia here
referred to is the August one is clear, not only from the order of the
words, but from what follows, down to the end of sec. 289. Sees. 287
83
that its object was to appease the storms (i. e. to be expected in
September).
As regard^ 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 *.
VII KAL. MAI. (APEIL 25). IP.
[ROBJIGALIA. (CAER. ESQ. MAFF. PRAEN.)
Note in Praen : FEKIAE EOBIGO VIA CLAUDIA AD MILLIARIUM v
NE ROBIGO FRUMENTIS NOCEAT. SACRIFICIUM EX LUDI CUR-
SORIBUS MAIORIBUS MINORIBUSQUE FIUNT. FESTUS EST
PUERORUM LENONIORUM, QUIA PROXIMUS SUPERIOR MERE-
TRICUM EST.
Robigo means red rust or mildew which attacks cereals when
the ear is beginning to be formed 2, 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 3
to end of 288 deal with the Vinalia priora parenthetically ; in 289 Pliny
returns to the Vinalia altera (or rustica), after thus clearing the ground
by making it clear that the April Vinalia ' iiihil ad fructus attinent.' He
then quotes Varro to show that in August the object is to avert storms
which might damage the vineyards. Monimsen, C. I. L. 326, seems to
me to have misread this passage.
1 Ovid, Fasti, 877 foil. : the legend was an old one for it is quoted by
Macrob. (Sat. 3. 5. 10) from Cato's Ortgines. See also Hehn, Kulturpjlanzen,
65 foil., who is, however, in error as to the identification of Jupiter (Liber)
with Ztwj 'E\(v0tptos.
3 See Columella, 2. 12; Plin. N.H. 18.91; andarticle, 'Mildew,' in Encycl.
Brit. For the botanical character of this parasite see Worthington Smith's
Diseases of Field and Garden Crops, chs. 21 and 23 ; and Hugh Macmillan's
Bible Teachings from Nature, p. 120 foil.
3 N H . 1 8. 273 : cp. 154. Pliny thought it chiefly the result of dew
(cf. mildew, German mehlfftau), and was not wholly wrong.
MENSIS APRILIS 89
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.
Eobigus1 is the spirit who works in the mildew ; and it has
been conjectured that he was a form or indigitation of Mars 2,
since Tertullian tells us that ' Marti et Kobigini Numa ludos
instituit'3. 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 4. The same feature is found
in the worship of Apollo, who had at Ehodes the cult-title
f'pvdi&tos*, 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"), he met the
Flamen Quirinalis with the exta of a dog and a sheep to offer
to the god 7. He joined the procession, which was apparently
something quite new to him, and witnessed the ceremony,
noting the meri patera, the tuns acerra, and the rough linen
napkin8, 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 Mai's in the lustration of
the farm 9 :
Aspera Robigo, parcas Ccriulibus herbis,
Et tremat in sum ma leve cacumen humo.
1 The masc. is no doubt correct. Ovid, Fasti, 4. 907, uses the feminine
Robigo, but is alone among the older writers in doing so : see Preller-
Jordan. ii. 44, note 2.
* Indigitation is the fixing of the local action of a god to be invoked, by
means of his name, if I understand rightly Reifferscheid's view as given
by R. Peter in Myth. Lex. s. v. Indigitamenta, p. 137. The priest of the
Kobigalia was the flamen Quirinalis: Quirinus is one form of Mars.
3 de Spectaculis, 5.
4 Cato, R. R. 141 ; Proller-Jordan, i. 340.
8 Strabo, 613: see Roscher, Apollo and Mars, p. 62. 'EpvaiPq « mildew,
of which (pvOi&T) is the Rhodian form.
* See Mommsen's ingenious explanation in C. I. L. 316.
1 Fasti, 4. 901 foil. The victims had been slain at Rome and in the
morning ; and were offered at the grove later in the day (see Marq. 184).
8 Villis mantele solutis (cp. Serv. Aen. 12. 169).
» R. R. 141.
90 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
Tu sata sideribus caeli nutrita secundi
Crescere, dum fianfc falcibus apta, sinas.
Parce, precor, scabrasque manus a messibus aufer,
Neve rioce cultis : posse noccre 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 1 :
Esfc Canis, Icarium dicunt, quo sidere moto
Tosta sitit tellus, praecipiturque seges.
Pro cane sidereo canis hie 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 2.
We are told 3 of a sacrifice of reddish sucking whelps, and of
augury made from their exta, which must have been closely
connected with the Kobigalia, 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 4 ; 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 Kobigalia 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
1 So we may perhaps translate 91*0 sidere moto : but Ovid certainly
thought the star rose (cf. 904). Hartmann explains Ovid's blunder by
reference to Serv. Oeorg. i. 218 (Rom. Kal. 193). See also H. Peter, ad loc.
" Mannhardt, My'h. Forsch. 107 foil.
* Festus, 285 ; Paul. 45. It was outside the Porta Catularia, of which,
unluckily, nothing is known.
4 N. H. 18. 14 ' Ita est in commentariis pontificum : Augurio canario
agendo dies constituantur priusquam frumenta vaginis exeant et ante-
quam in vaginas perveniant.' For ' et antequam ' we should perhaps read
'wee antequam.' The vagina is the sheath which protects the ear and from
which it eventually protrudes ; and it seems that in this stage, which in
Italy would occur at the end of April or beginning of May, the corn is
peculiarly liable to 'rust.' (So Virg. Oeorg. i. 151 'Ut mala cuJmos Esset
robigo': i.e. the stalks including the vagina.') See Hugh Macmillan,
op. cit. p. 121.
MENSIS APRILIS 91
that this colour was supposed to resemble that of the corn when
ripe: 'Rufae canes immolabantur, ut fruges flavescentes ad raatu-
ritatem perducerentur ' (p. 285). We should indeed naturally
have expected that the rufous colour was thought to resemble
the red mildew, as Mannhardt explains it * ; 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 represen-
tation of the corn, and in the rite a piece of 'sympathetic
magic ' 2, 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 *,
and under the later empire to the Christian litania maior, the
original object of which was also the safety of the crops*. The
25th is at present St. Mark's day.
iv KAL. MAI. (APR. 28). IP.
LOEDI FLOR[AE] (CAEB.) LUDI FLOR[AE]. (MAFF. FRAEN.)
v NON. MAI. (MAY 3), C.
FLORAE (VEN.).
On the intervening days were also ludi (<7. /. L. 317).
Note in Praen. (Apr. 28): EODEM DIE AEDIS FLORAE, QTJAE
REBUS FLORESCENDIS PRAEEST, DEDICATA EST PROPTER STE-
RILITATEM FRUGUM.
1 Mylh. Farsch. 106. Mr. Frazer ((?. B. ii. 59 : cp. i. 306) takes the other
view of this and similar sacrifices, but with some hesitation.
a It must be confessed that the occurrence of red colour in victims
cannot well be always explained in this way ; e. g. the red heifer of the
Israelites (Numbers xix), and the red oxen of the Egyptians (Plut. Isis and
Osiris, 31). But in this rite, occurring so close to the Cerialia, where, as
we have seen, foxes were turned out in the circus maximus, the colour of
the puppies must have had some meaning in relation to the growing crops.
3 'Ludi cursoribus maioribus minoribusque.' What these were is not
known : Mommsen, C. I. L. 317.
* Usener. Religionsgeschichte, i. 298 foil.
92 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 l. 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 '2 ; also a temple was dedicated
to her ad circum maximum on April 28 of that year3. 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 4, who as aediles were able to spend
part of the fines exacted from defaulting holders of ager publicvs
on this object B : 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 6.
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 deity7, probably closely related to Ceres and Venus.
There was a Flamen Floralis of very old standing 8 ; and Flora
is one of the deities to whom piacula were offered by the Fratres
1 See Introduction, p. 15.
' Plin. N. H. 18. 286; two years earlier, according to Velleius, i. 14.
This is, I think, the only case in which a deity taken in hand by the
decemviri sacris faciundis cannot be traced to a Greek origin ; but the
characteristics of Flora are so like those of Venus that in the former, as
in the latter, Aphrodite may be concealed. The games as eventually
organized had points in common with the cult of Aphrodite at Hierapolis
(Lucian, Dea Syr. 49 ; Farnell, Cults, ii. 643) ; and it is worth noting that
their date (173 B. c.) is subsequent to the Syrian war. Up to that time
the games were not regular or annual (Ovid, Fasti, 5. 295).
3 Tac. Ann. 2. 49 ; Aust, p. 17.
* Plebis ad aediles : Ovid, ib. v. 287 ; Festus, 238, probably in error, calls
the Publicii cunde aediles.
* Ovid, ib. 5. 277 foil., in which he draws a picture of the misdoings of the
landholders. Cp. Liv. 33. 42, for the temple of Faunus in insula, founded
by the same means.
' Ovid, ib. 5. 352.
7 Steuding in Myth. Lex. s. v. Flora. There was a Sabine month Flusalis
(Momms. Chron. 219) = Floral is, and answering to July. Varro considered
Flora a Sabine deity (L. L. 5. 74).
' Varro, L. L. 7. 45. Flora had an ancient temple in colle, near
the so-called Capitolium vetus (,Steuding, 1. c.), i.e. in the 'Sabiiie
quarter.'
MENSIS APRILIS 93
Arvales1 — 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 2 at any rate on the original
day of the ludi (April 28\ which were in later times extended
to May 3. The numon 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
Can tat: 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 ", 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 ludi4.
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 Empire5. 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 fi, but may yet have had an origin in the cult of Flora.
1 Hen/en, Acfa Fratr. Are. 146.
* Ov. 5- 33* foil 'Volt sua plebeio sacra patere choro.'
3 Val. Max. 2. 10. 8. Steuding in Myth. Lex. has oddly misunderstood
this passage, making Val. Max. write of this custom as an ancient one,
whereas he clearly implies the opposite. It was no doubt the relic
of some rude country practice, degenerated under the influence of
city life.
' Lnctantitis, Ik falsa rdigione, i. 20.
5 Aug. Civ. Dei, ii. 27.
' Friedlftnder on Martial, 8. 67. 4.
94 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
Hares and goats were let loose in the Circus Maximus on these
days. Ovid asks Flora :
Cur tibi pro Libycis clauduntur rete * leaenis
Imbelles capreae sollicitusque lepus?
and gets the answer :
Non sibi, respondit, silvas cessissc, 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 Cerialia2, 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 s. 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 time4. But it is noticeable
that among these objects were medals with obscene representa-
tions 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 5 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
1 H. Peter takes this to mean that they were let loose from a net and
hunted into it again. See note ad loc. 5. 371.
* See above, p. 77.
s Sat. 5. 177 : Vigila et cicer ingere large
Rixanti populo, nostra ut Floralia possint
Aprici meminisse senes. — Cp. Hor. Sat. a. 3. 182.
* Friedlander, Sittengeschichte, ii. 286 ; and his note on Martial, 8. 78.
5 Kind. u. Korn. 351 foil.
MENSIS APRILIS 95
the occurrence of the women's cult of the Bona Dea on May i,
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 himself1.
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 Kome, but on the Alban Mount, it was under
the direct supervision of the Koman 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 2 ;
and when in 153 B.C. the day of entrance was changed to
January i , the date of the festival does not seem to have been
changed to suit it. The consuls must be present themselves,
leaving spraefcctus urbi at Eome 3 ; or in case of the compulsory
absence of both consuls a dictator might be appointed Feriarum
Latinantm causa. Only when the festival was over could they
leave Kome for their provinces.
It was therefore a festival of the highest importance to the
Koman state. But the ritual will show that it must in fact
have been much older than that state as we know it in histoiical
times ; it was a common festival of the most ancient Latin
communities 4, 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
1 Another point that may strike the reader of Ovid is the wearing of
parti-coloured dress on these days (5. 355 : cp. Martial, 5. 23) —
Cur tamen ut dantur vestes Cerialibus albae,
Sic haec est cultu versicolore decens ?
Flora answers him doubtfully. Was this a practice of comparatively late
date ? See Friedlander, Sittengeschichte ii. 275.
* Mommsen in C. /. L. vi. p. 455 (Tabula for. Lat.). The day was March 15
from B.C. 222 to 153; in earlier times it had been frequently changed.
See Mommsen, Ckron. p. 80 foil.
3 On this office and its connexion with the/en'ae see Vigneaux, Essaisur
fhistoire de la praefectura urbis, p. 37 foil.
* Plin. H. N. 3. 69 ; Dionys. 4. 49. The difficult questions arising out of
the numbers given by these authorities are d scussed by Beloch, Itulischer
Bund, 178 foil., and Mommsen in Hermes, vol. xvii. 42 folL
96 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 '. No doubt the
Tarquinii may have renovated the cult or even given it an
extended significance ; but the • Roman presidency must con-
jocturally 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 later2.
The ritual as known to us was as follows'. 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 to4. A general festivity followed the sacrifice, while
oscilla, or little puppets, were hung from the branches of trees
as at the Paganalia5. 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 fi. Lastly, during
the festival there was a truce between all the cities, and it
1 Aust, in Myth. Lex. s. v. luppiter, p. 689.
a C. I. L. vi. 202 r .
* Condensed from the account given by Aust, 1. c. Seo also Prellcr-
Jordan, i. 210 foil. The chief authority is Dionys. 4. 49.
4 e.g. Liv. 32. i, 37. 3, in which cases some one city had not received
its portion. The result was an instauratio feriarum.
5 See below, p. 294 (Ferine Sementivae). Tiie meaning of the oscilla
was not really known to the later Romans, who freely indulged in con-
jectures about them. Macrob. i. 7. 34 ; Serv. Georg. 2. 389 ; Paul. 121.
My own belief is that, like the bullae of children, they were only one of
the many moans of averting evil influences.
* See the passages of Livy quoted above, and add 40. 45 (on account of
a storm) ; 41. 16 va failure on the part of Lanuvium).
MENSIS APKILIS 97
would seem that the alliance between Rome and the Latins was
yearly renewed on the day of the Feriae '.
Some of the lending characteristics of the Italian Jupiter will
be considered further on 2. 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 3. 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 4. 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 sacrament5.
As Eome 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 ".
1 Macrob. i. 16. 16 'Cum Latiar, hoc est Latinarum solemne concipitur,
nefas est proelium sumere : quia nee Latinarum tempore. quo publice
• juojidam indutiae inter populum Roinauum Latinosquo firmatae sunt,
inchoari bellum decebat.'
* See under Sept. 13.
s For the characteristics and meaning of the common sacrificial meal
see especially Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, Lect. viii.
4 Helbig, Die Italiker in der Poebene, 71.
s Robertson Smith, op. cit., 278 foil.
' Cic. pro Plancio, 9. 23.
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, maicstas, &c.? The following passage of Macrobius
will show how entirely the Roman scholars were at sea in
their answer to this question ] :
'Maium Romulus tertium posuit. De cuius nomine inter
auctores lata dissensio est. Nam Fulvius Nobilior in Fastis
quos in aede Herculis Musarum posuit 2 Romulum dicit post-
quam populum in maiores iunioresque diuisit, ut altera pars
consilio altera armis rem publicam tueretur, in honorem
utriusque partis hunc Maium, sequentem lunium mensem
uocasse3. Sunt qui hunc mensem ad nostros fastos a Tuscu-
lanis transisse commemorent, apud quos nunc quoque uocatur
deus Maius, qui est luppiter, a magnitudine scilicet ac maiestate
dictus4. Cingius5 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
1 Sat. i. 12. 16. 2 See above, Introduction, p. n.
3 So Varro also (L. L. 6. 33). But Censorinus (De die natali, 20. a) ex-
pressly ascribes to Varro the derivation from Maia ; the great scholar
apparently changed his view.
* For lup. Maius see Aust, in Myth. Lex. s. v. luppiter, p. 650.
* This was probably not the early historian Cincius Alimentus, but
a contemporary of Augustus, Teuffel, Hist, of Roman Literature, sec. 106.
For the flamen Volcanalis see on Aug ^3.
MENSIS MAIUS 99
Maiae pariter Mercurioque sacrificant1. Adfirmant quidam,
quibus Cornelius Labeo consentit, hanc Maiam cui mense Maio
res diuina celebratur terrain esse hoc adeptam nomen a magni-
tudine, 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 honiini
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 terrain 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 months2. 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 happen3. 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
1 i.e. on the Ides: see below, p. 120. The connexion between Mercurius
and Maia seems to arise simply from the fact that the dedication of the
temple of the former was on the Ides of this mouth.
3 Ovid, Fasti, 6. 59 foil. ; Mommsen, Chron. 218.
3 The etymology was defended by Roscher in Fleckeisen's Jahrbuch for.
1875, and in his luno und Hera, p. 105.
II 2
100 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 purilication. 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 purifica-
tions ; and at the end of the month took place the lust ratio
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 i.) F.
LAR[IBUS]. (VEN.) L . (ESQ.)
This was the day on which, according to Ovid1, 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 morae3.
1 Fasti, 5. 129 foil. For the doubtful reading Curibus in 131 see Peter,
ad loc. ; Preller-Jordan, ii. 114.
3 Fasti, 5. 143 ; Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 51.
MENSIS MAIUS IOI
Ovid himself had apparently not seen the signa, though he Icoked
for them ; and no doubt he took from Yarro the description he
gives. They had the figure of a dog at their feet1, 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 them2.
We may indeed fairly conclude that the Lares were chthonic
deities, and as such were originally appeased, like Hekate in
Greece3, by the sacrifice of dogs. We have already had one
example of the dog used as a victim '. Two others are
mentioned by Plutarch 5 ; 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 6, 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 7, 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 8 :
Est moles nativa loco. Res nomina fecit :
Appellant Saxum. Pars bona mentis ea est.
Huic Remus institerat frustra, quo tempore fratri
Prima Palatinae signa dedistis aves.
1 This appears on coins of the gens Caesia : Cohen, Med. Cons. pi. viii.
Wissowa, in Myth. Lex., s.v. Lares, gives a cut of the coin, on which the
Lares are represented sitting with a dog between them. See note at the
end of this work (Note B) on the further interpretation of these coins.
2 See Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, 414 foil.
* Farnell, Cults, ii. 515. Hekate was certainly a deity of the earth. Cf.
Plut. Q. R. 68. * See on Robigalia, April 25.
8 Quaest. Rom. 52 and in ; cf. Romulus 21.
* So Jevons, Roman Questions, Introduction, xli.
7 De-Marchi, La Religione nella vita domestica, 48. Wissowa (Myth. Lex, s.v.
Lares, p. 1872; prefers the old interpretation, much as Plutarch gives it.
* Fasti, 5. 149 foil.
102 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 ' ; 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 Rome4. 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 :\
i. The temple was cared for, and the cult celebrated, by
women only 4. 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 '\ The myth obviously arose out
of the practice. The exclusion of men points to the earth-
1 Aust, De Aedibus sacris, p. 27. It was apparently before 123 B. c., when
a Vestal Virgin, Licinia, added an aedicula, pulvinar, and ara to it (Cic. de
Domo, 136).
* Wissowa, in Pauly's Real-Encydopadie, s. v. Bona Dea, 690. See above,
p. 69.
3 See below, under Dec. 3. There can be hardly a doubt that this
December rite was the one famous for the sacrilegium of Clodius in 62 B. c.,
though Prof. Beesly rashly assumed the contrary in his essay on Clodius
\Catiline, Clodius, and Tiberius, p. 45 note). Plutarch, Cic. 19 and 20; Dio
Cass. 37. 35.
* Ovid, 1. c. ' oculos exosa viriles.' Cp. Ars Amat. 3. 637. On this and
other points in the cult see R. Peter in Myth. Lex., and Wissowa, 1. c. The
latter seems to refer most of them to the December rite ; but Ovid and
Macrobius expressly connect them with the temple. Macr. i. 12. 25 folL
4 Propert. 4. 9 ; Macr. i. 12. 28.
MENSIS MAIUS 103
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 l, 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 2.
2. Macrobius3 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 her4. 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 ', 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 6. But could
1 Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 245 foil.
* See below, p. 143. Lex. Myth. e. v. Hercules, 2258.
8 Macr. 1. c. Plutarch also knew of this (Quaest. Rom. 20).
4 Otherwise in Lactantius, i. 22. n, and Arnob. 5. 18, where Fauna is
said to have been beaten because she drank wine ; no doubt a later version.
Lactantius quotes Sext. Clodius, a contemporary of Cicero.
5 H. N. 14. 88. See above on ferine Latinae, p. 97. Virg. Eel. 5. 66; Georg. i.
344 ; Aen. 5. 77. In the last passage milk is offered to the inferiae of
Anchises : we may note the similarity of the cult of Earth-deities and
of the dead.
6 Plut. Q. R. 20 ; Macrob. 1. c. ; Lactant. 1. c. The myth has been ex-
plained as Greek (Wissowa, in Pauly, 688), but its peculiar feature, the
whipping, could hardly have become attached to a Roman cult unless there
were something in the cult to attach it to, or unless the cult itself were
104 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 story1. 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
February2, 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". A group of interesting in-
scriptions shows that the Bona Dea did not confine her healing
powers to cases of women, but cured the ailments of both
sexes4. 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-goddess5. It is possible that this feature
is a Greek importation ; but on the whole I see no reason why
borrowed from the Greek. That the latter was the case it is impossible
to prove ; and I prefer to believe that both cult and myth were Roman.
1 Mythologische Forschungen, 115 foil. Cp. Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 213 foil.
8 Below, p. 320. See also on July 7 (Nonae Caprotinae).
s Macrob. 1. c. * Quidam Medeam putant, quod in aedo eius omne genus
herbarum sit ex quibus antistites dant plerumque medicinas.'
1 C. I. L. vi. 54 foil.
* This no doubt gave rise to the myth that Faunus 'coisse cum filia'
in the form of a snake. Here again the myth may possibly be Greek,
but we have no right to deny that it may have had a Roman basis.
MENSIS MAIUS 105
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 learn-
ing became associated with it, but that the knowledge of simples
was indigenous in Italy we have abundant proof l ; and that it
should have been connected with no cult of a deity until Aescu-
lapius was introduced from Greece, is most improbable.
5. The sacrifice mentioned is that of a porca 2. The pig is
also the victim in the worship of Cares, of Juno Lucina 3
(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 4,
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.
Damium6. 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 Dameia6.
It looks as if this Greek deity had at one time migrated from
Tarentum to Komer 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
Damiatrix7. Much has been written about these very obscure
names, without any very definite result ;. but it seems to be
Snakes were kept in great numbers both, in temples and houses in Italy
(Preller-Jordan, i. 87, 385).
1 Plin. H. N. 29 passimr especially 14, &c., where Cato is quoted as
detesting the new Greek art, and urging his son to stick to the old
simples ; some of which,, with their absurd charms, are given in Cato,
R. R. 156 foil. " Macrob. 1. c. ; Juv. Sat. 2. 86.
- Marq. 173. Gilbert (Gesch. und Topogr. ii. 159, note) has some im-
possible combinations on, this subject, and concludes that the Bona Dea
was a moon-goddess. * See above, p. 72 foil.
* Paulus, 68 'Damium sacrificium, quod fiebat in operto in honorem
Bonae deae, . . . dea quoque ipsa D.unia et sacerdos eius daiuiatrix
appellabatur.'
6 R. Peter in Myth. Lex., s. v. Damia ; Wissowa, 1. o.
7 Paulus, 1. c.
106 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 '. We need not identify her with
Vesta, as some have done2, 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 3, 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 pan-
daemonism — 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 ox foreign, to take a
more definite shape.
VII. ID. MAI. (MAY 9). N.
LEM[VEIA]. (VEN. MAFF.)
V. ID. MAT. (MAY n). N.
LEM[VRIA]. (TUSC. VEN. MAFF.)
III. ID. MAI. (MAY 13). N.
LEM[VRIA]. (TUSC. YEN. MAFF.)
The word Lemuria indicates clearly enough some kind of
worship of the dead ; but we know of no such public cult on
1 Lactantius, i. 22 ; Serv. Aen. 8. 314.
4 Preuner, Hestia-Vesta, 407 foil. For Lucina, Gilbert, 1. c.
3 The combination of the idea of female fecundity with that of the
earth is of course common enough. Here is a good example from
Abyssinia : ' She (Atetie) is the goddess of fecundity, and women are her
MENSIS MAIUS 107
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 l ; 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 2ist. 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 2,
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 :1. Ovid
himself implies that the Lemuria was an older festival than
the Feralia4, 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 \ 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 Koman 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,
principal votaries ; but, as she can also make the earth prolific, offerings
are made to her for that purpose' (Macdonald, Religion and Myth, p. 42).
1 Fasti, 5. 421 foil. a See Introduction, p. 15.
* Huschke (Rom. Jahr, 17) tried to prove that the Lemuria was the
'Todtenfest' of the Sabine city, the Feralia that of the Latin; but his
arguments have convinced no one. * Fasti, 5. 423.
4 G. B. ii. 157 foil. ; Macdonald, Religion and Myth, ch. vi.
I08 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
while the Feralia is marked F or FP1. 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 2. 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 influ-
ence 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 metuendasV
Nonius has the following : ' Lemures larvae nocturnae et terrifi-
cationes imaginum et bestiarumV From these passages it
would seem that lemures and larvae mean much the same
thing; on the other hand Appuleius5 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 ihe 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 6, reproduced by Porphyrio, deriving Lemuria from Remus.
1 Introduction, p. 10.
* Tylor, Prim. Cult. ii. 24. The friendly attitude is well illustrated in
F. de Coulanges' La Cite antique, ch. ii. * On Hor. Ep. 2. 2. 209.
4 Non. p. 135. Cp. Festus, s. v. faba: ' Leinuralibus iacitur larvis,' i.e.
'the bean is thrown to larvae at the Lemuralia.' Serv. Aen. 3. 63.
* de Genio Socrati.', 15. The passage is interesting, but historically
worthless, as is that of Martianus Capella, 2. 162.
6 Fasti, 5. 451 foil. ; Porph. I.e. Remus, as one dead before his time,
would not lie quiet : ' Umbra cruenta Bemi visa est adsistere lecto,' &c.
MENSIS MAIUS
whose violent death was supposed to have been expiated by
the institution of the festival. The difficulty is to see why,
if the Icmurcs 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 un-
civilized 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 Eoman
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 ', 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 feet2 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 form-
ula 'manes3 exite paterni,' he at last looks round, and the
ceremony is over.
1 See e. g. Von Duhn's paper on Italian excavations, translated in the
Journal of Hellenic Studies for 1897.
3 ' Habent vincula nulla pedes' (Fasti, 5. 432). In performing sacred rites
a man must be free ; e. g. the Flamen Dialis might not wear a ring, or any-
thing binding, and a fettered prisoner had to be looked in his house (Plut.
Q R. in). Cp. Numa in his interview with Fiiunus (Ov. Fasti, 4. 658), ' Nee
digitis annulus ullus inest.' Serv. Aen. 4. 518 ; Hor. Sat. i. 8. 24.
3 Manes must be here used, either loosely by the poet, or euphemistically
by the house-father.
110 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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
1'arilia. 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 superstitious '. No one, as far as
I know, has as yet successfully solved the problem why beans
had so strange a religious character about them 2 ; 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 3. 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 4. 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 mold salsa, or sacred salt-cake, for use at the
Vestalia in June, on the Ides of September, and at the Luper-
calia 5. This was made from the first ears of standing corn in
1 It is curious to find them used for the very same purpose of ghost-
ridding as far away as Japan (Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 176). For their
antiquity as food, Helm, Kulturpjlanzen, 459 ; Schrader, Sprachvergleichung,
362.
* A. Lang, Myth, &c., ii. 265 ; Jevons, Roman Questions, Introd. p. Ixxxvi ;
O. Crusius, Ehein. Mus. xxxix. 164 foil. ; and especially Lobeck, Aglaoph.
251 foil. For superstitions of a similar kind attached to the mandrake
and other plants see Sir T. Browne's Vulgar Errors, bk. ii. ch. 6 ; Khys,
Celtic Mythology, p. 356 (the berries of the rowan).
3 There was a notion that beans sown in a manure-heap produced men.
Cp. Plin. H. N. 18. 118 ' quoniam mortuorum animae sint in ea.'
* Gell. 10. 15. 2 (from Fabius Pictor).
s Serv. Ed. 8. 82 ; Marq. 343 note. Mannhardt, A. W. F. 269, attempts
an explanation of the difficulty arising here from the fact that in historical
times the calendar was some weeks in advance of the seasons, but without
much success.
MENSIS MAIUS III
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). M>.
FER[IAE] IOVL MEKCUR[IO] MAIAE. (VENUS \)
MAIAE AD CIRC[UMJ MJAXIMUMJ. (CAEE.) MEKo[uRIo]. (lUSC.)
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 repre-
sented the people as divided in certain groups rather than the
State as a whole 2. 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 3 that there was a procession in
March, as we infer from the sacra Argeorum quoted by Varro,
which went round the sactlla Argeorum, or twenty-four chapels
situated in the four Servian regions of the city 4. What was
done at these sacetta 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 5. 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
1 This note is wrongly entered in the Fasti Venusini, under May 16.
2 Festus, 245, s. v. Publica sacra. Cp. Mommsen, Staatsrecht, iii. 123.
Festus distinguishes pagi, monies, sacetta, of which the festivals would seem
to be the Paganalia. Septimontium, and sacra Argeorum, respectively.
3 See under March 17. We arrive at the procession by comparing the
Varronian extracts from the sacra Argeorum (L. L. 545) with Oellius, 10.
15. 30, and Ovid, Fasti, 3. 791. See a restoration of the itinerary of the
procession in Jordan, Topogr. ii. 603.
4 Sacella in Varro (L. L. 545) ; sacraria, ib. 548 ; Argta in Festus, 334,
where the word teems to be an adjective ; Argei in Liv. i. 24 ' loca sacris
faciendis, quae Argeos pontificos vocant.' The number depends on the
reading of Varro, 7. 44, xxiv or xxvii ; Jordan decided for xxiv : but see
Mommsen, Staatsrecht, iii. 123.
* Fasti, 3. 791.
112 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
were deposited until the time came round for them to be used
in some religious ceremony 1.
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 Virgins2.
The Flaminica Dialis, the priestess of Jupiter, was present at
the ceremony in mourning. Th« number of the puppets was
probably the same as that of the sacdla of the same name 3.
Explanations of these rites were invented by Koman 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 4. 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. Sexagenaries
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 8 ; 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 etymo-
logy of the word Argei is forthcoming ; but this is perhaps, in
1 Jordan, Topogr. ii. 271 foil.
3 Dionysius, i. 38 ; Ovid, Fasti, 5. 621 foil. ; Festus, p. 334, s. v. Sexa-
genarii ; Plutarch, Q. R. 32 and 86.
3 Dionysius says there were thirty ; he had probably seen the ceremony,
but may have only made a rough guess at the number or have thought of
the thirty Curiae. Ovid writes of two : 'Falcifero libata seni duo corpora
gentis Mittite,' &c. (Jordan proposed to read ' senilia ' for 'seni duo.')
4 Festus, 334.
6 Festus, 1. c. ; Cicero, pro Eoscio Amerino, 35. 100. Sexagenaries de
ponte was apparently an old saying (cp. ' depontani,' Festus, 75) ; the
earliest notice we have of it, which comes from the poet Afranius, seems
to connect it with the pons sublicius.
MENSIS MAIUS 113
a negative sense, an advantage to our inquiry1. The Romans
derived it from the Greek 'ApytToi ; and to this etymology
Mornmsen is now disposed to return. The writer of the article
'Argei'in the Mythological Lexicon derived it from varfca-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 '•*.
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 (i) 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.
i. 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 sacdlum, 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 3. 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.
1 'The etymology will of course explain a word, but only if it happens
to be right ; the history of the word is a surer guide ' (Skeat). In this
case we have not even the history.
* See Sehwegler, i 383. note ; Marq. 183. Mommsen (Staatsrecht, iii. 123)
reverts to the opinion that Argei is simply 'Apytiot, and preserves a
reminiscence of Greek captives. Nettleship, in his Notes in Latin Lexico-
graphy, p. 271, is inclined to connect the word with 'arcere,' in the sense
of confining prisoners. More fanciful developments in a paper by O. Keller,
in Fleckeisen's Jahrbuch, cxxxiii. 845 loll.
1 The puppets may have been made in March, and then hung in the
sacella till May : so Jordan, Topvgr. 1. c. The writer in Myth. Lex. thinks
that human victims were originally kept in these sacella, for whom the
puppets were surrogates.
114 TIIE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 in-
scription 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 city1, partly as having under their special care
the sacred bridge from which the puppets were thrown.
Whether or no the word pontifex be directly derived from
pons*, 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 attention3. It has
been suggested that the whole ceremony was one of bridge-
worship * ; 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 6. In all the public duties performed
by them (as we shall see more fully in dealing with the
Vestalia6) a reference can be traced to one leading idea, viz.
that the food and nourishment of the State, of which the
sacred tire was the symbol, depended for its maintenance on
1 There is an interesting modern parallel in Mannhardt, A. W. F. 178.
1 Varro, L. L. 5. 83, and Jordan. Topogr. i. 398. The general opinion
seems now to favour the view that there was an original connexion between
the pontifices and the pans sublicius.
3 Varro, L. L. 5. 83 ; Dionys. 2. 73, 3. 45.
4 This was the suggestion of Mr. Frazer in a note in the Journal of
Philology, vol. xiv. p. 156. The late Prof. Nettleship once expressed this
view to me.
* Paulus, p. 15 'per Virgiues Vestales' ; Ovid, Fasti, 5. 6ai.
' See below, p. 149.
MENSIS MAIUS 115
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, Sep-
tember, and at the Lupercalia. At the Parilia and the Fordi-
cidia 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 Census. 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 mourning1. 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 puri-
fication 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 !, some of which still
1 Plut. QuaesL Rom. 86 ; Gell. 10. 15 ; Marq. 318. Her usual head-dress
was the Jlammeum, or bride's veil. No mention is made of the Flamen her
husband ; the prominence of women in all these rites is noticeable.
1 Baumkultus, 155, 411, 416. The cult of Adonis has some features like
that of the Argei : e.g. the puppet, the immersion in water and the
mourning (see Lex. s. v. Adonis, p. 73 ; Mannhardt, A. W.F. 276).
I 2
Il6 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 repre-
senting 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.
(i) 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 sexagcnarios de
ponte1, and supported by the fact that the puppets appeared,
to Dionysius at least, like men bound hand and foot 2 ; 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 maniac, which are
often compared with the Argei, really had this origin, may
well indeed be doubted \ 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
1 i. e. ' old men must go over the bridge.' See Cic. pro Roscio Amerino,
35, where the old edition of Osenbrflggen has a useful note. Also Varro,
apud Lactant. Inst. i. 21. 6. Ovid alludes to the proverb (5. 623 foil.)
•Corpora post decies senos qui credidit annos Missa neci, sceleris crimine
damnat avos.'
2 Dionys. i. 38. But he may have been deceived simply by the appear-
ance of the bindings of the sheaves or bundles, especially if he had been
told beforehand of the proverb.
* The best known instances of human sacrifice at Rome are collected in
a note to Merivale's History (vol. iii. 35) ; and by Sachse, Die Argeer, p. 17.
O. Miiller thought that it came to Rome from Etruria (Etrusker, ii. 20).
For Greece, see Hermann, Griech. Alt. ii. sec. 27 ; Stiabo 10. 8. See also
some valuable remarks in Tylor, Prim. CM. ii. 362, on substitution in
sacrifice.
MENSIS MAIUS 117
were sometimes put to death l. 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 piety2.
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 ceremony3.
(2) The rite was of a dramatic rather than a sacrificial
character4, 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 Athens5, 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". But most significant are the many examples, of
which Mann hard t 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 7. Sometimes the place of these puppets is taken by
a sheaf, a small tree, or a man or boy dressed up in foliage or
1 Caesar, B. G. 6. 16 ; Tac. Germ. 9 and 39. Strabo, 10. 8, is interesting,
as giving an example of the dropping out of the actual killing, while the
form survived. See below on Lupercalia, p. 315.
" A point suggested to me some years ago by Mr. A. J. Evans.
3 Sir A. Lyall (Asiatic Studies, p. 19) writes of human sacrifice as having
been common in India as a last resort for appeasing divine wrath when
manifested in some strange manner ; i. e. it was never regular. So
Procopius, BeV. Goth. 3. 13. Tacitus, indeed, writes of 'certis diebus '
(Germ. 9), but it is not clear that he meant fixed recurring days. As a rule
in human sacrifice and cannibalism the victims are captives, who would
not be always at hand.
4 Dionysius (i. 38) speaks of sacrifice before the immersion of the puppets :
vpoOuaai'Tfs Ifpa ra Kara TOVS Popovs.
5 The 0oi/Ai/ios and <papnxtc6s, Mannhardt, Myth. Forsch. 129 foil.
' Germania, 40 ; Mannhardt, Baumkultus, 567 foil. The evidence is
perhaps hardly adequate as to detail.
7 Baumkultus, chapters 3, 4, and 5, which should be used by all who
wish to form some idea of the amount of evidence collected on this on«
head.
Tl8 tfHE ROMAN FESTIVALS
fastened in the sheaf1 : but in almost all cases the object is
duck d 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 diff rent places ; he or it
was decorated, carried round the fields at Whitsuntide2, 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 Whitsuntide3. In many
of these cases the simulacrum may have been substituted for
a human being4 ; 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 repre-
sent, 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*.
Two features in these old .customs may strike us as interest-
ing in connexion with the Argei — (i) 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 Dcr alte 6. (2) The constant occur-
rence 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 7. In these expressions it is per-
haps 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
1 Our Jack-in-the-Green is probably a survival of this kind of rite.
2 Nearly all these customs occur either at Whitsuntide or harvest.
Mannhardt conjectured that the Argei-rite was originally a harvest
custom (A. W, F. 269) ; quite needlessly, I think.
3 BaumkuUus, 331.
4 Mannhardt allows this, BaumkuUus, 336 note.
8 Baumkultus, 358 foil. His theory is expressed in judicious and by no
means dogmatic language. It may bo that he runs his Vegetation-spirit
somewhat too hard — and no mythologist is free from the error of seeing
his own discovery exemplified wherever he turns. But the spirit of
vegetation had been found at Rome long before Mannhardt's time ^see e.g.
Preller's account of Mars and the deities related to him).
8 Baumkultus. 359, 420 ; Komdamonen, 24.
7 Baumkultus, 349 foil., 365, 414.
MENSIS MAIUS 119
arg— 'white ' ' ; and that from a natural mistake as to the mean-
ing 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 compara-
tive evidence, to have been a rain-spell 2. In the cases already
mentioned of Adonis, Nerthus, &c., this idea seems the pro-
minent 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 s. This is indicated by the presence of the
priests and the Vestals, by the processions, and by the mourn-
ing 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
1 Cp. the root cos-, which (according to Corssen, Aussprache, i. 652 note,
appears both in canus and cascus, and also in the Oscan casnar= 'an old
man.' The word casnar is used by Varro (ap. Nonium, 86} for sexagenarius,
or possibly argeus : ' Vix ecfatus erat cum more maiorum carnales ( = casnales)
arripiunt et de ponte deturbant.' Cf. Varro, L. L. 7. 73 ; Mommsen, Unter-
italische Diaieklen, p. 268. The root arg may perhaps have meant holy as well
as old or white, like the Welsh gwen (Khys, Celtic Mythology, 527 note).
1 Baumkultus, 214-16, 355, &c. On p. 356 is a valuable note giving
examples from America, India, &c. For a remarkable c&se from ancient
Egypt, of which the object is not rain, but inundation, see Tylor, Prim.
Cult. ii. 368. See also Grimm, Teutonic Mythology (E. T.), p. 593 foil.
1 Quaest. Rom. 86. This work is undoubtedly drawn chiefly from Varro's
writings, but largely through the medium of those of Juba the king of
Mauretania, who wrote in Greek (Earth de Jubae 'Onoivnjaiv in Plutarcho
expressis: GOttingen, 1876).
120 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 l.
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 Dionysius2 believed it
was Saturnus, probably following an old Greek oracle which
was known to Varro*. Verrius Flaccus thought it was Dis
Pater 4. Modern writers have concluded on the general evidence
of the rite that it was the river-god Tiberinus ; Jordan, how-
ever, regarded the question as irrelevant 5. 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-con-
ceived deities of vegetation whose influence on the calendar we
have been tracing since March i.
This same day is marked in one calendar as Feriae lovi,
Mercuric, 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 pro-
bably 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 fi. Mercurius, again, was associated
with Maia, perhaps simply because the dedication-day of his
oldest temple in Rome (ad circum maximum) was the Ides
1 Parallels in Baumkultus, pp. 170, 178, 211. 409. These are examples
of May-trees and other objects, sometimes decked out as human beings,
which are hung up i-n the homestead for a certain time — e. g. in Austria
from May-day to St. John Baptist's day, a period closely corresponding
both in length and season to that at Rome, from March 15 to May 15. In
the church of Charlton-on-Otmoor, near Oxford, it is hung on the rood-
screen from May r onwards.
1 Ovid, Fasti, 5. 627 : Dionys. r. 38.
1 See Macrob. i. 7. 28. In Dionysius' version, however, of the line it is
"A(5^s to whom the sacrifice is offered.
* Festus, 334. 5 Topogr. ii. 285.
* Ltx. s. v. Mercurius, p. 2804.
MENSIS MAIUS 121
of the Mensis Maius '. The Roman Mercurius was con-
sidered especially as the god of trade, and dated, like Ceres,
from the time when an extensive corn trade first began in
Rome'2. 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-Etrus-
can 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 merca-
tores, who were already, at this early period, formed into an
organized guild 3.
xii KAL. IUN. (MAY 21). IP.
AGONJIA]4. (ESQ. CAEB. VEN. MAFF.)
VEDIOVL (VEN.)
The other days sacred to Vediovis were January i 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 indis-
tinct traces of his cult. The name seems certainly to be Vediovis,
ie apparently 'the opposite of,' or 'separated from,' Jupiter
(=Diovis); or, as Preller has its, 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
1 Aust, de Aedibus sacris, p. 5.
1 It seems to me probable that there was a Mercurius at Rome before the
introduction of Hermes ; but this cannot be proved. It seems likely
that the temple-cult established in 495 B.C. was really that of Hermes
under an Italian name, as in the parallel case of Ceres. This was one
year later than the date of the Ceres-temple (above, p. 74).
3 Mercuriales, or Mercatores (Jordan, Topogr. i. i. 278). They belonged
to the collegia of the pagi.
* See on March 17 and January 9.
• i. 262 foil. ; Ovid, Fasti, 3. 445 ; Cell. N. A. 5. 12.
122 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 pecu-
liar, so far as we know, to Rome and Bovillae ] ; secondly, the
temples in Rome were in the space between the arx and
Capitolium, 'inter duos lucos'2, and another in the Tiber
island s — 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, accord-
ing to Gellius, identified with Apollo4; fourthly, the usual
victim was a goat which was sacrificed humano ritu 5.
On such faint traces it will be obvious that no sound con-
clusion 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 occasion-
ally elsewhere, give up the attempt to discover the original
nature of this god.
1 C. I. L. i. 807 ; the dedication of an altar (Vediovei Patrei genteiles
luliei) found at Bovillae.
2 Ovid, Fasti, 3. 429 ; Gell. 5. la. It was this temple which had
May 21 as its 'dies natalis.'
3 Liv. 31. 21. 12 (reading Vediovi for deo lovi, with Merkel and Jordan).
4 Gell. 1. c. ; Preller, i. 264, and Jordan's note.
5 Gell. 5. 12. The meaning of the expression is not clear. Paulus (165)
writes : ' Humanum sacrificium dicebant quod mortui causa nebat ' — which
does not greatly help us. Preller reasonably suggested that the goat might
be a subslitutory victim in place of a 'homo sacer' or criminal (i. 265).
MENSIS MAIUS 123
x KAL. lux. (MAY 23). K?.
TUBIL[USTEIUM]. (ESQ. CAER. YEN. MAFF.)
FEB[IAE] VOLCANO. (VEN. AMIT.)
I have already explained l 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 2:
Proxima Volcani lux est: Tubilustria dicunt ;
Lustrantur purae, quas facifc 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 3, 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 Koman 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 Boiia Dea on May i ; and
Maia was addressed in invocations as Maia Volcani *. The
coincidence of this festival of his with the Tubilustrium I take
to have been accidental ; but it led naturally, as the Romans
1 Above, p. 63. * Fasti, 5 725.
8 de Feriis, XT. 4 Gell. 13. 23.
124 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
became acquainted with Greek mythology, to the erroneous
view represented by Ovid that Volcanus was himself a smith '.
vin KAL. IUN. (MAY 25). C.
FORTUNAE pfuBLICAEJ PJOPULl] BJOMANl] pJuiRITIUMJ IN COLLE
QUIRIN[ALI]. (CAEK.)
FOBTUN[AE] PUBLIC[AE] P[OPULI] R[OMANI] IN COLL[E]. (ESQ.)
FORTUN[AE] PBIM[IGENIAE] IN OOL[LE]. (VEN.)
This was the dedication-day of one of three temples of
Fortuna on the Quirinal ; the place was known as ' tres For-
tunae2.' The goddess in this case was Fortuna Primigenia,
imported from Praeneste— of whom something will be said later
on 3. The temple was vowed after the Second Punic War in
B. c. 204, and dedicated ten years later *. Our consideration of
Fortuna may be postponed till the festival of Fors Fortuna,
an older Koman form of the cult, on June 24.
iv KAL. IUN. (MAY 29). C.
The Ambarvalia, originally a religious procession round the
land of the early Eoman community, the object of which was
to purify the crops from evil influences, does not appear in
the Julian calendars, not being feriae stativac ; but it is indicated
in the later rustic calendars by the words, Segetes lustrantur.
Its date may be taken as May 29 5: and this fixity will not
appear incompatible with its character as a sacrum conccptivum,
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 vaiying date according to the civil
calendar ".
There has been much discussion whether the Ambarvalia
1 The Hephaestus-myth has been treated on the comparative method by
F. von Schroder (Griech. Gutter u. Heroen, i. 79 foil.), and by Rapp in Mylh.
Lex. It is of course possible that it may have been known to the early
Italians, but what we know of Volcanus does not favour this.
1 Vitruvius, 3. a. a ; it was ' proximo portam Collinam.*
s See below, pp. 165, 223.
4 Liv. 34. 53 ; Aust, de Aedibus, p. 20.
' This seems to have been the date among the Anauni of N. Italy as late
as 393 A. t>. : see the Ada Martyrum, p. 536 (Verona, 1 731). (For the Anauni,
Rushforth, Latin Historical Inscriptions, p. 99 foil.)
• Chron. 70 foil. : a difficult bit of calculation.
MENSIS MAIUS 125
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 '. On the other side there is no
authority of any real weight. The judicious Marquardt 2 found
a difficulty in the absence of any mention in the acta fratrum
A rualium of a lustratio in the form of a procession ; but it
should be remembered (i) that we have not the whole of the
art a ; (2) that it is almost certain that, as the Koman territory
continued to increase, the brethren must have dropped the duty
of driving victims round it, for obvious reasons. A passage
in Paulus3 places the matter beyond doubt if we can be sure of
the reading : 'Ambarvaks hostiae dicebantur quae pro arvis a duo-
efrc/w(MSS. duobus) fratribus sacrifaantur.' As no duofratrcs 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 magiiae
Sacra refer Cereri laetis operatus in herbis,
Extremae sub casum hiemis, iam vere sereno.
Turn pingues ngni, et turn mollissima vina ;
Turn 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 anlo
Falcem maturis quisquam supponat aristis,
Quam Cereri torta redimitus tempora quercu
Det motus inconpositos et carmina dicat*.
1 Mommsen, 1. c. Henzen, Acta Fr. Arc. xlvi-xlviii ; Jordan on Preller,
i. 420, and Topogr. i. 289, ii. 236. The latter would also identify Ambar-
valia and Amburbium ; but the two seem clearly distinguished by Servius
(Ed. 3. 77). " p. 200. Huschke, Rom. Jahr, 63.
3 p. 5. See Jordan on Preller, i. 420, note a ; Marq. 200, note 3.
4 Georg. i. 338 foil.
126 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
It is not clear to what festival or festivals Virgil is alluding
in the first few of these lines l ; 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 Ambar-
valia 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 2 ; 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 Mare, as the latter became more and more converted into
a god of war s.
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 niy 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
1 'Extremae sub casum hiemis' might possibly suit the Italian April,
but certainly not the Italian May. May i is the earliest date we have for
an agri lustratio, i.e. in Campania (C. 1. L. x. 3792). "Turic mollissima
vina ' may contain a reference to the Vinalia of April 23, when the new
wine was first drank ; and if that were so, the general reference might be
to the Cerialia or its rustic equivalent.
1 R. R. 141. Cp. Siculus Flaccus in Gromutici Veteres, p. 164. The lustratio
should be celebrated before even the earliest crops (e.g. beans) were cut.
1 Henzen, Acta Fr. An. xlviii.
MENSIS MAIUS 127
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 '.'
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 * ; and we may fairly
assume that they stood in much the same relation to the Eoman
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 V
At Oxford, and it is to be hoped in some other places, this
laudable custom still survives. But the modern clergy, from
1 Cato, R. E. 141. I have availed myself of the Italian translation and
commentary of Prof. De-Marchi in his work on the domestic religion of
the Romans, p. 128 foil.
3 Bucheler, Umbrica ; Bre'al, Les Tables Euyubines.
8 Brand, Popular Antiquities, p. 292.
128 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 pro-
cession, 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 meek-
ness 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 J, 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 2.
1 I am informed that it visited one hamlet, Horton, which is not at
present in the parish of Charlton ; of this there should be some topogra-
phical explanation.
2 The cross is very commonly carried about on the continent, and in
Holland the week is called cross-week for this reason. But at Charlton
there seems to have been a confusion between this cross and the May-
queen or May-doll ; for on May-day, 1898, the old woman who decked it
called it 'my lady,' and spoke of 'her waist,1 &c. I am indebted to the
Rev. C. E. Prior, the present incumbent, for information about this
interesting survival.
MENSIS IUNIUS.
KAL IUN. (JUNE i). N.
IUNONI MONETAE (VEN.)
FABARICI c[lRCENSESJ M[lSSUS\ (PHILOC.)
ON the name of the mensis Junius some remarks have
already been made under May i. There is no sure ground
for connecting it with Juno1. 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 2. 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 !. 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 4. There may
1 What can be said for tins view may be read in Reseller's article
in Lex. s. v. luno, p. 575, note.
3 Roscher's treatment of Juno Moneta (Lex. s. v. luno, 593) seems to me
pure fancy ; this writer is apt to twist his facts and his inferences to suit
a prepossession — in this case the notion of a I«pJy -/a/jos of Jupiter and
Juno.
3 Liv. 7. 28; Ovid, Fasti, 6. 183 ; Macrob. r. 12. 30.
* On this point see Lewis, Credibility of Ear'.y Roman Hist. vol. ii. 345.
130 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
well have been an altar or sacdlum ' of Juno on the arx, near
which her noisy birds were kept 2 ; 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 3, the word Moneta gradually passed
into another sense, which has found its way into our modern
languages 4.
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 \
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 6. 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 Eoman 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 Kepublic 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 7 ; and this day went by the name of
of Kalendae fabariae 8, ' quia hoc mense adultae fabae divinis
rebus adhibentur.' The fact was that it was the time of bean-
harvest 9 ; and beans, as we have already seen, were much
in request for sacred purposes. 'Maximus honos fabae, 'says
1 Dionys., 13. 7, says, \T)vts itpol irtpl rov vtwv TTJS "Upas', but this is no
evidence for an early temple of Juno Moneta.
* Apparently she was fond of such birds : crows also were ' in tutela
lunonis' at a certain spot north of the Tiber (Paul. 64), and at Lanuvium
(Preller, i. 283). 3 Liv. 6. 20.
* I have assumed that Moneta is connected with moneo ; but there are other
views (Roscher, Lex. 593). Livius Andronicus (ap. Priscian, p. 679) helps
us to the meaning by translating tUvtjitoovvr) (of the Odyssey by Moneta.
5 Macrob. Sat. i. 12. 22 and 31. There was no temple of Carna there,
but Tertullianus (ad Nat. 2. 9) mentions &fanum.
' Cp. also the explanation from iuniores (e. g. in Ovid, Fasti, 6. 83 foil.).
' Macrob. i. 12. 33 'Cui pulte fabacia et larido sacrificatur.'
8 Even in the fourth century A.D. this was so: see the calendar of
Philocalus.
" Colum. n. a. 20 ; Pallad. 7. 3 ; Hartmann, Das Rom. Kal. 135.
MENSIS IUNIUS 131
Pliny1, 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 2 ; and Prof. Wissowa has
of late ingeniously conjectured that this day (June i) was con-
cerned with rites of the same kind 3. He quotes an inscription,
a will in which a legacy is left ' ut rosas Carnar[iis] ducant ' *.
Undoubtedly the reference here is to rites of the dead (cf.
Rosalia), and Mommsen may be right in suggesting that by
Carnarjiis] 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 '.
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 Carna6 — 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 con-
triving that Janus, as a reward to Cardea for yielding to his
1 H. N. 1 8. 117. 2 See above on Lernuria, p. no.
3 de Feriis, xiii. * C. I. L. iii. 3893.
* There is re.illy nothing in common between the two : see Wiss-owa in
Lex. s. v. Carna, following Merkel, clxv. What the real etymology of
Carna may be is undecided ; Curtius and others have connected it with
cor, and on this 0. Gilbert has built much foolish conjecture (ii. 19 foil.).
I would rather compare it with the words Garanus or Recamnus of the
Hercules legend (,Br6al, Here, et Cacus, pp. 59, 60), and perhaps with
Gradivus, Grabovius. The name of the ' nj'mph ' Craniie in Ovid's
account is in some MSS. Grane or Crane. H. Peter (Fasti, pt. ii. p 89^
adopts the connexion with euro : she is ' die das Fleisch kraftigendt-
Gottin' (cp. Ossipago).
' Fasti, 6. 169-182. Lines 101-130 are concerned with Cardea ; 130 to
168, or the middle section of the comment, seem, as Harqu:irdt suggested
(p. 13, note), to be referable to Carna (as the averter of striges), though
the charms fixed on the pastes show that Ovid is still confounding her with
Cardea.
K 2
132 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
advances, should bestow on her not only the charge of cardines,
but also that of protecting infants from the striges ', 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 - :
Protinus arbutea3 postes ter in ordine tangit
Fronde, ter arbutea limina fronde notat:
Spargit aquis aditus — et aquae medicamen habebant —
Extaque de porca cruda bimenstre tenet '.
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 ilia vetat*.
Virgaque lanalis de spina ponitur alba6
Qua lumen thalamis parva fenestra dabat.
Post illud nee 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
1 The word strix is Greek, or at least identical with the Greek word.
But the belief in vampires is so widely spread (cf. Tylor, Prim. Oult. ii.
175 foil.) that we must not conclude hastily that it came to Italy with
the Greeks : it is met with as early as Plautus (Pseud. 3. a. 20). Cf. Pliny,
H. N. ii. 232.
* Fasti, 6. 155 foil.
3 The arbutus does not seem to be mentioned in connexion with charms
except in this passage ; we might have expected the laurel. BOttichor,
Baumkultus, 324.
4 The sucking-pig is sacrificed, as we gather from proseda below ; i. e. to
Carna : cp. the cakes of lard eaten this day (169 foil.).
* Cp. in the process of ghost-laying (above, p. 109) the prohibition to
look at the beans scattered.
' For the blackthorn 'vGerm. Weissdorn) see B6tticher, Baumkultus, 361.
Varro, ap. Charisium, p. 117 'fax ex spinu alba praefertur, quod purga-
tionis causa adhibetur.'
MENSIS IUNIUS 133
is that the cult of Carna is of ancient date, and that the
healthy food of man in early times is retained in it1.
Sus erat in pretio ; caesa sue festa colebant.
Terra fabas tantum duraque farra dabat.
Quae duo mixta simul sextis quicunque Kaleudis
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 2 makes the practice into a much more
definite piece of ritual. l 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 3, 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*. I have
already alluded to the baseless fabric of conjecture built
1 This is the passage that must have inspired 0. Crusius in his paper on
beans in Rhein. Mus. xxxix. 164 foil. ' Beans,' he says, ' were the oldest
Italian food, and like stone knives, &c., survived in ritual.' We want,
indeed, some more definite proof that they were really the oldest food ;
and anyhow their use had not died out like that of stone implements.
(They were a common article of food at Athens: Aristoph. Knights, 41 ;
Lysist. 537 and 691.) But it is not unlikely that their use in the cult of
the dead may be a survival, upon which odd superstitions grafted them-
selves. For a parallel argument see Koscher, Nektar und Ambrosia, 36 ;
Rhys, Celtic Mythology, 356.
2 Sat. i. 12. 32.
8 No safe conclusion can be drawn from Tertullian's inclusion (ad Nat. a.
9) of the fanum of Carna on the Gael inn among those of di adrtnticii.
O. Gilbert has lately tried to make much of this (ii. 42 foil.), and to find
an Etruscan origin for Carna : but see Aust on the position of temples
outside the pomoerium (de Acdibus sacris, 47).
1 Liv. 7. 23 ; Dionys. 6. 13.
134 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
on the conjunction of Mars and Juno on this day l ; 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 i 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
Augustus2. 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. TUN. (JUNE 3). C.
BELLON[AE] IN CIRC[O] FLAM[INIO]. (VEN.)
This temple was vowed by the Consul Ap. Claudius in an
Etruscan war3 (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 4, 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*,
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 6.
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 7. But of the goddess very little is known.
There is no sufficient reason to identify her with that Nerio
1 See on March i, above, p. 37.
* Aust, de Aedibus sacris, p. 8. The Fasti Venusini are ' omnium accuratis-
simi' ; ib. p. 43. Aust goes so far as to doubt the true Roman character of
this Mars, and believes him to be the Greek god Ares. See bis note in
Lex. 2391. The date of foundation is not certain, but was probably not
earlier than the Gallic war, 388 B. c., if it is this to which Livy alludes
in 6. 5. 8.
3 Liv. 10. 19. There was a tradition that Ap. Claudius, Cos. 495 B. c.,
had dedicated statues of his ancestors in a temple of Bellona (Pliny, N. H.
35. ra). 4 Serv. Aen. ix. 53.
5 Liv. i. 32. 12 ; Marq. 422. ' Ovid, Fasti, 6. 205 foil. ; Paulus, 33.
T Willems, Le Senat de la Republique, ii. 161.
MENSIS IUNIUS 135
with whom we made acquaintance in March, as is done too
confidently by the writer of the article in Roscher's Lexicon \
PRID. NON. IUN. (JUNE 4). C.
HERC[ULI] MAGN[OJ CUSTO[DI]. (VEN.)
SACRUM HERCULI. (RUST.)
This temple also was near the Circus Flaminius 2. It was
a foundation of Sulla's, 82 B. c., and the cult was Greek,
answering to that of 'HpcHcXfjs dXf QK
NON. IUN (JUNE 5). N.*
DIO FIDIO IN COLLE. (VEN.)
The temple on the Quirinal of which this was ike dies natalis
is said by Dionysius5 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
Dionysius6, as ifpbv Ator ILo-rtou, and we know that in many
cases the final acdes 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
1 This was originally suggested by Gellius (13. 23), 'perhaps not with-
out some reason,' says Marquardt (75). This suggestion has grown almost
into a certainty for the writer in the Lexicon, in a manner very character-
istic of the present age of research. There would be some reason to think
that Bellona (or Duellona) was an ancient goddess of central Italy, if we
could be sure that the inscription on an ancient cup, in the museum at
Florence, which may be read ' Belolae poculum ' (C. I. L. i. 44), refers to
this deity. See Lex. s. v. Belola.
2 Ovid, Fasti. 6. 209. See Commentarii in honorem Th. Mommseni, 262 foil.
xKlugmann\ and R Peter in Lex. s.v. Here. p. 2979.
= Preller-Jordan, ii. 296. ' See below, p. 146.
5 9. 60, where Ztvs niortos- Dius Fidius.
6 4. 58 : cp. Liv. 8. 20; Aust, de Aedibus sacris, p. 51. Of the porta
Sanqualis I shall have a word to say presently.
136 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
the day, and displace or modify the native species1. 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 Komans the
fashionable exotic deities of the later Kepublic 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 Eoman only through the medium of
an old-fashioned oath.
Ovid knows very little about Dius Fidius 2 :
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 3 ; 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 identification4. Varro does not
comment on it ; but Verrius accepted it : he writes of an ' aedes
Sancus, qui deus Dius Fidius vocatur'5. The evidence of in-
scriptions 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 Seinon[i] deo fidio sacrum'6.
1 Mr. Lang (Myth, Ritual, &c., ii. 191) has some excellent remarks on this
subject. * Fasti, 6. 213.
3 See Wordsworth's Fragments and Specimens of Early Latin, p. 157 'Semunes
alternos advocapit cunctos.' I follow Jordan's explanation of 'Semunes,'
in Kril. Beitrage, 204 foil.
* Aelius Dium Fidium diccbat Diovis filium, ut Graeci Aioaxopov Casto-
rem. et putabat huiic esse Sancum ab Sabina lingua et Herculem a Graeca '
(Varro, L. L. 5. 66).
5 Festus, 241. This is probably the sacellum of Livy, 8. 22.
* C. /. L. vi. 568: again (ib. 567), 'Semoni Sanco deo fidio.' Sancus is,
of course, a name, not an adjective : we find Sangus in some MSS. of
MENSIS IUNIUS 137
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 *. 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 '*, 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 through-
out 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
Livy, 32. i. For the well-known curious confusion with Simon Magus,
Euseb. H. E. a. 13.
1 Breal. Tables Eugubines, 71 ; Bucheler, Umlrica, 65 foil. As Preller
remarks, Fisus stands to Fidius as Clausus to Claudius (ii. 271). At
Iguvium there was a hill, important in the rites, which bore this name —
ocrt's fisius.
9 Aelius Stilo ap. Varro, 1. c. ; Ovid, 1. c. ; Propert. 4. 9. 74 ; Lactantius,
i. 15. 8 ; Schwegler, R. G. i. 364 ; Preller, ii. 272 ; 0. Gilbert, i. 275, note ;
Ambrosch, Studien, 1,0. Jcrdan, however, in a note on Preller (273)
emphatically says that the Sabine orig'n of the god is a fable ; and for
the illusory distinction between Latins and Sabines in Rome see Mommsen,
R. H. i. 67, note, and Breal, HercuJe et Cacus, p. 56. Sancus was no
doubt a Sabine deity and reputed ancestor of the race (Cato ap. Dionys. 2.
49 : cp. 4. 58; ; but it does not follow that he came to Eome as a Sabine
importation.
138 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
religious conception we are speaking of was very near akin to
that of Jupiter himself.
There is clear evidence that the best Eoman 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 three1.
Again, the Eoman oaths me dius fidius and me hcrculc 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 air2. 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 lovem (lapidem), also taken
under the light of heaven s, as was the case with the oath at
the altar of Ztvs 'Epmlos in Greece4. Yet another point of con-
junction is the ara maxima at the.entrance to the Circus Maximus,
which was also a place where 'Oaths were taken and treaties
ratified 5 ; 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 lovius, or even Jupiter himself". Tithes, oaths,
1 Varro, L. L. 5. 66; Festus, 229 (Propter viam) ; and Paulus, 147
(medius fidius^.
2 Cp. Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 28 (' Why are boys made to go out of the
house when they wish to swear by Hercules?') with Varro, ap. Nonium,
s. v. riluis, and L. L. 5. 66.
3 See below on Sept. 13, p. 231. The silex was taken out of the temple
of Jupiter Feretrius (Paulus, 92).
4 Eustath. ad Od. 22. 335 ; Hermann, Gr. Ant. ii. 74. Cp. A. Lang,
Myth, &c. ii. 54 : 'the sky hears us,' said the Indian when taking an oath.
5 Dionys. i. 40.
' See the opinions of Hartung, Schwegler, and Preller, summed up by
Breal, Hercule et Cacus, 51 foil.; and R. Peter in Lex. a. v. Hercules,
2255 foil.
MENSIS IUNIUS 139
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 ', 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 wre can only veiy 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 (i) 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.
i. In the Iguvian inscription referred to above Sancius in
one place appears in conjunction with lovius2 ; 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), L e. either disk or globe ; and this urfita has been com-
pared :!, not without reason, with the orbes mentioned by Livy 4
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 Eoman augural lore a bird called
sanqudlis avis, which can hardly be dissociated from the cult of
1 Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 233.
* Bucheler, Umbrica, 7 ; Breal, Tables Eugubines, 270.
* Preller, ii. 273, and Jordan's note. In M. Gaidoz's Etudes de Mythologie
Gauloise, i. 64, will be found figures of a hand holding a wheel, from Bar-
le-Duc (the wrist thrust through one of the holes), which may possibly
explain the urfita, and which he connects with the Celtic sun-god. In
this connexion we may notice the large series of Umbrinn and Etruscan
coins with the six-rayed wheel-symbol (Mommsen, Munzwesen, 222 foil.),
which, as Professor Gardner tells me, is more probably a sun-symbol than
merely the chariot-wheel convenient for unskilful coiners.
1 8. 20.
140 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
Sancus ; for there was also an ancient city gate, the porta
Sanqualis, near the sacellum Sancus on the Quirinal '. 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 2.
Bearing this in mind, we are not surprised to find further
traces of a connexion between Sancus and thunderbolts. There
was at Rome a dccuria of sacerdotes bidentales, in close associa-
tion with the cult of Sancus. Three votive altars are extant,
dedicated to the god by this dccuria s ; two of them were found
on the Quirinal, close to the site of the sacellum Sancus. Now
the meaning of the word lidcntal 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 puteul
from its resemblance to a well fenced with a circular wall,
bore the name bidental, presumably because two-year-old sheep
(bidentcs) were sacrificed there 4. 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 otf
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 ft ; and the temple of Sancus itself seems to
have had this peculiarity. Varro says that its roof was per-
1 For the bird, Plin. N. H. 10. 20; Festus, 197 s. v. oscines, and 317
(sanqualis art's). Bouche'-Leclereq, Hist, de la Divination, iv. 200. For the
gate cp. Paulus, 345, with Liv. 8. 20 ; Jordan, Topogr. ii. 264.
* Liv. 41. 13, with Weissenborn's note. The stone was perhaps the
same as one which had shortly before fallen into the grove of Mars :it
Crustumerium (41. 9).
3 C.I.L. vi. 567. 568; and Bull, dett' Inst., 1881, p. 38 foil. (This last with
a statue, which, however, may not belong to it: Jordan's note on Preller,
ii. 273.) Wilmanns, Exen>pla Inscr. Lot. 1300.
* Marq. 263 ; B.-Leclercq, iv. 51 foil. The Scholiast on Persius, 2. 27,
is explicit on the point. But Deecke, in a note to Muller's Etrusker (ii. 275)
doubts the connexion of the decuria with bidental -puteal.
* Festus, s. v. Scribonianum (p. 333 : the restoration can hardly be wrorg)
' [quia nejas est integi, semper ibi forami[ne aper]to cnelum patet.'
MENSIS IUNIUS 141
foratum, so that the sky might be seen through it '. In a
fragment of augural lore, apparently genuine though preserved
by a writer of late date, the cadi templum seems to have been
conceived as a dome, or a ball (orbis) cut in half, with a hole in
the top*. 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 nunien 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 s, 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 repre-
sented 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 \
1 L. L. 5. 66 *ut ea videatur divum, id est caelum.' He connects the
word dhum with Dius Fidius. See Jordan in the collection of essays ' ia
honorem Th. Mommseni,' p. 369.
2 Martianus Capella, i. 45 (p. 47 in Eyssenhardt's edition). See Nissen's
explanation in Das Templum, p. 184, and plate iv. In this account Jupiter
occupies the chief place : Sancus is there, alone in tho isth regio. But
doubt has been cast on Nissen's view by the discovery of an actual repre-
sentation of the cadi templum (see Aust, in Lex. s. v. lupiter, 668).
3 Dionys. 4. 58. In 9. 60 he says that this temple was only vowed by
Tarquinius, and not dedicated till 466 B. c. (Aust, de Aedibus sacris, p. 6) ; but
there must have been a still earlier sanctuary of some kind (Livy writes
of a sacellum, 8. 20. 8). Dionysius is interesting and explicit ; he calls
Dius Fidius Zfi>> nianot, and adds the name 207*0*. The treaties next
in date, those with Carthage, were kept in the aedilium thesaurus, close to
the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus (Polyb. 3. 22 ; Mommsen, Staatsrecht, ii.
r (ed. 2 ) 481 note). Here we seem to see tho authority of the ancient
Dius Fidius already losing ground.
4 Plut. Quaest. Rom. 30; Varro, ap. Piin. N. H. 8. 194; Festus, 238. It
was Reifferscheid's conjecture that she was a female Dius Fidius (see
142 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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
lovis ' ; and this conjecture, which is not his own, but rather
that of the late Professor Reifferscheid of Breslau ', 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 2, did not swear by Hercules,
but by ' their Juno ' ; the men swore by Hercules, Dius Fidius,
or by their Genius3. Women were excluded from the cult
of Hercules at the ara maxima 4 ; 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''.' At
the birth of a child, a couch (lectus) was spread in the atrium
for Juno, a mensa for Hercules6. The bride's girdle (cinguhim)
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
kctus genialis was called the nodus herculaneus 7.
Wissowa, Lex~ 1190). Fest. 241 adds ' cuius ex zona periclitantes ramenta
sumunt.'
1 BuU. deff Inst., 1867, 352 foil. Reifferscheid was prevented by death
from working his view out more fully ; but R. Peter (see Lex. s. v. Hercules,
2267) preserved notes of his lectures.
* Gellius, ii. 6. i. For Juno as female equivalent of Genius see article
1 lunones' in Lex. But it does not seem proved that this was the old name,
and not an idea of comparatively late times.
•> Seneca, Ep. 12. 2. * See below, on Aug. 12, p. 194.
5 This seems a weak point. Bona Dea was not more closely related to
Juno than some others. I do not feel sure that the name Juno is not as
much an intrusion here as Hercules, and that the real female counter-
part of Genius, &c., was not a nameless numen like the Bona Dea. The
rise of the cult of Juno Lucina may have produced this intrusion. It is
worth noting that in Etruria Minerva takes the place of Juno (Lex. 2266,
and the illustration on 2267).
* Serv. Eel. 4. 62. T Paulus, 63.
MENSIS IUNIUS 143
Now Reifferscheid believed that he found the same con-
junction 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 im-
portant of those there is indeed no doubt about it ; this is
a mirror of Etruscan workmanship ', 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'2.
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 wedlock3. This conjunction, or
opposition, of Juno and Hercules, is thus explained by Reiffer-
scheid. The name Juno represents the female principle in
human nature * ; 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 5. 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, Seino
1 Gerhard, Etntskische Spiege1, 147. It is also figured in Lex. s. v.
Hercules, 2259. •*
" e. g. by every writer in Roscher's Lexicon who has touched on the
subject. Jordan seems to have dissented (Prel)er, ii. 284).
3 The opposition or conflict of the two is paralleled by the supposed
myth of the contention of Mars and Minerva (Nerio) (see above, p. 60 ;
Lex. 2265).
4 See article 'lunones' in Lex. ; and De-Marchi, La ReJigione neUa tita
domestica, p. 70.
0 Roscher's article ' Juno ' in Lex. passim.
144 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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'.
But why does Keifferscheid go on to tell us that this Genius,
i. e. Hercules = Sancus = Dius Fidius, is the Genius lovis ? 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 Jupiter2. And in this he is followed by
Wissowa and other writers in Koscher'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 lovis3, 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
1 I cannot agree with Mr. Jevons (Introduction to History of Religion, p. 186
foil.) when he makes the Roman genius a relic of totemism, simply
because genii were often represented by serpents. The snake was too
universally worshipped and domesticated to be eas-ily explained as a
totem. Mr. Frazer has an interesting example from Zululand, which is
singularly suggestive in connexion with the doctrine of Genius (see
Oolden Bough, ii. 332), which can hardly be explained on a totemistic basis.
The doctrine of Genius may certainly have had its roots in a totemi^tic
age ; but by the time it reaches us in Roman literature it has passed
through so many stages that its origin is not to be dogmatized about.
1 I cannot attach mu£h weight to the argument (see Lex. 2268) that
because Aelius Stilo explained Dius Fidius as Diovis Filius he therefore
had in his head some such relation of Qenius to Jupiter.
* If he had written Genius lovius, after the manner of the Iguvian
inscription, with its adjectival forms which preserve a remini-cence of
the older spirit-world, he might have been nearer the maik. It may be
that we get back to Jupiter himself as the Genius par excellence, but there
is no direct proof of this. The genius of a god is a late idea, as Mr. Jevons
po'.nts out in a note to Roman Questions, p. liii.
MENSIS IUNIUS 145
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 MINORE8.)
The temple of Mens was vowed by T. Otacilius (praetor) in
217 B. c., after the battle of Trasimenus ' propter neglegentiam
caerimoniarum auspiciorumque'/and dedicated in 215 B.C., by
the same man as duumvir aedibus dedicandis 2. The vow was the
result of an inspection of the Sibylline books, from which we
might infer that the goddess was a stranger s. If so, who was
she, and whence ? Seasoning from the fact that in the same
year, in the same place, and by the same man, a temple was
dedicated to Venus Erycina4, 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 5, ' 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
Koman 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 6.
vii ID. IUN. (JUNE 7). N.
VESTA APERIT. (PHILOC.)
v ID. IUN. (JUNE 9). N.
VESTALIA. (TUSC. VEN. MAFF.)
xvn 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
1 Livy, 22. 9 ; Ovid, Fasti, 6. 241 foil. ; Aust, de Aedibus sacris, p. 19.
* Livy, 23. 31 and 32 ; M irq. 270.
s Marq. 358 foil. ; Article 'Sibyllini libri ' in Did. of Antiquities, ed. a.
* Livy, 22. 9, 10 ; 23 30, 31. * Ad Aen. i. 720.
' Plut. de Fort. Rom. 5. 10 ; Cic. Nat. Dear. a. 61. Aust (de Aedibus sacris,
p. 19) puts it in B.C. 115, in S^aurus' consulship.
146 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
passages in Ovid and Festus1, 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 religiosi2. Ovid's
lines are worth quoting ; he consults the Flaminica Dialis 3
about the marriage of his daughter :
Turn mihi post sacra s monstratur lunius idus
Utilis et nuptis, utilis esse viris,
Primaque pars huius thalamis aliena repe;ta est,
Nam mihi sic coniunx sancta Dialis ait ;
' Donee 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 lovis 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] Stercus] D[elatum] F|_as]4, which on
the 1 5th 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.
1 Ovid, Fasti, 6. 219 foil. ; Festus, 250, s. v. Penus : ' [Penus vo^catur locus
intimus in aede Vestae, tegetibus saeptus, qui certis diebus circa Vestalia
aperitur. li dies leligiosi habentur.'
- For the meanings of ti^fustus and religiosus see Introduction, p. 9 ;
Marq. 291.
s No doubt this was done, and the lines composed, in order to please
Augustus and reflect the revival of the old religio.
* Varro, L. L. 6. 32.
MENSIS IUNIUS 147
In an article of great interest in the Journal of Philology
for 1885', 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 con-
dition of life, he made apparent the real germ of the institution
of the Vestal Virgins. Helbig, in his Italiker in der Poebene 2,
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 chiefs 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 Koman 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 famines too, or Jcindlers, as being
under the potestas of the pontifex, may be taken as representing
the sons of the primitive household3. But from various
reasons * 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 8. There
1 Vol. xiv, No. 28 * p. 53.
3 Marq. 250. In the Andaman Islands both sons and daughters take
part in the work of maintaining the fires ( Man's Andaman Islands, quoted
by Mr. Frazer, op. cit. p. 153).
4 See my article 'Sacerdos' in Diet, of Antiquities, ed. a.
s Vesta herself was originally simply the fire on the hearth (Frazer,
op. cit. 152). Note that the Same was obtained afresh each year on March i,
L 2
148 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
must have been many stages of growth from this beginning
to the fully developed Vesta of the Kepublic 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 house1
(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 2.
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 8. Ovid relates his own experience 4 :
Forte revertebar festis Vestalibus ilia
Qua nova Romano nunc via iuncta foro est.
Hue pede matronam vidi descenders 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 5 ; bakers and millers kept
holiday, all mills were garlanded, and donkeys decorated with
wreaths and cakes 6.
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
even in historical times, by the primitive method of the friction of the
wood of a 'lucky' tree (Festus, 106), or from the sun's rays. We are
not told which priest performed this rite.
1 Middleton, Borne in j88j, p. 181 foil.
a This belief, and the nature of the treasures, are fully discussed by
Marquardt, p. 251, with additions by Wissowa.
s Cp. Petronius, Sat. 44 (of the aquaelicium).
4 Fasti, 6. 395 foil. s Above, p. no.
* As the beast that usually worked in mills? There is a Pompeian
painting of this scene (Gerhard, Ant. Bild. pi. 6a).
MENSIS IUNIUS 149
or deposited in some particular spot *. Then the dies nefastl
came to an end ; and the 1 5th 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 : ( i ) 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.
i. 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 fountain2. 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 mold salsa in the early days of May 3 ;
and they swept the house, as the Vestals afterwards continued
to cleanse the penus Vestae, on June 1 5. The penus, or store-
closet of the house, was under their charge ; on the state
1 Varro, L. L. 6. 32 'Dies qui vocatur Q. St. D. F. ab eo appellatur
quod eo die ex aede Vestae stercus everritur et per Capitolinum clivum in
locum defertur certurn.' It is Ovid who tells us it was thrown into the
Tiber (Fasti, 6. 713).
2 Jordan, Tempel der Vesta, p. 63.
3 The crushing of the grain no doubt comes down from a time when
there were no mills (Helbig, Italiker in der Poebene, 17 and 72). The pre-
paration of the cakes was also peculiar, and even that of the salt which was
used in them (Festus, 159; cp. Serv. Ed. 8. 82). The latter passage is the
locus dassicus for all these duties : ' Virgines Vestales tres maximae ex
nonis Maiis ad pridie Idus Maias alternis diebus (i.e. on 7th, pth, nth?)
spicas adoreas in corbibus messuariis ponunt, easque spicas ipsae virgines
torrent, pinsunt, molunt, atque ita molitum condunt. Ex eo farre
virgines ter in nnno molam faciunt, Lupercalibus, Vestalibus, Idibus
Septembribus, adiecto sale cocto et sale duro.' For examples of the
primitive method of cooking see Miss Kingsley's Travels in West Affica,
p. 208 ; and Sir Joseph Banks's Journal (ed. Hooker), p. 137.
150 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
of its contents the family depended for its comfort and pros-
perity, and from the very outset it must have had a kind
of sacred character '. 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 " 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 n,
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?'
1 Penus means, in the first instance, food. Cic. Nat Deorum, 2. 68 ' Est
omne quo vescuntur homines penus.' Hence it came to mean the store-
closet in the centre of the house, of which the Penates were the guardian
spirits. Its sacred character is indicated in a passage of Columella
(R. R. 12. 4 ; and see my paper on the toga praetexta of Roman children,
in Classical Review, Oct. 1896).
4 Varro, ap. S. Aug. de Civ. 7. 24 ; cp. 7. 16. Ovid, Fasti, 6. 267, writes,
' Vesta eadem quae terra,' but more correctly in 291, ' Nee tu aliud Vestam
quam vivam intellige flammam.' Some moderns derive Vesta from root
vas = l dwelling,' and make her the earth in special relation to the
dwelling ; e. g. O. Gilbert, i. 348 note.
s Preuner, Hestia- Vesta, p. 221 'Gottheit des Feuers, sofern religiose,
ethische Ideen sich in demselben abspiegeln, nicht des Feuers als blossen
Elements.' This is surely turning the question upside down.
MENSIS IUNIUS 151
Nor must we forget that the living fire was for primitive man
a mysterious thing, and invested from the first with divine
attributes1.
2. The fact that from the 5th to the i sth the days were not only
tie fasti 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 (i.'.th), and
in April from the Nones to the Vinalia (a^rd)", 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 s : 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 4 :
1 Tylor, Prim. Cult. ii. 251 ; Grimm, German Mytho'ogy (Eng. trans.),
p. 60 1 foil.
1 In July also the days were nefas'.i from the Kalends to the pth ; but to
the meaning of this we have no clue whatever.
3 See above, p. 115.
4 G. B. ii. 75. In an appendix (p. 373 foil, and esp. 382") will be found
some other examples of the same type of ritual. Cp. also ii. 176 (from
Punjaub), which example, however, does not seem in any way connected
152 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
'Among the Creek Indians of North America, the lusl',
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 focd 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
with harvest. But the practice of the Creek Indians is so unusually well
attested that it deserves special attention. It is described by no less than
four independent authorities (see Mr. Frazer's note on p. 76^.
MENSIS IUNIUS 153
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,
(i) 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 i, 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 Eomans 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,
154 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 ' ; 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 2.
in ID. IUN. (JUNE n). N.
MAT[KALIA]. (TUSC. VEN. MAFF.)
MATK[I] MATUT[AE]. (VEN.)
MATE ALIA. (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 Camillus3. 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 \ 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
1 Nissen, Landeskunde, 399.
1 The whole of Mr. Frazer's section on the sacramental eating of new
crops should be read in connexion with the Vestalia.
3 Aust, de Aedibus sacris, p. 7 ; Liv. 5. 19 and 23. The temple was in
the Forum boarium, near the Circus maximus.
* Wissowa in Myth. Lex. s. v. Mater Matuta, 2463.
MENSIS IUNIUS 155
belong to her1. The evidence for the wide spread of her cult
consists of (i) t\vo extremely old inscriptions from Pisaurum in
Umbria, of which Mommsen observes, ' lingua meram vetustatem
spirat ' 2 ; (2) certain inscriptions and passages of Livy which
prove that her worship existed among the Volsci, in Campania,
and at Praeneste 3. At Satricum she was apparently the chief
deity of the place and probably also at Pyrgi, the port of Caere
in Etruria4. 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 5 ; no female slaves were allowed in the temple
except one, who was also diiven out of it with a box on the
ear, apparently as a yearly recurring memorial of the rule 6 ;
the sacred cakes offered were cooked in old-fashioned earthen-
ware 7 ; 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 second8. 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 9.
1 Ovid, Fasti, 6. 473 foil.; Cic. Nat. Dear. 3. 48; Tusc. i. 28. Plutarch (Quaest.
Rom. 16. i) noted a likeness between her cult and that of Leucothea in his
own city of Chaeroneia ; an interesting passage, though quite inconclusive
as to the Greek origin of Mater Matuta. Plutarch, like Servius (Aen. 5.
241) and others, has adopted Ovid's legend of Ino by way of explanation
of the identity of Leucothea and Matuta. Merkel (Fasti, clxxxiv) believed
the cult to be wholly Greek ; Bouche-Leclercq (Hist, de Divination, iv. 147)
follows Klausen in identifying Mater Matuta with Tetliys t,cf. Plut.
Rom. a'i and with the deity of the oracle at Pyrgi. But see Wesseling on
Diod. Sic. 15, p. 337 ; and Strabo, Bk. 5, p. 345.
* C. L L. i. 176, 177. 3 Liv. 6. 33. 4 ; Wissowa, Lex. 2462.
4 Diod. Sic. 15. 14, p. 337, and Wesseling's note. The temple at Pyrgi
was an important one, and rich enough to be plundered by Dionysius I
of Syracuse. But it must be admitted that the identification of the deity
of Pyrgi with Mater Matuta is not absolutely certain. Strabo, 1. c., calls
her Eileithyia, Aristotle (Oecon. 1349 b) Leucothea ; and it is thought that
Mater Matuta alone combines the characteristics of these two. If,
however, the goddess of Pyrgi was the deity of the oracle, she might
almost as well have been a Fortuna, like those of Antium and Praeneste.
* Tertullian, de Jlonogam. 17.
• Ovid, Fasti, 6. 481, with Plut Q. R. 16; Camtil. 5.
T Varro, L. L. 5. 106. Ovid (482) writes ofliba tosta, i. e. cakes cooked in
pans rather than baked, like the mola salsa. See above, p. 149 ; and cp.
Ovid, 532 'in subito cocta foco.' ' Plut. 11. cc. ; Ovid, 559 foil.
• See below on Jan. u. I cannot explain the rule that -a woman
prayed for nephews and nieces before her own children, which is peculiar
to this cult.
156 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 ] ; and Mommsen has pointed out that the dawn was
thought to be the lucky time for birth, and that the Koman
names Lucius and Manius have their origin in this belief2.
Lucretius shows us that in his day Mater Matuta was certainly
associated with the dawn 3 :
roseam Matuta per oras
Aetheris auroram differt efc lumina pandit.
We should, however, be glad to be more certain that Matuta
was originally a substantive meaning dawn or morning. Verrius
Flaccus 4 seems to have believed that the words mane, matums,
matuta, manes, and manus, all had the meaning of ' good '
contained in them -r 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 5, the
dedication of a temple of Fortuna, also in foro toario : 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 s, of whose connexion with
Fortuna we shall have more to say further on. No one, how-
ever, really knew what the statue was ; Varro and Pliny 7 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
1 Preller, i. 322 ; Wissowa in Lex.
9 R. H. (Eng. trans.) i. 162. 3 Lucr. 5. 654.
4 Paulus, 122 ' Matrem Matutam antiqui ob bonitatem appellabant, et
maturum idoiieum usui,' &c. See also Curtius, Gk. Etym. i. 408.
5 Fasti, 6. 569 foil. ; 625 foil. : cp. Dionysius, 4. 40. Ovid has three
fanciful explanations of the draping.
* Ovid, 1. c. ; Dionys. 4. 40.
7 Varro ap. Nonium, p. 189; Plin. N. H. 8. 194, 197. See Schweglcr,
R. G. i. 712, note 3, and a full discussion in Lex. by R. Peter, s. v. Fortuna,
p. 1509.
MENSIS IUNIUS 157
it is singular that Seianus himself is said to have possessed
a statue of Fortuna which dated from the time of Servius1,
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 2. 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 Kome. To us it must also remain unexplained*.
ID. IUN. (JUNE 13). IP.
FERIAE IOVI. (VEN.)
10 vi. (TUSC.)
To these notes in the calendars we may add a few lines
from Ovid :
Idibus Invicto sunt data templa lovi.
Et iam Quinquatrus iubeor narrare minores :
Nunc ades o coeptis, flava Minerva, rneis.
Cur vagus incedit tota tibicen in urbo ?
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 origin-
ally so noted in all the months 4. On this day the collegium
or guild of the tibicines feasted in the temple of Jupiter
1 Dio Cassius, 58. 7.
* Seneca, Q. N. a. 41 ; Muller-Deecke, Etrusker, ii. 83 ; Dennis, Etruria, i,
Introduction Ivi. The passnge of Seneca is a very curious one about the
Etruscan lightning-lore. O. Miiller guesses that the di involuti were Fates
(Schicksalsgottheiten], which would suit Fortuna (cp. Hor. Od. i. 35).
3 There is just a possibility that it was confused with a statue of
Pudicitia, also in foro boario, and also said to have been veiled (Festus,
242). Varro, I.e., calls the goddess of the statue, Fortuna Virgo, and
Preller suggested that she was identical with Pudicitia. The lines of
Ovid seem to favour this view (Fasti, 6. 617 foil.) :
Vesto data tegitur. Vetat hanc Fortuna mover!
Et sic e templo <•-( ipsa locuta suo ;
' Ore revelato qua pt imum luce patebit
Servius, haec positi pritna pudoris erit.
Parcite, matronae, vetitas attingere vestes :
Sollemni satis est voce movere preces.'
' Mommsen in C. I. L. i.2 298.
158 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
Capitolinus \ 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 2 ; but the coincidence of a dedication-day
•with the Ides may perhaps suggest a higher antiquity 3.
For the right meaning and derivation of the word Quin-
quatrus 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 Minerva4, in
whose temple on the Aventine they met, apparently before
they set out on the revelling procession to which Ovid refers 5.
Varro makes this clear when he writes 'Quinquatrus minus-
culae dictae luniae Idus ab similitudine maiorum '6, 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:
4 Minusculae Quinquatrus appellantur quod is dies festus est
tibicinum, qui colunt Minervam cuius deae proprie festus dies
est Quinquatrus mense Martio ' 7.
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 8 ; how
they fled to Tibur in anger at being deprived by Appius
1 Livy, 9. 30 ; Val. Max. a. 5. 4 ; Varro, L. L. 6. 17. Cp. C. I. L. vi. 3696
[Magistri] quinqfuennales) [collegi] teib(icinum) Rom(anorum) qui s(acri8)
p(ublicis) p(raesto) s(unt) Iov(i) Epulvoni) s(acrum).
a So Preller, i. 198.
s Aust, in Lex. a. v. luppitor, 680. Both here and in his work rf*
Aedibus sacris, this scholar declines to distinguish between lup. Invictus
and lup. Victor.
4 For Minerva as the patron of all such guilds see Wissowa in Lex.
a. v. Minerva, 2984 foil.
' Varro, L.L. 6. 17. There were three days of revelry, according to
Livy (9. 30') : did they meet in this temple on each d;iy ? The isth was
the day of the epulum ; which the other days were wo do not know.
6 L. L. 6. 17.
' Festus, 149, s. v. minusculae. Cf Ovid, Fasti, 6. 695.
* Livy, 1. c Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 55, who confuses two Appii Claudii,
and refers the story to the Decemvir instead of to the Censor of 311 B.C.
Livy omits the very Roman trait (Ov. 673 foil.) of the libertus feigning to
be surprised by his patronus.
MENSIS IUNIUS 159
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 rol:es. These are to be seen represented on a coin
of the gens Plautia ', to which the fierce censor's milder col-
league 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 2.
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 hulls,
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 3, ' is purely Italian, and has, so far
as I can find, no parallel in the cognate languages.' Miiller,
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 instru-
ment of old Italy, specially cultivated by the one Italian race
endowed with anything like an artistic temperament.
1 Cohen, Mcd. PI. 33 ; Borghesi, Op. i. 201 (quoted by Marq. 577).
* Muller-Deecke, Llrusker, ii. 202.
* Journal of Philology, vol. xi. p. 189. It was a short pipe played with
a reed, and no doubt almost the same thing as the short rough oboes
which are still favourites in Italy, and which are still sometimes played
two at a time in the mouth as of old. Their antiquity is vouched for by
the law of the Twelve Tables, which limited the players at a funeral to
ten. See Professor Anderson's article ' tibia ' in Did. of Ant. (ed. a).
160 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
xii KAL. IUN. (JUNE 20). C.
SUMMAN[O] AD CIJRC[UM] MAXIM[UM]. (YEN. ESQ. AMIT.)
To this note may be added that of Ovid l :
Reddita, quisquis is est, Summano templa feruatur,
Turn cum Romanis, Pyrrhe, timendus eras.
The date of the foundation of the temple of Sumnianus
was probably between 278 and 275 B. c. 2 ; the foundation
was the result of the destruction by lightning, no doubt at
night, of a figure of Jupiter on the Capitol3. 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 *, well read in the works of Varro and the Eoman
antiquarians, could write as follows : ' Sicut enim apud ipsos
legitur, Bomani veteres nescio quern Summanum, cui nocturna
fulmina tribuebant, coluerunt magis quam lovem — sed post-
quam lovi 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 saltern legisse meminerit.' In spite of the decay and dis-
appearance 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 6. Varro also mentions him and
classes him with Veiovis, and with the Sabine deities whom
he believed to have been brought to Kome by Tatius B. There
is, however, no need to suppose with Varro that he was Sabine,
or with Muller that he was Etruscan 7 ; the name is Latin
1 Fasti, 6. 731. * Aust, de Aedibus sacris, p. 13.
* Not to be confused, as in Livy, Epit. 14, with a statue of Summanus
himself on the same temple (in fastigio lovis : Cicero, Div. i. 10).
4 de Civ. Dei, 4. 23.
8 Festus, 229, s.v. Proversum fulgor: 'Quod diurna lovis, nocturna
Summani fulgura habentur.' (Cp. Pliny, N. H. 2. 52.) An interesting
inscription (C. /. L. vi. 206) runs, 'Summanium fulgus coiiditum,' i.e. 'a
bolt which fell before dawn was buried here.'
' L. L. 5. 74. ' Muller- Deecke, Etrusktr, ii. 60.
MENSIS IUNIUS l6l
and probably — Sub man us. i. e. the god who sends the lightning
l>efore the dawn.
It is interesting to find the wheel symbol here again, as is
noticed by Gaidoz in his Studies of Gallic Mythology '. We can
hardly doubt that the Summanalia which Festus explains
as 'liba farinacea in modum rotae ficta ,' 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 3 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 modi-
fied 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.
vni KAL. QUINCT. (JUNE 24). C.
FORTI FORTUNAE TRANS TIBERJIM] AD MILLIARJUMJ PRIM^UMJ ET
SEXT[UM]. (AM IT.)
FORTIS FORTUNAE. (VEN. PHILOC.)
SACRUM FORTIS FORTUNAE. (RUST.)
Ovid writes of this day as follows * :
Ite, deam laeti Fortem celebrate, Quirites I
In Tiberis ripa munera regis habet.
Pars pede, pars etiam celeri decurrite cymba,
Nee pudeat potos inde redire domum.
Ferte coronatae iuvenum convivia lintres :
Multaque per medias vina bibantur aquas.
Plebs colit hanc, qu:a, qui posuit, de plebe fuisse
Fertur, et ex humili sceptra tulisse loco.
Convenit et servis ; serva quia Tullius ortus
Constituit dubiae templa propinqua deae.
* fitudes de Mythologie Oauloise, i. p. 92. M. Gaidoz looks on these wheel-
cakes as ' emblematic of Summanus ' as a god of sun and sky.
* Festus, p. 348. The MS. has ' finctae.'
3 Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. vii, No. i (1886), p. 44 full.
* Fasti, 6. 775 foil.
1 62 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
H. Peter, in his additional notes to Ovid's Fasti \ 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 2 :
"Dies Fortis Fortunae appellatus ab Servio Tullio rege, quod
is fanum Fortis Fortunae secundum Tiberim extra urbem
Komam dedicavit lunio mense." The second is one stated by
Livy 3 to have been built by the consul Spui'ius Carvilius in
460 B. c. near the temple of Servius. The third is mentioned
by Tacitus * 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 5 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 6, it is quite according
to Eoman 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
1 p. 104. 2 L. L. 6r. 7.
3 Livy, 10. 46. 17. * Ann. 2. 41.
5 See above, the heading of this section. * C. I. L. 320.
MENSIS IUNIUS 163
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'. It is perhaps worth
noting that on June 1 8 the calendar of Philocalus has the note
Annac 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 dis-
cussed 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 Miiller in his volume entitled
Biographies of Words", 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 con-
demned 3 ; 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
1 See above, p. 50. * ch. L
3 Marquardt, p. a.
M 2
164 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 Xupis with
the XapiTfs, 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 diet.'
So much for the etymological argument ; on which we need
only remark, (i) 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 did. This Fortuna was, he
MENSIS 1UNIUS 165
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 statues1 ; 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 2. What-
ever 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 Eepublic. 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 n, 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 as-
sumption is not a very certain one 3 ; 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 4.
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
' Pliny, N. H. 34. 54-
' Plut. Marius, 26 ; Pliny, I.e. I follow Aust, de Aedibus sacris, p. 26.
:t Above, p. 156.
* Ovid is the only authority for the worship of Fortuna on June n
(Fasti, 6. 569) ; it is not mentioned in the calendars (Tusc.Ven. Maff.) which
have notes surviving for this day.
1 66 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
meaning1. 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] PEIMOGENIA[I],' the first-born daughter of
Jupiter'2. Here also, strange to say, Cicero describes8 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 Muller'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
attingat4.'
I shall have occasion later on 5 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 inquirer6. We may accept the
Professor's explanation of it with all respect as a most interest-
ing 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
1 By H. Jordan, Symbolae ad historiam religionum Italicarum alterae
(KQnigsberg, 1885). See also R. Peter, in Lex. s. v. Fortuna, 1542, and
Aust, Lex. s.v. luppiter, 647.
a C. I. L. xiv. 2863. 3 de Div. 2. 41. 85.
* Jordan, op. cit. p. 12. 5 See below, p. 223 foil., under Sept. 13.
6 Fernique, fitude sur Preneste, pp. 8 and 139 foil.
MENSIS IUNIUS 167
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 1 7, 1888 J. He equated Fors and Fortuna
with the Icelandic buror, from a verb having quite as wide and
general a meaning asfero, 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 2.
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 3
suggested that Carmenta (or Carmentes) may be explained
with S. Augustine4 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
1 See also his previous letter of March 3.
* He held 'birth' and 'fortune' to be words etymologically related.
Cp. a communication from Prof. Kluge in the same number of the Amdemy.
3 Journal of Philology, vol. xi. 178 ; Studies in Latin Literature, p. 60.
* de Civ. Dei, 4. n. Cp. Serv. Aen. 8. 336.
1 68 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
that her ancient home at Praeneste was the object of the special
devotion of mothers l. 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 Mtiller, 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 V
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
1 1. c. ' Castissime colitur a matribus.' One of the ancient inscriptions
from Praeneste (C. /. L. xi. 2863) is a dedication ' nationu cratia ' = nationis
gratia, which may surely mean ' in gratitude for childbirth,' though
Mommsen would refer it to cattle, on the ground of a gloss of Festus
IP 167).
3 Jordan, op. cit. p. xa.
MENSIS IUNIUS 169
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 us1. 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 decrease2.' 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 3. 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 her4.
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 deity5. 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.
1 O. Gilbert, Gesch. u.Topogr. der Stadt Rom, ii. 260 foil.
3 St. John, iii. 30 ; St. Augustine, Sermo xii in Nativitate Domini: 'In
nativitate Christi dies crescit, in Johannis nativitate decrescit. Profectum
plane facit dies, quum mundi Salvator oritur ; defectum patitur quum
ultimus prophetarum nascitur.'
:l See many examples in The Golden Bough, ii. 358 foil., and Brand's
Popular Antiquities, p. 306.
* See R. Peter, in Lex., s.v. Fortuna, 1506.
5 fitudes de Myth. Qaul. i. 56 foil. On p. 58 we find, ' La Fortune nous
parait done sortir, par 1'intermediaire d'une image, d'une divinit«5 du
soleiL*
170 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
All hints are useful in Boman 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
deities1. 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 Miiller has made
no use of it. But we must be on our guard. It is remarkable
that we find in the Koman calendars no other evidence that
the Komans attached the same importance to the summer
solstice as some other peoples ; the Koman 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. Colu-
mella seems to be alluding to it in the following lines * :
Sed cum maturis flavebit messis aristis
Allia cum cepis, cereale papaver anetho
lungite, dumque virent, nexos deferte maniplos,
Et celebres Fortis Fortunae dicite laudes
Mercibus exactis, h,ilare?que recurrite in hortos.
The power of Fortuna as a deity of chance would be as im-
portant for the perils of harvest as for those of childbirth ;
and it is in this connexion that the Italians understood the
1 For the history of these symbols in Greek cults, and especially that
of Tyche, see a paper by Prof. Gardner in Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. ix:
p. 78, on ' Countries and Cities in ancient art.' The rudder seems to connect
Fortuna with sea-faring ; it is often accompanied by a ship's prow (R. Peter,
Lex. 1507) ; in connexion with which we may notice that even in Italy her
cult is rarely found far from the sea. Cp. Horace, Od. i. 35, 6 ' dominant
aequoris.'
* 10. 311 foil. ; Marq. 578.
MENSIS IUNIUS lyi
meaning of that cornucopia which is perhaps her most constant
symbol in art '.
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 herself2. 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 Gales Vibenna released from his bonds
by Mastarna s, which has thus confirmed the Etruscan tradition
of the identity of Mastarna and Servius preserved by the
emperor Claudius in his famous speech 4, it would seem that
we may consider it as highly probable that if Servius did really
institute the cult of Fortuna at Eome, 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 Fortuna5. This was Nortia,
a great deity at Volsinii, as is fully proved by the remains
found there K ; 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 Volsinii7,
was supposed to be under the protection of this deity, and,
as we have already seen, to possess an ancient statue of her.
1 B. Peter, Lex. 1505. She is also often represented with a modius, and
with ears of corn. Cp. Horace, I.e. (of the Fortuna of Antium) : 'Te
pauper ambit sollicita prece Ruris colonus.'
2 Ovid, Fasti, 6. 573 foil. Schwegler, R. a. i. 711 foil. ; Preller, ii. 180.
8 Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, vol. ii. p. 506 ; Qardthausen,
4 Mastarna,' figures the painting (plate i).
4 Tac. Ann. ii. 24 ; the fragments of the original speech are printed from,
the inscription at Lyons in Mr. Furneaux's Annals of Tacitus, vol. ii. p. aio.
5 Juvenal, 10. 74, and note of the Scholiast.
* Muller-Deecko, Etrusker, ii. 52 ; Dennis, Cit. and Cem. ii. 24.
7 Juvenal, I.e.
172 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
In her temple a nail was driven every year as in the temple
of Jupiter Capitolinus *, 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 2. 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 Koman 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 3. 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.
1 See below on Sept. 13, p. 234.
* Miiller-Deecke, ii. 308. Gaidoz, op. cit. p. 56, on the connexion
between Fortuna, Necessitas, and Nemesis.
3 Gerhard, Agathodaemon, p. 30, has other explanations.
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 intervalio inter solstitium et caniculam
plerique messem faciunt,' writes Varro (R. It. i. 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
Koman 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.
174 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
in NON. QUINCT. (JULY 5). JP.
POPLIFiUGIA]. (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 \
who says that in B.C. 42 the Senate passed a decree that Caesar's
birthday should be celebrated on this day '2, and that any one
who refused to take part in the celebration should be 'sacer
Iovi et Divo lulio.' 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 3 ; and their rites were
explained by two parts of the same aetiological story — viz.
that the Eomans fled before the Fidenates on the 5th, and
in turn defeated them on the 7th*. 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 Nones5.
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 Eegifugium in February, something
can be made out, as we shall see 6 ; 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
1 Bk. 47. 18. We owe the reference to Merkel, Praef. in Ovidii Fasios, clix.
2 His real birthday seems to have been the lath, which was already
occupied by the ludi Apollinares.
3 Mommsen in C. I. L. 321 (on July 7).
* Varro, L. L. 6. 18 ; Marq. 325.
8 See Introduction, p. 7. This anomaly led Huschke to the inadmis-
sible supposition that this was the single addition made to the calendar of
Numa in the republican period. He accepts Varro's explanatory story,
Rom. Jahr, p. 224.
6 See below, p. 327.
MENSIS QUINCTILIS 175
perhaps of that of Schwegler \ 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 2 ; the calendars, on the
other hand, are perfectly plain, and so is Varro 3, 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 Eomans-from an army of their neighbours
of Fidenae, after the retirement of the Gauls from the city4 ;
the other interpreting it as a memorial of the flight of the
people after the disappearance of Komulus in the darkness
of an eclipse or sudden tempest 6. 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 invasion6. 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 ~. But that day is unluckily not the day
of the Poplifugia, which it is hardly possible to connect with
the disappearance of Komulus. 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 Eomulus was said to have occurred while he
was holding a lustratio of the citizens8, and concluded that
1 R. 0. i. 532 : see Mommsen's criticism in C. I. L 321 f.
8 Macrob. 6. n. 36; Plut. Rom. 29, CamiU. 33. See also 0. Muller's
note on Varro, L. L. 6. 18. » L. L. 6. 18.
4 This is Varro's account ; the Etruscans are a variant in Macrobius, 1. c.
* Dionys. a. 56 ; Plut. A'om. 29. See Lewis, Credibility of Early Roman
History, i. 430.
0 Introduction, p. 15. 7 Cic. de Rep. i. 16 ; Plut. Rom. 27.
8 Liv. i. 16 'Ad exercitum recensendum.' Lustratio came to be the
word for a review of troops because this was preceded by a religious lustratio
pupvli.
176 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 \
Such a rite may very well be indicated by the following
sentence of Varro2 — the only one which gives us any solid
information on the question : Aliquot huius diei vestigia fugae in
sacris apparent, de quilus 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 Bouphonm
(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 Koine fled after some similar
sacrifice, and for the same reason *. 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 4. Heifers
were put to flight, then caught and killed, apparently in order
to carry oif evils from the city 6, as well as to represent and
secure the defeat of its enemies. Such performances seem
especially apt to occur at sickly seasons 6 ; and as the unhealthy
season began at Eome in July7, 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 Silvius8 notes it as Ancillarum Feriae, or
1 e. g. Gilbert, i. 290 ; Marq. 325.
8 L. L. 6. 1 8. Details have vanished with the great work here quoted,
the Antiquitales dimnae.
s Schwegler suggested the parallel, i. 534, note 20. For the Bouphonia
see especially Mannhardt, Myth. Forsch. 68. For other such rites, Lobeck,
Aglaophamus, 679, 680. 4 Biicheler, Umbrica, 114.
5 The idea of the scapegoat was certainly not unknown in Italy ;
Bucheler quotes Serv. (Aen. 2. 140) ' Ludos Taureos a Sabinis propter pesti-
lentiam institutes dicunt, ut lues publica in has hostias rerteretur.' See on
the Regifugium, below, p. 328.
6 See examples in Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 160 foil. The one from the
Key Islands is interesting as including a flight of the people.
7 Nissen, Landeskunde, 406. 8 C. I. L. p. 269.
MENSIS QUINCTILIS 177
Feast of Handmaids, and adds the explanatory story which
is found also in Plutarch and Macrobius1. 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
Tutula2, 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 famulas3.
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 ".
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 5. The stranger in such cases is explained as repre-
senting the spirit of the corn ; the examples collected by
Mannhardt and Mr. Frazer seem fairly conclusive on this
point6. 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
uncommon7, though I have not found a case of exchange of
dress after harvest.
1 Macrob. i. n. 36 ; Plut. Camitt. 33.
2 Aug. de Civ. Dei, 4. 8. 8 de Feriis, 9.
4 The last point is in Camill. 33-6 : cp. Rom. 29. 6.
4 The bearing of these customs on the Nonae Caprotinae, and on the
Greek story of Lityerses, was suggested by Mannhardt, Myth. Forsch. 32.
Mr. Fn)zer gives a useful collection of examples, G. B. ii. 363 foil. The
custom survives in Derbyshire (so I am told by Mr. S. B. Smith, Scholar
of Lincoln College), but only in the form of making the stranger 'pay his
footing.' • 0. B. i. 381.
T It was the custom, says Macrobius (i. 10) ' ut patres familiarum, frugi-
bus et fructibus iam coactis, passim cum servis vescerentur, cum quibus
patientiam laboris in colendo rure toleraverant.' The old English harvest-
er mell-supper, had all the characteristics of Saturnalia (Brand, fop. Antiq.
337 foil.).
178 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
Thus it would seem possible that we have here a relic
of Italian harvest-custom ; and this is confirmed by the state-
ment of Tertullian that there was on this day a sacrifice to the
harvest-god Census1, 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 Consualia2,
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 in-
cursion.
This day was also known as Nonae Caprotinae, because the
women, presumably those who had been helping at the harvest,
both bond and free 3, sacrificed to Juno Caprotina under a wild
fig-tree (caprificus) in the Campus Martius*. Juno Caprotina
was a Latin goddess, of great renown at Falerii5, where the
goat from which she took her name appeal's in the legend of
her cult. The character of Juno as the representative of the
female principle of human life6 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 7. Varro adds
that a rod (virga) was also cut from this tree 8, without telling
1 Tertullian, de Spect. 5. 2 See below, p. 208.
3 This point— the union of free- and bond-women in the sacrifice — seems
to prove that Nonae Caprotinae and ancillarum feriae were only two
names for the same thing. Macrobius connects the legend of the latter
with the rite of the former (i. ir. 36).
4 Plut. Row. 29. Varro, L. L. 6. 18 writes ' in Latio.'
* Deecke, Die Falisker, 89; Roscher, in Lex. s. v. Juno, p. 599.
• See above, p. 143.
7 One naturally compares the ficus Ruminalis and the foundation-legend
of Rome.
8 It is curious that the practice in husbandry called caprifcatio, or the
introduction of branches of the wild tree among those of the culti-
vated fig to make it ripen (Plin. N. H. 15. 79; Colum. n. 2) took place
in July ; and it strikes me as just possible that there may have been
a connexion between it and the Nonae Caprotinae.
MENSIS QUINCTILIS 179
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 1.
vin ID. QUINCT. (JULY 8). N.
'Piso ait vitulam victoriam nominari, cuius rei hoc argu-
mentum profert, quod postridie nonas lulias re bene gesta,
cuin pridie populus a Tuscis in fugam versus sit (unde Populi-
fugia vocantur), post victoriam certis sacrificiis fiat vitulatio*.'
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 Koman 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
pel-formed the function of scapegoats3. 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 lovi,' and that the vitulus (heifer) was the special victim
of Jupiter *.
PBID. NON. QUINCT. — in ID. QUINCT. (JULY 6-13).
LUDI APOLUNARES.
All these days are marked 'ludi' in Maff. Amit. Ant. ; the
6th ' ludi Apoll'ini],' and the isth 4ludi in circo.'
These games5 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 Cam-
pania. Kecourse was had to the Sibylline books and to the
Italian oracles of Marcius, and the latter answered as follows 6 :
1 Mannhardt, Myth. Forsch. 1. c.
4 Macrob. 3. 2. n and 14. Macrobius also quotes Varro in the isthbook
of his Res Ditinae ' Quod pontifex in sacris quibusdam vitulari soleat, quod
Graeci traiavifav vocant.' Perhaps we may compare visceratio : Serv. Aen.
5-215.
J Above, p. 176. * Marq. 170.
* See Marq. 384, and Lex. B. v. Apollo 447. ° Liv. 25. 12.
N 2
l8o THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
' 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 rath day
of the month1, and were, in course of time, extended back-
wards till in the Julian calendar we find them lasting from the
6th to the 1 3th. 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 2.
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 1 3 in consequence of a pestilence 3 ; 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 4, was
vowed in 432 B. c. in consequence of a pestilence ; and the god
had also the cult-title Medicus B. The next occasion on which
we meet with the cult is that of the first institution of a lecti-
sternium in 397 B. c., Livy's account of which is worth
condensing 6. That year was remarkable for an extremely cold
1 The MSS. of Livy (27. 23) have a. d. iii Nonas, no doubt in error for
a. d. iii Idus. Merkel, Praef. xxviii. ; Mommsen, C. I. L. 321.
* Liv. 25. 12 ; 26. 33 ; Festus, 326 ; Cic. Brutus, 20, 78, whence it appears
that Ennius produced his Thyesles at these ludi. Cp. the story in Macrob.
i. 17- 25-
* Liv. 27. 23.
4 Liv. 3. 63. This older shrine Livy calls Apollinar. The temple that
followed it was the only Apollo-temple in Rome till Augustus built one
on the Palatine after Actium; this is clear from Asconius, p. 81 ^ad Cic.
in toga Candida), quoted by Aust, de Aedibus sacris, 7. It was outside
the Porta Carmentalis, near the Circus Flaininius. A still more ancient
Apollinar is assumed by some to have existed on the Quirinal ; but it
rests on an uncertain emendation of 0. Miiller in Varro, L. L. 5. 52.
* Liv. 40. 51. The Romans seem originally to have called the god
Apello, and connected the name -with pellere. Paulus, 22 ; Macrob. i. 17. 15.
* Liv. 5. 13.
MENSIS QUINCTILIS j8l
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 lecti-
sternium, 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 magni-
ficence at Kome in historical times, was ' so old in Italy as
almost to give the impression of being indigenous1.' 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 2, and who was worshipped at Caere, the home of the
Tarquinian family, which city had a ' treasury ' at Delphi a.
The Komans 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 Kome. It has been thought that
the obscure Veiovis became clothed with some of Apollo's
chai*acteristics, but this is extremely doubtful4. The mysterious
deity of Soracte, Soranus, is called Apollo by Virgil s ; 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 Koman people generally. It was a priestly
experiment — a new physician was called in at perilous times,
according to the fashion of the Koman oligarchy, either to give
advice by his oracles, or to receive honours for his benefits as
o\«£»ca/cor. It is in the age of Augustus that the cult begins to
1 Lex. s.v. Apollo, 446. * Muller-Deecke, Etrusker, il. 69.
s Strabo, p. 214 ; Herodotus, I. 167.
4 Jordan on Preller, i. 265.
5 Am. ii. 785 'Summe deum, sancti custos Soractis Apollo,' &c.
1 82 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
be important ; the family of the Caesars was said to have had
an ancient connexion with it \ 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 lud i saecularcs of B. 0.17,! must refer
the reader to other works 2.
xiv KAL. SEXT. (JULY 19). K?.
LUCAK[IA]. (MAFF. AMIT.)
xii KAL. SEXT. (JULY 21). IP.
LUCAE[IAj. (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 s.
The only light we have comes at second-hand from Verrius
Flaccus *. ' Lucaria festa in luco colebant Eomani, qui per-
magnus inter viam Salariam et Tiberim fuit, pro eo, quod victi
a Gallis fugientes5 e praelio ibi se occultaverint.' This passage
1 Serv. Aen. 10. 316 'Omnes qui secto matris venire procreantur. ideo
sunt Apollini consecrati, quia deus medicinae est, per quam lucem sorti-
untur. Unde Aesculapius eius fingitur films : ita enim cum [esse] pro-
creatum supra (7. 761) diximus. Caesarum etiam lain ilia ideo sacra
retinebat Apollinis, quia qui primus de eorum familia fuit, exsecto matris
ventre natus est. Unde etiam Caesar dictus est.'
* A concise account by Roscher, Lex. s. v. Apollo 448 ; Boissier, Religion
Romaine, i. 96 foil. ; Gardthausen, Augustus, vol. ii, p. 873. For the ludi
saeculares see especially Mommsen's edition of the great but mutilated
inscription recently discovered in the Campus Martius (Eph. Epigr. viii.
i foil.); Diels, Sibyliin. Blatter, p. 109 foil.; and the Carmen Saeculare of
Horace, with the commentaries of Orelli and Wickham.
3 L. L. 6. 18 fin. and 19 init.
* Festus. 119. s. v. Lucaria.
* The battle of the Allia was fought on the i8th, the day before the first
Lucaria. This no doubt suggested the legend connecting the two, especi-
ally as the Via Salaria, near which was the grove of the festival, crossed
the battle-field some ten miles north of Rome.
MENSIS QUINCTILIS 183
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 ac-rarium for
the games1,' 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 2 :
IN • HOCE • LUCARID • STIRCUS • NE • IS • PUNDATID, &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 Preller3, '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 4, 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 wood-
land 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 Italy8, and of Diana, who at Aricia bore the title of
Nemorensis, but of innumerable spirits of the old worship,
1 See Friedlander in Marq. 487 ; Plutarch, Q. E. 88.
8 Mommsen in Ephemeris Epigraphica, ii. 205.
3 i. in ; Liv. 24. 3 ; Cato, ap. Priscian, 629. Much useful matter bearing
on luci as used for boundaries, asyla, markets, &c., will be found in Kudorff,
Gromatici Vcteres, ii. 260.
4 'Light' is not uncommon in England for a 'ride1 or clearing in
a wood.
'•" Below, pp. 222, and 228.
184 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
Fauni, Silvani, and other manifestations of the idea most
definitely conceived in the great god Mars1. 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 2 : ' Lucum conlucare Eomano 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 im-
molando 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 propitia-
tion. 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 s ; it belonged to the most primitive of Roman rites,
and partly for that reason, partly also from the absorption of
land by large private owners4, it fell into desuetude. The
grove of the Fratres Arvales and the decay of their cult (also
1 On the whole subject of the religious ideas arising from the first culti-
vation of land in a wild district I know nothing more instructive than
Robertson Smith's remarks in Religion of the Semites, Lecture iii. ; I have
often thought that they throw some light on the oiigin of Mars and kindred
numina. The most ancient settlements in central Italy are now found to
be on the tops of hills, probably once forest-clad (see Von Duhn's paper on
recent excavations, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1896, p. 125). For a curious
survival of the feeling about woods and hill-tops in Bengal, see Crooke,
Religion, &c., in India, ii. 87.
* R. R. 139. For piacula of this kind see also Henzen, Ada Fratr. An.
136 foil. ; Marq. 456. 3 See below, p. 312.
4 See a passage in Frontinus (Grom. Vet. i. 56 : cp. a. 263).
MENSIS QUINCTILIS 185
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 hased
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 l
believes that the words Lucaria and Luceres (the ancient Eoman
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). IP.
NEPT[UNALIA]. (PINC. MAFF.)
PEKIAE 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 all2. 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 \ If this be so, the Etruscans must
J Rom. Jahr, p. 221, and note 81 on p. 222.
* Festus, 377 'Umbrae vocantur Neptunalibus casae frondeae pro taber-
naculis.' Wissowa (Lex. s.v. Neptunus, 202) compares the <r/«a3«j of the
Spartan Carneia (also in the heat of summer), described in Athenaeus,
4- 141 F.
8 Miiller-Deecke, Etrusker, ii. 54, with Deecke's note 51 b. The Etruscan
forms are Nethunus and Nethuns. The form of the word is adjectival like
Portunus, &c. ; but what is the etymology of the first syllable? We are
reminded of course of Nepe or Nepete, an inland town near Falerii ; and
to this district the cult seems specially to have belonged. Messapus,
' Neptunia proles.' leads the Falisci and others to war in Virg. Aen. 7. 691,
and Halcsus, Neptuni filius, was eponymous hero of Falerii (Deecke,
l86 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
have borrowed it from some people who already used it of
a sea-god when the loan wras 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 \ 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 •', to be taken as indicating the virile force of
Nt-ptunus as the divine progenitor of a stock s. This seems to
be confirmed by the fact that this god was known as Neptunus
pater, like Mars, Janus, Saturnus, and Jupiter himself4 ; 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)5. 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 6 that the object of both
the Lucaria and Neptunalia was to avert the heat and drought
Falisker, 103). There is no known connexion of Neptunus with any coast
town.
1 13. 23. 2 : cp. Varro, L. L. 5. 72.
a See above, p. 60.
s Cp. Serv. Aen, 5. 724 '(Venus) dicitur et Salacia, quae proprie mere-
tricum dea appellata est a voteribus.'
4 Gell. 5. 12 ; Henzen, Act. Fratr. Arv. 124. Wissowa, in his article
' Neptunus,' goes too far, as it seems to me, when he asserts that the
'pater' belonged to all deities of the oldest religion. See below, p. 220.
5 Liv. 5. 13. 6 ; Dionys. 12. 9. Wissowa, Lex. s. v. Nept. 203, for his
further history as Poseidon.
* Wissowa in Lex. 1. c. I doubt if much can be made of the argument
that the Neptunalia on the 23rd is necessarily connected with the Lucaria
on the 1 7th and igth — i. e. three alternate days, like the three days of
the Lemuria in May.
MENSIS QUINCTILIS 187
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.'
vni KAL. SEXT. (JULY 25). IP.
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' 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 antiques,' 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 2.
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
1 Varro, L. L. 5. 84 ' Furinalis (flamen) a Furina quoius etiam in fastis
Furi miles feriae sunt ' : cp. 6. 19 ' Ei sacra instituta annua et flamen attri-
butus : nunc vix nomen notum paucis.'
* See Wissowa's short and sensible note in Lex. a. v. Furrina. For the
confusion with Furiae, Cic. de Nat. Dear. 3. 46 ; Plut. C. Gracch. 17 ; Lex.
B. v. Furiae. Jordan, in Preller, ii. 70, is doubtful on the etymological
question.
l88 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
dark or secret ; and if this were correct she might be a deity
of the under-world or of the darkness. Bticheler in his
Umbtica1 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 heat2 — a conclusion that is natural
enough, but does not seem to rest on any evidence but its date.
Lastly, Huschke 3, 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.
1 p. 71. * In Preller, ii. lar. ' R5m. Jahr, 221.
MENSIS SEXT1LIS.
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 Koman 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 agri-
cultural operations would then for a time be specially incumbent
on the farmer '.
Before the Ides we find no great festival in the old calendar,
though the sacrifice on the 1 2th at the ara maxima was without
doubt of great antiquity. The list begins with the Portunalia
on the 1 7th ; and then follow, with a day's interval between
each, the Vinalia Kustica, 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 bo propitiated at this time, in order to preserve
the harvest from disaster by either element. The rites are
1 Varro, R. R. i. 33, lias only the following : ' Quinto intervallo, inter
caniculam et aequinoctiuin auctumuale oportet stramenta desecari, «t
acervos construi, aratro oflringi, frondem caedi, prata irri.ua iteruin
secari.'
190 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
secret and mysterious, the places of worship not familiar
temples, but the ara maxima, the underground altar of Census,
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 l, 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. (Auo. 5). F. (TP. ANT.)
SALUTI IN COLLE QUIRINALE SACBIFICIUM 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 2. 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 \ Two very old inscriptions also
suggest that the cult was well distributed in Italy at an early
period 4. Such impersonations of abstract ideas as Salus, Con-
cordia, 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 5. We need not suppose
1 This is the natural position for the ager of the oldest community on
the Palatine. The Campus Martius was believed to have been 'king's
land' of the later developed city (Liv. 2. 5).
1 Liv. 10. i. 9; Aust, de Aedibus sacris, p. 10.
3 Marq. 377 ; Dio Cass. 37. 24 and 25 ; Tac. Ann, 12. 23.
* C.I. L. i. 49 and 1 79.
5 See Preller, ii. 228; and article 'Sacerdos' in Diet, of Antiquities, new
edition.
MENSIS SEXTILIS 19!
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 l — 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 ex-
aggeration 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 2. 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 s. It was struck by lightning no less than
four times, and burnt down in the reign of Claudius. Livy 4
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 'Y-ytfta, and associated rather with public health
than with public wealth in the most general sense of the
word.
vi ID. SEXT. (Aua. 9). F. (ALLIF.) IP. (AMIT. MAFF. ETC.)
SOLI INDIGITI IN COLLE QUIRINALE. (AMIT. ALLIF.)
SOL[ls] 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 Soils pulvinar close to
the temple of Quirinus is mentioned, and the Gens Aurelia
was said to have had charge of the cult 5.
1 On this difficult subject see Did. of Antiquities, ». v. Indigitamenta;
and the long and exhaustive article by R. Peter in Reseller's Lexicon (which
is, however, badly written, and in some respects, I think, misleading).
8 See the valuable summary of Aust (in ten lines).
3 Plin. N. H. 35. 19. * 40. 19.
4 Paulus, 23; Quint il. i. 7. la ; Varro, L. L. 5. 52 (from the 'sacra
Argeorum '), if we read ' adversum Solis pulvinar cis aedem Salutis.' The
THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 \
This view has also been generally adopted, on etymological or
other grounds, by modern writers, including Preller2. 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, busi-
ness, 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 3.
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 in-
genious suggestion made long ago by Preller. In dealing with
Sol Indiges, Preller explained Indiges as = index, and con-
jectured that the name was not given to Sol until after the
eclipse which foretold the death of Caesar, comparing the lines
of Virgil (Georg. i. 463 foil.) :
Sol tibi signa dabit. Solem quis dicere falsum
Audeat? ille ctiain caecos instare tumultus
Saepe monet, fraudemque et operta tumescere bella.
Ille et lain exstincto miseratus Caesare Romam :
Cum caput obscura nitidum ferrugine texit,
Impiaque aetornam 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
name is said to be connected with the Umbrian and Etruscan god of light,
Usil, a word thought to be recognizable in Aurelius ( = Auselius, Varro,
1. c.), and in the Ozeul of the Salian hymn (Wordsworth, Fragments and
Specimens of Early Latin, p. 564 foil.).
1 So e. g. Virgil, Georg. i. 498 ' Di patrii indigites et Romule Vestaque
Mater.' Peter, in Lex. a. v. Indigitamenta, 132.
* i. 325. » Lex. a. v. Indigitamenta, 137.
MENSIS SEXTILIS 193
the question ; but Wissowa ', 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.
PBID. ID. SEXT. (Aua. 12). C.
HERCULI IKVICTO AD CIRCUM MAXIMUM], (ALLIF. AMTT.)
[HEBCULI MAGNO CUSTODI IN CIRCO FLAMIN 10] (VALL.) is
generally taken as a confusion with June 4 2.]
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 it3. 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
stoiy 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 4. 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 ;
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 inscriptions6.
That there was at one time a reconstruction of the cult,
1 Wissowa, de Bomanorum Indige'ibus et Notensidibus (Marburg, 1892).
3 Merkel, Praef. in Ov. Fastos, cxxxv ; Mommsen, C. I. L. 324.
3 Lex. s. v. Hercules, 2903 foil., where K. Peter has summarized and
criticized all the various opinions.
4 Liv. i. 7.
5 Dionys. i. 40, who says that the duties were performed hy slaves in
his day. See Lex. 2925 for a long list of conjectures about this part of the
legend. The Potitii never occur in inscriptions ; and I think with Jordan
Preller, ii. 291) that the name is imaginary, invented to account for the
functions of the slaves.
6 C. /. L. vi. 312-319, found on the site of the aedes.
194 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 '. But there is enough
about it that was genuine Koman 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 Italy2. Women were
excluded, which is in keeping with the Italian conception of
Hercules as Genius, or the deity of masculine activity *. 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 veiy 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
farmers cattle *. After prescribing the material of the offering
to Mars Silvanus, he goes on as follows : ' Earn rem divinam
vel scrvus, vel liber licebit facial. Ubi res divina facta erit, statim
ibidem consumito. Mulier ad earn rem divinam ne adsit, neve
videat quomodo fiat. Hoc votum in annos singulos, si voles,
licebit vovere.' Here we have the eating of the remainder5,
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 am maxima 6, we find one special
feature of Mars-worship, namely the presence of the Salii 7. It
is hardly possible to suppose that Virgil here was guilty of
a wilful confusion : is it possible, then, that in this cult some
1 Macrob. 3. 12. a ; Varro, L. L 6. 15. The uncovered head also occurs
in the cult of Saturnus ; and R. Peter argues that the custom may after all
be old-Italian (Lex. 2928).
" Marquardt, Privatalterthumer, vol. i, p. 291.
3 See above, p. 142 foil. Plut. Qu. Rom. 60; Macrob. i. 12. 38. In
<J. R. 90 Plutarch notes that no other god might be mentioned at the
sacrifice, and no dog might be admitted.
* de Re Ruslica, 83.
4 The word was profanatum, opposed to poUuctum (see Marq. 149).
* Aen. 8. 281 foil.
7 Salii are found in the cult of Hercules also at Tibur : Macrob. 3. la. 7.
See a note of Jordan in Preller, i. 353.
MENSIS SEXTILIS 195
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 ot offering on the ara maxima 'decumae'
or tithes, of booty, commercial gains, sudden windfalls, and so
on '. 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 Keate, Tibur, Capua and else-
where 2. But these inscriptions, old as some of them are,
cannot prove that the practice they attest was not ultimately
derived from Eome. At Home, indeed, there is no question
about it ; it is abundantly proved by literary allusions, as well
as by fragments of divine law3. 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 Italy4. They are not, indeed, known to have been
offered specially to Hercules ; but the date, Aug. 1 2, of the
sacrifice at Kome might suggest an original offering of the first-
fruits of the Koman 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 5. 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 6.
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 7, of which
1 Lex. 2931 foil. ; C. I. L. i. 149 foil.
* The examples are collected by R. Peter in Lex. 2935.
* Festu8, 253, s. v. pollucere meroes ; Plut. Qu. Rom. 18 ; Vita Sutlae, 35 ;
Crassi, 2 ; Lex. 2032 foil.
* Marq. 469 ; Festus, p. 318, s. v. sacrima.
8 Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 233.
* G. B. ii. 373 foil.
7 In the legend Hercules gave a tenth part of his booty to the
inhabitants of the place (Dionys i. 40).
o a
196 THE KOMAN FESTIVALS
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 '.
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 practica 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 2 : 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 3. 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 Eoman form of the Cacus-myth, in which Cacus steals
1 See Mommsen in C. I. L. i. 150.
" e. g. in Breal, Hercule et Cacus.
3 See Lex. 2286 (R. Peter, quoting Reifferscheid).
MENSIS SEXTILIS 197
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 ] ; 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 2 ; and a fragment of the annalist Gellius
gives a story connecting Cacus with Campania, Etruria, and
the East 3. At Tibur also, which claimed a Greek origin,
there is a faint trace of the myth in an inscription 4.
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 5. 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.
1 Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. xiii. 73. Professor Gardner is inclined to
consider the myth as Phoenician rather than Greek, and attached to the
Phoenician Melcarth — Herakles. The vase is in the Ashmolean Museum,
and was found by the Keeper, Mr. Arthur Evans.
* Mon. delC Inst. v. 25. But the character of the vase is archaic Ionian,
as Prof. Gardner tells me ; Lex. 2275.
3 H. Peter, Fragmenta Hist. Rom. p. 166 (= Solinus, i. 7).
4 C. I. L. xiv. 3555 ; Lex. 2278.
' Robertson Smith, op. cit. pp. 228 foil., and additional note F.
198 THE EOMAN FESTIVALS
ID. SEXT. (Aua. 13). IP.
FER[IAE] lovi. (AMIT. ALLIF.)
DIANAE IN AVENTINO. (AMIT. VALL. ANT. ALLIF.)
SACRUM DEANAE. (RUST.) NATALIS DIANES. (PHILOC.)
VORTUMNO IN AVENTINO. (AMIT. ALLIF.)
HERCJJLI INVICTO AD PORTAM TRIGEMINAM. (ALLIF.)
CASTORI POLLUCI IN CIRCO FLAMINIO. (AMIT. ALLIF.)
FLORAE AD cflRCUMj 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 lovi.' 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 l, I need only refer to Mr. Frazer's Golden Sough — 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 com-
munities together and so working in the cause of civilization.
This was the case with the cult on the Aventine, as it was also
with that at Aricia 2.
About the political origin of the temple on the Aventine
tradition was explicit3. Livy says that Servius Tullius per-
suaded 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
1 The day of the festival at Aricia is thought to have been also Aug. 13
(Lex. s. v. Diana, ioo6\
4 Beloch, Italischer Bund, 180 ; Cato (ap. Priscian, 7. 337, ed. Jordan, p. 41)
gives the names of the towns united in and by the Arician cult — Aricia,
Tusculum, Lanuvium, Laureutum, Cora, Tibur, Pometia, Ardea.
3 Liv. i. 45 Dionys. 4. 26 ; Varro, L. L. 5. 43.
MENSIS SEXTILIS 199
preserved in the temple '. The horns of a cow 2, 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 3, 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 4, perhaps after the work of harvest. There was one
other Latin goddess, Feronia, who was especially beloved by
emancipated slaves 5 ; and as Feronia was a deity both of
markets and harvests, there is something to be said for the
suggestion ° 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 7 : ' 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 fugitives vocent
servos.' The stag, as the favourite beast of Diana, may
1 Dionys. 1. c. See Jordan, Krit. BeitrSge, 253.
2 So Liv. 1. c. : other temples of Diana had deers' horns, according to
Plutarch, Q. R. 4. The cow was Diana's favourite victim (Marq. 361);
but we cannot be sure that this was not a feature borrowed from the cult
of Artemis (Farnell, Greek Cults, ii. 593).
* The passages from Livy quoted by Steuding (Lex. 1008) are hardly to
the point, as the cult is not mentioned in them.
* Plut. Q. R. 100.
* Serv. Aen. 8. 564 : cp. Liv. 22. i, 26. II.
8 Mannhardt, A. W. F. 328 foil.
7 Festus, 343, ' Servorum dies.'
200 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 '. 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 £oai/o;', or wooden statue of Diana, closely resembling that
of Artemis at Massilia, which was itself derived from the
famous temple at Ephesus2. 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 lecti-
sternium celebrated at Rome, where she certainly represented
Artemis '.
On the whole this temple and its cult seem a kind of anti-
cipation 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 * ; and on this day the Roman
1 See above, p. 75.
8 Strabo, Bk. 4, p. 180 ; Farnell, Greek Cults, ii. 529 and 552.
3 Liv. 5. 13 : Apollo and Latona, Diana and Hercules, Mercurius and
Neptunus.
4 Lex. 1007. The excavations at Nemi have produced several votive
offerings in terra-cotta of women with children in their arms. Cp. Ovid,
Fasti, 3. 269. Plutarch tells us (Q. R. 3) that men were excluded from
a shrine of Diana in the Yicus Patricius ; but of this nothing further is
known.
MENSIS SEXTILIS 2OI
women made n special point of washing their heads 7 — an
unusual performance, perhaps, which has been explained by
reference to the sanctity of the head among primitive peoples2.
But Diana, like Silvanus, with whom she is found in con-
nexions, 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 *.
This was also the dies natalis of another temple on tho
Aventine, that of Vortumnus, which was dedicated in B. c. 264
by the consul M. Fulvius Flaccus \ About the character of
this god there is fortunately no doubt. Literature here comes
to our aid, as it too rarely does: Propertius6 describes him
elaborately as presiding over gardens and fruit, and Ovid 7 tells
a picturesque story of his love for Pomona the fruit>goddess,
'whose antiquity at Home is proved by the fact that she had
a flamen of her own ". The date, August 1 3, when the fruit
would be ripe, suits well enough with all we know of Vor-
tumnus.
The god had a bronze statue in the Vicus Tuscus, and perhaps
for that reason was believed to have come to Kome from
Etruria9. 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 10 ; and if he really was an immi-
grant, 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 trige-
1 Plut. Q. R. 100 ; Jevons, Introduction, p. Ixviii.
2 Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 187.
3 C. I. L. vi. 656, 658.
4 Frazer, 0. B. i. 105 : cp. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semifes, p. 128
foil. Serv. Qeorg. 3. 332 ' Ut omnis quercus lovi est consecrata, et omnis
Incus Dianae.' (Hor. Od. i. 21.) The reclaiming of Diana from the woodland
to the homestead is curiously illustrated by an inscription from Aricia
(Wilmanns, Exempla, 1767) in which she is identified with Vesta.
4 Aust, de Aedibus socris, p. 15. • 5. (4.) a.
7 Metaph. 14. 623 foil. ; Preller, i. 451.
* Varro. L. L. 7. 45. A god Pomonus (gen. Puemones) occurs in the
Iguvian ritual (Bucheler, Umbrica, 158; who may have been identical with
Vortumnus.
' Varro, L. L 5. 46.
10 Preller, i. 452, and Jordan's note.
202 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
minam ; 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. (Aua. 17). £P.
PORT[UNALIA]. (MAFF. AMIT. VALL.)
TIBERINALIA. (PHILOC.)
FERIAE PORTUKO. (AMIT. AKT.)
PORTUNO AD PONTEM AEMILIUM. (AMIT. TALL. 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 ', 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 2 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 Borne on this day s. 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 Kome, we may
1 Festus, 217, s.v. persillum. All we know of his duties is that ho
'unguit arma Quirini' ; the word for the oil or grease he used was ' per-
sillum.' Quirinus had his own flamen, who might be supposed to do this
office for him ; hence Marq. (328 note) inferred that the god in this case
was a form of Janus, Janus Quirinus. But there is no other sound evi-
dence for a Janus Quirinus, though Janus and Portunus may be closely
connected.
» L. L. 6. 19.
* C. I. L. 325. He thinks that the atria Tiberina mentioned by Ovid
(Fasti, 4. 329) were a station on the route of the procession.
MENSIS SEXTILIS 203
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 '.
But it may be that the original Portunus had 110 immediate
connexion either with river or harbour. We find a curious
but mutilated note in the Veronese commentary on Virgil - :
' 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 3 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 con-
jectures 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 veiy hard wood were held in the fire to harden them
afresh 4. It is worth noting that according to Verrius 5 Portunus
was supposed 'clavim manu tenere et deus esse portarum.'
This would suit very well with Jharvest-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 harbours6.
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 7.
1 Mommsen has not convinced other scholars, e. g. Jordan on Preller.
ii. 133, and Marq. 328, who points out that if Volturnus is an old name
for the Tiber, that river-god was already provided with a flamen (Voltur-
nalis\ and a festival in this month (see below on Volturnsilia). I am
disposed to think that Mommsen's critics have the best of the argument.
On Atn. 5. 241.
Rom. Jahr, p. 250. Jordan restored the passage thus: 'Quo apud
ve ores aedes in portu et feriae institutae' (Preller, i. 178 note).
See Marquardt, PrivataUei-thiimer, p. 226.
Paul us, 56.
In Festus, 233, portus is said to have been used for a house in the
Twelve Tables.
7 Topogr. i. 430 ; Marq. agrees (327 note).
204 TH£ ROMAN FESTIVALS
If Portunus were really a god of kevs and doors and store-
houses, 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 ] ; and it may have
been merely by accident that this was the dedication-day of
a temple of Janus ' ad theatrum Marcelli ' y.
xiv KAL. SEPT. (Auo. 19). FP. (MAFF. AMIT.) F.
(ANT. ALLIF.) K*. (VALL.S)
VINfALIA]. (MAFF. VALL. AMIT. ETC.)
FERIAE lovi. (ALLIF.)
VENERI AD CIRCUM MAXIMUM. (VALL.)
The ' Aedes Veneris ad Circum Maximum ' alluded to in the
Fasti Vallcnses was dedicated in 295 B. c., and the building
was begun at the expense of certain matrons who were fined
for adultery4. As has been already explained, no early con-
nexion can be proved between Venus and wine or the vintage 5 ;
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 Kustica", and might naturally be supposed
to be concerned with the ripening grapes. It has been con-
jectured 7 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 crop8. If it be
Preller, i. 177
It was a late foundation, vowed by C. Duilius in the First Punic War
(B c. 260). When rebuilt by Tiberius (Tac. Ann. 2. 49) the dedication-
day became Oct. 18. See Aust, de Aedibus sacris, p. 18.
See above on April 23, p. 85.
Livy, 10. 31 ; Aust, de Aedibus sacris, p. 12.
See above, p. 86. • Paulus, 264.
Preller, i. 196 ; Marq. 333 note.
Varro, L. L. 6. 16 ' Vinalia a vino ; Hie dies lovis, non Veneris ; luiius
rei cura non levis in Latio ; nam aliquot locis vindemiae primum a sacer-
dotibus public ae fiebant, ut Romae etiam mine ; nam flnmen Dialis auspi-
catur vindemiam, et ut iussit vinum legere, agna lovi facit, inter quoius
exta caesa et porrecta flamen primus vinum legit.' But this note, coming
between others on the Cerialia and Bobigalia, clearly refers to April 23,
MENSIS SEXTILIS 205
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 '.
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 2 ; and this does not conflict with Varro 3, who
tells us that on this day fiunt feriati oUtores — for it would
naturally be a day of rejoicing for the growers. Mommsen,
with some rrason, refers these passages to the later custom of
not opening the wine of the last vintage for a year 4, 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 cere-
mony. If we ask why the August Vinalia are called Kustica,
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 \ Ceremonies like that of the
and the latter part of it must be taken as simply explaining ' huius rei
cura non levis' without reference to a particular day.
1 See above, p. no. * p. 264.
3 L. L. 6. 20. The passage in 6. 16, quoted above, ends thus : ' In Tus-
culanis hortis (sortis in MS.) est scriptum : Vinum novum ne vehatur in
urbem antequam Vinalia calentur,' which may reler to a notice put up in
the vineyards. Another reading is ' sacr:s.'
* C. I. L. 316 and 326 ; Varro, R. R. i. 65.
5 Cf. Pliny, N. H. 18. 284 'Tria namque tempora fructibus metuebant,
propter quod instituerunt feriasdiesque festos, Robigalia.Floralia, Vinalia.'
I do not see why the Vinalia here should not be the Vinalia Rustica.
206 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 \ 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. (Auo. 21). IP.
CONS^UALIAJ. (PINC. MAFF. VALL. ETC.)
CONSO IN AVENTINO SACRIFICIUM. (VALL.)
There was a second festival of Consus on Dec. 1 5 ; but the
note 'Conso in Aventino' there appears three days earlier,
Dec. 12. The temple on the Aventine was a comparatively
late foundation2; but as the cult of this old god became
gradually obscured, it seems to have been confused with the
most ancient centre of Census-worship, the underground altar
in the Circus maximus, ' ad primas metas ' 3. 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 rfpfvos, 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* potentes.' Wissowa remarks that this statement 'is not
Cp. Virg. Georg. 2. 419 'Et iam maturis metuendus luppiter uvis.' Hart-
mann, Rom. Kal. 137 foil.
1 Vol. ii. 379. 3 B. c. 272 (Festus, 209 ; Aust, p. 14).
3 For this altar, Tertull. Spec*. 5 and 8 ; Dionys. i. 33 ; Tac. Ann. 12. 24 ;
S*rv. Aen. 8. 636.
4 No correction of this word seems satisfactory : see Mommsen, C. 1. L.
326.
MENSIS SEXTJLIS 207
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 ' ',
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 2. 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 3.
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 4 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 5.
1 Wissowa, Lex. s. v. Consus, 926.
" Suggested by Mommsen, C. I. L. 326, and accepted by Wissowa. Un-
luckily Golumella (i. 6), in alluding to the practice, says nothing of its
occurrence in Italy. The alternative explanation was suggested to me
by Robertson Smith (Religion of the Semites, 107) : see also a note in Mtiller-
Deecke, Etrusker, ii. 100 ; and below on Terminalia (p. 325).
3 The underground altar »f Dis Pater in the Campus Martius, at which
the ludi saeculares were in part celebrated (Zosimus, a. i), may have had
a like origin.
* Qu. Rom. 40 : cf. Dionys. i. 33.
• Fast. Praen. ; C. I. L. 237.
208 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
FERIAE CONSO EQUI ET [ifULI FLOKIBU8 CORONANTUKJ.
QUOD IN EIUS TU[TELA BUNT].
[iTAJQUE REX EQUO [VECTUSJ.
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 ' 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 *, 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 agri-
cultural 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 I33. 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 *.
Once more, it is not impossible that in the legendary con-
nexion of the Rape of the Sabine women with the Consualia5
we may see a reflection of the jollity and license which accom-
panies the completion of harvest among so many peoples.
1 a. 31, where lie says that they were kept up in his own day : cf. Strabo,
Bk. 5. 3. a. a p. 148.
3 Friedlander in Marq. 482. For the connexion of games with harvest
see Mannhardt, Myth. Forsch. 172 foil.
* Varro (ap. Non. p. 13) quotes an old verse which seems to the point
here : ' Sibi pastores ludo iaciunt coriis connialia.'
s Varro, Z. L. 6. 20; Serv. Aen. 8. 636; Dionys. 2. 31 ; Cic. Rep. a. 12.
MENSIS SEXTILIS 209
Eomulus 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 ] ? The sexual license common on such occasions has
been abundantly illustrated by Mr. Frazer in his Golden
Bough 2.
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 3, 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 Eobigus on April 25 *, 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. (Auo. 23). IP.
VOLCANALIA. (PINC. MAFF. VALL. ETC.)
VOLCANO IN CIRCO FLAMINIO. (VALL.)
VOLCANO. (PINC.)
(A mutilated fragment of the calendar of the Fratres Arvales
gives QTJIR[INO] IN COLLE, VOLK[ANO] IN COMIT[IO], OPI OPI-
FEB[AE] IN . . . , [NYMPJHIS (?) 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 ' 5. We cannot explain this ; but it reminds us of
the fish called vnacna, with magical properties, which the old
1 See above, p. 178. * Vol. ii. 171 foil., 372 foil.
' de Spect. 8. * See above, p. 89 ; Ovid, Fasti, 4. 908.
5 Festus, p. 210, s. v. piscatorii ludi (Varro, L. L. 6 ao\ The latter uses
the word ' nnimalia,' and does not mention fish. The fish were apparently
sacrificed at the domestic hearth ; but it is doubtful whether Volcanus
was ever a deity of the hearth-fire (see Schwegler, R. G. i. 714 ; Wissowa,
de Feriis, xlv).
P
210 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
woman offered to Tacita and the ghost-world at the Parentalia1.
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 countiy like that of
Eome must surely be a chthonic deity.
The antiquity of the cult of Volcanus is shown by the fact
that there was a Flamen Volcanalis 2, who on May i sacrificed
to Maia, the equivalent, as we saw, of Bon a 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 * 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* 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 Virgil6. After the great fir« 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 \ 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 there-
fore at this place particularly desirable.
1 See below, p. 309 ; Ovid, Fasti, a 571 foil.
2 See above on May 23, p. 123 ; Varro, L. L. 5. 84 ; Macrob. i. 12. 18 ;
C. I. L. vi. 1628.
s «• 149-
* In the mutilated note in Fast. Praen. given above. For Wissowa's
views as to the mistake of supposing Volcanus to have been a god of smiths,
bee above, p. 123 (May 23).
5 Ennius, Fragm. 5. 477 ; Virg. Aen. 5. 662. « C. I. L. vi. 826.
MENSIS SEXTILIS 211
The aedes Volcani in circo Flaminio was dedicated before
215 B. c. ; the exact date is not known ]. Its position was
explained by Vitruvius 2 as having the object of keeping con-
flagrations away from the city. Mr. Jevons, in his Intro-
duction to a translation of Plutarch's Quacstiones Romanae3,
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 Aust4, and the chief
area Volcani, or Volcanal, was in the Comitium, in the heart
of the city 5.
ix KAL. SEPT. (AuG. 24). MUNDUS PATET.
This does not appear in the calendars. We learn from
Festus 6 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 quadrata7 — the concave hollow being perhaps
supposed to correspond to the concave sky above8. 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 9.
I am much inclined to see in this last idea a later Graeco-
Etruscan accretion upon a very simple original fact. O. Mtiller
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
Liv. 24. 10. 9. 3 Vitruv. i. 7. i.
Roman Questions, xviii. * de Aedibus sacris, p. 47 foil.
What this was we do not really know : there were several of them
(Preller, ii. 150).
Fest. 154, from Ateius Capito ; Macrob. i. 16. 17.
Plut. Rom. ii ; Ovid, Fasti, 4. 821. Plutarch wrongly describes it as
being in the Comitium.
* This seems to be meant by Cato's words quoted by Festus, 1. c. ' Mundo
nomen impositum est ab eo mundo quod supra nos est. . . eius inferiorem
partem veluti consecratam dis Manibus clausam omni tempore nisi his
diebus (i. e. the three above mentioned) maiores c[ensuerunt habendam],
quos dies etiam religiosos iudicaverunt.'
9 Fest. 128. So Varro, ap. Macrob. i. 16. 18 ' Mundus cum patet, deorum
tristium atque inferum ianua patet.' Lex. s. v. Dis Pater, 1184; Preller,
ii. 68.
r 2
212 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
that it was thepenus of the new city — a sacred place, of course —
used for storing grain, we can see why it should be open on
Aug. 24 \ 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'2 — ideas familiar to Eomans who
had come under the spell of Etruscan religious beliefs.
vni KAL. SEPT. (Auo. 25). N*.
OPIC[ONSIVIA]. (ALLIF. MAFP. VALL.)
OPICID. (PINC.) The last two letters must be a cutter's
error.
FERIAE OPI ; OPI CONSIV. IN EEGiA. (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* has pointed out that in December the
same interval occurs between the Consualia (isth) and the
Opalia (i9th). This and the epithet or cognomen Consiva,
which is fully attested4, 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 8. 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 Khea. 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 6, or
the Tursa lovia of the Iguvian inscription so often quoted.
Both adjectival and genitive forms are in my view no more
1 Miiller-Deecke, Etrusker, ii. 100. Plutarch is explicit : avapxai re TTOVTUV,
offois vofiy n%v us va\ois (\pa>vTot <f>van £J ws dvayKalfus, dirtTtdijaav tvrav&a.
See above on the Consualia for the practice of burying grain, &c.
* Macrob. i. 16. 17. For similar ideas in Greece see A. Mommsen,
Heortologie, 345 foil.
3 de Perils, vi. 4 Varro, L. L. 6. 21 ; Ftstus, 187.
* Varro, L. L. 5. 57 and 64 ; Festus, 186 ; Macrob. i. 10. 19. So Preller,
ii. 20. The keen-sighted Ambrosch had, I think, a doubt about it (Studien,
149), and about the conjugal tie generally among Italian deities. See his
note on p. 149.
* Gell. 13. 23. Ops Toitesia (if the reading be right) of the Esquiline vase
(Jordan in Preller, ii. 22) may be a combination of this kind (toitesia, conn,
tutus ?J : cf. Ops opifera.
MENSIS SEXTILIS 213
than examples of the old Italian instinct for covering as much
ground as possible in invoking supernatural powers1; 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 2.
Of the ritual of the Opiconsivia we know only what Varro
tells us 3 : ' Opeconsiva dies ab dea Ope Consiva, quoius in Kegia
sacrarium, quod ideo actum (so MSS.) ut eo praeter Virgines
Vestales et sacerdotem publicum introeat nemo.' Many con-
jectures have been made for the correction of ' quod ideo
actum ' 4 ; but the real value of the passage does not depend on
these words. The Kegia is the king's house, and represents
that of the ancient head of the family : the sacrarium Opis was
surely then the sacred pcnus 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 5 — 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 Columella6 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
1 Wissowa himself goes so far as to say that male and female divinities
were joined together ' non per iustum matrimonium sed ex officioruui
adfinitate,' op. cit. vi.
2 Op. cit. vii. ; Mommsen, C. I. L. 327 declines to follow him here.
3 L. L. 6. 20. The MSS. read Ope Consiva : so Mommsen in C. L L. 327.
Wissowa adopts the other form.
1 See Mommsen, 1. c., and Marquardt, 212.
* See on Vestalia above, p. 147, and Marq. 251.
' Colum. 12 4. Cited in De-Marchi, II Culto private di Roma Antica (Milan,
i8g6\ p. 56. See my paper in Classical Review for Oct. 1896: vol. x.
p. 317 foil.
214 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
debere eos flumine aut perenni aqua priusquam penora con-
tingant ablui. Propter quod his necessarium esse pueri vel
virginis ministerium, per quos promantur quae usus postula-
verit.'
vi KAL. SEPT. (Auo. 27). JP.
VOLTlUKNALIA]. (ALLIF. MAFF. VALL.)
FERIAE VOLTTTRNO. (ABV. 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 occur-
rence 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 '. 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 river2, 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 3, who writes ' Tiberinus ... a pontificibus in-
digitari solet.' Of a god Tiberinus there is no single early
record.
It should just be mentioned that Jordan 4, relying on
Lucretius, 5. 745, thought it probable that Volturnus might
be a god of whirlwinds ; and Huschke 5 has an even wilder
suggestion, which need not here be mentioned.
1 C. 1. L. 327. * Preller, ii. 142. * Aen. 8. 330.
4 In Preller, ii. 143. la the passage of Lucretius Volturnus is coupled
with Auster : ' Inde aliae tempestates ventique secuntur, Altitonam Vol-
turnus et Auster fulmine pollens.' Columella (ii. 2. 65) says that some
people use the name lor the east wind (cp. Liv. 22. 43).
8 Rom. Jahr, 251.
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 Komani (sth to igih)1, and
the 1 3th (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 Koman agri-
cultural 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 2. 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 cani-
1 This represents the length which the ludi had attained in Cicero's
time (Verr. i. 10. 31). September 4 was probably added after Caesar's
death (Mommsen in C. /. L. 328;.
a C. /. L. 281.
21 6 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
culam et aequinoctium autumnale oportet stramenta desecari,
et acervos construi, aratro offringi, frondem caedi, prata irrigua
iterum secari1.'
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 cam-
paigns 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 wars2; and we have evidence that the Ides of September
was the day on which the earliest consuls laid down their
office3. 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 farm4.
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 I9th ; they spread out in
fact on each side of the Ides s, the day on which took place the
' epulum Jovis ' in the Capitoline temple. As this day was also
1 R. R. i. 33.
2 See Mommsen's masterly essay in his R&mische Forschungen, vol. ii.
p. 42 foil. Aust, in Myth. Lex. s.v. luppiter, 732.
3 Mommsen, Rom. Chronol. 86 foil.
4 The ' equorum probatio,' preliminary to the races in the circus, took
place on the day after the Ides : see above, p. 27.
5 Mommsen (C. I. L. 328, and Rom. Forsch. ii. 43 foil.) points out that
the real centre-point and original day of the ludi proper was the day of the
great procession (pompa) from the Capitol to the Circus maximus ; and
that this was probably the isth, two days after the epulum, because
the i4th, being postriduanus, was unlucky, and that day was also occupied
by the 'equorum probatio.' ^See Fasti Sab., Maff., Vail., Amit. and Antiat.)
MENSIS SEPTEMBER 2IJ
the dies natalis of the same temple, and that on which the nail
was driven into the wall of the cella Jovis a, 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 2. We have from a later
time the formula of such a vow preserved by Livy '. 'Si
duellum quod cum rege Antiocho sumi populus iussit id ex
sententia senatus populique Eomani confectum erit, turn tibi,
luppiter, populus Romanus ludos magnos dies decem continues
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 Idea of November and to the ludi plebeii, as it does not
happen to be alluded to by Livy in connexion with the ludi
Komani, and our first notice of it in September is in the
Augustan calendars4. 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 temple8. 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
1 See below, p. 234. For the dies natalis, see Aust, in. Lex. s.v. luppiter,
p. 707 ; Plutarch, Poplic. 14.
2 Mommsen, Rom. Forseh. 1. c.
8 Livy, 36. 2. 3. The passage refers to ludi magni, i. e. special votive
games, vowed after the fixed organization of the ludi Romani ; but it is
none the less illustrative of the latter, as they originated in votive games.
* So Marq. 349 and note ; Mommsen in C. I. L. 329, 335. I follow
Aust, Lex. s. v. luppiter, 732^ The ' epulum Minervae ' of the rustic
calendars is but slender evidence for an ancient and special connexion
of the goddess with this day ; but Mommsen thinks that the epulum
'magis Minervae quam lovis fuisse.*
s Aust, 1. c.
2l8 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
one1. Then took place the epulum proper2, 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 \
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 influence4. It answers rather, he says,
to such domestic rites as the offering to Jupiter Dapalis
described thus by Cato in the De Re Eustica 5 : ' Dapem hoc
modo fieri oportet. lovi dapali culignam vini quantum vis
polluceto. Eo die feriae bubus et bubulcis, et qui dapem
facient. Cum pollucere oportebit, sic facies. lupiter 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. lupiter dapalis,
macte istace dape pollucenda esto. Macte vino inferio esto.
Vestae, si voles, dato 6. Daps lovi assaria pecuina, urna vini
lovis caste.'
1 Aust, Lex. B. v. luppiter, 670, 735.
4 In Capitolio (Gellius, 12. 8. a ; Liv. 38. 57 5). For the collegium of
epulones, which from 196 B.C. had charge of this and other public feasts,
see Marq. 347 foil.
3 Val. Max. 2. i. a ; Plin. N. H. 33. in ; Aust, 1. c. ; Preller, i. 120.
4 Marq. 348.
8 B. R. 132. Festus (68) explains daps as ' res divina quae fiebat aut
hibernu semente aut verna,' and Cato directs the farmer to begin to sow
after the ceremony he describes. I do not clearly understand whether
Marquardt intended also to connect the epulum Jovis of Nov. 13 with the
autumn sowing.
8 I am unable to offer any explanation of these words, though half
inclined to suspect that Vesta was the original deity of this rite of the
farm, and that Jupiter and the wine-offering are later intrusions.
MENSIS SEPTEMBER
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 ' :
Ante focos dlim scamnis considere longis
Mos erafc, et mensae credere adesse decs.
Nunc quoque cum fiunt antiquae sacra Vacunae,
Ante Vacunales stantque sedentque focos.
Or again in the sacra of the curiae, if Dionysius reports them
rightly2, 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 3.
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 cere-
monial 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
1 Fasti, 6. 307. For Vacuna see Preller, i. 408.
* Bk. a. 23 (cp. a. 50) ; Marq. 195 foil. For a comparison of Greek and
Roman usage of this kind see de Coulanges, La Cite antique, p. 132 foil.
3 He compares this common meal with those of the irpvravtia of Greek
cities, and also with the </><5ma at Sparta. But it is most unlikely that
the practice of the curiae should have had any but a native origin.
220 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 l ; 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 * 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 3.
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 '.
1 See cap. 7 of Ambrosch's Studien ; and cp. cap. i on the Regia as the
older centre.
a I may relegate to a footnote the further conjecture that the original
deity of the epulum was Vesta. We know that this Sept. 13 was one of
the three days on which the Vestals prepared the mola salsa (Serv. Eel.
8. 32). We cannot connect this mola salsa with the cult of Jupiter on this
day, for the Vestals have no direct connexion with that cult at any period
of the year ; but it is possible that it was a survival from the time when
the common meal took place in the Regia.
3 See Aust's admirable and exhaustive article on Jupiter in Reseller's
Lexicon.
4 Robertson Smith (Religion of the Semites, 42 foil.) seems to trace the idea
back to an actual physical fatherhood. Mr. Farnell, on the other hand
(Cu.'te ofilie Greek States, i. 49), believes that in the case of Zeus it expresses
MENSIS SEPTEMBER 221
The ' father ' in this case has no wife, though we find the word
'mater' applied to goddesses1 ; 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 Juno2. 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 3.
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-life4. 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 h.
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
deity6. Everything points to a stage of religious thought in
which the personality of gods had no distinct place. The
' rather a moral or spiritual idea than any real theological belief concern-
ing physical or human origins.' In Italy, I think, the suffix pater
indicates a' special connexion with a particular stock, and one rather of
guardianship ttian of actual fatherhood. See above on Neptunalia.
' See Jordan's note on Preller, i. 56.
1 See my paper in Classical Review, vol. ix. 474 foil.
3 Wissowa, de Feriis, p. 6, in the true spirit of Italian worship, concludes
that it was ' non per iustum matrimonium, sed ex officiorum affinitate.'
* Biicheler, Umbrica ; Brenl, Les Tables Eugubines.
5 Tab. i B. ^Biichtler, p. a, takes it as a temple or sacellum of Juno'.
6 Grabovius is an epithet of Mars ; Sancius of Fisius ; Jovius or Juviua
of more than one deity.
222 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 *.
It is on a hill also that we find the cult among the
Sabellians. An inscription from Kapino in the land of the
Marrucini tells us of a festal procession in honour of 'lovia
loves patres ocris Tarincris,' Le. Jovia (Juno?) belonging to
the Jupiter of the hill Tarincris 2.
Among the Oscan peoples the cult-title Lucetius is the most
striking fact. Servius 3 says : ' Sane lingua Osca Lucetius est
luppiter dictus a luce quam praestare hominibus dicitur.'
The same title is found in the hymn of the Roman Salii4,
and is evidently connected with lux; Jupiter being beyond
doubt the giver of light, whether that of sun or moon. So
Macrobius 6 : l Nam cum lovem accipiamus lucis auctorem,
unde et Lucetium Salii in carminibus canunt et Cretenses Am
rrjf rffiepav vocant, ipsi quoque Eomani Diespitrem appellant ut
diei patrem. lure hie dies lovis 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 Jupiter6. 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 con-
1 Farnell, op. cit. i. 50 and notes.
4 Mommsen, Unieritalische Dialekten, 341 ; Lex. 637. The Jupiter Cacunus
of C. I. L. 6. 37 1 and 9. 4876 also points to high places, and there are other
examples.
3 Aen. 9. 567. * Wordsworth, Fragments and Specimens, p. 564.
* Sat. i. 15. 14.
' Deecke, Etruakische Forschungen, iv. 79 foil.
MENSIS SEPTEMBER 223
ception. Even here, however, the stimulus can hardly be said
to have come from Italy. 'The one fact,' says Aust1, 'which
is at present quite clear is that the oldest Etruscan repre-
sentations 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 Koman triumphator a, 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 If pas ydnos described by Ovid (A mores,
3. 13), and found also in many parts of Greece8. In this
elaborate procession Juno is apparently the bride, but the
bridegroom is not mentioned; At Argos, Zeus was the bride-
groom, 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 pene-
tration 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 *.
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 R ; and that she was, or came to be thought of as, the
first-born daughter of Jupiter is placed beyond a doubt by an
1 Lex. s. v. luppiter, p. 634.
* Servius Ed. 10. 27 ; Diet, of Antiquities fed. a\ s.v. Triumphus.
3 Farnell, i. 184 foil. See also Dion. Hal. i. ai. a ; Deecke, Die Falisker,
p. 88 ; Lex. s.v. Juno, 591 ; Roscher, Jvno und Hera, 76.
* Lex. 643.
s H. Jordan, Symbolae ad historiam reltgionum Italicarum alterae. K6nigsberg,
1885.
224 TUE R<>MAN FESTIVALS
inscription of great antiquity first published in 1882 '. 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 Divina-
tione, 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 lovis pueri (sacellum?) qui lactens cum lunone 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 " — and no scholar was more careful in
his judgements — that in the whole range of Italian religions
' libeiorum procreatio nulla est unquam ' : and ho would
understand 'filia' in the inscription quoted above in a meta-
phorical rather than a physical sense. Yet however we
choose to think of it, Mommsen is justified in remarking3 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.
1 ' Orceria • Numeri • nationu • cratia • Fortuna • Diovo • filei • primocenia •
donom dedi ' (C. I. L. xiv. 2863). There are later inscriptions in which
she appears as ' lovis (or lovi) puero,' in the sense of female child (C. I.L.
xiv. 2862, 2868). The subject is discussed by Mommsen in Hermes for
1884, p. 455, and by Jordan op. cit. See also Lex. s. v. Fortuna, 1542 foil.,
and s. v. luppiter, 648.
" Symbolue, i. p. 8, and cp. 12. For the apparent parallel in the myth of
the birth of Mars see on March i.
s Hermes, 1884, p. 455 foil.
MENSIS SEPTEMBER 225
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 * ; 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 lupiter Piter"2 are now proved to belong to Fortuna as
lovis puer ( = filia}. It is most singular that Fortuna should
be thus styled lovis puer in th« 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 lovis, so that we actually read lovi pucro. 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 3 :
1 Gellius, N. A. 5. 12 ; Ovid, Fasti, 3. 429 foil. ; and see above on May 21.
For Hercules, Jordan 1. c. and his note on Preller, ii. 298. For Caeculus,
Wissowa, in Lex. a. v. a C. I. L. xiv. 2862 and 2868.
3 The trio, signa of Liv. 23. 19, placed ' in aede Fortunae ' by M. Anicius
after his escape from Hannibal, with a dedication, may possibly have been
those of Fortuna and the two babes (Preller, ii. 192, note i) : but this is
very doubtful.
226 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 l, of the type of the Greek KovporpoQos,
i. e. a mother, sitting or standing, with a child, and occasionally
two children2 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 pucr luppitcr qui Anxyrus
dicebatur quasi avev £vpov, id est sine novacula : quia barbam
nunquam rasisset : et luno virgo quae Feronia dicebatur V
True, the Jupiter of Anxur is a boy or youth 4, 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 pucr Iiippiter 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 5. 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
1 Jordan, Symtolae, 10 ; Lex. s. v. Fortunae, 1543 ; Fernique, fitude sur
Preneste, 78.
2 Gerhard, Antike Bilduxrke, Tab. iv. no. i, gives an example : the children
here, however, are not babes, and the mother has her arms round their
necks. It seems more to resemble the types of Leto with Apollo and
Artemis as infants (Lex. a. v. Leto, 1973), as Prof. Gardner suggests to me.
3 Ad Aen. 7. 799. t * Lex. s. v. Iiippiter, 640.
* See Fernique, Etude sur Preneste, pp. 79-81.
MENSIS SEPTEMBER 227
placed the names of divinities and heroes on designs borrowed
from Greek models, and often representing a subject which
they did not understand1.'
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 2. 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 3. 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 4 :
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-top5, the conspicuous
religious centre of the whole Latin stock inhabiting the plain
below. Of this stock he is the uniting and protecting deity ;
1 Fernique, op. cit. p. 79.
* Fernique, 139 foil. Wissowa writes of Praeneste as 'a special point
of connexion between Latin and Etruscan culture ' (Lex. s. v. Mercurius,
2813).
3 Plutarch, Parallela, 41. 4 See at end of April, p. 95.
'" Liv. i. 31. 3 ' visi etiam audire vocem ingentem ex summi cacuminis
luco, ut patrio ritu sacra Albani facerent.'
228 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 sacri-
ficial 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 * show that,
as in the worship of the Fratres Arvales and in that of the
curia°, 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 z : and it is just possible that, as
Niebuhr supposed3, 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-
br^feding 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 lovis 'in quo fuit fagus arbor quae lovis (so MSS.)
sacra habebatur * ' : and the god himself was called Fagutalis.
1 e.g. the vases of very primitive make (Henzen, Ada Fralr. Arc. 30).
3 Liv. 27. ii (B.C. 209).
J Niebuhr, Hist, of Rome, ii. 37. Strong arguments are urged against
this view by Aust, Lex. 696.
* Paul. Diac. 87. The lucus is mentioned in the corrupt fragments of the
Argean itinerary (see on May 15) in Varro, L. L. 5. 50 (see Jordan, Topogr.
ii. 242) : where I am inclined to think the real reading is ' Esquiliis cis
lovis lucum fagutalem ' ; ' luppiter Fagutalis' in Plin. N. H. 16. 37;
a 'vicus lovis Fagutalis,' C. /. L. vi. 452 (no A. D.).
MENSIS SEPTEMBER 229
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 ancient1. 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 Rome2. 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 lovis 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:!.
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 4. 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 Feretrius8 was the great Jupiter of pre-
Etruscan Eome seems to be proved by his connexion with
oaths and treaties, in which he resembles the god of the Latin
1 For luppiter Viminiua and his ara, Fest. 376.
* Liv. i. 10 ; Dionys. a. 34 ; Propert. 5. (4 ) 10.
3 For other examples of this practice see BOtticher, Baumkultus, pp. 73
and 134 ; Virgil, Aen. 10. 423, and Servius, ad loc. ; Statius, Theb. a. 707.
4 Corn. Nep. Atticus, ao ; cf. Mommsen, Res Gestae LHvi Augus'i, p. 53 ; Dion.
Hal. 2. 34. 4. This is apparently what Livy alludes to in i. 10, attributing
it, after Roman fashion, to Romulus : ' Tempi um his regionibus, quas modo
aniino metatus sum, dedico sedem opimis spoliis.' For a discussion of the
shape of this temple see Aust, in Lex. s. v. luppiter, 673. He is inclined to
attribute it (679} to the A. Cornelius Cos&us who dedicated the second
spolia opima in B.C. 428 (Liv. 4. 20'.
* The meaning of the cult-title is obscure ; Lex. s. v. luppiter, 673.
230 THE KOMAN FESTIVALS
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 journeys1. It has been
supposed that this lapis silex was a symbol of the god himself,
like the spear of Mars in the Eegia, and other such objects of
cult2. '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 lovis 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 3. It is not supported by any other statement or
tradition, except an allusion in S. Augustine4 to a 'lapis Capito-
1 Paul. Diac. 92 ; Serv. Aen. 12. 206.
" Aust, in Lex. 676 . . The idea is that of Helbig in his Ilaliker in der
Poebene, 91 foil. Cp. Schwegler, Rom. Gesch. i. 68r, and Preller, i. 248 foil.
H. Nettleship, Essays in Latin Literature, p. 35, and Strachan-Davidson
(.Polybius, Prolegomena, -viii) discuss the oath per lovtm lapidem usefully.
Nettleship saw that the passage of Servius is the only one which 'gives
any real support ' to the notion that the god was represented by a stone ;
and Strachan-Davidson notes the aetiological method of Servius.
3 Cp. his note on the ' sceptrum ' (Aen. 12. 206), which he explains as
being the substitute for a 'simulacrum' of Jupiter. Was this 'simulacrum*
a stone ? If so he would have said so. Obviously he knew little or
nothing about these cult-objects.
* de Civ. Dei 2. 29. S. Augustine couples it with the focus Vestne, as
something well known : and this could not be said at that time of any
object in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius. The epithet Capitolinus would
suit the stone of Terminus far better ; and this is, in fact, made almost
certain by Servius' language when speaking of Virgil's ' Capitoli immobile
saxum ' (Aen. g. 448), which he identifies with the ' lapidem ipsum Ter-
mini.' Doubtless if we could be sure that such a stone existed, we might
guessthat it was anaerolite (Strachan-Davidson, p. 76, who quotes examples).
MENSIS SEPTEMBER 231
linus,' which is surely the stone of Terminus (see below) : and
by the oath 'per lovem 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 ' luppiter 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 '.
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 implements2, 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. Tylor3. 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 stone4 (privos
lapides siliccs) 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 \ 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 handiwork6. We may think then of the cult of
1 So Nettleship, 1. c. : and Strachan-Davidson, 1. c.
3 He quotes Plin. N. H. 37. 135 ' cerauniae nigrae rubentesque et similes
securibus.'
s Communicated to Mr. Strachan-Davidson, and mentioned by him in
a note (op. cit. p. 77). An instance in Ret/el, History of Mankind, vol. i.
p. 175. The other suggestion, that it was a meteoric stone, is also quite
possible : for Greek examples, see SchOmann, Griech. Alterthumer, ii. 171 foil.
4 Liv. 30. 43.
5 We may compare the 'orbita' of the cult of Jupiter Sancius at
Iguvium : Biicheler, Umtrica, 141. See above, p. 139.
6 It may be as well to say, before leaving the subject, that I certainly
agree with Mr. Strachan-Davidson that the ordinary oath, 'per lovein
232 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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', '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 ponti-
fices ", 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 Aventine8, the
cult-title being identical with the latter part of the word
' aquaelicium 4. ' 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-giver5: and that this was
one of the functions of Jupiter is fully attested, for later times
at least6.
But it must be confessed that the evidence is very slight ~ :
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
lapidem,' where the swearer throws the stone away from him (described
by Polybius, 3. 25), has nothing to do with the ritual of the Fetials.
1 Festup, p. 2. Cp. 128, where this stone is distinguished from the
other, which was the ' ostium Orci.' Serv. Aen. 3. 175.
a Serv. 1. c. Marquardt, and Aust following him, add the matrons with
bare feet and the magistrates without their praetexta : but this rests on
the authority of Petronius (Sat. 44), who surely is not writing of Borne,
where the ceremony was only a tradition, to judge by Fest. p. a.
3 Varro, L. L. 6. 94.
* 0. Gilbert, ii. 154: adopted by Aust, 658, who adds some slight
additional evidence : e. g. the ' lovem aquam exorabant * of the passage
from Petronius.
* Tylor, Prim. Cult. ii. 235-7 '• f<>r the Greek Zeus, Farnell, Cults, i. 44 foil.
' Preller, i. 190. I cannot say that I find evidence earlier than the
passage of Tibullus, i. 7. 26 (Jupiter Pluvius).
7 Note that the Flamen Dialis is not mentioned along with the Ponti-
fices by Servius, 1. c.
MENSIS SEPTEMBER 233
' si deus, si dea es ' should always be borne in mind in attempt-
ing to connect gods and ceremonies. And this ceremony, like
that of the Argei ' (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 magic2.' 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 repre-
sentative of the rain-making god : and in time of drought
his priests earned the stone in procession and dipped it in
a stream3.' 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
rain4. 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 5.
But this discussion has already been carried on as far as
the scope of this work permitsk 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, whieh bears closely on the question with
which we set out. That question was, whether the distinctly
anthropomorphic treatment of Jupiter in the ' epulum lovis '
could be explained by any native Italian practice in his cult (as
1 See on May 15.
3 Golden Bough, i. u foil. ; Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, 595 foil. ; abundant
examples in the works of Mannhardt, see indices.
* From Samoa, by G. Turner, p. 145.
* Compare together Nonius, 547. 10 ; 559. 19 (s. v. trulleum), from
Varro; Festus, 128, s. v. 'manalis lapis,' from Verrius Flaccus. The
suggestion that the stone was hollow is 0. Gilbert's.
* Aust, Lex. 657, who believes the Romans to have been mistaken. The
locus classicus is Ovid, Fasti, 3. 285 foil. ; a more rational account in Liv.
i. 20 ; Plin. N. H. a. 140. Note the position of the altar of this Jupiter,
i. e. the Aventiue.
234 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 repre-
sentations 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 lovis ' was introduced from Etruria by the Etruscan
dynasty wrhich 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 Eomans 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 Koman cult of Jupiter what
Tacitus asserts of the Germans of his day : : ' nee cohibere
parietibus deos neque in ullam humani oris speciem adsimulare
ex magnitudine caelestium arbitrantur : lucos ac nemora con-
secrant, deorumque nominibus appellant secretum illud quod
sola reverentia vident.'
September 13 was also the day on which, according to Livy2
and Verrius Flaccus 3, 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 4 of the locus classicus for this
subject in Livy has made it almost certain that the Eoman
scholars were here in error : that the ceremony was not an
annual one, but took place once in a century, in commemora-
1 Germania, 9. * 7. 3. * Festus, 55.
4 In Rom. Chronologie, p. 175 foil. Preller (i. 258) had already seen that
the ceremony was a religious one. but believed it to be annual, and used for
the reckoning of time.
MENSIS SEPTEMBER 235
tion 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 ' : 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 Kome 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) davi figcndi 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.
1 'An sich hat derNagel gewiss mit dem Jahre nichts zu thun, sondern
steht in seiner natiirlichen und wohlbekannten Bedeutung der Schicksals-
festung, in welcber er als Attribut der grausen Nothwendigkeit (saeva
Necessitas), der Fortuna, der Atropos bei rfimischen Schriftstellern und
auf italischen Bildwerken begegnet.' Mommsen, op. cit. 179. He allude.",
of course, to Horace, Od. i. 35, and 3. 24, and to the Etruscan mirror
mentioned by Preller (p. 259) : see Gerhard, Etr. Spiegel, i. 176. But tho
interpretation of this mirror, as given by Preller, seems to me very
doubtful.
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*. 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 2. 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 1 1 th) 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
festival3, and the words of a lex regia (ascribed to Numa)
which forbade wine to be sprinkled on a funeral pile 4. Pliny
also expressed a decided opinion that viticulture was multo
serior : and lately Hehn ft 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
1 c. i. L. i'. 281.
8 Varro, E. R. i. 34. Pliny, N. H. 18. 315 : ' Vindemiam antiqui nunquam
exist! ma vere maturam ante aequinoctium, iam passim rapi cerno.' Sec.
319 ' lustuni vindemiae tempus ab aequinoctio ad Vergiliarum occasum
dies xliii.'
3 See above, p. 97.
* Pliny, N. H. 14. 88 'Vino rogum ne*respargito.' Cp. 18. 24.
8 Kulturpflanzen, &c., p. 65.
MENSIS OCTOBER 237
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 i). N.
[FIDEI] IN CAPITOLIO. TIGILL[O] SOBOR[IO] AD COMPITUM
ACILI. (ARV.)
The sacrifice here indicated to Fides in the Capitol is clearly
the one which Livy ascribes to Numa ' : ' Et soli Fidei sol-
leinne instituit. Ad id sacrarium flamines bigis, curru
arcuato (i.e. 'covered') vehi iussit, manuque ad digitos usque
involuta rem divinam facere: significantes fideni 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 2.
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. i. 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 Flarnen 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 '. was pure and clean, as was the mind
of the pledger 4. A sacred object, statue or victim, was often
1 i. 21. Dion. Hal. 2. 75. The significance of this covered vehicle seems
to be unknown.
3 Many passages might be collected to bear out Dionysius' remarks : the
reader may refer to Preller, i. 250 foil.
3 Pliny, N. H. xi. 250. So 'dextram fidemque dare.'
4 Wissowa, in Lex. e. v. Fides, Preller. i. 251. Serv. Aen. i. 292 and 8.
636 : but Serv. in the latter note says ' Quia fides tecta esse debet et velata.'
238 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
thus wrapped or tied with fillets (vittae) ; and the nv<mn in the
Eleusinian mysteries seem to have worn a crocus-coloured band
on the right hand and right foot '. 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 ' 2.
A word about the tigillum sororium3. 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*. 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 5. As it
seems, however, to have been a single beam, without supports
except the street walls6, I am unable to understand this con-
clusion ; and as the Koman 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 Sororia7, 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 Koscher 8, that the germ of the
legend is to be found in the practice of creeping through a split
1 Libanius, Ded. 19 ; Photius, s. v. Kpotcow (Botticher, Baumkidtus, p. 43)
ol ftvarai els <paal Kpuicy rrjv Sf£idv X('Pa Ka* r^v ifuSa dvaSovvrat,
* Hor. Od. i. 35. 21.
3 The authorities for this and the altars connected with it are Livy, i.
26 ; Dion. Hal. 3. 22 ; Festus, 297 and Paul. 307 ; Aur. Viet. 4. 9 ; Schd.
Bob. ad Oic. p. 277 Orelli ; Lydus de Mensibus, 4. i.
* Kiepert u. Huelsen, Formae urbis Bomae antiquae, p. 92 and map i ;
Jordan, Tapogr. ii. 100.
s So Roscher, in Lex. s. v. lanus, 21 ; Gilbert, Topogr. i. 180, who would
make it the 'porta lanualis ' of Macrob. I. 19. 17, wrongly.
* It is always in the singular, e.g. ' Transmisso per viam tigillo,' Livy,
1. c. Dionys. writes as if it were originally a iugum, i. e. two uprights and
a cross-beam, but does not imply that it was so in his day.
7 The altars are mentioned by Festus, Dionyg., and Schol. Bob.
* Lex. s.v. Janus, 21; quoting Grimm, Deutsche Myth. (E. T. 1157,
quotation from White's Selbome).
MENSIS OCTOBER 239
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 l : ' Quibusdam piacularibus sacrifices 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 2. 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 sister3.
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.
IOVI FULGURI, IUNONI CURRITI 4 IN CAMPO. (ARV. PAUL.)
Of these worships in Rome nothing else is known. luno
Curitis is the goddess of Falerii, whose supposed if pas ydpos was
referred to above 5.
v ID. OCT. (OCTOBER u). IP.
MEDITRilNALIA]. (SAB. MAFF. AMIT.)
FEBIAE lovi. (AMIT.)
This was the day on which the new wine was tasted. There
is no real evidence of a goddess Meditrina. The account in
1 Marquardt, 584.
2 Macrob. i. 9. 16 ' [lanum] lunonium quia non solum mensis lanuarii
sed mensium omnium ingressum tenentem : in dicione autem lunonis
sunt omnes Kalendae.'
3 This Juno may be the 'Weibliche Genius einer 'Frau,' as Roscher
suggests (8.v. Janus, 22; a. v. Juno, 598, he seems to think otherwise"1.
But as she is connected with Janus, I should doubt it. For an explana-
tion of 'lanus Curiatius' cp. Lydus, I.e. tyopos tvftvSiv.
1 Curriti Arv. : Q uiriti] Paul. ' p. 223.
240 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 Medi-
trinalia dicta sunt1.' 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 *.
Note &. The belief that the new wine (mustum) was whole-
some and non-inebriating is discussed charmingly by Plutarch
(Quaest. Conv. vii. i).
Note c. Mommsen, C. I. L. i2. 332, points out that the
real deity here concerned was doubtless Jupiter: see under
Vinalia, p. 86.
in ID. OCT. (OCTOBER 13). IP.
FONT[INALIA]. (SAB. MAFF. AMIT. MIN. ix.)
FERIAE FONT!. (AMIT.)
All we know of this very ancient festival is contained in
a few words of Varro3: 'Fontinalia a Fonte, quod is dies
feriae eius ; ab eo turn 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 4 ;
an ara Fonti on the Janiculum 5 ; and a porta Fontinalis in the
Campus Martius. Fons also appears with Flora, Mater Larum,
1 Paulus, 123 ; Varro, L. L. 6. 21. * Cic. N. D. Hi. 20.
* Henzen, Act. Fr. An. pp. n, 12, 14. * Preller. i. 176.
8 L. L. vi. 22. Cp. Festus, 85.
MENSIS OCTOBER 24!
Summanus, &c., in the ritual of the Fratres Arvales1. 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). IP.
EQtJUS 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 difiiculty,
which meets us elsewhere in the Calendar, e. g. on the Ides
of May (Argei), June i (festival of Carna) 2. 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*. 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 Martius1. The passage is no doubt
characteristic of Timaeus, both in regard to the detail, and the
1 Henzen, Ada Fr. Arc. 146. The deities to whom piacula are here to be
sacrificed are deities of the grove of the Brethren : hence I should con-
clude that this Fons simply represented a particular spring there.
2 de Feriis, &c., p. xi. To me this explanation does not seem quite
satisfactory, though it seems to be sanctioned by Mommsen (C. I. L. i".
332, note on Id. Oct. sub fin.). It is however undoubtedly preferable to
the view I had taken before reading Wissowa's tract, that the omission
was due to an aristocratic neglect of usages which only survived among
the common people and had ceased to concern the whole community.
3 Polyb. xii. 4°.
4 'Ev ?)|U<'pa rtvl KaTcucovrifav iirirov WOAfJtWr^f vpu rqr jroAtwj iv ry
. This is quoted from "TO. vtpl Hi>pp6i>."
242 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 conies from Verrius Flaccus, as represented
in the epitomes of Festus and Paulus Diaconus '. 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,' L e. the
ciconiae nixae, which seem to have been three storks carved in
stone with bills crossing each other7: 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 3. 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 4.
1 Fest. 178 'October equus appellatur, qui in campo Martio mense Oct.
immolatur quotannis Marti, bigarum victricum dexterior. De cuius capite
11011 levis contentio solebat esso inter Suburanenses et Sacravienses, ut hi
in regiae pariete, illi ad turrim Mamiliam id figerent ; eiusdemque coda
tanta celeritate perfertur in regiam, ut ex ea sanguis distillet in focum
participandae rei divinae gratia, quern hostiae loco quidam Marti bellico
deo sacrari dicunt,' &c. Then follow three examples of horse-sacrifices.
Paul. 179 adds no fresh information. Paul. 220 ' Panibus redimibant
caput equi immolati idibus Octobribus in campo Martio, quia id sacri-
ficium fiebat ob frugum eventum, et equus potius quam bos iminolabatur,
quod hie bello, bos frugibus pariendis est aptus.' i,The meaning of these
last words will be considered presently.) Cp. Plutarch, Qu. Rom. 97 ;
probably from Verrius, perhaps indirectly through Juba. Plut. by a
mistake puts the rite on the Ides of December.
a See note in Preller's Regionen der Stadt Rom, p. 174. They are placed
by Kiepert and Hiilsen (map 2) close to the Tiber and near the Mausoleum
of Augustus, and a long way from the old ara Martis. Perhaps the posi-
tion of the latter had changed as the Campus came to be built over.
3 Livy, 35. 10 ; 40. 45 (the censors alter their election sat in Campo on
their curule chairs ' ad aram Martis '). Roscher, Lex. s. v. Mars, 2389.
* What this was is not known : some think a kind of peel-tower.
MENSIS OCTOBER 243
It is probable J, 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 2, before the late Dr. Mannhardt took
it in hand not long before his death3. 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). Eecently, however,
they have been called in question by no less a person than
Prof. Wissowa 4 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.
i. 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 s ; the festivals of Census 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,
Possibly a tower in quadriviis : cf. definition of compitum in Schol. Pers.
4.28.
I Ovid, Fash', 4. 731 foil. ; Prop. 5. (4.) r. 19. See on Parilia and Fordicidia.
II Preller, i. 366 ; Marquardt, 334 ; Schwegler, Rom. Gesch. 11.46 ; Eoscher,
Apollo und Mars, 64 foil
3 Mythologische Forschungen, 156-201.
* de Fern's, ix.
8 I add this (see on Vest alia). Mannhardt had not handled it.
B 2
244 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
to the Jewish feast of Tabernacles ', 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
Koman 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 V There are, I may add, two
points open to doubt here, which Mannhardt does not point out :
(i) the reason here given may be only a guess of Verrius',
and not one generally understood at Rome 3. (2) The con-
cluding 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 V However
this may be understood, we need not quarrel with the con-
clusion s, 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 discoveiy, and its various forms
are now familiar to English readers of Frazer's Golden Sough,
and of Farnell's Cults of the Greek States. Almost eveiy common
animal, wild or tame, may be found to represent the Corn-spirit
at harvest-time in one locality or another, where the nomadic
1 Levit. 23 fin.
2 Had they referred to the crops of the next season we might have
expected ' ob bonum frugum eventum.'
3 So Wissowa, de Feriis, ix. He thinks that it was only an attempt 1o
explain the panes : but he is wrong in insisting that the Vestalia (where,
as we saw, the same decoration occurs) had nothing to do with ' frugum
eventus.'
4 To me it looks as if some words had dropped out of the text, perhaps
after the word eventum ; see the passage quoted above, p. 242, note i.
* Given in Mannhardt's next section, p. 169.
MENSIS OCTOBER 245
age has given place to an agricultural one ; or a man, woman,
boy or puppet represents the animal, and so indirectly the Corn-
spirit l. 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 shape2.
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 a.
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 Dauphine 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 *, 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 Graedzed
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 exanjples 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 ;
1 See under May 15 (Argei).
* Mannhardt has not suggested what scorns not impossible, that the
horse represented Mars himself — in which case we might allow that Mars
was, among other things, a vegetation deity.
3 See his language at the top of p. 164.
* He ingeniously suggests that these cases of decapitation may be
explained by the old custom of cutting off the corn-ears so as to leave
almost the whole of the stalk. (See his Korndtimonen, p. 35.) That this
method existed in Latium seems proved by a passage in Livy, aa. i ' Antii
meteutibus cruentas in corbem spicas cecidisso.'
246 THE KOMAN FESTIVALS
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 iri August : according to Dionysius, these too were
decked out with flowers \ Mannhardt makes also a somewhat
lengthy digression to point out the possibility that in the
original form of the Passover (on which was afterwards en-
grafted 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 Eegia or the turns Mamilia,
is the effigy of the Corn-spirit, which is to bring fertility and to keep
off evil influences for the year to come 2.
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 3. Sometimes it is a bunch of corn
or flowers, as in the Greek Eiresione 4, 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 5, which
in course of time becomes a permanency.
5. The cutting off the tail is explained by the idea that a remnant
Dion. Hal. i. 33, who compares an Arcadian Hippokrateia.
Op. cit. p. 182.
See Golden Bough, i. 68 foil., and Mannhardt, A. W. F. 214 foil.
Mannhardt, A. W. F. I.e.
Mannhardt, Baumkullus, 167.
MENSIS OCTOBER 247
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 '. 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 -), but there is little doubt that virtue
was believed to reside in a tail3. 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 life4;
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\
The Campus Martius, the scene of the sacrifice, was originally
terra regis, cultivated for him by the people 6. 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 7 but
1 p. 185 foil. The tail in Roman ritual was ' offa penita.' Marq. 335,
note i.
3 In Silesia, &c., the word is Zdl, Z61, which I suppose = tail.
* Golden Bough, ii. 65. Jevons, Introduction to Plut. Q. R. p. Ixix. He
quotes an example from Africa.
4 Robertson Smith, Religion of (he Semites, Lect. ix. In this case, according
to M., it was the life of the Corn-spirit—so of generation in general.
* Schwegler, R. G. i. 739 ; Ambrosch, Studien, 200 folL
* Evidence for this in Liv. i 2 ; Serv. Aen. 9. 274.
T See e. g. Crooke's Folklore of Northern India, vol. ii. pp. 176 and 3ar.
Crooke looks on these fights (.he should have said, the possession of the
248 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 Koman calendar, and thus fails to note the turn it took
when Latin farmers became Eoman 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 '. 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 - ; it may be here briefly
referred to again.
On March 14 s there was a horse-race in the Campus Martius ;
on the i pth (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 day4.
object which is the cause of the fight) as charms for rain or fertility.
So in the plains of N.-W. India, ' plenty is supposed to follow the side
which is victorious.'
1 Veram huius sacri rationem inter veteres ii viderunt quorum senten-
tiam ita refert Festus 'equum hostiae loco Marti bellico deo sacrari'
(de Feriis, p. x\ a See under March 14 and 19.
J Wissowa thinks it was originally the isth (Ides) ; but Mommsen
dissents in his note on Oct. 15 (C. T. L. 332). It is the only feast-day in
the calendar which is an even number. Perhaps it was changed because of
the popularity of the revels, &c., on the Ides.
4 Charisius, p. 81 ; Marq. 435.
MENSIS OCTOBER 249
So too on October 15 there was a horse-race, as we have seen,
in the Campus Martius, and on the ipth we find the Armi-
lustrium in the oldest calendars \ a name which tells its own
tale. The inference is that the horse-races on Oct. 15 and
March 1 4 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 develop-
ment 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 community2. It is looking with modern eyes at
1 This point of the parallel was first noticed by Wissowa, who. as just
noted, believes the day of Equirria to have been in each case the Ides.
* An apt illustration of this aspect of Mars, in combination with the
older primitive form of ritual, is supplied by the strange sacrifice by
Julius Caesar of two mutinous soldiers, recorded by Dio Cassius, 43. 24.
250 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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.
xrv KAL. Nov. (OCTOBER 19). IP.
ARM[ILUSTRIUMJ. (ARV. SAB. MAFP. 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
autlustro, quod circumibant ludentes ancilibus armati1.' 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 ' 2 — 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*. 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 4, 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 i. 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.
They were offered to Mars in the Campus Martius by the Flamen Martialis
in the presence of the Pontifices, and their heads were nailed up on the Regia.
(Hence Marq. infers that it was this flamen who sacrificed the October
horse.) Caesar was in Rome in October of the year to which D. C.
attributes this deed, B.C. 46.
1 L. L. 6. 62. Cp. Festus, 19 'Armilustrium festum erat apud Romanes,
quo res divinas armati faciebant ac dum sacrificarent tubis canehant.'
See on March 19 and 23.
- Liv. 37. 33. 7. Cp. Polyb. at. 10. la.
8 Marq. 437, note i. The suggestion was Huschke's, Earn. Jahr, 363.
* Charisius, pp. 8r. so (Keil), for lustratio in March. The word Armi-
lustrium, used for this day, speaks for itself.
MENSIS OCTOBER 25!
We learn from Varro ' that the place of lustralio on this day
was the Aventine 'ad circum maximum.' I can find no explana-
tion of this : we know of no Mars-altar in that part of Rome,
which was the seat of the cults of Hercules and Census. It
was probably the last point in a procession of the Salii 2.
1 L. L. 5. 153.
3 We have a faint indication that they reached the pons sublicius, which
was quite near to the Circus maximus. See Marq. 433, note 8.
MENSIS NOVEMBER.
OF all the months in the Eoman year November is the least
important from a religious point of view. It was the month
of ploughing and sowing — not of holiday-time l ; 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 2,
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
year3 ; they and the epulum lovis (Nov. 13) are first mentioned
by Livy four years later. The epulum has already been dis-
cussed in connexion with the ludi Komani. The plebeian
games were probably at first on a single day (Nov. 13), and
were gradually extended, like the ludi Eomarii ; finally, they
lasted from Nov. 4 to Nov. 17*.
The 8th was one of the three days on which the mundus was
open : see under Oct. 5.
ID. Nov. (Nov. 13). H>.
FERONIAE IN CAMPO 5. (ABV., a later addition to the original.)
FOBTUNAE FRiMiGENiAE 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
1 Rustic calendars : ' Sementes triticariae et hordiar[iae].* Varro, R. R.
1-34-
" Mommsen in C. I. L. i.s 333.
3 Friedlander in Marq. 499 ; Liv. 23. 30.
* See the table in C. 1. L. i.a 335.
* Probably these notes belong to the Ides. In the Arval calendar the
MENSIS NOVEMBER 253
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 l. 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 2, and on
the whole her attributes seem to be those of a deity of fertility
and plenty 3. 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 4. In the year 217 B. c. the Roman freedwomen
collected a sum of money as a gift to Feronia 5 ; 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 ;. Manumissions would take
entry is opposite the i4th, but from its position may be really meant as an
additional note to the Ides. There is no other example of religious rites
on a day after Ides. (Henzen, Arv. 240 ; C. /. L. i.2 296.) The same was
the case with all ' dies postriduani.'
1 See under Cerialia and Floralia.
a Liv. i. 30. Roman merchants were seized by the Sabines in this
market (Dion. Hal. 3. 32).
* Steuding in Lex. s. v. Feronia; Liv. 26 n. I cannot see any reason
to connect her with November sowing, as Steuding does, p. 1480.
* Serv. Aen. 8. 564. * Liv. 22. i.
* The cutting of the hair, and putting on of the pileus. See Robertson
Smith, Religion of Semites, p. 307.
254 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 Eoman
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 Primi-
genia (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 Evander1. The date of the introduction of this cult of
Fortuna at Rome is 204 B. c. 2
1 Serv. Aen. 1. c. The myth must be Graeco- Etruscan.
2 Liv. 29. 36. The dedication was 194 B. c. (lav. 34, 53).
MENSIS DECEMBER
IN the middle of winter, until well on in January, the
Roman husbandman had comparatively little to do. Varro 1
writes of sowing lilies, crocuses, &c., and of cleaning out
ditches and pruning vines, and such light operations of the
farm. Columella 2 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 ' 3 several festivals which are at once antique and obscure,
and almost all of which seem to carry us back to husbandly
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 sth the rustic Faunalia in some parts of Italy, though
probably not in Rome ; on the i sth the winter Consualia ; on
the 1 7th the Saturnalia ; and on the i gth 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 * ; but the date does
1 R. JR. i. 35. a ; Colum. a. 8. a. * xi. a.
3 Cp. Hor. Od. 3. 18, 9-12. Ovid (Fasti, 3. 57) says of December —
Yester (i. e. Faustuli et Larentiae) honos veniet, cum Larentalia dicam ;
Acceptus Geniis ilia December habet.
Is this only an allusion to Larentia and Faustulus, or also to the general
character of the month and its festivals ?
* Plut. Cic. 19 ; Dio Cass. 37. 35.
256 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
not seem to have been a fixed one \ 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 imperioV It
seems to have been in some sense a State sacrifice, i. e. it was
' pro populo Komano ' (according to Cicero) ; but it was not ' pub-
lico sumptu '3, 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 i. 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 4 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 5.
NON. DEC. PEC. 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. 1 8), and from the
comments of the scholiasts thereon :
Faune, Nympharum fugientum amator,
Per meos fines et aprica rura
Lenis incedas abeasque parvis
Aequus alumnis,
1 Cic. ad Att. i. is, and 15. 25.
* Cic. de Harusp. resp. 17. 37 'fit per Virgines Vestales, fit pro populo
Romano, fit in ea domo quae est in imperio.' In 62 B c. it was in
Caesar's house, and apparently m the Regia, if as pontifi.x inaximus he
resided there. See Marq. 346, note i ; 250, note 2.
3 Fest. 245 publica sacra are ' quae publico sumptu pro populo fiunt.' See
my article ' Sacra' in Diet, of Antiquities.
4 Juvenal, 2. 86. « a. 83 foil. ; 6. 314 foil.
MENSIS DECEMBER 257
Si tener pleno cadit haedus anno,
Larga nee desunt Veneris sodali
Vina craterae, vetus ara multo
Fumat odore.
Ludit herboso pecus omne campo
Cum tibi Nonae redeunfc Deceinbres ;
Festus in pratis vacat otioso
Cum bove pagus ;
Inter audaces lupus errat agnos ;
Spargit agrestes tibi silva frondes;
Gaudet invisam pepulisse fossor
Ter pede terrain.
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
4 Brownies ' and do harm, but is capable of doing good if duly
propitiated. On the Nones of December, possibly of other
months too l, he is coaxed with tender kid, libations of wine,
and incense2; 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 doubt3, 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*, 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
1 Probua on Virg. Georg. i. 10 ' In Italia quidam annuum sacrum,
quidam menstruum celebrant.'
1 The word is 'odore,' i.e. sweet herbs of the garden (Marq. 169 and
note).
* See on Lupercalia, p. 313. * lav. 33. 42.
8
258 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
the idea that Faunus was the deity of the Lupercalia came in
about the same time '. 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 Kex Aboriginum2, and the third on the list of
mythical kings of Latium '. 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 Koman 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 Home 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 4.
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.
(i) Faunus is connected with favere, and means 'the kind or
propitious one,' like Faustus and Faustulus, and as some think,
Favonius s and Fons. This derivation was known to Servius 6 :
'quidam Faunos putant dictos ab eo quod frugibus faveant.'
1 The earliest hint of the connexion of Faunus with Evander and the
Palatine legend is found in a fragment of Cincius Alimentus, who wrote
at this time (H. Peter, Fragm. Hist. Lat. 41, from Servius, Georg. i. 10).
2 Dion. Hal. i. 31 ; Suet. Vitett. i. Cp. for a more truly Italian view,
Virgil, Aen. 8. 314 foil.
* Aen. 7. 45 foil. The order was Saturnus, Picus, Faunus, Latinus.
4 Wissowa in Lex. s. v. Faunus, 1458 : who, however, does not sufficiently
explain the contrast. Silvanus became tutor finium, and custos hortuli
(cp. Groniatici Veteres. p. 302). It was probably this turn given to his cult
which saved him from the fate of Faunus. He takes over definite duties
to the cultivator, while Faunus is still roaming the country in a wild state.
* Bouch6-Leclercq. Hist, de la Divination, iv. 122.
* Ad Georg. i. 10.
MENSIS DECEMBER 259
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 '.
(2) Faunus is from /an, i. e. the speaker, or foreteller. This
too was known to Latin scholars : thus Isidorus (perhaps from
Varro2), 'fauni a fando, OTTO rJjs ^wi/ijs 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 "', 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 mis-
conceived : 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 winds4. The characteristics of
Faunus are of course veiy 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 Jitterati 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.
(i) There is fairly strong evidence that Faunus was not
1 Schwegler, Rom. Oesch. i. 351.
* Varro, L. L. 7. 36 ' Faunos in silvestribus locis traditum est solitos
fari futura.' Servius identifies Faunus and Fatuus ; ad Aen. 6. 775.
3 'Versibus quos olim Fauni vatesque canebant.' Ennius in Varro,
L. L 7. 36. See Nettleship, Essays in Latin Literature, p. 50 foil.
* Mannhardt, A. W. F. 113 foil.
8 2
260 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
originally conceived as a single deity, but as multiplex. Varro
quotes the line of Ennius :
Versibus quos olim Fauni vatesque canebnnt,
and comments thus1 : '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 siinul Faunique pedem Dryadesque puellae*.
Servins 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 com-
mentator 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 earn
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 Eoman deity. We seem
in the case of Faunus to be able to catch a deity in the pro-
cess 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 Eoman acquain-
tance with Pan and the Satyrs3. 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
Eoman authorities were wholly misled — is the ivoodland character
of the Fauni. A passage of Varro, of which I quoted the first
1 L. L. 7. 36.
3 Geoig. i. 10. The introduction of the Greek Dryads may be thought
to throw suspicion upon the Latinity of these Fauni of Virgil. But in
Aen. 8. 314, the similar conjunction of Fauni and Nymphae is followed
by words which seem to mark a true Italian conception.
3 Lex. s.v. Faunus, 1454.
MENSIS DECEMBER 261
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 l
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 them-
selves: a 'genus indocile et dispersum montibus altis/ living
on the forest-clad hills 2, 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 n. 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 repre-
sentatives of what Preller has called 'the period of Faunus V
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 5.
(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. Por-
phyrion6 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 pestilentein,' thus
1 Aen. 8. 314.
2 Cp. Ovid, Fasti, 3. 315 'Di sumus agrestes et qui dominemur in altis
Montibus,' &c. Cp. Preller, i. 386.
3 Monumenti Antichi, vol. v. (Barnabei). Von Duhn, translated in
Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1896, p. 120 foil.
* Rom. Myth. i. 104 foil.
5 Virg. A en. 8. 60 r, and Serv.'s note: ' Prudentiores dicunt eum esse
V\IKOV Bt6v, hoc est deum v\rjs.' Silvanus may have been a true tree-spirit ;
Mannhardt, A. W. F. 118 foil. ; Preller, i. 392.
6 Vol. i. 335, ed. Hauthal.
262 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 pi-ay ers preserved by Cato '.
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 *. 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 3.
(4) The last characteristic of tho 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 Numa4, 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 Eoman 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 5 write of these voices with
a distinctness which (as it seems to me) admits of no suspicion
that they are inserting Greek ideas into Eoman 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 6,
1 See above, p. 126. It may be noticed that the Bona Dea, whose solemn
rite occurs also at the beginning of this month, was identified with Fauna,
the female form of Faunus (R. Peter, in Lex. s.v. Fauna) ; i.e. their
powers for good and evil were thought to be much alike.
* Preller, i. 381 and reff. » See under Lupercalia, p. 320.
4 Ovid, fasti, 3. 291 foil. I am glad to see that Wissowa accepts this
story as genuine Italian (Lex. s.v. 1456).
5 Cic. deDiv. 1. 101 ; Livy, a. 7 (Silvanus), and Dion. Hal. 5. 16 (Faunus)
of the battle by the wood of Arsia.
* Fasti, 4. 649 foil.
MENSIS DECEMBER 263
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 condi-
tions necessary to success — the continence of the devotee, and the
removal of the metal ring from the finger. Virgil, with some-
thing more of foreign adornment, tells in exquisite verse what
is really the same story as Ovid's '. 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 2. 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 5. 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.
1 Am. 7. 81 foil. * Calpurnius, Ed. i. 8 foil.
* Cp. Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 341 foil. ; Sir A. Lyall, Asiatic Studies,
Cll. 2.
264 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 '. 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 in-
gredients in their composition : (i) 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 Eye -wolf and
many another animal corn-spirit now familiar to readers of
Frazer's Golden Bough ; sometimes entirely human, like Silvanus,
perhaps Faunus himself2, 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
1 Antike TFa'rf- und Fddkvlte, p. 152.
* See the cuts of two bronze statuettes which Wissowa, following
Reifferscheid. believed to represent the un-Graecized Italian Faunus, at
the end of the article 'Faunus' in Lex. 1460. But it is at least very
doubtful whether Reifferscheid was right in his opinion.
MENSIS DECEMBER 265
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.
in ID. DEC. (Dec. n). !PP.
AG. IN. . . . (AMIT.). AG[ONIA] (MAFF. PRAEN. ANT.)
SEPTIMONTIA (PHILOC.). 8EPTIMONTIUM, GUID. SILV.1
For Agonia see on Jan. 9.. This (Dec. u) 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 0. /. L., vol. i, to indicate 'Agonium
Inui ' 2 ; 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 3. 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 dry. It was only a conjecture of Sculiger's (though
a clever one) that completed the gloss in Festus on the word
' Septimontium ' 4 (Septimontium dies ap'pellatur mcnse (Decemlri
qui dicitur infastis agonaliu. The word Septimontium suggested
itself, as the gloss occurred under letter S. Other support for
the conjecture i& found in the two late calendars, and in
a fragment of Lydus s, 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 Septimon-
tiale sacrum. The latter does not appear in the old calendars,
1 By an error Silvius has entered it on the xath.
1 For Inuus f-ee on Lupercalia, and Livy, i. 5.
3 de FeritSj xii. His other argument, that Inuus is not a nomen, but
a cognomen, is less satisfactory. Can we always be sure which is which ?
(e.g. Saturnus, Janus).
4 Festus, p. 340.
4 de Mensibus, p. 118, ed. Bekk. ; quoted by Mommsen, C. I. L. i'. 336.
266 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
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 informa-
tion to divine its nature, but without details. The word is
used by Varro both in a topographical and a religious sense :
'Ubi nunc est Horna, erat olim Septimontium ; nominatum ab
tot montibus, quos postea urbs muris comprehenditV 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 nonpopuli sed montanorum modo, ut Paganalia,
quae sunt aliquoius pagi V
The monies 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 3. T believe that Mommsen is
right in thinking that these were never political divisions — in
other words, that they were not originally distinct communities1,
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 O-VKOIKIO-^O? — but the extension of a city from one
strong position to another 6. 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 settle-
1 L. L. v. 41. * Ibid. vi. 24.
1 Antistius Labeo, ap. Festum, 348 : '^Septimontio, ufc ait Antistius Labeo,
hisce montibus feriae. Palatio, cui sacrificium quod fit Palatuar dicitur.
Veliae, cui item sacrificium, Fagutali, Suburae, Cermalo, Oppio, Cispio
monti.' Before 'Cispio' the MS. has ' Caelio monti,' which must be
a copyist's blunder. The Subura ds by courtesy a wows; also a pagus
(Festus, 309% a regio (ib.\ and a tribus (ib.).
4 Staatsrechtj iii. 1 12. O. Gilbert has made a great to-do about the develop-
ment of these communities; Qesch. u. Topogr. i. 39 foil. But where else
will he find three distinct settlements in a space as small as that of the
Palatine ? The discoveries at Falerii and Narce would have saved him the
labour of much web-spinning. Plutarch, Q. R. 69, has (accidentally
perhaps) expressed the matter rightly.
* Monumenti Antichi, vol. v. p. 15 foil.
MENSIS DECEMBER 267
ment ; i. e. that it was the absorption by an older settlement
of a probably uninhabited position which hei'e took place, and
not the synoecizing of distinct political communities '. 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 city2. 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 s.
All we know of the cult of the montani on this day is as
follows: (i) There was a sacrifice on the Palatium (which
seems to have been the first in dignity of the montes) by the
Flamen Palatualis 4 ; but we do not know to what deity, and
can only guess that it was Pales, or Palatua s. (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 ". 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 AVENTINJp]. (AM1T.)
xviii (ANTE CAES. xvi7) KAL. IAN. (DEC. 15). IP.
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 Census
1 Mon. Ant. p. no foil. (Barnabei). a Cic. de Domo, 28. 74.
3 At Ariminum, and Antioch in Pisidia (Mommsen, Stuatsrecht, iii. 113,
notel .
4 Festus, 348, cp. 245. * Preller, i. 414.
* Q. R. 69. Plutarch docs not say in what parts of the city the vehicles
were forbidden. The feast existed in his day, and indeed long afterwaids
(Tertull. Idololutr. 10). It seems to have become a general feast of the whole
people. 7 Macrob. i. 10. a.
268 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
arose from the habit of inspecting the condition of the corn-
stores in mid-winter 1. 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 clc
Feriis, vi foil.
xvi (ANTE CAES. xiv2) KAL. IAN. (DEC. 17). IP.
SATURNALIA. (MAFF. AMIT. GUID. BUST. PHILOC.)
FERIAE SATUKNO. (MAFF. AMIT)
SATUEN[O] AD FO[KUM]. (AMIT.)
FERIAE SERVORUM. (siLV.)
This was the original day of the Saturnalia s, 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 4 : Augustus limited it to three in respect
of legal business, and the three were later increased to five 5.
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 6, occur-
ring about the time of the winter solstice. Unfortunately,
it is here onee 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.
1 See below on Saturnalia, p. 271.
2 Macrob. i. 10. 2. Macr. tolls us that after the change some people in
error held the festival on the igth, i. e. on the day which was now xiv
K . Ian.
1 Hartmann, Der Rom. Kalender, p. 203 foil., thinks it was originally one
of the feriae conceplivae, like the Compitalia, Paganalia, &c., and only
became fixed (statifae) when it was reorganized in 217 B. c. But if so,
why is it marked in the calendars in large letters ? And Hartmann
himself points out (p. 208) that Dec. 17 is the first day of Capricornus, i.e.
the coldest season, which in the oldest natural reckoning would be likely
to fix the day (Colum. ir. a. 94).
4 Macr. I.e. ; Cic. Att. 13. 52. 5 Mommsen, C. I. L. i. 337.
* Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 172 ; Brand, Popular Antiquities, ch. 13 ; Usener,
Rdigionsgeschichtliche Untcrsuchungen, i. 214 foil. See for Italy, Academy, Jan.
20, 1888.
MENSIS DECEMBER 269
That Saturnus was an old agricultural god admits, however,
of no doubt ; the old form of the word was probably Saeturnus,
which is found on an inscription on an ancient vase ', and this
leads us to connect him with serere and satio ; and popular tradi-
tion attributed to him the discovery of agricultural processes -.
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 neighbour-
hood " ; and this conclusively proves that he was never what
may be called popular as a deity. As the first king of Lutium
there were plenty of legends about him, or as the first civilizer
of his people, the representative of a Golden Age 4 ; but no
one has as yet thoroughly investigated these r>, 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 oypidum 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 G, 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 7, the Latinized form of Plutus ; in the temple was
the aerarium of later Rome 8, 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
1 C. L L. i. 48. But Prof. Gardner tells me that the reading Saet. is
not certain.
3 Macrob. i. 10. 19 foil. ; r. 7. 24 and 25 ; Marq. p. n note 3. The con-
junction of Ops with him in this function is rejected Brightly, I think) by
Wissowa, de Feriis, iv. But see below on Opalia.
• s Jordan's note on Preller, ii. 10. * e.g. Virg. Aen. 8. 321.
* See, however, Schwegler, R. G. i. 223 foil.
* Varro, L. L. 5. 42 ; Dion. Hal. i. 34 (cp. 6. 1} ; Fest. 322 ; Solinus, r.
13 ; Servius, Aen. 2. 115 ; Middleton, Rome in i8Sj, p. 166.
7 R. Peter, s. v. Dis in Lex. 1181 ; Macr. i. u. 48.
" Lucan, 3. 153 ; Middleton, op. cit. 167.
270 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
must fail in the bewildering fog of ancient fancy and ancient
learning. Saturnus belongs, like Janus, with whom he was
closely connected in legend ', to an age into whose religious
ideas we cannot penetrate, and survived into Koman worship
only through Greek resuscitation2, and in the feast of the
Saturnalia. All we seem to see is that he is somehow con-
nected with things that are put in the earth 3 — 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 marJcet, and that market-days (nundinae) were said to be
sacred to him 4. 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
there6. 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 wrote the
dialogue supposed to have taken place on the three days of the
Saturnalia, and called by that name. Seneca tells us that in
his day all Rome seemed to go mad on this holiday 6. Probably
its vogue was largely due merely to the accident of fashion,
1 Preller, ii. 13 ; i. 182.
* The temple was traditionally dated B. c. 497 (Livy, a. at) ; cp. Aust,
de Aedibus sacris, p. 4 : so too the festival, though both had an older
origin (Ambrosch. Stud. 149). The latter was reorganized in Greek fashion
in obedience to a Sibylline oracle in B.O. 217 (.Livy, 22. i).
3 Plut. Q. B. 34 notes the cult of such gods when all fruits have been
gathered.
* Macr. i. 8. 3 and i. 16. 30 (also, but probably in error, attributed to
Jupiter). Plut <?. JR. 42, and Poplic. 12, states it distinctly ; but there is
no indication of the source from which he drew.
8 Cp. the legendary connexion of both with ship-building and the
coining of money ; though it is of course possible that this was simply
suggested by the Janus-head and the ship of early Roman coins.
' Seneca, .Ep. 1 8. i. Martial is full of Saturnalian allusions ; e.g. 12.62.
MENSIS DECEMBER 27 1
partly perhaps to misty ideas about the Golden Age and the
reign of Saturn ' ; but it seems to be almost a general human
instinct to rest and enjoy oneself about the time of the winter
solstice, and to show one's good- will towards all one's neigh-
bours 2. In Latium, as elsewhere, this was the time when the
autumn sowing had come to an end, and when all farm-labourers
could enjoy a rest*. Macrobius alludes also to the completion
of all in-gathering by this date : ' Itaque omni iam fetu agrorum
coacto ab hominibus hos deos (Saturnus and Ops) coli quasi
vitae cultioris auctores V The close concurrence of Consualia,
Opalia, and Saturnalia at this time seems to show that some
final inspection of the harvest work of the autumn may in reality
have been coincident with, or have immediately preceded, the
rejoicings of the winter solstice.
There are several well-attested features of the Saturnalia as
it was in historical times *. On Dec. 1 7 there was a public
sacrifice at the temple (formerly the am) of Saturn by the
Forum 6, followed by a public feast, in breaking up from which
the feasters shouted ' lo Saturnalia ' 7. During the sacrifice
Senators and Equites wore the toga, but laid it aside for the
convivium, which reminds us of the ritual of the Fratres Arvales,
except that the toga was in the latter case the praetexta8. These
proceedings of the first and original day of the festival might
seem pretty clearly to descend from the religion of the farm,
yet the convivium is said by Livy to have been introduced as
late as 217 B. c. ".
1 Popularized, of course, by the poets : Virg. Georg. ii. 538 ; Tibull. i. 3.
35, &c-
3 Was this one of the reasons why Christmas was fixed at the winter
solstice ? Cp. John Chrysostom, torn. iii. 497 e : quoted by Usener,
op. cit. p. 217.
3 Varro, R. R. i. 35. a ' Dum in xv diebus ante et post brumam ut
pleraque ne facias.' Columella, a. 8. 2, seems to follow Varro. Virg.
Georg. i. 211 extends the time 'usque sub extremum brumae intractabilis
inibrem' (cp. Serv. ad loc.).
4 Sat. i. 10. 19 and 22, and Dion. Hal. 3. 32 ; Plut. Q. R. 34.
* See Marquardt's excellent summary in Staatsverwaltung, iii. 357, and
Preller, ii. 15 foil.
' Dion. Hal. 6. i. Fasti Amit. Dec. 17. We do not know who was the
sacrificing priest ; perhaps the Bex Sacrorum, or a magistrate.
7 Macrob. i. 10. 18.
* Martial, 14. i ; at least this seems to be the inference from 'Synthesi-
bus dum gaudet eques dominusque senator.' Cp 6. 24.
' Livy, 22. i. 19 ' lectisternium imperatum et convivium publicum.'
272 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
On the 1 8th and igth, which were general holidays, the day
began with an early bath ' ; then followed the family sacrifice
of a sucking pig, to which Horace alludes in familiar lines :
Cras genium mero
Curabis et porco bimenstri
Cum film ul is operuin solutis2.
Then came calls on friends, congratulations, games, and the
presentation of gifts 3. All manner of presents were made, as
they are still at Christmas : among them the wax candles (cerei)
deserve notice, as they are thought to have some reference, like
the yule log, to the returning power of the sun's light after the
solstice. They descended from the Saturnalia into the Christ-
mas ritual of the Latin Church *. The sigillaria, or little paste
or earthenware images which were sold all over Rome in the
days before the festival s, and used as presents, also survived
into Christian times ; thus, in the ancient Romish Calendar,
we find that all kinds of little images were on sale at the con-
fectioners' shops, and even in England the bakers made little
images of paste at this season d. What was the original mean-
ing of the custom we do not know ; but it reminds us of the
oscilla of the Latin festival and the Compitalia \
But the best known feature of the Saturnalia is the part
played in it by the slaves, who, as we all know, were waited on
by their masters, and treated as being in a position of entire
equality. The earliest reference to this is in a fragment of
Accius, quoted by Macrobius 8 :
lamque diem celebrant, per agros urbesque fere cranes
Exercent epulas laeti, famulosque procurant
Quisque sues : nostrique itidem, et mos traditus illino
Iste, ut cum dominis famuli epulentur ibidem.
But even this custom, as Marquardt points out, may not have
been of genuine Latin origin : ' Though the Romans looked
1 Tertull. Apol. 43.
3 Odea, 3. 17. Cp. Martial. 14. 70. The pig-offering indicates an earth-
deity: Henzen, Acta Fratr. Arc. p. 22 ; Marq. 173.
3 Martial, bk. 14, is the locus dassicus for all this.
4 Brand, Pop. Ant. 183.
* Macr. i. 10. 24 ; n. 49. In the latter passage he says 'quae homines
pro se atque suis piaculum pro Dite Saturno facerent.'
' Brand, 180.
7 Marq. 192, and the passages there quoted.
* Sat. i. 7. 37. For later evidence see Marq. 588.
MENSIS DECEMBER 273
on it as a reminiscence of the Golden Age when all men were
equal, it may have begun with the lectisternium of 217 B. c.,
for such entertainments were a characteristic of lectisternia.'
When we turn, however, to the same author's account ' of the
Greek forms of religion introduced through the Sibylline oracles,
of which the lectisternium was one, we do not find slaves
included in the ritual of any of them. There was no general
exclusion of outsiders or women, but nothing is said of slaves.
And on the whole we may still perhaps consider the other
explanation possible, that the slaves here represent the farm-
servants of olden time, whatever social position they may have
held, who at the end of their year's work were allowed to enjoy
themselves 'exaequato omnium iure.'
xiv (ANTE CAES. xn) KAL. DEC. (DEC. 19). IP.
OPAL[IA]. (MAFF. AMIT.)
FEEIAE OPI : OPI AD FORUM. (AMIT.)
For Ops see on Aug. 25, when the sacrifice was in the Eegia,
the significance of which I endeavoured to explain. Here it is
'ad forum,' which has lately aroused a little unfruitful dispute.
Is the temple of Saturn meant, which was also described as
' ad forum ' in the same calendar ? This is still the view of
Mommsen 2, who seems to hold the old opinion that there was
a sacellum Opis attached to the aedes Saturni, or that this aedes
was dedicated to both deities s. H. Jordan made up his mind
that ' ad forum ' meant the Regia 4 ; but this is not supported by
any similar entry in the Fasti. Aust and Wissowa believe that
Ops had a separate temple 'ad forum,' of which all traces are
lost, as has happened with many others 5 ; and the latter, as
we have already seen, disbelieves in any connexion between
Saturnus and Ops. attributing it entirely to Greek influence.
However this may be, the one interesting fact about the
1 p. 50, and note 13. * C. I. L. i1. 337.
3 O. Gilbert (i. 247 note) holds this latter view.
• Ephem. Epigr. i. 37. Wissowa (de Feriis, v] points out that all such
entries, in which the god's name in the dative is followed by the place of
sacrifice, apply to consecrated temples only — and the Regia was not one.
5 Aust, de Aedibus sacris Populi Romani, p. 40. Wissowa, L c., who should
not, I think, write of an aedes inforo.
274 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
temple— or whatever it was— is that it was ' ad forum.* The
conjunction of Saturnus and Ops at this place and time must
surely indicate some connexion of function between the two.
But what it was is not discoverable ; under Saturnalia I have
merely suggested the direction in which we may look for it.
xn (ANTE CAES. x). KAL. IAN. (DEC. 21). JP.
DIVA[LIA]. (MAFF. PBAEN.)
Praen. adds a terribly mutilated note, which Mommsen thus
fills up from stray hints in Varro, Pliny (following Verrius), and
Macrobius x :
FERIAE I>rVA[E ANGERONAE, QUAE AB ANGINAE MORBOJ APPELL-
[ATUR, QUOD REMEDIA EIUS QUONDAM] PRAE[CEPIT. STATUE-
RUNT EAM ORE OBLIGATO] IN ARJA VOLUPIAE, UT QUI NOJSSET
N[OMEN] OCCUL[TUM URBIS, TACERET. SJUNT TAMEN, [QUI FIERI
ID SACRUJM AIUNT OB AN[NUM NOVUM ; MANIJFESTUM ESSE
[ENIM PRINCIPIUJM [A]NNI Novfij.
The date given by Pliny and Macrobius proves that Angerona
was the deity of the Divalia ; but the etymology of the latter is
useless, and the statement of Pliny as to the statue with the
mouth gagged and sealed fails to give us any clue to the nature
or function of the goddess2. Angerona is, in fact, the North
Pole of our exploration : no one has ever reached her, and
probably no one ever will. The mention of Volupia by Macro-
bius gives no help ; she is only elsewhere mentioned as one
of the numina of the Indigitamenta by Augustine 3. The only
possible clue is that of which Mommsen has taken advantage in
the veiy clever completion of Verrius' last words, viz. the fact
that this day (2ist) is the centre one of the winter solstice.
1 Varro, L. L. 6. 23 ' Angeronalia ab Angerona, cut sacrificium fit in
curia Acculeia et cuius feriae publicae is dies.' Pliny, N. H. 3. 5. 65
'Nomen alterum dicere [nisi] arcanis caerimoniarum nefas habetur ; . . .
non alienum videtur hoc loco exemplum religionis antiquae ob hoc
maxime silentium institutae ; namque diva Angerona, cui sacrificatur
a.d. xii Kal. Ian., ore obligate obsignatoque simulacrum habet.' Macr.
Sat. i. 10 'xii (Kal. Ian.) feriae sunt divae Angeroniae, cui pontifices in
sacello Volupiae sacrum faciunt ; quam Verrius Flaccus Angeroniam dici
ait, quod angores ac sollicitudines animorum propitiata depellat.'
2 See Wissowa, s.v. Angerona, Lex. 350.
* Civ. Dei, 4. 8.
MENSIS DECEMBER 275
He here even allows himself an etymology, and derives Angero-
nalia ' ab angerendo, id est ano TOV di>a<f>(p«rdai TOV rfitov ' : quoting
Plutarch (de Isidc, ch. 52) for similar Egyptian ideas of the
sun s birth at this time. Though the etymology may be doubt-
ful, the inference from the date of the festival is certainly
acceptable, in the absence of anything more definite : and the
' Praenestine fragments ' clearly suggest the word ' annus. '
x (ANTE CAES. vin) KAL. IAN. (DEC. 23). IP.
LAE[ENTALIAj. (MAFF. PRAEN.)
Here again Praen. has a valuable note, which, in this case, is
fairly well preserved : FEKIAE icvi. ACCAE LAKENTIAE.
. . . HANC ALII KEMI ET ROM[uLI NUTRICEM ALIl] MERETRI-
CEM, HERCULIS SCORTUM [FUISSE DICJUNT : PARENTARI El
PUBLICE, QUOD p[oPULUJtt] RJOMANUMJ HE[REDEM FECEJRIT
MAGNAE PECUNIAE, QUAM ACCEPEjfiAT TESTAMEJNTO TARUTILI
AMATORIS SUI \
As regards the feriae lovi we are utterly in the dark.
Macrobius explains it thus : * lovique feriae consecratae, quod
aestimaverunt antiqui animas a love dari et rursus post mortem
eidem reddi,' which is obviously a late invention. I can see
no possible connexion of Jupiter with the Larentalia, and believe
the conjunction to be accidental.
Mommsen writes : ' De origine Larentalium ipsiusque Laren-
tinae indole ac natura parum constat.' He himself has investi-
gated the myth of Acca Larentia in a memorable essay 2, and
we may take his opinion on the Larentalia as at present con-
clusive. It is to be noted, however, that the view he formerly
held as to the impossibility of connecting Larentia and Lares 3
is not re-asserted in the new edition of the Corpus (vol i) ; the
connexion, he says, may be right, but does not help us to
explain the 'feriae lovi' or the parentatio (performance of
funeral rites) at the grave of Larentina (or Larentia).
This parentatio seems to me the one thing known to us about
1 Macrob. Sat. i. 10. n ; Fest. 119 ; and Lact. Inst. i. 20. 4 mention the
Larentalia.
' Horn. Farschungen, vol. ii. p. i foil. See also Roscher, s.v. in Lex. 5.
3 Cp. Ovid, Fasti, 3. 55.
X 2
276 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
the Larentalia which can possibly aid us. We are told by Varro
that it took place in the Velabrum, ' qua in Novam viam exitur,
ut aiunt quidam, ad sepulcrum Accae V The Flamen Quiri-
nalis took part in it, and the Pontifices 2. Now the Parentalia
took place in February. Is it possible that this is a survival
from a time when it was in December — a survival, because it
was at the tomb of a semi-deity, and was a public function 3 ?
It is very curious that we have a record of a private parentatio
wilfully transferred from February to December, and probably
to this day. Cicero, in a mutilated passage from which Plutarch
has apparently drawn one of his ' Eoman Questions,' seems to
have stated that Dec. Brutus (consul 138 B.C.) used to do his
parentatio in December *. Whether Cicero was here alluding to
the Larentalia we do not know ; but Plutarch notes the fact of
the parentatio of Larentia in December, and is led thereby to
write the quaestio next in order on the story of Larentia 5. Was
the learned Brutus simply a pedant, changing his parentatio to
a date which he believed to be the real original one, or had he
some special reason for connecting his family with December
and Larentia ?
However we may answer this question, there is, perhaps,
a bare possibility that the Larentalia was originally a feast of
the dead of the old Eome on the Palatine, preserved in the
calendar of the completed city only through the reputed sur-
vival of the tomb of Larentia in the Velabrum at the foot
of the rock.
1 L. L, 6. 23. The passage is in part hopelessly corrupt.
* Gellius, N. A. 7. 7 ; for the Flamen Quir. cf. Gilbert, i. 88. Cic. Ep.
ad Brut. i. 15. 8. Varro, I.e. says vaguely 'sacerdotes nostri.' Plut.
Romulus, 4, gives o ^ov 'Apeos Itpws, wrongly.
3 ' Sacerdotes nostri publice parentant ' ( Varro, 1. c.).
* Cic. de Legibus, a. 21. 54 ; Plut. Q. R. 34.
* Plutarch is often led on in this work from one question to another by
something he finds in the book he is consulting for the first.
MENSIS IANUABIUS.
THE period of winter leisure which began for the agriculturist
in December continued into January. From the solstice to
Favonius (i. e. Feb. 7) is Varro's eighth and last division of the
agricultural year, in which there is no hard work to be done
out of doors (jR. R. i. 36 : cf. Virg. Georg. i. 312 ; Colum. xi. 2).
So too the rustic calendars; 'palus aquitur, salix harundo
caedetur.' Columella tells us, however, that if the weather be
favourable, it may be possible from the Ides of January ' aus-
picari culturarum officia.' We have seen that in December this
easy time was occupied with a series of religious rites of such
extreme antiquity that their meaning was almost entirely lost
for the Eoman of later ages. After the solstice this series
cannot be said to continue : the calendars have only three
festivals in January marked with large letters, the Agonia on
the 9th, and the two Carmentalia on the 1 1 th and i sth. On
the other hand, there were two feriae conceptivae in this month
which do not appear in the calendars ; the Compitalia (which
might, however, fall before the beginning of the month), and
the Paganalia towards the end of it. Both these were originally
festive meetings in which rural folk took part together, and seem
to indicate that agricultural labours had not yet really begun.
KAL. IAN. (JAN. i). F.
[AESCUJLAPIO, VEDIOVI IN INSULA. (PRAEN.)
This temple of Vediovis was vowed by the praetor L. Furius
Purpureo in 200 B. c., and dedicated six years later *. For this
1 Livy, 31. 21 ; 34. 53. The MSS have ' deo lovi ' in the former passage,
and ' lovi s ' in the second ; but it is almost certain that Vediovin in the
278 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
obscure deity see on May 21. The connexion between him and
Aesculapius (if there were any) is unexplained. The latter was
a much older inhabitant of the Tiber island (291 B.C.), and
became in time the special deity of that spot ', which is called
by Dionys. (5. 13) v^aos tvpfytGr]? 'A.(TK\r/irinv if pd. Is it possible
that an identification of Vediovis with Apollo 2 — so often a god of
pestilence — brought the former to the island seat of the healing
deity ? The connexion between Apollo and Aesculapius is well
known.
Another invasion of the island took place almost at the same
time. In 194 B. c. a temple of Faunus was dedicated there
which had been vowed two years earlier 3 ; and it may be
worth noting that Faunus also had power to avert pestilence
and unfruitfulness, as is seen in the story of Numa and the
Faunus-oracle. (Ovid, Fasti, 4. 641 foil.)
On Jan. i, under the later Republic, i. e. after the year
153 B. c., in and after which the consuls began their year of
office on this day, it was the custom to give New Year presents
by way of good omen, called strenae * ; a word which survives
in the French etrennes. It is likely enough that the custom
was much older than 153 B.C.: the word was said to be
derived from a Sabine goddess Strenia, whose sacellum at the
head of the Via Sacra is mentioned by Varro (L. L. v. 47 5),
and from whose grove certain sacred twigs were carried to the
arx (in procession along the Sacred Way ?) at the beginning of
each year 6. But we are not told whether this latter rite always
took place on Jan. i, or was transferred to that day from some
other in 153 B.C.
deity referred to. See Mommsen in C. L L. i". 305 for the confusion in
these passages, and in Livy, 35. 41. (Cp. Ovid, Fasti, i. 291-3.)
1 Livy, Epit. u, and 10. 47 ; Preller, ii. 241 ; Plut. Q. R. 94 ; Jordan,
in Comm. in hon. Momms. p. 349 foil.
1 See under May ai. Deecke, Falisker, 96.
1 Ljvy, 33- 42, 34- 53 ; Jordan, 1. c.
4 These and their later history are the subject of a most exhaustive
treatise by Martin Lipenius, in Graevius' Thesaurus, vol. xii, p. 405. See
also Marq. Privatleben, i", 245. For the sentiment implied in the strenae
see Ovid, Fasti, i. 71 foil, and 175.
* Cp. Fest. 290.
Symmachus, ep. 10. 35 'Ab exortu paene urbis Martiae strenarum
usus adolevit. auctoritate Tatii regis, qui verbenas i'elicis arboris ex luco
Strenuae anni novi auspices primus accepit.'
3 LUDI i
4 LUDI >
5 LUDI I
MENSIS IXNUARIUS 279
in NON. IAN.-NON. IAN. (JAN. 3-5). C.
LUDI ( ,.
PHILOC.) LUDI COMPITALES '
(COMITALIS, MS.)
The Compitalia were not feriae stativae until late in the
Empire, and then perhaps only so by tradition1. They took
place at some date between the Saturnalia (Dec. 1 7) and Jan. 5 ;
and we may infer from Philocalus and Silvius as quoted above
that the tendency was to put them late in that period. Not
being a great state-festival, they could be put between Kalends
and Nones.
The original meaning of compitum is explained by the
Scholiast on Persius, 4. 28 2 'Compita sunt loca in quadriviis,
quasi turres, ubi sacrificia, finita agricultura, rustici celebra-
bant. . . . Compita sunt non solum in urbe loca, sed etiam
viae publicae ac diverticulae aliquorum confinium, ubi aediculae
consecrantur patentes. In his fracta iuga ab agricolis ponuntur,
velut emeriti et elaborati operis indicium3.' From this we
gather that where country cross-roads met, or where in the
parcelling out of agricultural allotments one semita crossed
another4, some kind of altar was erected and the spot held
sacred. This is quite in keeping with the usage of other
peoples : the ' holiness ' of cross-roads is a well-known fact in
folk-lore8. It may be doubted, however, whether the Scholiast
is right in his explanation of the ' fracta iuga,' which may rather
have been used as a spell of some kind, than as ' emeriti operis
indicium.' Thus Crooke 6 mentions an Indian practice of fixing
1 Varro, L. L. 6. 25 'quotannis is dies concipitur' (for the right reading
of the rest of the passage see Mommsen, C. I. L. 305^ Macrobius (i. 16.
6) reckons them as conceptivae, in the fourth century ; Philoc. and Silv.
may bo representing a traditional date for a feast which was iure concepiivus.
So Momms. Cp. Gell. 10. 24. 3, where the formula for fixing £he date is
given ; and Cic. in Pis. 4. 8. It was the praetor (urban us ?) who in this
case made the announcement.
4 Cp. Philargyrius, Georg. 2. 382 ' [compita] ubi pagan i agrestes buccina
convocati solent certa inire consilia' ; no doubt discussion about agricul-
tural matters.
3 Cp. Ovid, Fasti, i. 665, of the Paganalia : 'Rusticus emeritum palo
suspendat aratrum.' vCp. Tibull. ii. i. 5.) Such features were perhaps
common to all these rustic winter rejoicings.
* Orom. Vet. 302. 20 foil.
5 For Greece see Farnell, Cults, ii. 561 and 598.
* Folklore in Northern India, i. 77.
280 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
up a harrow perpendicularly where four roads met, apparently
Avith the object of appeasing the rain-god.
In the city of Kome the compita were the meeting-places of
vlci (streets with houses), where sacella were erected to the
Lares compitales1 — two in each case. For the inhabitants
of the vici which thus crossed each other, the compitum was
the religious centre ; and thus arose a quasi-religious organiza-
tion, which, as including the lowest of the population and even
slaves 2, became of much importance in the revolutionary period
in connexion with the machinery of electioneering. The
' collegia compitalicia ' were abolished by the Senate in B. c. 64,
and reconstituted in B. c. 58 by a bill of Clodius de collegiis.
Caesar again prohibited them, and the ludi compitalicii with
them ; but the latter were once more revived by Augustus and
made part of his general reorganization of the city and its
worship 3.
The Compitalia, which the Komans ascribed to Servius
Tullius or Tarquinius Superbus4, was probably first organized
as part of the religious system of the united city in the Etruscan
period, though it doubtless had its origin in the rustic ideas
and practice of which we get a glimpse in the passage quoted
from the Scholiast on Persius. Two features of it seem to fit
in conveniently with this conjecture: (i) that already mentioned,
that even the slaves had a part in it, as well as the plebs ;
(2) the fact that the magistri vicorum, who were responsible for
the festival, wore the toga praetcxta on the day of its celebra-
tion4— which looks like a Tarquinian innovation in an anti-
aristocratic sense.
v ID. IAN. (JAN. 9). IP?
AGON. (MAFF. PRAEN.) A mutilated note in Praen. gives
the word Agonium.
It may be doubted whether the Koman scholars themselves
1 Marq. 203 ; Dion. Hal. 4. 14 ; Ovid, Fasti, a. 615 and 5. 140. Wissowa
(Myth. Lex. s.v. Lares, p. 1874) would limit them in origin to the pagi out-
side the septem monies, as the latter had their own sacra.
* Dion. Hal. 4. 14 oil TOVS t\tv6(povs dAAd roiis Sov\.ovs (raft (i.e. Serv.
Tull.) TToptivai rf KOI avvitpovpytiv, wy Kf%apiffiJiiirt]S rois rjpcaai TTJS ruv Qtpa-
•auvriav virripfaias (Cic. pro Sestio, 15. 34).
3 Marq. 204 ; Rusthforth, Latin Historical Inscriptions, p. 59 folL
4 Pliny, N. H. 36. 204 ; Macrob. i. 7. 34 ; Dion. I.e.
5 Asconius, p. 6, K. Sch. Livy, 34. 7. 2.
MENSIS IANUARIUS 281
knew for certain what was meant by AGON, and whether the
explanations they give are anything better than guesses based
on analogy \ Ovid calls the day 'dies agonalis ':
lanus agonali luce piandus erit (Fasti, i. 318).
Nomen agonalem credit habere diem (Ibid. i. 324).
and gives a number of amusing derivations which prove his
entire ignorance. Festus2 gives Agonium as the name of the day
(which agrees with Verrius in Fast. Praen.), and says that
agonia was an old word for hostia. Varro calls the day
'agonalis'3 ; Ovid in another place Agonalia*. A god Agonius
mentioned by St. Augustine5 is probably only an invention
of the pontifices. The fact is that the Eomans knew neither
what the real form of the word was, nor what it meant. The
attempt to explain it by the apparitor's word at a sacrifice,
agone ? (shall I slay ?) is still approved by some, but is quite
uncertain 6.
The original meaning of the word, if it ever were in common
use, must have vanished long before Latin was a written
language. The only traces of it, besides its appearance in the
calendars, are in the traditional name for the Quirinal hill,
Collis Agonus, in its gate, ' porta agonensis,' and its college of
Salii agonenses 7. It would seem thus to have had some special
connexion with the Colline city.
The same word appears in the calendars for three other days,
March 1 7 (Liberalia), May 2 1 (Agon. Vediovi), Dec. 1 1 (Septi-
niontium) ; but it is impossible to make out any connexion
between these and Jan. 9. Nor can we be sure that the
sacrifice (if such it was), -indicated by Agon, had any relation
to the other ceremonies of the days thus marked 8. On Jan. 9
1 SoWissowa, de Feriis, xii note. Cp. his article 'Agonium' in the new
edition of Pauly's Rcal-EncycL
* p. 10. Cp. Ovid, Fasti, i. 331 'Et pecus ahtiquus dicebat agonia sermo.'
3 He uses the plural: 'Agonales (dies) per quos rex in regia arietem
immolat' (L. L. 6. 12). But only Jan. 9 seems to be alluded to.
* Fasti, i. 325 : cf. Macrob. i. 16. 5.
* Civ. Dei, 4. 1 1. 16. Ambrosch (Studien, 149) thinks it possible that Agonius
may have been a god of the Colline city.
* Biicheler, Umbrica, p. 30. B. apparently sees in the TJmbrian ' sakreu
perakneu' an equivalent to 'hostias agonales.' The Iguvian ritual is
certainly the most likely document to be useful ; it at least shows how
large was the store of sacrificial vocabulary.
7 Fest p. 10. For the Salii, Varro, L. L. 6. 14.
* Wissowa, de Feriis, xii.
282 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
Ovid does indeed say that Janus was 'agonali luce piandus,'and
on May 2 1 the Fasti Venusini add a note ' Vediovi ' to the letters
AGON ; but there is no distinct proof that the agonium was
a sacrifice to Janus or to Vediovis. We are utterly in the
dark '.
On this day the Rex sacrorum offered a ram (to Janus?)
in the Regia. Ovid says2 that though the meaning of Agon
is doubtful,
ita rex placare sacrorum
Numina lanigerae coniuge debet ovis.
It is provokingly uncertain whether this ram was actually
sacrificed to Janus : Varro does not say so, and Ovid only
implies it s. But we may perhaps assume it on the ground that
once at least in the ritual of the Fratres Arvales * the ram is
mentioned as Janus' victim.
If this be so, we are carried back by this sacrifice to the very
beginnings of Rome, and get a useful clue to the nature of the
god Janus. The Rex sacrorum was the special representative in
later times of the king ; the king, living in the Regia, was the
equivalent in the State of the head of the household. The two
most important and sacred parts of the house are the door
(ianua, ianus), and the hearth (vesta) 5, and the numina inhabit-
ing and guarding these are Janus and Vesta, who, as is well
known, were respectively the first and the last deities to be
invoked at all times in Roman religious custom. The whole
house certainly had a religious importance, like 'every thing else
in intimate relation to man ; and Macrobius is not romancing
when he says (quoting mythici) ' Regnante lano omnium domos
1 When Varro writes (L. L. 6. 12) that the dies agonales are those in which
the Rex sacrorum sacrifices a ram in the Regia, he may be including all the
four days, and not only Jan. 9. I think this is likely ; but we only know
it of Jan. 9.
1 Fasti, i. 333. Varro L. L. 6. ra ' Agonales (dies) per quos rex in regia
arietem immolat.'
8 Cp. lines 318 and 333.
* Henzen, 144. An 'agna' is the only other animal sacrifice we know
of to Janus (Roscher, in Lex. 42).
* Roscher, in Lex. s. v. Ianus, 29 foil. (cp. for much interesting kindred
matter, De-Marchi, II Culto private, p. 20 foil.). Roscher's attempt to find
an analogy between the Forum and the house is interesting, but unluckily
the positions 'adForum' of the ' Ianus geminus' and the 'aedes Vestae' do
not exactly answer to those of the door and hearth of a Roman house.
MENSIS IANUAK1US 283
religione et sanctitate fuisse munitas V But the door and the
hearth were of special importance, as the folk-lore of eveiy
people fully attests ; and it is hardly possible to avoid the con-
clusion that we must look for the origin of Janus in the ideas
connected with the house-door, just as we have always found
Vesta in the fire on the hearth. Whatever be the true ety-
mology of Janus, and however wild the interpretations of his
nature and cult both in ancient and modern times, we shall
always have firm ground to stand on if we view him in relation
to the primitive worship of the house 2. There is hardly an
attribute or a cult-title of Janus that cannot be deduced with
reason from this root-idea.
The old Eoman scholars, who knew as little about Janus as
we do, started several explanations of a cosmical kind, which
must have been quite strange to the average Roman worshipper.
He was a sun-god s, and his name is the masculine form of
Diana (= moon) ; he was the mundus, i.e. the heaven, or the
atmosphere 4. These were, of course, mere guesses character-
istic of a pedantic age which knew nothing of the old Roman
religious mind. If Janus ever had been .a nature-deity, his
attributes as such were completely worn away in historical
times, or had lost their essential character in the process of
constant application to practical matters by a prosaic people.
How far the Roman of the Augustan age understood his great
deorum deus may be gathered from Ovid's treatment of the
subject, itself no doubt a poetical version of the learned specu-
lation of Varro and others. The poet ' interviews ' the deity
with the object of finding out the lost and hidden meaning of
his most obvious peculiarities, and the old god condescends to
answer with a promptness and good temper that would do
credit to the victims of the modern journalist. The curious
thing is that the real origin, humble, simple, and truly Latin,
1 Sat. i. 9. a ; Procopius, B. G. i. 25, who says that 'Janus belonged to
the gods whom the Romans in their tongue called Penates,' seems to be
alluding to the same connexion of this god and the house.
3 We owe this explanation of Janus chiefly to Roscher's article, and
Roscher himself owed it to the fact that his study of Janus for the article
was a second and not a first attempt. In Hermes der Windgott (Leipzig,
1878) he had arrived at a very different and a far less rational conclusion.
The influence of Mannhardt and the fnlk-lorists set him on the right track.
3 Nigidius Figulus in Macrob. L 9. 8.
* See Roscher, Lex. 44.
284 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
escaped the observation both of the interviewer and the
deity.
Before I state more definitely the grounds on which this
simple explanation of Janus is based, it will be as woll to deal
shortly with the more ambitious ones.
1. The theory that Janus was a sun-god has the support of
Eoman antiquarians ', and was probably suggested by them to
the moderns. Nigidius Figulus, the Pythagorean mystic, seems
to have been the first to broach the idea : we have no evidence
that Varro gave his sanction to it. It was Nigidius who first
suggested the idea of the relation of Janus to Diana (Dianus,
Diana = Janus, Jana), which found much favour with Preller
and Schwegler 2 at a time when neither comparative philology
nor comparative mythology were as well understood as now.
But the common argument, both in ancient and modern times,
has been that which Macrobius quotes from certain speculators
whom he does not name : ' lanum quidam solem demonstrari
volunt, et ideo geminum quasi utriusque ianuae coelestis poten-
tem, qui exoriens aperiat diem, occidens claudat,' &c. It is
obvious that this is pure speculation by a Eoman of the cosmo-
politan age : it is an attempt to explain the Janus geminus as
the representation of one of the great forces of nature. But it
has nothing to do with the ideas of the early Italian farmer.
2. The theory that Janus was a god of the ' vault of heaven '
was also started by the ancients, as may be seen from the
chapter of Macrobius quoted above. Recently it has been
adopted by Professor Deecke in his Etruscan researches 3. He
seems to hold that Janus in Etruria, as a god of the arch of
1 Macrob. i. 9. 9 ; Lydus, de. Mensibus, 4. 6 (who quotes Lutatius).
3 Schwegler, E. G. i. 218 foil.; Preller, i. 168 foil. The etymology is
weak ; the god and goddess have nothing common in cult or myth ; it is
not certain that Diana was originally the moon ; and the great Italian
deities are not coupled together in this way.
3 ii. 125 foil. Cf. Muller's Etrusker (ed. Deecke), ii. 58 foil. Muller, with
his usual good sense, concluded from the evidence that the Latin Janus
was a god of gates ; but he thought that an Etruscan deity of the vault or
arch of heaven had been amalgamated with him. This is not impossible, if
there was really such an Etruscan god ; and Deecke finds him in Ani,
who in Etruscan theology seems to have had his seat in the northern part
of the heaven (Mart. Capell. i. 45) where Janus was also represented in the
templum of Piacen/a (Lex. a. v. Janus, p. 28). But this must remain
a doubtful point, even though Lydus (4. 2) tells us that Varro said that
the god napd &OVOKOIS ovpavb
MENSIS IANUARIUS 285
heaven, was represented on arches and gates in that country,
and came to Rome when the Romans learnt the secret of the
arch from the Etruscans. That the Romans were the pupils of
the Etruscans in this particular seems to be true ; but if Janus
only came to Rome with the arch (Deecke says in Numa's time)
it is hard to see how he could have so quickly gained his pecu-
liar place in Roman worship and legend. I cannot think that
Deecke has here improved on the conclusions of his predecessor.
Speculations about Janus as a heaven-god have been pushed
still further. Here is a passage from a book which is almost
a work of genius1, yet embodies many theories of which its
author may by this time have repented : ' He who prayed
(in ancient Italy) began his prayer looking to the East, but
ended it looking to the West. Herein we find expressed the
conception of the unity and indivisibility of Nature ; whose
symbol is the most characteristic figure of the Italian religion,
the double-headed Janus, the highest god, and the god of all
things, all times, and all gods. He unites the dualistic opposites
which complete the world — beginning and end, morning and
evening, outgoing and ingoing. He is the god of the year,
which finds its completion in its own orbit, and as he is the
god of time, so he is the god of the Kosmos, which like a circle
displays both beginning and end at once.' He then quotes
a passage from Messalla, which Macrobius has preserved, in
support of this astonishing product of the rude mind of the
primitive Roman2. Of this Messalla we only know that he
was consul in 53 B.C., and that (as Macrobius tells us) he was
augur for fifty-five years, in the course of which period, after
the fashion of his day, he wrote works of which the object
was to find a philosophic basis for the quaint phenomena
of the Roman religion. His speculations on the double head of
Janus cannot help us to discover the primitive nature of our
deity ; Janus may have been the ancient heaven-god of the
Latins, but these guesses are the product of a spurious and
eclectic Greek philosophy.
3. There is another possible explanation of Janus, which
is not mentioned in Roscher's article, but is perhaps worth
as much consideration as the two last. Professor Rhys, in
1 Nissen, Templum, p. 228. a Macrob. i. 9. 16.
286 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
his Hibbert Lectures on Celtic Mythology \ somewhat casually
identified Janus with the Celtic god Cernunnos, whom he
considers to be the Gallic deity called by Caesar Dis Pater.
The one striking fact in favour of this equation is that Cer-
nunnos was represented as having three faces, and like Janus.
as a head without a body — the lower portion of the block
being utilized for other purposes2. He seems to have been
a chthonic deity, and is compared to and even identified by
Rhys with Heimdal of the Norsemen and Teutons, who was
the warder or porter of the gods, and of the underworld 3, who
sits as the ' wind-listening ' god, whose ears are of miraculous
sharpness, who is the father of man, and the sire of kings.
Both Cernunnos and Heimdal are thought further to have been,
like Janus, the fans et origo of all things. According to Caesar
the Gauls believed themselves to be descended from their
deity ; and both the Celtic and Scandinavian gods seem to have
had, like the Roman, some connexion with the divisions of
time.
It must be allowed that these two gods taken together supply
parallels to Janus' most salient characteristics ; and even to one
or two of the less prominent and more puzzling ones, such as
the connexion with springs4. It is not impossible that all
three may have grown out of a common root ; but in the cases
of Cernunnos and Heimdal it does not seem any longer possible
to trace this, owing to heavy incrustations of poetical mythology.
In the case of the Roman, the chance is a better one, in spite of
philosophical speculation, ancient and modern.
We return from philosophers and mythologists to early
Rome. The one fact on which we must fix our attention is
that on the north-east of the forum Romanum was the famous
Janus geminus, which from representations on coins 5 we can
see was not a temple, but a gateway, with entrance and exit
connected by walls, within which was, we may suppose, the
double-headed figure of Janus which is familiar on Roman
coins. The same word janus is applied to the gate and to the
p. 93 foil. ; Goes. B. <?. 6. 18.
M. Mowat thought that this was Janus naturalized in Gaul ; but with
Prof. Ehys (p. 81 note) I cannot but think this unlikely.
See Corpus Poeticum Boreale, ii. 465.
Roscher, in Lex. 18 ; Rhys, 1. c. 88.
Reseller, Lex. 17 ; Jordan, Topogr. x. a. 351.
MENSIS IANUARIUS 287
numen who guarded it, lived in it. and was as inseparable from
it as Vesta from the fire on the hearth 1. The word does not
seem to have been used for the gate of a city, but for the point
of passage into a, space within a city, such as a market, or
a street. At Eome there were several such jani 2 ; probably
two or more leading into the forum, as well as the more famous
one, which alone appears to have had a strictly religious signi-
fication3. The connexion of the god with entrances is thus
a certainty, though we are puzzled by his apparent absence from
the gates of the city *. The double head would signify nothing
transcendental, but simply that the numen of the entrance
to house or market was concerned both with entrance and exit.
It is not peculiar to Italy, or to Janus, but is found on coins
in every part of the Mediterranean (Koscher, Lex. 53 foil.): in
no case, it is worth noting, does the double head represent
any of the great gods of heaven, such as Zeus, Apollo, &c., but
Dionysus, Boreas, Argos, unknown female heads5, &c. Its
history does not seem to have been worked out ; but we can be
almost sure that it does not represent the sun, and has no
relation to the arch of heaven.
Now keeping in mind the fact that Janus is the guardian
spirit of entrances, let us recall again the fact that he was the
first deity in all invocations both public and private 6, and that
Vesta was the last 7. Vesta in the house was, as Cicero expresses
it, ' rerum custos intimarum ' ; she presided over the pene-
tralia— the last part of the house to which any stranger could
be admitted ; exactly the opposite position to that of Janus
1 Cic. De Nat. Dearum, a. 27/67 ' Transition es perviae iani, foresque in
liminibus profanarum aedium ianuae nominantur.' Cp. Macrob. i. 9. 7.
a On the whole question see Jordan, Topogr. i. a. 215 foil. Ovid (Fasti,
i. 257) asks the god ' Cum tot sint iani, cur stas sacratus in uno?'
5 From Falerii came another janus, with a four-headed simulacrum,
which was set up in the Forum transitorium (Macr. i. 9. 13 ; Jordan,
Top. i. 2. 348).
* Preller made an attempt, which Roscher approves, to identify Portu-
nus with Janus, Portunus being, according to Varro, 'Deus portuum
portarumque praeses' (Interpr. Veron. Aen. v. 241). But see on Aug. 17.
* The nearest approach to Janus is the Hermes Ovptuos or arp<xf>aTos
(single head only?) and Hermes with two, three, or four heads at the
meeting-points of streets. These are points which suggested to Roscher
in his older work an elaborate comparison of Hermes and Janus
(p. 119 foil.).
* See Marq 25. 26 and notes.
7 Cic. N. D. 2. 27 ; Preller, ii. 170,
288 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
at the entrance '. Both deities retained at all times the essential
mark of primitive ideas of the supernatural : they resided in,
and in a sense were, the doorway and the hearth respectively.
What we know of the priests who served them tells the same
tale of an origin in the house, and the family — the foundation
of all Italian civilization. Vesta was served by her sacred
virgins, and these, we can no longer doubt, were the later
representatives of the daughters of the head of the family,
or the headman of the community - ; the innermost part of the
house was theirs, the care of the fire, the stores (penus), and the
cooking. To the father, the defender of the family, belonged
naturally the care of the entrance, the dangerous point, where
both evil men and evil spirits might find a way in. And
surely this must be the explanation of the fact that no priest is
to be found for Janus in the Eoman system but the Rex
sacrorum 3, the lineal representative of the ancient religious
duties of the king, and therefore, we may infer with certainty,
of those of the primitive chief, and of the head of the house-
hold 4. In the most ancient order of the priesthoods, the Kex
sacrorum carne first, just as Janus was the first of all the gods h :
then came the three great Flamines, and then the Pontifex
maximus, in whose care and power were the Vestals. Translating
the order into terms of the primitive family, we have first the
head of the house, next the sons, and lastly (as women do not
appear in these lists), the daughters represented by the later
priesthood, to which they were legally subordinated. The
order of the gods, the order of the priests, and the natural
position of the entrance to the house, all seem to lead us to the
same conclusion, that the beginning of Janus and his cult are
1 For the evidence of this position of Janus in the cults of the house see
Roscher, Lex. 32 ; it is indirect, but sufficiently convincing.
2 See my article ' Vestales ' in Diet, of Antiquities, ed. a.
3 Marq. 321 foil. Besides the sacrifice in the Regia on Jan. 9, the Rex
and his wife, the Regina sacrorum, sacrificed to Juno in the Regia on the
Kalends of every month, and apparently also to Janus (Junonius to whom
there were twelve altars (in the Regia ?) one for each month. Macr. i. 9.
16 and r. 15. 19.
4 For the father as the natural defender of the family, see Westermarck,
Hist, of Human Marriage, ch. 3.
* Festus, 185 ' Maximus videtur Rex, dein Dialis, post hunc Martialis,
quarto locoQuirinalis, quinto pontifex maximus.' For the corresponding
place of Janus, Liv. 8. 9. 6 ; Cato, R. R. 134 ; Marq. 26.
MENSIS IANUARIUS 289
to be sought, and may be found, in the early Italian family
dwelling.
We may agree with Eoscher, who has worked out this part
of the subject with skill, that this position of Janus in the
worship of the family and the state is the origin of all the
practices in which he appears as a god of beginnings. For
these the reader must be referred to Koscher's article ', or to
Preller, or to Mommsen, who sees in this aspect of the god, and
rightly no doubt, that which chiefly reflects the notion of him
held by the ordinary Koman. He was himself the oldest god,
the beginner of all things, and of all acts 2 ; to him in legend
is ascribed the introduction of the arts, of agriculture, ship-
building, &c.3. He is an object of worship at the beginning
of the year, the month, and the day 4. All this sprang, not
from an abstract idea of beginning — an idea which has no
Roman parallel in being sanctified by a presiding deity, but
from the concrete fact that the entrance of the house was the
initium, or beginning of the house, and at the same time the
point from which you started on all undertakings.
Such developments of the original Janus were no doubt
as old as the State itself. In the Salian hymn he is already
'deorum deus'r>, and 'duonuscerus'0, which Festus tells us meant
creator bonus. But even in the State there are, as we have seen,
sufficiently clear traces of his original nature to forbid us to
attribute these titles to any lofty and abstract philosophical
ideas of religion.
The known cult-titles of Janus are for the most part explicable
in the same way. Geminus, Patulcius, Clusius, and Matutinus,
speak for themselves. Junonius probably arose from the con-
currence of the cults of Janus and Juno on the Kalends of each
month, as Macrobius tells us7. Consivius8 is explained by
Roscher as connected with serere, and used of Janus as creator
(beginner of life: cf. duonus cents). Curiatius, Patricius, and
1 Lex. 37 foil. ; Preller, r. 166 foil. ; Mommsen, R. H. i. 173.
2 *E(popos irdarjs irpo£ews, says Lydus, 4. a, quoting Varro ; cp. Ovid, Fasti,
i. 165 foil.
3 Plut. Q. R. 22.
* Mncrob. i. 9. 16 ; Horace, Sat. ii. 6. 20 foil.
5 Macrob. r. 9. 14.
6 Varro, L. L. 7. 26 ; Feat. 122. 7 Macr. i. 9. 16.
' Macr. 1. c. Wissowa (de Feriis, vi) says the true form is cons«vius ;
but the etymology holds.
U
290 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
Quirinus1 are titles arising from the worship of the god in
gentes, curiae, and the completed state, and have no significance
in regard to his nature.
in ID. IAN. (JAN. 1 1). IP.
KAKM'ENTALIA]. (PRAEN. MAFF.)
xvin KAL. FEB. (JAN. 15). JP.
KAE[MENTALIA]. (PRAEN. MAFF. PHIL. CAER.)
The full name of the festival is supplied by Philoc. and Silv.
There is a much mutilated note in Praen. on Jan. 1 1 which
is completed by Mommsen thus2: ' [Feriae Carmenti . . . quae
partus curat omniaque] futura ; ob quam ca[usam in aede eius
cavetur ab scorteis tan quam] omine morticino.'
The first point to be noticed here is that the same deity has
two festival days, with an interval of three days between them.
There is no exact parallel to this in the calendar, though there
are several instances of something analogous3. The Lemuria
are on May 9, n, 13 ; but here are three days, and no special
deity. Kindred deities have their festivals separated by three
days, as Census and Ops (Aug. 21, 25); and we may compare
the Fordicidia and Cerealia on April 15 and 19, and the
Quinquatrus and Tubilustrium. both apparently sacred to Mars,
on March 19 and 23. All festivals occur on days of uneven
number ; and if there was an extension to two or more days,
the even numbers were passed over4. But the Komans did not
apparently consider the two Carmentalia to be two parts of the
same festival, but two different festivals, or they would not
have tried to account as they did for the origin of the second
day. It was said to have been added by a victorious general
who left Eome by the Porta Carmentalis to attack Fidenae 5, or
by the matrons who had refused to perform the function of
women, in anger at being deprived by the Senate of the right of
1 Reseller, Lex. 21, 26, 40.
8 C. I. L. i. 307, on the evidence of Ovid, Fast. i. 629 and Varro, L. L.
7.84.
s Wissowa, de Feriis, viii. * Mommseu, C. L L. i. 288.
* Fast. Praen. on Jan. 15 (mutilate!). Cp. Ovid, Fast. i. 619, and Plut.
<J. R. 56. Festus, 245.
MENSIS IANUARIUS 29!
riding in carpenta ; and who, when the decree was withdrawn,
testified their satisfaction in this curious way.
It does not seem possible to discover the real meaning of the
double festival. It has been suggested l that the two days re-
present the so-called Roman and Sabine cities, like the two bodies
of Salii and Luperci. This guess is hardly an impossible one,
but it is only a guess, and has nothing to support it but a casual
statement by Plutarch that the Carmentalia were instituted at
the time of the synoikismos of Latin and Sabine cities l.
There is fortunately little doubt about the nature of Carmenta
and the general meaning of the cult. In all the legends into
which she was woven3 her most prominent characteristic is
the gift of prophecy ; she is the ' vates fatidica,' &c.,
Cecinit quae prima futures
Aeneadas magnos et nobile Pallanteum.
So Ovid, at the end of his account of her :
At felix rotes, ut dis gratissima vixit,
Possidet hunc lani sic dea mouse diem.
The power is expressed in her very name, for carmen signifies
a spell, a charm, a prophecy, as well as a poem. Now there
is clear evidence that either women alone had access to the
temple at the Porta Carmentalis, or that they were the chief
frequenters of it ; and they are even said to have built a temple
themselves4. Where we find women worshipping a deity of
prophecy we may be fairly sure that that deity also has some
influence on childbirth. 'The reason,' writes the late Prof.
Nettleship ", ' why the Carmentes are worshipped by matrons
is because they tell the fortunes of the children'— and also,
1 By Huschke, Rom. Jahr, 199. There was probably more than one
Carmenta (Gell. 16. 16. 4), if we consider Porrima and Postverta as two
forms of the goddess ; and the two days may have some relation to this
duality. Perhaps there were two altars in the temple. Ovid, Fasti, i. 627.
2 Plut. Romulus, a i.
3 See Wissowa in Lex. Myth. i. 851 ; Ovid. Fasti, i. 461 foil. ; Virg. Aen.
8. 336. The eighth Aeneid, it may be remarked, should be learnt by heart
by all investigators into Roman antiquity.
* Plut. Q. R. 56 : cp. Dion. Hal. i. 31. 1-9, from whom Plutarch may
have drawn his information, directly or perhaps through Juba. For the
temple they built cp. Gell. 18. 7. a. If this temple be a different one
from that under the Capitol, it may suggest an explanation of the double
festival.
5 Studies in Latin Literature, p. 48 foil. ; Journal of Philology, xi. 178.
U 2
292 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
surely, because they tell the fortunes of the women in child-
birth '.
I am inclined to agree with my old tutor that the Carmentes
may originally have been wise women whose skill and spells
assisted the operation of birth. I do not think we can look for
an explanation of the titles Porrima and Postverta elsewhere
than in the two positions in which the child may issue from the
womb, over each of which a Carmentis watched 2 ; and there
is in fact no doubt that Carmenta was a birth-goddess \ The
argument then would be that the spiritual origin attributed
to superior knowledge transforms the owner of the knowledge
into a divine person. As Sir A. Lyall says4 (of the genesis
of local deities in Berar), 'The immediate motive (of deifica-
tion) is nothing but a vague inference from great natural
gifts or from strange fortunes to supernatural visitation, or
from power during life to power prolonged beyond it.'
Of the cult of Carmenta we know hardly anything. She
had a flamen of her own 5, like other ancient goddesses, Palatua,
Furrina, Flora. His sacrificial duties must have been confined
to the preparing of cereal offerings, for there was a taboo in
this cult excluding all skins of animals — all leather — from the
temple.
Scortea non illi fas est inferre sacello6,
Ne violent puros exanimata focos.
Varro writes ' In aliquot sacris et sacellis scriptum habemus:
Ne quid scorteum adhibeatur ideo ne morticinum quid adsit.'
We could wish that he had told us what these sacra and sacella
were 7 ; as it is we must be content to suppose that a goddess
1 See on Fortuna, above, p. 167.
2 Ovid, Fast. i. 633 ; Varro in Gell. 16. 6. 4. Nettleship takes a different
view of these words'. But see Wissowa in Lex. i. 853 ; Preller, i. 406.
3 St. Augustine, C. D. 4. n ' In illis deabus quae fata nascent ibus canunt
et vocantur Carmentes.'
4 Asiatic Studies, p. 20.
5 Cic. Brut. 14. 56 ; C I. L. vi. 3720 ; and Eph. Ep. iv. 759. The rite of
Jan. 1 1 is called 'sacrum pontificale' by Ovid (Fast. i. 462), whence we infer
that the pontifices had a part in it as well as the flamen.
' Ovid, Fast. i. 629. Cp. Varro, L. L. 7. 84. This passage of Varro may
possibly raise a doubt whether the taboo did not arise from a mistaken
interpretation of the words scortum and pellicula, as Carmenta was especially
worshipped by matrons.
7 The more so as we have no inscriptions relating to Carmenta. Though
her Ihiminium continued to exist under the Empire, she herself
MENSIS IANUARIUS 293
of birth could have nothing to do with the slaughter of
animals.
The position of the temple was at the foot of the southern
end of the Capitol, near the Porta Carmentalis \ where, accord-
ing to Servius, she was said to have been buried (cp. Acca
Larentia, Dec. 23). It is noticeable that the festivals of this
winter period are connected with sites near the Capitol and
Forum ; we have already had Saturnus, Ops, and Janus.
If the reader should ask why a goddess of birth should be
specially worshipped in the depth of winter, he may perhaps
find a reason for it after reading the third chapter of Wester-
marck's History of Human Marriage. As far as we can judge
from the calendar, April was the month at Rome when
marriages and less legal unions were especially frequent 2 ;
during May and the first days of June marriages were not
desirable3. In January therefore births might naturally be
expected.
Ovid tells us (i. 463) that Julurna was also worshipped on
Jan. ii4; but whether in any close connexion with Carmenta
we do not know. They are both called Nymphs; but from
this we can hardly make any inference. Juturna was certainly
a fountain-deity : I can find no good evidence that this was one
of Carmenta's attributes. The fount of Juturna was near the
Vesta-temple &, and therefore close to the Forum : its water was
used, says Servius, for all kinds of sacrifices, and itself was the
object of sacrifice in a drought. All took part in the festival
who used water in their daily work (' qui artificium aqua
exercent'). But the Juturnalia appears in no calendar, and
Aust is no doubt right in explaining it only as the dedication-
festival of the temple built by Augustus in B. c. 2 6.
practically disappeared. I am inclined to guess that her attributes were
to some extent usurped by the more popular and plebeian Fort una.
1 Solinus, i. 13 ; Serv. Am. 8. 336 and 337.
2 See especially under April i and 28, the days of Fortuna virilis and
Flora.
3 Ovid, Fasti, 6. 223 foil.
4 Juturnalia, Serv. Aen. 12. 139.
* Jordan, Topogr. i. 2. 370 ; Wissowa in Lex. s. v. luturna.
* Aust, de Aedibus sacris, p. 45.
294 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
FEBIAE SEMENTIVAE1. PAGANALIA.
Under date of Jan. 24-26, Ovid2 writes in charming verse
of the feriae conceptivae called Sementivae (or -tinae), which from
his account would seem to be identical with the so-called
Paganalia 3. Just as the Compitalia of the city probably had
its origin in the country (see on Jan. 3-5), though the rustic
compita were almost unknown to the later Komans, so the
festival of sowing was kept up in the city ('a pontificibus dictus,'
Varro, L. L. 6. 26) as Semen tinae, long after the Koman
population had ceased to sow. In the country it was known —
so we may guess — by the less technical name of Paganalia4,
as being celebrated by the rural group of homesteads known as
the pagus,
As to the object and nature of the festival, let Ovid speak for
himself :
State coronati plenum ad praesaepe iuvenci :
Cum tepido vestrum vere redibit opus.
Rusticus emeritum palo suspendat aratrum * :
Omne reformidat frigida volnus humus.
Vilice, da requiem terrae, semente peracta :
Da requiem terrain qui coluere viris.
Pagus agat festum : pagum lustrate, coloni,
Et date paganis annua liba focis.
Placentur frugum matres, Tellusque Ceresque,
Farre suo, gravidae visceribusque suis.
Officium commune Ceres et Terra tuentur:
Haec praebet causam frugibus, ilia locum.
Ceres and Tellus, ' consortes operis,' are to be invoked to bring
to maturity the seed sown in the autumn, by preserving it from
all pests and hurtful things ; and also to assist the sower in his
1 Sementinae, according to Jordan in Prell. a. 5, note 2.
3 Fasti, i. 658 foil.
* Paganicae (feriae), Varro, L. L. 6. 26. Varro seems to separate the
two : after mentioning the Sementinae, which he says was ' sationis causa
susceptae,' he goes on ' Paganicae eiusdem agriculturae susceptae, ut
haberent in agris omnes pagi,' &c. But the distinction is perhaps only of
place ; or if of time also, yet not of object and meaning.
4 So Marq. 199, and Hartmann, Rom. Kal. 203. Preller thinks the
Sementinae were in September, before the autumn sowing ; and it is
possible that there were two feasts of the name, one before the autumn,
another before the spring, sowing. Lydus (de Mens. 3. 3) speaks of two
days separated by seven others; on the former they sacrificed to Tellus
(Demeter), on the latter to Ceres (Kopi;) ', two successive mmdinae (market-
days) are here meant.
5 Cp. Scholiast on Persius, 4. 28 ; and see under Compitalia, Jan. 3-5.
MENSIS IANUARIUS 295
work in the spring that is at hand. This at least is how
I understand the lines (68r, 682) :
Cum serimus, caelum ventis aperite serenis ;
Cum latet, aetheria spargite semen aqua.
Or if it be argued that both these lines may very well refer
to the spring, it is at least certain that the poet understood the
festival to cover the past autumn sowing :
Utque dies incerta sacro, sic tempora certa,
Si-minibus iactis est ubi fetus ager1.
Varro tells us 2 that the time of the autumn sowing extended
from the equinox to the winter solstice ; after which, as we
have seen, the husbandmen rested from their labours in the
fields, and enjoyed the festivals we have been discussing since
Dec. 1 7 (Consualia). The last of these is the Paganalia, i. e. the
one nearest in date, if we may go by Ovid, to the time for
setting to work at the spring sowing, which began on or
about Feb. 7 (Favonius) '. It would thus be quite natural that
this festival should have reference not only to the seed already
in the ground, but also to that which wTas still to be sown.
If Ovid lays stress on the former, Varro and Lydus seem to be
thinking chiefly of the latter 4.
Ovid has told us what was the nature of the rites. According
to him, Ceres and Tellus were the deities concerned, and with
this Lydus agrees. We need not be too certain about the
names5, considering the 'fluidity' and impersonality of early
Koman numina of this type ; but the type itself is obvious.
There were offerings of cake, and a sacrifice of a pregnant sow ;
the oxen which had served in the ploughing were decorated
with garlands ; prayers were offered for the protection of the
seed from bird and beast and disease. If we may believe
1 Ovid, i. 661. * R. R. i. 34; Plin. N.H. 18. 204.
s Cp. Varro, R. R. i. 29, 36. Cp. the Rustic Calendars for February.
4 Varro, L. L. 6. 26 ' sationis causa' ; and Lydus says that the feast could
not be ' stativae,' because the ap\^ <r*°pov cannot bo fixed to a day. Lydus'
reason is not a good one, if the sowing did not begin till Feb. 7 ; but it is
plain that he understands the rites as prophylactic. I may note that
Columella seems to know little about spring sowing (n. a: cp. a. 8).
Mommsen, R. H. ii. 364, says that spring sowing was exceptional.
5 See under Cerialia, April 19.
296 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
a note of Probus' ], oscilla were hung from the trees, as at the
Latin festival, &c., doubtless as a charm against evil influences.
vi KAL. FEB. (Jan. 27). C.
AEDIS [CASTORIS ET POJLLUCIS DEDICAJTA EST . . .]. (PRAEN.)
Mommsen's restoration of this note in the Fasti of Praeneste
is based on Ov. Fast. i. 705-8:
At quae venturas praecedet sexta Kalendas,
Hac sunt Ledaeis templa dicata dels.
Fratribus ilia dels fratres de gente deorum
Circa luturnae composuere lacus.
But Livy * gives the Ides of July as the day of dedication,
and a difference of learned opinion has arisen3. July 15,
B.C. 496, is the traditional date of the battle of Lake Kegillus,
and the temple was dedicated B.C. 484 — the result of the
Consul's vow in that battle4. Mommsen infers that Livy
confused the date of the dedication with that of the battle, and
that Jan. 27 is right. Aust and others differ, and refer the
latter date to a restoration by Tiberius, probably in A. D. 65.
The mistake in Livy is easy to explain, and Mommsen's
explanation seems sufficient8. Three beautiful columns of
Tiberius' temple are still to be seen at the south-eastern end
of the Forum, near the temple of Vesta, and close to the
lacus Juturnae, where the Twins watered their steeds after
the battle7.
The veiy early introduction of the Dioscuri into the Roman
worship is interesting as being capable of unusually distinct
proof. They must have been known long before the battle
1 Ad Virg. Oeorg. a. 385 ; Marq. 200 and 192, where the old explanation
(Macr. i. 7. 34) seems to be adopted, that these were substitutes f >r
human or other victims (cp. BOtticher, Baumkultus, 80 foil.}. We have
uo clear evidence for this, and I am not disposed to accept it.
* 2. 42. So Plut. Cm-id. 3.
8 Momms. C.I.L. i. 308; Jordan, Eph. Ep. i. 236; Aust, de Aedibus
sacris, 43.
4 Dion. HaL 6. 13 ; Liv. a. 20.
8 Suetonius, Tib. 20 ; Aust, op. cit. p. 6.
* Weight must, however, be given to the fact that the transvectio
equitum took place on July 15. Aust, 43, and Furtwangler in Lex. s. v.
Dioscuri.
7 Middleton, Ancient Borne, p. 174 ; Lanciani, Ruins and Excavations of
Ancient Rome, p. 271 foil.
MENSIS IANUARIUS 297
of the Regillus ; and they took a peculiarly firm hold on the
Roman mind, as we see from the common oaths Edepol,
Mecastor, from their representation on the earliest denarii1,
from their connexion with the equites throughout Roman
history, and from the great popularity of their legend, which
was reproduced in connexion with later battles 2. The spread
of the cult through Southern Italy to Latium and Etruria
(where it was also a favourite) is the subject of a French
monograph 3.
1 Mommsen, Munzwesen, 301, 559.
2 Pydna, Cic. N. D. 3. 5. n ; Verona (101 B.C.), Plut. Mar. 26. The
most famous application of the story is in the accounts of the great light
between Locri and Kroton at the river Sagra : this was probably the
origin of the Italian legends. See Preller, ii. 301.
3 Albert, le Culte de Castor et Pollux en Italic, 1883. Cp. Furtwangler, I.e.
MENSIS FEBRUAB1US
THE name of the last month of the old Roman year is derived
from the word februum, usually understood as an instrument
of purification '. This word, and its derivatives were, as we
shall see, best known in connexion with the Lupercalia, the
most prominent of the festivals of the month. Now the
ritual of the Lupercalia seems to suggest that our word ' purifi-
cation ' does not cover all the ground occupied by the ' religio '
of that festival ; nor does it precisely suit some of the other
rites of February. We are indeed here on difficult and
dangerous ground. Certainly we must not assume that there
was any general lustration of the whole people, or any period
corresponding in religious intent to the Christian Lent,
which in time only is descended from the Eoman February.
Assuredly there were no such ideas as penitence or forgiveness
of sins involved in the ritual of the month. Let so much
be said for the benefit of those who are only acquainted with
Jewish or Christian history.
What at least is certain is that at this time the character
of the festivals changes. Since the middle of December we
have had a series of joyful gatherings of an agricultural people
in homestead, market-place, cross-roads ; now we find them
fulfilling their duties to their dead ancestors at the common
1 Paulus, 85 'Quaecumque purgamenti causa in quibusque sacrifices
adhibentur, februa appellantur. Id vero quod purgatur, dioitur februatum.'
The verb februare also occurs. Vario (L. L. 6. 13) says that februum was
the Sabine equivalent for pur g amentum : 'Nam et Lupercalia februatio, «t
in Antiquitatum libris demonstravi ' (cp. 6. 34). Ovid renders the word
by 'piamen* (Fasti, 2. 19). Februus, a divinity, is mentioned in Macr. i.
13. 3 ; he is almost certainly a later invention (see Lex. Myth. s. v.). The
etymology of the word is uncertain.
MENSIS FEBRUARIUS 299
necropolis, or engaged in a mysterious piacular rite under the
walls of the oldest Kome. The Parentalia and the Lupercalia
are the characteristic rites of February ; we shall see later
on whether any of the others can be brought into the same
category. If pleasure is the object of the mid-winter festivals,
the fulfilment of duties towards the gods and the manes would
seem to be that of the succeeding period.
From an agricultural point of view February was a somewhat
busy month ; but in the time of Varro the work was chiefly
the preparatory operations in the culture of olives, vines and
fruit-trees 1. The one great operation in the olde&t and simplest
agricultural system was the spring sowing. Spring was under-
stood to begin on Feb. 7 (Favonius) 2, and it is precisely at this
point that the rites change their character. We are in fact
close upon the new year, when the powers of vegetation awake
and put on strength ; but the Eomans approached it as it were
with hesitation, preparing for it carefully by steady devotion to
work and duty, the whole community endeavouring to place
itself in a proper position toward the numina of the land's
fertility, and the dead reposing in the land's embrace.
Before taking the rites one by one, it will perhaps be as well
to say a word in general about the nature of Roman expiatory
rites, in order to determine in what sense we are to understand
those of February.
The first point to notice is that these rites were applicable
only to involuntary acts of commission or omission — an offence
against the gods (nefas) if wittingly committed, was inexpiable.
In this case the offender was impius, i. e. had wilfully failed in
his duty ; and him no rites could absolve 3. But by ordinary
offences against the gods we are not to understand sin, in the
Christian sense of the word ; they were rather mistakes in
1 Varro, R. R. i. 29. Cp. Colum. xi. a ; and the rustic calendars.
a Varro, R. R. i. 28. See above, p. 295.
s This is very distinctly stated by Cicero (de Legibus, i. 14. 40 ' In decs
impietatum nulla expiatio est': cp. 2. 9. 22 'Sacrum commissum quod
neque expiari poterit, impie commissum est'). Even the tailor in
Horace's ode (i. 28), whose duty does not seem exactly binding, is told,
if he omits it, ' teque piacula nulla resolvent.' On the general question,
cp. De-Marchi, La Religione nella vita domestica, 246 ; and Marq. 257. The
pontifex Scaevola 'asseverabat prudentem expiari non posse ' (Macrob. i.
16. 10). Ovid's account (Fasti, 2. 35 foil.) is that of a layman and a modern,
but not less interesting for that reason.
300 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
ritual, or involuntary omissions — in fact any real or supposed or
possible errors in any of a man's relations to the numina around
him. He might always be putting himself in the wrong in
regard to these relations, and he must as sedulously endeavour
to right himself. In the life of the ' privatus ' these trespasses in
sacred law would chiefly be in matters of marriages and funerals
and the regular sacrifices of the household ; in the life of the
magistrate they would be mistakes or omissions in his duties on
behalf of the State l. Whether in private or public life, they
must be duly expiated. It is needless to point out how power-
ful a factor this belief must have been in the growth of a con-
science and of the sense of duty ; or how stringent a ' religio '
was that which, assuming that a man could hardly commit an
offence except unwittingly, made the possible exceptional case
fatal to his position as a member of a community which
depended for its wholesome existence on the good will of the
gods.
Kemembering that among the divine beings to whom it was
most essential for each family to fulfil its duties, were the
di manes, or dead ancestors and members of the family, we see
at once that February with its Parentalia was an important
month in the matter of expiatoiy rites. Ovid, though suggest-
ing a fancy derivation for the name of the month, expresses
this idea clearly enough :
Aut quia placatis sunt tempora pura sepulcris
Turn cum ferales praeteriere dies8.
But the other etymology given by the poet is, as we have
seen, the right one, and may bring us to another class of
piacula, of which we find an example this month in the
Lupercalia.
Mensis ab his dictus, secta quia pelle Luperci
Omne sol um lustrant, idque piamen habent *.
Not only was the Koman most careful to expiate involuntary
offences, and also to appease the wrath of the gods, if shown in
any special active way, e. g. by lightning and many other
prodigia4, but he also sought to avert evil influences before-
1 Varro, Ir. L. 6. 30 ' Praetor qui turn (i. e. die ncfasto) fatus est, si
imprudens fecit, piaculari hostia facta piatur ; si prudens dixit, Q. Mucius
ambigebat eum expiari ut impium non posse."
2 Fasti, a. 33. 3 ib 3I
4 See Marq. 259 ; Bouch^-Leclercq, Les Pontifes, 101 foil.
MENSIS FEBRUARIUS 301
hand, which might possibly emanate from hostile or offended
numirta. This religious object is well illustrated in the sacrifice
of the hostia praecidanea, which was offered beforehand to make
up for any involuntary errors in the ritual that followed l. But
it is also seen in numerous other rites of which we have had
many examples ; all those, for instance, which included a lus-
tratio. We generally translate this word by 'purification'; but
it also involves the ideas of intercession, and of the removal of
unseen hostile influences which may be likely to interfere with
the health and prosperity of man, beast, or crop. At such rites
special victims were sometimes offered, or the victim was treated
in a peculiar manner ; we find, perhaps, some part of it used as
a charm or potent spell, as the strips of skin at the Lupercalia,
or the ashes of the unborn calves at the Fordicidia, or the tail
and blood of the October horse 2. To the first of these, at least,
if not to the other two, the word februum was applied, and we
may assume it of the others : also to many other objects which
had some magical power, and carry us back to a very remote
religious antiquity. Ovid gives a catalogue of them R :
Februa Komani dixere piamina patres,
Nunc quoque dant verbo plurima signa fid era.
Pontifices ab rege petunt et flamine lanas,
Quis veterum lingua februa nomen erat.
Quaeque capit lictor domibus purgamina fternisf *
Torrida cum mica farra, vocantur idem.
Nomen idem ramo, qui caesus ab arbore pura
Casta sacerdotum tempora fronde tegit.
Ipse ego flaminicam poscentem februa vidi :
Februa poscenti pinea virga data est.
Denique quodcunque est, quo corpora nostra piantur,
Hoc apud intonsos nomen habebat avos.
Objects such as these, called by a name which is explained by
piamen, or purgamentum , must have been understood as charms
potent to keep off evil influences, and so to enable nature to
take its ordinary course unhindered. Only in this sense can we
call them instruments of purification.
1 Marq. 180 , Bouche-Leclercq, 178.
3 See Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 406.
3 Fasti, 2. 19 foil.
4 This difficult line has occasioned much conjecture, and seems still
inexplicable. See Merkel, Fasti, clxvi foil. ; and De-Marchi, op. cit.
p. 246.
302 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
The use of the februa in the Lupercalia was, as we shall see,
to procure fertility in the women of the community. Here
then, as well as in the rites of the Fornacalia and Parentalia.
is some reason for calling the month a period of purification ;
but only if we bear in mind that at the Parentalia the process
consisted simply in the performance of duties towards the dead,
which freed or purified a man from their possible hostility ;
while at the Lupercalia the women were freed or purified from
influences which might hinder them in the fulfilment of their
natural duties to their families and the State. Beyond this
it is not safe to go in thinking of February as a month of
expiation.
KAL. FEB. IUNONI SOSPITAE. N.
This was the dedication-day of a temple of the great Lanuvian
goddess, Juno Sospita, in the Forum olitorium *. It was vowed
in the year 197 B. c. by the consul Cornelius Cethegus, but
had fallen into decay in Ovid's time 2. For the famous cult of
this deity at Lanuvium, see Koscher, in Lex. s. v. luno, 595.
ID. FEB. FAUNO [I]N INSULJA]. C. /. L. vi. 2302. IP.
This temple was vowed almost at the same time as the last.
^96 B. c., by plebeian aediles ; it was built by fines exacted from
holders of ager publicus who had not paid their rents \ See
under Dec. 5, p. 257.
FORNACALIA : FERIAE CONCEPTIVAE, ending Feb. 1 7.
I have drawn attention to the change in the character of the
festivals at this season. But before we go on to the Parentalia
and Lupercalia, which chiefly mark this change, we have to
consider one festival which seems to belong rather to the class
which we found in December and January. This was the
1 Aust, De Aedibus sacris, pp. at, 45. 48. On this last page are some
useful remarks on the danger of drawing conclusions as to the indigenous
or foreign origin of deities from the position of their temples inside or
outside the pomoerium.
3 Fasti, 2. 55 foil.
5 Livy, 33. 42 ; 34. 53. Jordan, in Commentationes in hon. Momms. 359 foil. ;
Aust, op. cit. p. 20.
MENSIS FEBRUARIUS 303
Fornacalia, or feast of ovens ; one which does not appear in the
calendars, as it was a moveable feast (conceptivae) ; and one
which was a sacrum publicum only in the sense of being pro
curiis, as the Paganalia were pro pagis, the Septimontium pro
montibus, and the Argean rite pro sacellis '. Each curia con-
ducted its own rites, under the supervision of its curio and (for
the last day) of the Curio Maximus 2 : the great priests of
the State had no official part in it. In this it differs in some
degree from the Fordicidia (April 15), the other feast of the
curiae, which appears in three of our calendars, and in which
the Pontifices and Vestals took some part5.
This is not the place to investigate the difficult question of
what the curiae really were. So much at least is clear, that
while, like the montes, pagi, and sacella (argea), they were
divisions of the people and the land, they were more important
than the others, in that they formed the basis of the earliest
political and military organization 4. It need hardly be said that
each curia had also itself a religious organization : their places
of assembly, though not temples, were quasi-religious buildings5,
used for sacred purposes* but furnished with hearth and eating-
room like an ordinary house B. We hear also of tables (mensae,
Tparr(£w) 'in quibus immolabatur lunoni quae Curis appellata
estV There is no need to assume any etymological connexion
between Curis and Curia 8 ; but the cult of the goddess of the
spear is interesting here, as seeming at once to illustrate the
military importance of the curiae, the power of the pater-
familias 9, and the necessity of continuing the family through
1 See Diet, of Antiq. s.v. sacra. Fest. 245 a 'Publica sacra, quae publico
uumptu pro populo limit : quaeque pro montibus, pagis, curiis, sacellis.'
* Ovid, Fasti, a. 527. See under Quirinalia.
3 See on April 15. There must have been at one time a tendency to
amalgamate the two kinds of sacra publica. The argei were also attended
by Pontifices and Vestals. I should conjecture that the Pontifices claimed
supervision over rites in which they had originally no official locus staiuli,
and brought the Vestals with them.
* Mommsen, Siaatsrecht, iii. i. 89 foil.
5 'If pal OIKICU, Dion. Hal. 2. 23 ; Fest. 174 b ; Marq. 195.
' Dion. Hal. 2. 23.
7 Ib. 2. 50. The Latin words are from Paul. 64.
8 Jordan, on Preller, i. 278 note. Roscher, in Lex. s. v. luno, 596. Curis
= hasta in Sabine ; Fest. 49 ; Roscher, 1. c. ; Ovid, Fasti, 2. 477.
* Cp. the parting of the bride's hair with a spear, Marq. vii. 44 and note
5 ; Plut. Q. R. 87 ; BOtticher, Baumkultus, 485 ; Schwegler, R. O. i. 469.
304 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
the fertility of woman, an idea which we shall come upon again
at the Lupercalia '. Lastly, each curia had its own curio, or
religious superintendent, and its own flamen, and at the head
of all the curiae was the Curio Maximus ; officers who coincide
with the general character of the curiae in being (like the heads
of families) not strictly priests, but capable of religious duties,
for the performance of which they are said to have been
instituted 2.
The ritual of the Fornacalia has been evolved with difficulty,
and without much certainty, from a few passages in Ovid,
Dionysius, Varro, Festus, and Pliny3. We seem to see — i. An
offering in each private house in each curia : it consisted of far,
i. e. meal of the oldest kind of Italian wheat, roasted in antique
fashion in the oven which was to be found in the pistrina of
each house, and made into cakes by crushing in the manner
still common in India and elsewhere4. 2. A rite in which
each curia took part as a whole. This is deduced from the fact
that on the i7th (Quirinalia) any one who by forgetfulness or
ignorance had omitted to perform his sacra on the day fixed by
the curio for the meeting of his own curia, might do so then
at a general assembly of all the thirty curiae 8. This was the
reason why the Quirinalia was called ' stultorum feriae.' It has
also been conjectured that the bounds of each curia were beaten
on this day, on which its members thus met : for Pliny says
'Numa et Fornacalia instituit farris torrendi ferias et aeque
1 The same connexion between curiae and the armed deity of the
female principle is found at Tibur (Serv. Aen. i. 17), ' in sacris Tibur-
tibus sic precantur : luno curritis (sic) tuo curru clipeoque tuere meos
curiae vernulas,' Jordan, in Hermes, 8. 217 foil. Possibly also at Lanuvium
(Lex. s.v. luno, 595).
2 Varro, L. L. 5. 83 and 155 ; Marq. 195.
3 This has been done by O. Gilbert (Gesch. und Topogr. 2. 129 foil.), ah1
author who is not often so helpful. He is followed by Steudiiig, in Lex.
Myth. s. v. Fornax.
4 Paul. 93 (cp. 83), ' Fornacalia feriao institutae sunt farris torrendi
gratia quod ad fornacem quae in pistrinis erat sacrificium fieri solebat.'
Dionysius was probably referring to this when he wrote (2. 23) that he
had himself seen ancient wooden tables spread with rude cakes of primitive
fashion in baskets and dishes of primitive make. He also mentions
xapvaiv nvwv iirapxas (cp. Ovid, I.e. 520), which might indeed suggest
a feast of curiae at a different time of year. For the far, see Marq. vii.
399 foil. The cakes were/ebri«a, according to Ovid ; see above, p. 301.
3 Comp. Ovid, I.e. with Fest. 354; Paul. 316 ; Varro, L. L. 6. 13 ; Plut.
Q. B. 89.
MENSIS FEBRUAK1US 305
religiosas terminis agrorum\' 3. What happened on the Quiri-
nalia Ovid shall tell us himself2:
Curio legitimis mine Fornacalia verbis
Muximus indicit, nee stata sacra facit ;
Inque foro, multa circum pendente tabella,
S'gnatur certa curia quaeque nota :
Stultaque pars populi, quae sit sua curia, nescit,
Sed facit extrema sacra relata die.
It should be noted that no certain connexion can be made out
between Quirinus and curia, and I imagine it was only accident
or convenience that made this day the last of the Fornacalia 3.
Ovid's words ' nee stata sacra facit ' seem to me to imply that
the Curio Maximus carefully abstained from using a formula
of announcement likely to confuse the ' stultorum feriae ' with
the Quirinalia, which was always on the same day. But it may
well have been the case that by usage the two coincid d.
Ovid's lines make it clear that on the i7th (as a rule) the
Forum was the scene of a general meeting of curiae, each of
which had a certain space assigned it, indicated by a placard.
Is it possible that this was merely a survival of the assembly of
the armed host in comitia curiata, now used only for religious
purposes? If so, the tendency to fix it on the festival of
Quirinus might find a natural explanation.
The meaning and object of the Fornacalia are very far from
being clear. Preller 4 fancied it was the occasion of the first
eating of the fruits of the last harvest : but it is hardly possible
to imagine this postponed as late as February. On the other
hand Dionysius' description 5, already quoted, of what he saw
in the curiae, would suit this well enough if it could be set down
to a suitable time of year : it suggests a common meal, in which
ti»c) first-fruits are offered to the god, while the worshippers eat
of the new grain. But this cannot have been in February.
Steuding (in the Lex.) suggests that the object was to thank
the gods for preserving the corn through the winter, and to
1 H. N. 18. 8 ; Lange, Rom. Alt. i2. 245. 2 Fasti, a. 527 foil.
3 That it was so is proved by Fest. 254, and Varro, L. L. 6. 13. It must
have been a custom fairly well fixed.
' ii. 9-
* a. 23, 'Eyw yovv iOtcujafujv iv l(pai<; OIK ais SccVrva irpoKtifj.fva Otots iirl
rpairt'^ais (v\ii>cus apxcuieats, iv Kavrjffi ical TrivaxiaKois Kipaptuis u\<f>irtuv (M^as
Hal TToTrara nal fta? Kin teapvuv riviav iirapxas &c.
X
306 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
pray for the welfare of the seed still in the ground (i. e. in a
lustratio). Ovid says (though Steuding does not quote him)
Facta dea est Fornax : laeti Fornace colon!
Grant, ut fruges temperet ilia suas '.
But neither Steuding's conjecture, nor the German parallels he
appeals to, teem convincing. I am rather inclined to think
that the making of cakes in each household was simply a pre-
liminary to the sacra that followed in the curia, i. e. each family
brought its contribution to a common religious meal. The
roasting was naturally accompanied by an offering to the spirit
of the oven 2 (fornax) ; hence the name Fornacalia. The object
of the sacra in the curia is doubtful ; but they probably had
some relation to the land and its fertility, in view of the new
year about to begin. Of the final meeting of all the curiae in
the forum I have already suggested an explanation : the phrase
' stultorum feriae ' was, in my opinion, of late origin, and illus-
trates the diminishing importance of the curiate organization
after the admission of plebeians 3.
ID. FEB. (FEB. 13). IP.
VIRGO VESTALIS PAKENTAT. (PHIL.)
PARENTATIO TUMULORUM INCIPIT. (siLV.)
The dies parentales, or days of worshipping the dead (placandis
Manibus), began at the sixth hour on this day, and continued
either to the 2ist (Feralia), or the 22nd (cara cognatio)*. The
parentatio of the Vestal was at the tomb of Tarpeia, herself
a YestaP. Undoubtedly, the Feralia (2ist) was the oldest
and the best known of these days, and the only one which was
a public festival: it appears in three calendars (Caer. Maff.
Farn.) in large letters. Yet there is reason for believing that
even the Feralia was not the oldest day for worshipping the
1 Fasti, 2. 525. What does Ovid mean by fruges ?
2 Paul. 93, quoted above ; Ovid, 1. c. 525. Fornax as a spirit may be at
least as old as those of other parts of the house, Janus, Vesta, Limentinus,
&c.
3 Mommsen, Bom. Forschungen, i. 149 foil.
1 Lydus, de Mens. 4. 24. Lydus gives the 22nd as the final day ; Ovid,
Fasti, a. 569, gives the aist (Feralia,.
* Dion. Hal. a. 40.
MENSIS FEBKUAEIUS 307
manes : it was in part at least a dies fastus, and none of the
dies parentales are marked N in the calendars ; and this,
according to Mommsen ', shows that the rites of those days
were of later origin than those of the Lemuria (May 9-13),
which are all marked N. This seems also to have been the
opinion of Latin scholars 2.
Whatever the Lemuria may have been, it is certain that the
Parentalia were not days of terror or ill-omen ; but rather days
on which the performance of duty was the leading idea in men's
minds. Nor was the duty an unpleasant one. There was
a general holiday: the dead to be propitiated had been duly
buried in the family tomb in the great necropolis, had been
well cared for since their departure, and were still members of
the family. There was nothing to fear from them, so long
as the living members performed their duties towards them
under the supervision of the State and its Pontifices 3. They
had their iura, and the relations between them and their living
relations were all regulated by a ius sacrum : they lived on in
their city outside the walls of the city of the living 4, each
family in their own dwelling : they did not interfere with the
comfort of the living, or in any way show themselves hostile
or spiteful. Such ideas as these are of course the result of
1 C. 1. L. i2. 309 : cf. 297 (Introduction, p. 9). The Lupercalia (isth) is an
exception ; but for reasons connected with that festival. The aist (Feralia)
is F P (Caer.) F (Maff.). See Introduction, p. 10. F P, according to
Mommsen, - fastus principio.
a If Ovid reflects it rightly in Fasti, 5. 419 foil. Cp. Porph. on Hor.
Ep. 2. 2. 209. See on Lemuria, above, p. 107.
* On the vast subject of the jus Manium and the worship of the dead,
the following are some of the works that may be consulted : Marq. 307
foil., and vii. 350 foil. ; De-Marchi, II Cu'.to Private, p. 180 foil. ; Roscher, Lex.
articles Manes and Inferi ; Bouche-Leclercq, Pontifes, 147 foil. ; Rohde,
Psyche, p. 630 foil. Two old treatises still form the basis of our know-
ledge : Gutherius, de iure Manium, in Graeviua' Thesaurus, vol. xii. ; and
Kirchmann, de Funeribus (1605). Valuable matter has still to be collected
(for later times) from the Corpus Inscriplionum.
* This was the universal practice in Italy from the earliest times, so
far as we have as yet learnt from excavations. For the question whether
burial in or close to the house, or within the city walls, preceded burial
in necropoleis, see Classical Review, for February, 1897, p. 32 foil. Servius
(Ad Ann. 5. 64; 6. 152; cp. Isidorus, 15. n. i) tells us that they once
buried in the house, and there were facts that might suggest this in the
cult of the Lares, and in the private ghost-driving of the Lemuria ; but
we cannot prove it, and it is not true of the Romans at any period. Not
even the well-known law of the XII Tables can prove that burial ever
regularly took place within the existing walls of a city.
X 2
308 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
a well developed city life ; experience has taught the citizen
how his conduct towards the Di Manes can best be regulated
and organized for the benefit of both parties. The Parentalia
belong to a later stage of development than the Lemuria,
though both have the same original basis of thought. The
Parentalia was practically a yearly renewal of the rite of burial.
As sacra privata they took place on the anniversary of the death
of a deceased member of the family, and it was a special charge
on the heir that he should keep up their observance \ On that
day the family would go in procession to the grave, not only to
see that all was well with him who abode there, but to present
him with offerings of water, wine, milk, honey, oil, and the
blood of black victims 2 : to deck the tomb with flowers :\
to utter once more the solemn greeting and farewell (Salve,
sancte parens), to partake of a meal with the dead, and to
petition them for good fortune and all things needful. This
last point comes out clearly in Virgil's picture :
Poscamus ventos, atque haec me sacra quotannis
Urbe velit posita templis sibi ferre dicatis.
The true meaning of these lines is, as Henry quaintly puts
it 4, ' Let us try if we cannot kill two birds with one stone, and
not only pay my sire the honours due to him, but at the same
time help ourselves forward on our journey by getting him
to give us fair winds for our voyage.'
As we have seen, the dies parentales began on the i3th ;
from that day till the 2ist all temples were closed, marriages
were forbidden, and magistrates appeared without their in-
signia5. On the 22nd was the family festival of the Caristia,
or cara cognatio : the date of its origin is unknown, but Ovid 6
1 Cic. De Legg. a. 48. Cp. Virg. Am. 5. 49 :
lamque dies, ni fallor, adest, quern semper acerbum,
Semper honoratum — sic di voluistis — habebo.
" Marq. 311 foil.
* Purpureosque iacit flores, Virg. Aen. 5. 79. Cp. Cic. pro Floeco, 38. 95.
4 Aeneidea, 3. 15. He well compares Lucan, 9. 990. Tylor, Prim. Cult.
ii. 33a- Aeneas is here, as always, the true type of the practical Roman.
4 Marq. 311 and reff.
6 Fasti, 2 617 foil. Among the calendars it is only mentioned in those
of Philocalus and Silvius, and in the rustic calendars. Valerius Maximus
is the next writer after Ovid who mentions it : a. i. 8. Cp. C. I. L. vi.
10234. Martial calls it ' lux propinquorum ' (9. 55, cp. 54). For an inter-
MENSIS FEBRUAKIUS 309
writes of it as well established in his time, and it may be very
much older. He describes it as a reunion of the living
members of the family after they have paid their duties to
the dead :
Scilicet a tumulis et qui periere, propinquis
Protinus ad vivos ora referre iuvat ;
Postque tot amissos quicquid de sanguine restat,
Aspicere, et generis dinuinerare gradus.
It was a kind of love-feast of the family, and gives a momen-
tary glimpse of the gentler side of Roman family life. All
quarrels were to be forgotten l in a general harmony : no guilty
or cruel member may be present2. The centre of the worship
was the Lares of the family, who were 'incincti,' and shared
in the sacred meal3.
We might naturally expect that, especially in Italy — so
tenacious of old ideas and superstitions — we should find
some survival of primitive folk-lore, even in the midst of this
highly organized civic cult of the dead. Ovid supplies us with
a curious contrast to the ethical beauty of the Caristia, in
describing the spells which an old woman works, apparently on
the day of the Feralia 4. ' An old hag sitting among the girls
performs rites to Tacita : with three fingers she places three
bits of incense at the entrance of a mouse-hole. Muttering
a spell, she weaves woollen threads on a web of dark colour,
and mumbles seven black beans in her mouth. Then she
takes a fish, the maena, smears its head with pitch, sews its
mouth up, drops wine upon it, and roasts it before the fire : the
rest of the wine she drinks .with the girls. Now, quoth she,
we have bound the mouth of the enemy :
Hostiles linguas inimicaque vinximus ora,
Dicit discedens, ebriaque exit anus.'
In spite of the names of deities we find here, Tacita and Dea
esting conjecture as to the special meaning of carus, see Luttcs quoted in
De-Marchi, op. cit. 214, note a.
1 Val. Max. I.e. and Silvius' Calendar.
3 Ovid, Fasti, a. 623,
Innocui veniaut : procul hinc, procul impius esto
Frater, et in partus mater acerba suos.
s Ovid, Fasti, a. 633-634. On such occasions the Lares were clothed
in tunics girt at the loins ; see a figure of a Lar on an altar from Caere in
Baumeister, Denkm&ler, vol. i. p. 77.
* Fasti, a. 571 foil.
310 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
Muta1, and of the pretty story of the mother of the Lares
which the poet's fancy has added to it, it is plain that this is no
more than one of a thousand savage spells for counteracting
hostile spirits2. The picture is interesting, as showing the
survival of witchcraft in the civilized Kome of Ovid's time, and
reminds us of the horrible hags in Horace's fifth epode ; but it
may be doubted whether it has any real connexion with the
Feralia. Doubtless its parallel could be found even in the
Italy of to-day8.
XV. KAL. MART. (FEB. 15). IP.
LUPEE(CALIA). (CAER. MAFF. FARN. PHILOO. SILV. AND
BUSTIC CALENDARS.)
There is hardly another festival in the calendar so interesting
and so well known as this. Owing to the singular interest
attaching to its celebration in B.C. 44, only a month before
Caesar's death, we are unusually well informed as to its details ;
but these present great difficulties in interpretation, which the
latest research has not altogether overcome \ I shall content
myself with describing it, and pointing out such explanations of
ritual as seem to be fairly well established.
On Feb. 1 5 the celebrants of this ancient rite met at the cave
called the Lupercal, at the foot of the steep south-western
corner of the Palatine Hill — the spot where, according to the
tradition, the flooded Tiber had deposited the twin children
at the foot of the sacred fig-tree f>, and where they were
nourished by the she-wolf. The name of the cave is almost
1 Line 583. See Wissowa in Lex. s.v. Dea Muta.
s See e. g. Crooke, Folklore of Northern India, ch. 5 (the Black Art), and
especially pp. 264 foil.
5 See e.g. Leland, Etruscan Roman remains in popular legend, pp. 3 and 195
foil.
* The chief attempts are those of Unger, in Rhein. Mus., 1881, p. 50, and
Mannhardt in his Mythologische Forschungen, pp. 72-155. The former is
ingenious, but unsatisfactory in many ways; the latter conscientious, and
valuable as a study in folk-lore, whether its immediate conclusions be
right or wrong. See also Schwegler, R. G. i. 356 foil. ; Preller, i. 387 foil. ;
and article s.v. in Diet, of Antiquities (2nd edition) ; Marq. 442 foil. The
ancient authorities are Dion. Hal. i. 32. 5, 79, 80 ; Ovid, Fasti, a. 267
foil. ; Plutarch, Cues. 61, Rom. 21 ; Val. Max. 2. 2. 9 ; Propert. 5. (4.) i. 26;
and many other passages which will be referred to when necessary.
4 Dion. Hal. i. 32. 5.
MENSIS FEBRUARIUS 311
without doubt built up from lupus, 'a wolf ' ' ; but we cannot be
equally sure whether the name of the festival is derived directly
from Lupercal, or on the analogy of Quirinalia, Volcanalia,
and others, from Lupercus, the alleged name of the deity
concerned in the rites, and also of the celebrants themselves 2.
In any case we are fairly justified in calling this the wolf-
festival ; the more so as the wolf was the sacred animal of
Mars, who was in a special sense the god of the earliest settlers
on the Palatine 3.
The first act of the festival seems to have been the sacrifice
of goats (we are not told how many), and of a dog 4 ; and at
the same time were offered sacred cakes made by the Vestals,
from the first ears of last year's harvest. This was the last
batch of the mold salsa, some of which had been used at the
Vestalia in June, and some on the Ides of September5.
Next, two youths of high rank, belonging, we may suppose,
one to each of the two collegia of Luperci (of which more
directly), were brought forward ; these had their foreheads
smeared with the knife bloody from the slaughter of the
victims, and then wiped with wool dipped in milk. As soon
as this was done they were obliged to laugh. Then they girt
themselves with the skins of the slaughtered goats, and feasted
luxuriously6; after which they ran round the base of the
Palatine Hill, or at least a large part of its circuit, apparently
in two companies, one led by each of the two youths. As
they ran they struck at all the women who came near them
or offered themselves to their blows, with strips of skin cut
from the hides of the same- victims ; which strips, as we have
seen, were among the objects which were called by the priests
febtva.
1 Jordan, Kritische Beitruge, 164 foil. Unger's attempt, after Serv. Aen.
8- 343. to derive the word from luo ^to purify') is generally rejected.
* Wissowa, Lex. (s. v. Lupercus) takes the latter view, but rightly, as
I think, rejects the deity.
3 Virg. Aen. 8. 630 ' Mavortis in antro.' Roscher, in Lex. s. v. Mars,
2388 ; Preller, i. 334.
* Plut. Bom. 21. After mentioning the goats, he says, iStov 5J rrjs lupTrjs
T& nal Kvva Ovfiv TOVS hovtrtpitovs (Cp. Q. R. in).
s Marq. 165. See above, p. no.
' So Val. Max. I.e. From Ovid's version of the aetiological story of
Romulus and Remus (Fasti, 2. 371 loll.) we might infer that the feasting
took place after the running.
312 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
Here, in what at first sight looks like a grotesque jumble,
there are two clearly distinguishable elements ; (i)an extremely
primitive ritual, probably descended from the pastoral stage
of society ; (2) a certain co-ordination of this with definite local
settlements. The sacrifices, the smearing and wiping, the
wearing of the skins, and the striking with the februa, all seem
to be survivals from a very early stage of religious conceptions ;
but the two companies of runners, and their course round the
Palatine, which apparently followed the most ancient line
of the pomoerium, bring us into touch with the beginning
and with the development of urban life. Surviving through
the whole Kepublican period, with a tenacity which the Koman
talent for organization alone could give it, the Lupercalia was
still further developed for his own purposes by the dictator
Caesar, and thenceforward lived on for centuries under his
successors into the age of imperial Christianity.
Let us now examine the several acts of the festival, to see
how far they admit of explanation under the light of modern
research into primitive ideas and ritual.
It began, as we saw, with the sacrifice of goats and a dog.
Unluckily we cannot be sure of the god to whom they were
offered, nor of the sacrificing priest. According to Ovid l the
deity was Faunus ; according to Livy it was a certain mysterious
Inuus, of whom hardly anything else is known 2, though much
has been written. There was no Lupercus, as some have vainly
imagined ; much less any such combination as Faunus Lupercus,
which has been needlessly created out of a passage of Justin \
Liber is suggested by Servius 4 ; who adds that others fancied it
was a 'bellicosus deus.' Eecently Juno has been suggested,
because the strips which the runners carried were called
' lunonis amiculum ' *. Thus it is quite plain that the Koman
of the literary age did not know who the god was. The
1 ' Cornipedi Fauno caesa de more capella' (Fasti, 2. 361). Cp. 5. 101.
So Plut. Rom. 1. c.
8 Livy, i. 5. Unger (p. 71 foil.) has much to say about Inuus in the
worst style of German pseudo-research. See Lex. s.v. (Steuding).
3 Schwegler, i. 351 foil. ; Justin, 43. i. I had long ago arrived at this
conclusion, and was glad to see it sanctioned by Wissowa in Lex. s. v.
Lupercus.
* Aen. 8. 343 : the only reason given is that the goat was Liber's
victim.
* Arnobius, 2. 23. See Mannhardt, 85 ; Huschke, Bom. Jahr, 12.
MENSIS FEBRUARIUS 313
common idea that he was Faunus is discredited by Livy's
account and his mention of Inuus, and also by the fact that
Faunus is not associated with urban settlements : and may
easily be accounted for by the myth of Evander and the
Arcadians, whose Pan Lycaeus was of course identified with
Faunus l, or by the girding of the Luperci with skins, which
made them resemble the popular conception of the Fauni2.
Possibly the name was a secret ; for theie was a tendency to
avoid fixing a god's name in ritual, in order to escape making
mistakes, and so offending him. ' lure pontificum cautum est
ne suis nominibus dii Romani appellarentur, ne exaugurari
possintV We must also remember that the Lupercalia un-
doubtedly descends from the very earliest period of the Roman
religion, when the individuality of deities was not clearly
conceived, and when their names were unknown, doubtful, or
adjectival only. In fact, we need not greatly trouble ourselves
about the name of the god : his nature is deducible to some
extent from the ritual. The connexion with the Palatine, with
the wolf, and with fructification, seems to me to point very
clearly in the direction of Mars and his characteristics.
It would be almost more profitable if we could be sure of the
sacrificing priest ; but here again we are in the dark. Ovid
says, ' Flamen ad haec prisco more Dialis erat 4 ' ; but it is im-
possible that this priest could have been the sacrificer (though
Marquardt committed himself to this), for he was expressly
forbidden to touch either goat or dog5, which seem to have
been excluded from the cult of Jupiter. Even in the case
of such exceptional piacula- as this no doubt was, we can hardly
venture without further evidence to ascribe the slaughter of the
sacred animal to the great priest of the heavenly deity in whose
cult it was tabooed. Plutarch says that the Luperci them-
selves sacrificed 6 ; and this is more probable, and is borne out
1 Schwegler, i. 354 foil. : the general result is given in Lex. s. v. Evander,
vol. i. 1395. Evander himself— Faunus. It is possible that there may be
some basis of truth in the Arcadian legend : we await further archaeo-
logical inquiry.
3 See on Dec. 5 ; and Lex. B.V. Faunus, p. 1458.
3 Serv. Aen. 2. 351. The whole passage is very interesting. See on
Dec. 21 ; and Bouche-Leclercq, Poniifus, 38 and 49.
* Fasti, a. 282 ; Marq. 443.
8 Plut. Q. R. in ; Cell. 10. 15; Arnob. 7. ai.
• Rom. 21 : quoted above, p. 311. Val. Max. 1. c. seems also to imply it :
314 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
by comparison with other cases in which the priest clothes
himself, as the Luperci did, in the skin of the victim. It does
not indeed seem certain that the two youths who thus girt
themselves had also performed the sacrifice ; but they represent
the two collegia of Luperci, and lead the race ', as Romulus and
Remus did in the explanatory legend.
As regards the victims, there is here at least no doubt that
both goat and dog were exceptional animals in sacrifice 2, and
that their use here betokens a piacular rite of unusual 'holiness.'
Thus their offering is a mystic sacrifice, and belongs to that
' small class of exceptional rites in which the victim was drawn
from some species of animals that retained even in modern
times their ancient repute of natural holiness3.' It is exactly
in this kind of sacrifice that we find such peculiar points of
ritual as meet us in the Lupercalia. ' The victim is sacrosanct,
and the peculiar value of the ceremony lies in the operation
performed on its life, whether that life is merely conveyed to
the god on the altar (i.e. as in burnt-sacrifices) or is also
applied to the worshippers by the sprinkling of the blood, or
some other lustral ceremony4.' The writer might very well
have been thinking of the Lupercalia when he wrote these
lines. The meaning of these rites was originally, as he states
it, that the holiness of the victim means kinship to the wor-
shippers and their god, ' that all sacred relations and all moral
obligations depend on physical unity of life, and that physical
unity of life can be created or reinforced by common participa-
tion in living flesh and blood.' We may postpone consideration
of this view as applied to the Lupercalia till we have examined
the remaining features of the ceremony.
After the sacrifice was completed, Plutarch 5 tells us that the
'Facto sacrificio caesisque capris, epularum hilaritate ac vino largiore
provecti, divisa pastoral! turba, cincti pellibus immolatarum hostiarum,
iocantes obvios petiveiunt.'
1 Even this point is not quite certain ; but see Hartung, Eel. der Romer,
ii. 178, and Mannhardt, 78.
2 Ox, sheep and pig were the usual victims ; the dog was only offered
to Robigus (see on April 25), to the Lares Praestites and to Mana Geneta ;
the goat only to Bacchus and Aesculapius, foreign deities (Marq. 172). The
goat-skin of Juno Sospita is certainly Greek: Lex. s.v. luno, 595. The
goat was a special Hebrew piaculum (^Robertson Smith, 448 ; cf. 4531.
* Robertson Smith, 379. 4 Ib. 381.
' Bom. 21 ol ftlv jjiMffiivg fM.\aipa rov pfr&irvv Otyydfovffiv, trfpot 5'
MENSIS FEBRUARIUS 315
foreheads of the two youths were touched with the bloody
knife that had slain the victims, and the stain was then wiped
off with wool dipped in milk, after which the youths had to
laugh. This has often been supposed to indicate an original
human sacrifice ', the he-goats being substituted for human
victims, and the death of the latter symbolized by the smearing
with their blood. This explanation might be admissible if
this were the only feature of the ceremony ; but it is so entirely
out of keeping with those that follow — the wearing of the
skins and the running — that it is preferable to look for another
before adopting it. At the same time it may be observed that
no reasonable hypothesis can be ruled out of court where our
knowledge of the rite is so meagre and so hard to bring
satisfactorily into harmony with others occurring among other
peoples 2.
There is a curious passage in Apollonius Rhodiuss, where
purification from a murder is effected by smearing the hands
of the murderer with the blood of a young pig, and then
wiping it off «AXou xurXoto-t ; and the Scholiast on the lines
describes a somewhat similar method of purification which was
practised in Greece. This would raise a presumption that the
youths were not originally the victims at the Lupercalia, but
rather the slayers ; and that they had to be purified from the
guilt of the blood of the sacrosanct victim *. When this was
done they became one with the victim and the god by the
girding on of the skins, and were able to communicate the new
life thus acquired in the course of their lustratio of the city by
means of the strips of skin to the women who met them. This
explanation is open to one or two objections ; for example, it
hardly accounts for the laughter of the youths, unless we are
dirofia.Trovffti' fvOvs tpiov Pt@p€yntvov ya\anri irpocr<pe povrts. Tf\av Si Sfi rd.
fffipi'Kia fjifrd rfjv diruftafiv.
1 So Schwegler. I.e. and reff. in Marq. 443 notes 11-13. Dion. Hal. (i.
32) compared the human sacrifice in the cult of Zeus Lycaeus in Arcadia.
See Farnell, Cults, i. 40 foil.
* We ought to have the whole history of the Lupercalia if we are to
explain it rightly ; it is impossible to guess through what stages and
changes it may have passed.
3 4. 478 (quoted in a valuable section (23^ of Hermann's Qottesdienstliche
Alterthiimer der Griechen).
* For exampks of this idea see under Feb. 24 (Regifugium) ; Robertson
Smith, 286 ; Mannhardt, Myth. Forsch. 58 foil.
316 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
to suppose that it was an expression of joy at their release from
blood-guiltiness l. And we have indeed no direct evidence that
the youths were ever themselves the sacrificers, though the
collateral evidence on this point, as I have already said, seems
to be fairly strong2. Yet I cannot but think that the true
significance of the essential features of the ceremony is to be
looked for somewhere in the direction thus indicated.
There is, however, another explanation of the application of
the bloody knife, the wiping, and the laughing, which Mann-
hardt proposed, not without some modest hesitation, in his
posthumous work s. In his view these were symbolic or quasi-
dramatic acts, signifying death and renewed life. The youths
were never actually killed, but they were the figures in a kind
of acted parable. The smearing with blood denoted that they
partook of the death of the victim 4 ; the wiping with milky
wool signified the revival to a new life, for milk is the source of
life. The laughing is the outward sign of such revival : the dead
are silent, cannot laugh "'. And the meaning of all this was the
death and the revival of the Vegetation-spirit. I have already
more than once profited by Mannhardt's researches into this
type of European custom, and they are now familiar to English-
men in the works of Mr. Frazer, Mr. Farnell, and others.
Undoubtedly there are many bits of grotesque custom which
can best be explained if we suppose them to mean the death of
the Power of growth at harvest-time, or its resuscitation in the
spring, perhaps after the death of the powers of winter and
darkness. But whether the Lupercalia is one of these I cannot
be so sure. These rites do not seem to have any obvious
reference to crops, but rather to have come down from the
1 It may indeed be misrepresented by Plutarch (who is the only writer
who mentions it), and may have been originally an o\o\vyri. For the
confusion of mournful and joyful cries at a sacrifice see Robertson
Smith, 411.
* Robertson Smith notes (p. 396) that young men, or rather lads, occur
as sacriflcers in Exodus xxiv. 5.
3 p. 91 foil.
4 Mannbardt is not lucid on this point ; he was evidently in difficulties
(PP- 97-99). He seems clear that the application of the blood produces
an identity between victim and youths ; but in similar cases it is not
through death that victim, god, and priest become identical, but through
the life-giving virtue of the blood. The blood-application must surely
moan the acquisition of new life ; but he makes it symbolic of death.
5 Frazer, G. B. ii. 242.
MENSIS FEBRUARIUS 317
pastoral stage of society : and it is not in this case the fields
which are lustrated by the runners, but the urbs and its
women l. And the earlier parts of the ritual bear the marks
of a piaculum so distinctly that it seems unnecessary and
confusing to introduce into it a different set of ideas.
There is a similar divergence of opinion in explaining the
next feature, the wearing of the skins of the victims2.
Dr. Mannhardt believed that this was one of the innumerable
instances in which, at certain times of the year, animals are
personated by human beings, e. g. at Christmas, at the beginning
of Lent (Carnival), and at harvest. These he explained as
representations of the Vegetation-spirit, which was conceived
to be dead in winter, to come to life in spring, and at harvest
to die again, and which was believed to assume all kinds of
animal forms. This has been generally accepted as explaining
several curious rites both in Greece and Italy, e. g. that of the
Hirpi Sorani at Soracte not far from Eome3. But it is
a question whether it will equally well explain the Luperci
and their goat-skins. In this case Mannhardt is driven to
somewhat far-fetched hypotheses ; he derives Lupercus from
lupus-hircus* (p. 90), and suggests that the two collegia repre-
sented respectively wolves and goats, according to the view of
the Vegetation-spirit taken by the two communities of Palatine
and Quirinal 5. But this solution, the result of a bias in favour
of his favourite Vegetation-spirit, does not strike us as happy,
and Dr. Mannhardt himself does not seem well pleased
with it 6.
It would seem safer to. take this as one of the many well-
1 Mannhardt seems to have felt this difficulty (p. 86), and to have tried
to overcome it, but without success.
* I here omit the feasting, as it is by no means certain at what point of
time it took place. If the victims themselves were eaten, it would be
part of the sacrificial act and would precede the running ; but this is not
common in the case of such piacula. and one victim, we must remember,
was a dog. It is more likely that Val. Max. is here wrong (see above,
p. 311, note 6).
3 See Mannhnrdt, Antike Wold- und Feldkulte, 318 foil., and for other
examples, Frazer, G. B. ii. i foil. ; Preller-Robert, Oriech. Myth. i. 144 (Zeus-
festival on Pelion).
4 After Schwegler, i. 361 ; rejected by Marq. (439, note 4).
5 p. lor. The 'wolves' represent of course the Palatine city.
' See his eminently modest and sensible remarks at the end of his 5th
section, p. 113.
31 8 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
known piacula in which the worshipper wears the skin of
a very holy victim, thereby entering sacramentally into the
very nature of the god to whom the victim is sacrificed1.
Whether or no we are to look for the origin of these practices
in a totemistic age, is a question that cannot be discussed
here ; and there is no sign of totemism in the Lupercalia
save this one2.
But if this be the right explanation, what, we may ask, was
meant by the name Luperci ? If it meant wolves, are we not
rather thrown back on Mannhardt's theory ? To this it may
be answered ; (i) that no classical author suggests that the
runners were looked upon as representing wolves ; by the
common people we are told that they were called creppl\
the meaning of which is quite uncertain, though it has been
explained as = capti, and as simply arising from the fact that
the runners were clad in goat-skins*. There is in fact no
necessary connexion at all between the skins and the name
Luperci. If that name originally meant wolf-priests, its
explanation is to be found rather in connexion with the wolf
of Mars, and the cave of the she-wolf, than in the skins of the
sacrificed goats, which were worn by only two members of
the two collegia bearing the name.
We must now turn our attention to the last features of the
festival ; the course taken by the runners round the Palatine
Hill, and the whipping of women with the strips of sacred
skin. The two youths, having girded on the skins (though
otherwise naked) and also cut strips from them, proceeded to
run a course which seems almost certainly to have followed
that of the pomoerium at the foot of the Palatine. The starting-
point was the Lupercal, or a point near it, and Tacitus 5 has
1 Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, 416 foil. ; Encycl. Brit. art.
'Sacrifice'; and for the Lupercalia, Academy, Feb. n, 1888, where a tote-
mistic origin is suggested.
2 See also Lobeck, Aglaoph. pp. 183 6 ; Lang, Myth, Ritual and Religion,
vol. ii. 177 (cp. 106) and reff., 213 ; Did. of Antiquities, art. 'Sacrificium,1
p. 584.
3 Festus, p. 57 ' Creppos, id est lupercos, dicebant a crepitu pellicu-
larum,' &c.
* Preller, i. 389. On this Jordan has added no comment.
5 Ann. ia. 24 ; Jordan, Topogr. i. 163 foil., has examined Tacitus's account
•with great care. Tacitus starts the pomoerium from the Forum boarium,
while Dkmysius and Plutarch start the runners from the Lupercal j but
the two are close together.
MENSIS FEBRUARIUS 319
described the course of the pomoerium as far as the ' sacellum
Larum forumque Romanum ' : in his day it was marked out by
stones (' cippi '). We are concerned with it here only so far as
it affects the question whether the running was a lustratio of
the Palatine city. The last points mentioned by Tacitus, the
'sacellum Larum, forumque Romanum1,' show plainly that
the course was round the Pal.itine from south-west to north-
east, but they do not bring the runners back to the point from
which they started, and complete the circle ". Varro is, however,
quite clear that the running was a lustratio : ' Lupercis nudis
lustratur antiquum oppidum Palatinum gregibus humanis
cinctum.' The passage is obscure, and attempts have been
made to amend it ; but there can be no doubt that it points to
a religious ceremony 3.
This lustratio, then, as we may safely call it, was at the same
time a beating of the bounds and a rite of purification and
fertilization. Just as the peeled wands of our Oxford bound-
beaters on Ascension Day* may perhaps have originally had
a use parallel to that of the febma, so the parish boundaries
correspond to the Roman pomoerium. We have already had
examples of processional bound-beating in the rites of the
Argei and the Ambarvalia ; in all there is the same double
object— tho combination of a religious with a juristic act;
but the Lupercalia stands alone in the quaintness of its ritual,
and may probably be the oldest of all.
Before we go on to the februa and their use, mention must
be made of a difficulty in regard to the duality of the collegia
of Luperci and the runners. These have been supposed to
have originated from two gentile priesthoods of the Fabii and
1 The reading is not quite certain ; the MSS. have ( Larum de
forumque.'
2 The Sacellum Larum has generally been supposed to be that in
summit sacra via (Jordan, op. cit. ii. 269). Kit-port and Huelsen make
it the sacellum or ara Larum praestitum at the head of the Vicus Tuscus.
3 L. L. 6. 34. Mommsen proposed 'a regibus Romanis moeuibus cine-
turn.' But it is safer to keep to the MS. reading and make the best of it.
Jordan sees in the words a 'scurrilous ' allusion to the luperci.
* For modern practices of the kind in England see Brand, Popular
Antiquities, ch. 36 ; and for Oxford, p. 209. As Brand puts it, the beaters
(i.e. ministers, churchwardens, &c.), 'beg a blessing on the fruits of the earth,
and preserve the rights and boundaries of their parish.' The analogy with
the old Italian processions is very close.
320 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
Quinctii * ; and as we know that the gens Fabia had a cult on
the Quirinal z, it is conjectured that the Luperci Fabiani
represented the Sabine city, and the Quinctiales the Romans
of the Palatine, just as we also find two collegia of Salii, viz.
Palatini and Collini 3. If, however, the running of the Luperci
was really a lustratio of the Palatine, we must suppose that the
lustratio of the Quirinal city by its own Luperci was given up
and merged in that of the older settlement 4 ; and such an
abandonment of a local rite would be most surprising in
Roman antiquity. It is true that there is no other explanation
of the existence of the two guilds ; but we may hesitate to
accept this one, if we have to pay for it by so bold a
hypothesis 5.
The last point to be noticed, the whipping with the strips
of skin6, might have attracted little notice as a relic of
antiquity in the late Republic but for the famous incident in
the life of Caesar, when Antonius was one of the runners. We
have it on excellent evidence, not only that the runners struck
women who met them with the strips, but that they did so
in order to produce fertility7. Such an explanation of the
object would hardly have been invented, and it tallies closely
with some at least of a great number of practices of the kind,
which have teen investigated by Mannhardt8. His parallels
1 So C. I. L. 6. 1933 ' lupercus Quinctialis vetus.' See Mommsen, Forsch.
i. 117. Unger, however (p. 56 toll.), argues for the form Quintilianus,
as it appears in Fest. 87, and Ovid, Fasti, 2. 378 ; and also denies that the
names indicate gentile priesthoods. But his arguments depend on a
doubtful etymology. See Marq. 440, note.
a Liv. 5. 46. Mommsen connects the name Kaeso, which is found
in both gentes, with the cutting of the strips at the Lupercalia. The
Fabii in Ovid's story (361 foil.) are led by Remus, and the Quintilii by
Romulus.
3 See under March i, p. 41.
4 So Mannhardt, 101, who tries to explain it as we have seen.
* Gilbert, Gesch. wnd Topogr, i. 86, note, tries to make out that the Fabii
belonged to the Palatine proper ; and the other guild, not to the Quirinal,
but to the Cermalus, and thus also to account for the fact that in Ovid's
story the Fabii come first to the feast ; but all this is pure guesswork.
6 Plut. Rom. 21 and Goes. 6r ; Ovid, Fasti, a. 425 foil. ; Paul. 57 ; Liv.
fragm. 12 (Madvig) ; Serv. Aen. 8. 343. All these passages make it clear
that the object was to procure fertility in women. Nic. Damasc., Vita
Caesaris 21, does not specify women (cp. Dion. Hal. i. 8o\
7 Liv. 1. c. and Serv. 1. c. are explicit on this point.
* Op. cit. 113 foil, and his Baumkutttis, p. 251 foil, (see alsoFrazer, G. B. ii.
214 and 232 foil.). An example of the same kind of practice in India is in
MENSIS FEBRUAEIUS 321
nre not indeed all either complete or convincing ; but the
collection is valuable for many purposes, and the general
result is to show that whipping certain parts of the body with
some instrument supposed to possess magic power is efficacious
in driving away the powers of evil that interfere with fertiliza-
tion. Whether the thing beaten be man, woman, image, or
human or animal representative of the Vegetation-spirit, the
object is always more or less directly to quicken or restore
the natural powers of reproduction ; the notion being that the
hostile or hindering spirit was thus driven out, or that
the beating actually woke up and energized the power. The
latter is perhaps a later idea, rationalized from the earlier.
In any case the thongs, as part of the sacrosaact victim, were
supposed to possess a special magical power1 ; and the word
applied to them, februa, though not meaning strictly instru-
ments of purification in our sense of the word, may be translated
cathartic objects, since they had power to free from hostile
influences and quicken natural forces. And those who wielded
them were regarded in some at least as priests or magicians ;
they were naked but for the goat-skins, and probably had
wreaths on their heads2. Their wild and lascivious behaviour
as they ran is paralleled in many ceremonies of the kind 3.
It is singular that a festival of a character so rude and rustic
should have lived on in the great city for centuries after it had
become cosmopolitan and even Christian. This is one of the
many results due to the religious enterprise of Augustus, who
rebuilt the decayed Lupercal, and set the feast on a new
footing 4. It continued to exist down to the year 494 A. D.
when the Pope, Gelasius I, changed the day (Feb. 1 5) to that
of the Purification of the Virgin Mary ft.
Crooke, Religion and Folklore, vol. i. p. 100. See under May i (Bona Dea),
p. 104.
1 They were also called ' amiculum lunonis' (Fest. 85 : cp. Ovid, Fasti, a.
427 foil.) ; Juno here, as so often, representing the female principle. Farnell
(Cults, i. 100) aptly compares with this the Athenian custom of carrying
Athena's aegis round Athens, and taking it into the houses of married
women.
* Lactantius, Inst. i. ai. 45, describes them as 'nudi, uncti, coronati,
personati, aut luto obliti currant'; but we have no certain confirmation
from earlier sources except as to the nakedness (Ovid, Fasti, 2. 267).
3 ' locantes obvios petiverunt' (Val. Max.). Mannhardt, MyJi. Forsch.
140 foil.
4 Mon. Ancyr. iv. a ; Marq. 446. s Baronius, Annol. Eccles. viii. 60 foil.
322 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
xin KAL. MART. (Feb. 17). M>.
QUIR~LINALIA]. (CAEB. MAFF. FABN. PHILOC.)
QUIRING IN COLLE. (FARN. CAEB.)
How the festival of Quirinus came to be placed at this time
I cannot explain : we know nothing of it, and cannot assume
that it was of an expiatory character, like the Lupercalia
preceding it, and the Feralia following. Of the temple 'in
colle' we also know nothing1 that can help us. We have
already learnt that this day was called ' stultorum feriae,' and
why ; but the conjunction of the last day of the sacra of the
curiae with those of Quirinus is probably accidental ; we
cannot safely assume any connexion through the word ' curia. '
The name Quirinalia was familiar enough 2 ; but it may be that
it only survived through the stultorum feriae.
The Roman of the later Republic identified Quirinus with
Romulus ; Virgil, e.g. in the first Aeneid (2 9 2) speaks of ' Remo
cum fratre Quirinus3.' We have no clue to the origin of this
identification. It may have been suggested by the use of the
name Quirites ; but neither do we know when or why that
name came to signify the Roman people in their civil capacity,
and the etymology of these words and their relation to each
other still entirely baffles research 4.
There is, however, a general agreement that Quirinus was
another form of Mars, having his abode on the hill which still
goes by his name. That Mars and Quirinus were ever the
same deities was indeed denied by so acute an inquirer as
Ambrosch 5 ; but he denied it partly on the ground that
no trace of the worship of Mars had been found on the
Quirinal ; and since his time two inscriptions have been
found there on the same spot, one at least of great antiquity,
1 Aust, de Aedibus sacns, p. 1 1 ; Jordan, Eph. Epigr. iii. 238.
* e. g. Cic. ad Quint. Frair. a. 3. a.
* See other references in Preller, i. 374, note. Ambrosch (Sttulien, 169,
note 50) observes that Cicero (de Off. 3. 10) writes with a trace of scepticism :
' Romulus fratre interempto sine controversia peccavit, pace vel Quirini
vel Romuli dixerim.'
* See Jordan on Preller, i. 369. The article 'Quirinus' in Myth. Ltx.
has not yet appeared as I write.
* Studien, 169.
MENSIS FEBKUAKIUS 323
•which indicate votive offerings to Mars and Quirinus respec-
tively1. From these Mommsen concludes that Quirinus was
at one time worshipped there under the name of Mars ;
which involves also the converse, that Mars was once wor-
shipped under the adjectival cult-title Quirinus. Unluckily
Mars Quirinus is a combination as yet undiscovered ; and
as the existence of a patrician Flamen Quirinalis distinct
from the Flamen Martialis points at least to a very early
differentiation of the two, it may be safer to think of the two,
not as identical deities, but rather as equivalent cult-expressions
of the same religious conception in two closely allied com-
munities 2.
That the Quirinal was the seat of the cult of Quirinus admits
of no doubt ; and the name of the hill, which we are told was
originally Agonus or Agonalis *, arose no doubt from the cult 4.
Here were probably two temples of the god, the one dating
from B. c. 293, and having June 29 as its day of dedication ;
the other of unknown date, which celebrated its birthday on
the Quirinalia8. A 'sacellum Quirini in colle' is also men-
tioned at the time of the Gallic invasion 6 (this was perhaps the
predecessor of the temple of June 29), and also the house of the
Flamen Quirinaiis which adjoined it. To the Quirinal also
belong the Salii Agonenses, Collini, or Quirinales, who cor-
respond to the Salii of the Palatine and of Mars 7. And here,
1 C. I. L. i. 4i=vi. 475 and i. 630 = vi. 565. The older one is attributed
by Mommsen to the consul P. Cornelius of B. c. 236 : ' P. Corn^elios] L. f.
coso[l] probfavit] Mar^te sacrom].' The other, ' Quirino L. Aimilius
L. f. praitor,' must be set down to an Aemilius praetor in 204, 191, or 190.
The inference is that Mars became known as Quirinus in that spot at the
end of the third century B c. It is worth noting that the legendary smith,
Mamurius, had a statue on the Quirinal (Jord. Top. ii. 125).
* This is much what Dion. Hal. 2. 48 says was one view held in his
time : OVK Ixovras tlirtiv ri> die pt fits tin 'Aprjs (arlv tire trtpos rts o/xoias"'Ap«
3 See on Jan. 9. Fest. 254.
* Gilbert, i. 283, points out that in the Argean itinerary (Jord. Top.
ii. 237 foil.) one of tlie divisions of the Quirinal bears the name, and infers the
gradual spread of the cult of Quirinus over the whole hill ; but he insists
that it was introduced from the Palatine. The general result of his wild
but ingenious combinations is to infer a religious conquest of the Quirinal
from the Palatine.
5 Aust, op. cit. pp. ii and 33. Mommsen, C. /. L. i. 310, takes the one
of unknown date as the older.
* Aust, op. cit. 51, where for Liv. 4. 21 read Liv. 5. 40.
7 Preller, i. 356.
Y 2
324 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
lastly, seems to belong the mysterious Flora or Horta Quirini,
whose temple, according to Plutarch l, was ' formerly ' always
open. About the cult of Quirinus on his hill we know, however,
nothing, except that there were two myrtles growing in front
of his temple, one called the patrician and the other the
plebeian 2, and to which a curious story is attached. Preller 3
noted that these correspond to the two laurels in the sacrarium
JIartis in the Kegia, and conjectured that each pair symbolized
the union of the state in the cults of the two communities.
Of the duties of the Flamen Quirinalis we have already seen
something 4 : unluckily they throw little or no new light on the
cult of Quirinus. He was concerned in the worship of Robigus,
of Consus, and of Acca Larentia, all of them ancient cults of
agricultural Kome ; and he seems to have been in close con-
nexion with the Vestal Virgins 8. These are just such duties
us we might have expected would fall to the Flamen of Mars j
and probably the two cults were much alike in character.
vii KAL. MART. (FEB. 23.) JP.
TER[MINALIAj. (CAEK. MAFF. KUST. PHILOO. SILV.)
Was there any connexion between the Terminalia and the
end of the year ? The Roman scholars thought so ; Varro G
writes, ' Terminalia quod is dies anni extremus constitutus ;
duodecimus enim fuit Februarius, et quum intercalatur, in-
feriores quinque dies duodecimo demuntur mense.' So Ovid,
Tu quoque sacrorum, Termine, finis eras.
But Terminus is the god of the boundaries of land, and has
nothing to do with time ; and the Terminalia is not the last
festival of the year in the oldest calendars. The Romans must
have been misled by the coincidence of the day of Terminus
with the last day before intercalation. The position in the
1 Q. B. 46 ; Ennius ap. Nonium 120 ; Gell. 13. 23.
* Plin. H. N. 15. 120. 3 i. 373.
4 See under April 25, Aug. 21, Dec. 23. Marq. 335 ; Schwegler, i. 334.
5 Liv. 5. 40, 7 and 8.
• L. L. 6. 13. According to Macrob. (i. 13. 15) the five last days of
February were added after the intercalation, in older that March might
lollow on Feb., and not on the intercalated days.
MENSIS FEBRUARIUS 325
year of the rites to be described seems parallel to that of
the Compitalia and Paganalia, which were concerned with
matters of common interest to a society of farmers: and we
may remember that Pliny l said of the Fornacalia that it
was ' farris torrendi feriae et aeque religiosae terminis agrorum.'
The ritual of the Terminalia in the country districts is
described by Ovid *. The two landowners garlanded each his
side of the boundary-stone, and all offerings were double 3. An
altar is made ; and fire is carried from the hearth by the
farmer's wife, while the old man cuts up sticks and builds
them in a framework of stout stakes. Then with dry bark the
fire is kindled ; from a basket, held ready by a boy 4, the little
daughter of the family thrice shakes the fruits of the earth into
the fire, and offers cakes of honey. Others stand by with
wine ; and the neighbours (or dependants) look on in silence
and clothed in white. A lamb is slain, and a sucking-pig,
and the boundary- stone sprinkled with their blood ; and the
ceremony ends with a feast and songs in praise of holy
Terminus.
This rite was, no doubt, practically a yearly renewal of that
by which the stone was originally fixed in its place. The latter
is described by the gromatic writer Siculus Flaccus5. Fruits
of the earth, and the bones, ashes, and blood of a victim which
had been offered were put into a hole by the two (or three)
owners whose land converged at the point, and the stone was
rammed down on the top and carefully fixed. The reason
given for this was of course that the stone might be identified
in the future, e. g. by an arbiter, if one should be called in * ;
but it also reminds us of the practice of burying the remains
1 H. N. 18. 8. See above, p. 304. * Fasti, a. 643 foil.
Te duo diversa domini pro parte coronant,
Binaque serta tibi binaque liba ferunt.
* This must be a son of the family. We have, therefore, in this
charming picture the predecessors of the Rex, the Regina sacrorum, the
namines, and the Vestal Virgins.
Stat puer et manibus lata canistra tenet.
Inde ubi ter fruges medios immisit in ignes,
Porrigit incisos filia parva favos.
De-Marchi, p. 231, gives a cut of a painting at Hereulaneum which may
represent a scene of this kind.
* Gromatici veteres, i. 141. See Rudorff in vol. ii. 236 for an interesting
discussion of the religio terminoruin and its ethical and legal results.
* Rudorff, 1. c. 237.
326 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
of a victim1, and the use of the blood shows the extreme
sanctity of the operation.
That the stone was regarded as the dwelling-place of a numen
is proved by the fact that it was sprinkled with blood and gar-
landed 2 ; and the development of a god Terminus is perfectly
in keeping with Roman religious ideas. It is more difficult to
determine what was the relation of this Terminus to the great
Jupiter who was so intimately associated, as we have seen ",
with the idea of keeping faith with your neighbours. Was he
the numen originally thought to occupy the stone, and is the
name Terminus, as marking a distinct deity, a later growth?
I am disposed to think that this was so ; for we saw that there
is some reason to believe that Jupiter did not disdain to
dwell in objects such as trees and stones, and there is no need
to look to Greece for the origin of his connexion with boundaries4.
But Jupiter and Terminus remained on the whole distinct ; and
a Jupiter Terminus or Terminalis is first found on the coins of
Varro the great scholar, probably in B. c. 76 5.
The close connexion of the two is seen in the legend that
when Jupiter was to be introduced into the great Capitoline
temple, from the Capitolium vetus on the Quirinal, all the gods
made way for him but Terminus 6 :
Quid nova cum fierent Capitolia ? nempe deorum
Cuncta lovi cessit turba, locumque dedit.
Terminus, ut veteres memorant, inventus in aede
Kestitit, et magno cum love templa tenet.
This, as Preller truly observes, is only a poetical way of
expressing his stubbornness, and his close relation to Jupiter,
with whom he continued to share the great temple. It seems
certain that there was in that temple a stone supposed to be
1 Jevons, Introduction to the History of Religion, 149.
* Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, 187 folL
3 See under September, p. 229 foil. I may here notice the very curious
' oraculum ' in Grom. Vet. p. 350 (ex libris Vegoiae) which connects Jupiter
with the introduction of termini in Etruria.
4 Ztiu optos he is called by Dion. Hal. (a. 74), where the cult is ascribed
to Numa. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, i. 159.
* Aust, in Myth. Lex. s. v. luppiter, 668.
" Fasti, 2. 667 ; Liv. r. 55 ; Serv. Aen. g. 448. Augustine, C. D. 4. 23, adds
Mars, and Dion. Hal. 3. 69 luventus to Terminus, who could not be
' exauguratus.'
MENSIS FEBRUARIUS 327
that of Terminus, over which there was a hole in the roof ' :
for all sacrifice to Terminus must be made in the open air.
Nunc quoque, se supra ne quid nisi sideia cernat,
Exiguum templi tecta foramen habent2.
Precisely the same feature is found in the cult of Semo
Sancus or Dius Fidius3, who was concerned with oaths and
treaties ; and of Hercules we are told that the oath taken
in his name must be taken out of doors4.
Of the stone itself we know nothing. It is open to us to
guess that it was originally a boundary-stone, perhaps between
the ager of the Palatine city and that of the Quirinal. The
mons Capitolinus seems to have been neutral ground, as we
may guess by the tradition of the asylum there ; it was
outside the pomoerium, and in the early Republic was the
property of the priestly collegia8. It was, therefore, a very
appropriate place for a terminus between two communities6.
From Ovid (679 foil.) we gather that there was a terminus-
stone at the sixth milestone on the via Laurentina, at which
public sacrifices were made, perhaps on the day of the Termi-
nalia: this was probably at one time the limit of the ager
Romanus in that direction.
vi KAL. MART. (FEB. 24). N.
REGrIF[UGIUM]. (CAER. MAFF. PHILOC.) REGIFUGIUM, CUM
TARQUINIUS SUPERBU8 FERTUR AB URBE EXPULSUS. (SILV.)
This note of Silvius is based on a very old and natural
misapprehension. Ovid 7, and probably most Romans, believed
1 Serv. Aen. 9. 448 ' Unde in CHpitolio prona pars tecti patet, quae
lapidem ipsum Termini spectat.' This is the ' Capitoli immobile saxum '
of Virgil ; see above, p. 230.
* Ovid, 1. c. 671. * See above, p. 140. Varro, L. L. 5. 66.
4 Plut. Q. R. 28. 5 Ambrosch, Studien, 199 foil.
' It would exactly correspond to the spot of sacred ground on which
the terminus-stone stood between two properties (Rudorff, 1. c.). In the
latter case, it is worth noting, the sacrifices and sacrificers are doubles,
as with the Salii, Luperci, &c., of the two Roman settlements. Mr. Granger
(Worship of Vie Romans, 163) suggests that this stone was 'a relic from the
original dwellers by the Tiber,' i.e. pro-Roman. But the question is, How
did the Romans come to associate it with Terminus ?
1 Fasti, 2. 685 foil. He is probably following Varro and common opinion,
which latter Verrius refers to (Paul. 279) ' Regifugium sacrum dicebant,
328 THE KOMAN FESTIVALS
that the expulsion of Tarquin was commemorated on this day.
There is, however, strong indirect evidence to show that the
'flight of the king' on Feb. 24 was something very different.
1. We have already had a 'flight of the people ' (Poplifugia)
on July 5 ; and we saw that this was probably a purificatory
rite of which the meaning had been lost — the sacrifice perhaps
of a sacred animal followed by the flight of the crowd as
from a murder. It seems impossible, at any rate unwise, to
separate Poplifugia and Regifugium in general meaning, for
there is no other parallel to them in the calendar. Both
were explained historically by the Eomans, because in both the
obscure (and perhaps obsolete) religious rite was inexplicable
otherwise ; and we must also endeavour to treat both on the
same principle.
2. It seems pretty clear that Verrius Flaccus did not believe
in the historical explanation of the Kegifugium. In Festus,
page 278, we find a mutilated gloss which evidently refers
to this day, and is thus completed by Mommsen l : —
[Eegifugium notatur in fastis dies a.d.] vi Jcal. [Mart, qui
creditor sic dict]us quid [eo die Tarquinius rex fugerit ex urbe].
Quod fal[sum est ; nam e castris in exilium abisse eum r]ettu\e-
runt annales. Rectius explicabit qui regem e]t Salios 2 [hoc die . . .
facere sacri\ficiwn in [comitio eoque perfecto ilium incle fugere
n]overit. . .
It may be said that this is all guesswork, and no evidence ;
but it is borne out by the following passage in Plutarch's sixty-
third Roman question :
"Ea-Tt yovv TIS tv dyopa 6v<ria Trpos ra \fyofjifvm KOJLHJT/W irdrptos, YJV
6vcras 6 ftacri\(vs Kara ra^or anticri (ptvyw e£ dyopdt.
Whence Plutarch drew this statement we cannot tell. He
does not give the day on which the sacrifice and flight took
quo die rex Tarquinius fugerit e Koma.' The word dicebant seems to show
that this was not Verrius' own opinion.
1 C. I. L. i. 289. This gloss is no doubt the equivalent in Festus to that
of Paulus just quoted ; but the leading word Kegifugium is lost. I have
only quoted so much as is needed for our purpose. For other completions
of the gloss see Miiller, Festus, 1. c., and Huschke, Rom. Jahr, p. 166.
2 If this gloss really refers to Feb. 24, the presence of the Salii is diffi-
cult to account for, as their period of activity begins in March. Frazer in
an interesting note (G. B. ii. 210") suggests that the use of the Salii was to
drive away evil demons ; if the Regifugium was a solemn piaculum, and
the victim a scapegoat, this explanation might serve for Feb. 24.
MENSIS FEBRUARIUS 329
place ; and Huschke l has denied that he refers to the
Eegifugium at all. He believes that Plutarch is thinking
of the days marked Q. E. C. F. (March 24 and May 24), on
which Varro says, or seems to say, that the Eex sacrorum
sacrificed in the Comitium 2 ; and this may have been so, for
the note in the Fasti Praenestini on March 24 shows that
there was a popular misinterpretation of Q. E. C. F, which
took the letters to mean, ' quod eo die ex cotnitio fugerit rex.'
In this confusion we can but appeal to the word Eegifugium,
which is attached to Feb. 24 only. Taking this together with
Plutarch's statement, and remembering the great improbability
of the historical explanation being the true one, we are justified
in accepting Mommsen's completion of the passage in Festus,
and in concluding that there was really on Feb. 24 a flight
of the Eex after a sacrifice.
And this view is strengthened by the frequent occurrence of
sacerdotal flights in ancient and primitive religions. These
were first collected by Lobeck3, and have of late been
treated of and variously explained by Mannhardt, Frazer, and
Eobertson Smith 4. The best known examples are those of the
Bouphonia ('ox murder') at Athens, in which every feature
shows that the slain ox was regarded, ' not merely as a victim
offered to a god, but in itself a sacred creature, the slaughter of
which was sacrilege or murder'5; and the sacrifice of a bull-calf
to Dionysus at Tenedos, where the priest was attacked with
stones, and had to flee for his life 6. We do not yet know for
certain whether the origin of these ideas is to be found in
totemism, or in the sanctity of cattle in the pastoral age, or
in the representation of the spirit of vegetation in animal form.
The second of these explanations, as elucidated by Eobertson
Smith, would seem most applicable to the Athenian rite ; but
in the case of the Eoman one, we do not know what the victim
1 Edm. Jahr, 166 foil.
2 L. L. 6. 31, where Hirschfeld has conjectured ' litat ad comitium '
for the MS. ' dicat.'
3 Aglaophamus, 676.
4 Mannhardt, Myth. Forsch. 58 foil. ; Fnizer, Golden Bough, ii. 35 foil. ;
Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, 286 foil. Cp. Lang, Myth, Riiual
and Religion, ii. 233 foil. See also Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, i. 88 foil.,
who agrees in the main with Robertson Smith.
* Frazer, 1. c. • Aelian, A'. A. la. 34.
330 THE KOMAN FESTIVALS
was. It is also just possible, as Hartung long ago suggested \
that the victim was a scapegoat carrying away pollution, and
therefore to be avoided ; but I do not find any example of
flight from a scapegoat, among the many instances collected
by Mr. Frazer (Golden Bough, ii. 182 foil.).
in KAL. MART. (FEB. 27). IP.
EOJUIRRIA]. (MAFF. CAER. : cp. Varro, L. L. 6. 13).
We have no data whatever for guessing why a horse-race
should take place on the last day of Februaiy, or why there
should be two days of racing, the second being March 14.
This has not, however, prevented Huschke 2 from making some
marvellous conjectures, in which ingenuity and learning have
been utterly thrown away.
We saw 3 that the oldest races of this kind were connected
with harvest rejoicings ; and Mannhardt4 suggested that they
originated in the desire to catch the spirit of vegetation in
the last sheaf or in some animal form. Races also occur in
various parts of Europe in the spring — e.g. at the Carnival,
at Easter, and at Whitsuntide ; and of these he says that they
correspond with the others, and that the idea at the bottom
of them is ' die Vorstellung des wetteifernden Fruhlingsein-
zuges der Vegetationsdamonen.' However this may be, we
cannot but be puzzled by the doubling of the Equirria, and are
tempted to refer it to the same cause as that of the Salii
and Luperci5.
That both were connected with the cult of Mars is almost
beyond question. They were held in the Campus Martius,
and were supposed to have been established by Komulus in
honour of Mars 6 ; and we have already had an example of the
occurrence of horses in the Mars-cult. It would seem, then,
1 Eelig. der Bomer, ii. 35. Cp. Gilbert, i. 343, note. The presence of the
Salii (see above, p. 328), if a fact, would be in favour of this explanation.
2 Rom. Jahr, 199. 3 See on Aug. 21 (Consualia).
4 Myth. Forsch. 170 foil. ; Baumkultus, 382 foil.
• This, though with impossible combinations, is what Huschke does
(199, note 53). Feb. 37 is the Roman, March 14 the Quirinal Equirria, in
his view. That the Quiriualia falls in February may perhaps give some
support to the view.
• Varro, L. L. 6. 13 ; Fest. 81. See under Oct. 15.
MENSIS FEBRUARIUS 331
that the peculiar features of the worship of Mars began even
before March r. Preller noticed this long ago1, and suggested
that even the Lupercalia and the Quirinalia have some relation
to the Mars-cult, and that these fall at the time when the first
beginnings of spring are felt — e.g. when the first swallows
arrive2. We may perhaps add the appearance of the Salii
at the Kegifugium to these foreshadowings of the March rites.
Ovid seems to bear out Preller in his lines on this day 3 :
lamque duae restant noctes de mense secundo,
Marsque citos iunctis curribus urget equos :
Ex vero positum permansifc Equirria nomen,
Quae deus in Campo prospicit ipse suo.
lure venis, Gradive. Locum tua tempora poscunt,
Signatusque tuo nomine mensis adest.
I may aptly add Ovid's next couplet, now that we have
at last reached the end of the Koman year: —
Venimus in porturn, libro cum mense peracto.
Naviget hinc alia iam mihi linter aqua.
1 i. 361-
8 So Ovid, on Feb. 26, writes (a. 853^. :
Fallimur, an veris praenuntia venit hirundo,
Et metuit ne qua versa recurrat hiems ?
This would be early now for central Italy; but Columella, ir. a, gives
Feb. 23 as the date.
* Fasti, a. 857 foil.
CONCLUSION
AT the end of the introductory chapter a promise was made
that when we had completed the round of the year, we would
sum up our results, sketch in outline the history of Roman
religious ideas, and estimate the influence of all this elaborate
ceremonial on the life and character of the Eoman people.
This undertaking I must now endeavour to fulfil, though with
doubt and diffidence ; for even after the most careful examina-
tion of the Calendar, both the character and the history of the
Roman religious system must still in great degree remain
a mystery. With such knowledge however as may have been
gleaned in the preceding pages, the reader may be able to
appreciate or criticize a few conclusions of a more general
character.
The Roman religion has been ably discussed in general
terms by several writers of note in the centuiy just closing.
Mommsen's chapters in the early books of his Roman History
are familiar to every one. The introduction to Marquardt's
volume on our subject is indispensable ; and Preller, less
exact perhaps, but more sympathetic and inspiring, still holds
the field with the opening chapters of his work on Roman
Mythology. To these classical works may be added the
section on the Roman religion in the second volume of the
Religionsgeschichte of Chantepie de la Saussaye, and the first
chapter of Boissier's work on the Roman religion from
Augustus onwards. Professor Granger's Worship of the Romans
ivlso contains here and there some suggestive remarks, though as
a rule these are not based upon any elaborate investigation of
the cult. Lastly I may mention a small but valuable treatise,
CONCLUSION 333
published as long ago as 1837 by Leopold Krahner, on the
history of the decay of the Roman religion down to the time
of Augustus, which fell into my hands many years ago, and
is in almost every sentence of value to the student of Roman
history.
In all these works the one point insisted on at the outset
is this : that the Romans were more interested in the cult of
their deities, that is, in the ritual and routine by which they
could be rightly and successfully propitiated, than in the
character and personality of the deities themselves. This is
indeed a truth which has been abundantly borne out in our
examination of the Calendar, and might be further illustrated
in almost every public act of procedure in the Roman State.
Cicero himself expresses it well in the second book of his
De Natura Deorum (2. 3. 8) ' Si conferre volumus nostra cum
externis, ceteris rebus aut pares aut etiam inferiores reperiemur,
religione, id est cultu deorum, multo superiores.' The second
book of his work De Legibus is also an invaluable witness to
the conviction, lasting on even in an age of scepticism and
indifference among the educated, that the due performance
of sacred rites was a necessary function of the State, on which
its very existence depended. The Christian Fathers, some of
whom, like St. Augustine and Tertullian, were men of learning
who had studied the voluminous works of Varro, were well
aware of this character; and Tertullian in a curious passage
went so far as to suggest that the Devil had here perpetrated
an imitation or parody of the minute ritual of Leviticus '. So
far as externals go, the comparison he suggested is a useful
one ; but there is an essential difference in the religious spirit
which lay at the root of the two ceremonial systems— a dif-
ference that makes it impossible that any work should be
written on the Roman religion as inspiring for the student
of religious history as The Religion of the Semites so often
quoted in these pages.
This elaborate Roman ceremonial consisted in the main of
sacrifices of different kinds, conducted with an endless but
ordered variety of detail, of prayers, processions, and festivities,
the object of which was either to obtain certain practical
results, to discover the will of the gods, or to rejoice with the
1 Tertullian, de Praeacriptionibus Hoereticorum, 40.
334 TIIE ROMAN FESTIVALS
divine inhabitants of the city over the prosperous event of
some undertaking. When we survey it in the Calendar as
a whole, it seems to fall naturally into three divisions, which
correspond with and illustrate the development of the State
from its constituent materials. The Calendar contains in fact
in a fossilized condition the remains of three different strata
of religious or social development.
(1) Here and there we find survivals of what we can only
regard as the most primitive condition of human life in
ancient Latium : that of men dwelling on forest-clad hill-tops,
surrounded by a world of spirits, some of which have taken
habitation in, or are in some sort represented by, objects such
as trees, animals, or stones. Examples of such objects are the
oak of Jupiter Feretrius, the sacred fig-tree of Rumina, the stone
of Terminus with its buried sacrifice, and the wolf, the wood-
pecker, and spear of Mars. To this earliest stratum may also
belong in their ultimate origin those quaint sacrificial or semi-
dramatic rites of which we have had examples in the Lupercalia,
the Fordicidia, and the Parilia. The casting of , the Argei into
the Tiber may perhaps also be reckoned here, though connected
later on with certain divisions of the developed city of which
the meaning and origin are lost to us. This primitive popula-
tion knew also of charms and spells and omens, not reduced
indeed as yet to a definite system, of which the Calendar
naturally supplies hardly any indications, while in Ovid and
Cato not a few survivals meet us. But the investigation of
the oldest culture of central Italy is more especially the
province of archaeology, and to the archaeologists, who are
now in Italy doing excellent and elaborate work, I must be
content to leave it.
(2) We next come conjecturally to clearly-defined evidence
of a period in which 'the ordered processes of agriculture, and
the settled life of the farm-house, are the distinctive features.
We have the beginnings of a calendar in the observation of
the quarters of the moon and their connexion with the deities
of light. We have the discipline of the house, represented in
the cult of Vesta the hearth-spirit, under the care of the
daughters of the family, while the sons as flat/nines have their
special sacrificial duties, the head of the house presiding over
all, and having as his own special department the worship of
CONCLUSION 335
the spirit of the door-way (Janus). The occupations of the
family are reflected in the series of festivals which represent
the processes and perils of pastoral and agricultural industry :
e. g. the Robigalia, Ambarvalia, Vestalia, Consualia, Opicon-
sivia, Vinalia, Saturnalia, and Terrainalia : this last indicating
also the idea of property, whether of the community or the
individual. We have also clear traces of the union of farms
in a group (pagus) ; for the Paganalia still survived in the
full-grown city, and both at the Saturnalia and Compitalia
the households met together at the winter period of ease and
rejoicing.
(3) The further development of social life is also reflected
in the annual rites we have been investigating. We see the
aggregation of small communities in the Septimontium, in
the Fornacalia or feast of the Curiae, possibly also in the
ritual of the twenty-four or twenty-seven Sacella Argeorum,
round which a procession seems to have gone in March and
May. The Parentalia again is the systematized cult of the
dead in their own city, outside the walls of the city of
the living. The Lares Praestites, worshipped on May i, are
the guardian spirits of the whole community. The Regia, the
dwelling of the king, is its political and religious centre, with
its sacrarium of Mars, the peculiar deity of the stock, and with
the house and hearth of Vesta close by, now grown to be the
symbol of the State's vitality. The Vestals and Flamines have
become priests of special worships in an organized state, and
at the head of all is the Rex, still specially concerned with the
cult of Janus, but representing in his priestly capacity the
whole community. The steadily increasing tendency to organize,
a tendency rooted in the very fibre of this people, is producing
colleges of pontifices and augurs, to assist by associated effort
in making sure of the laws of intercourse with the unseen
world, and of the best methods of divining its will and
intention. And lastly, not only have we found in the festivals
traces of the growth and systematization of the life of the city,
but in the great Latin festival we have also religious evidence
of the early tendency of the cities of Latin blood to combine in
some sort with each other.
We have thus reached what has been called by Preller the
period of Numa, the king with whose name and personality
336
THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
the Eomans always associated the redaction of the Fasti and
the state-organization of their religion : a personality so clearly
conceived by them as to bear witness at once to its own
historical reality, and to their conviction of the vital importance
of his work. Before we go further, let us pause here to
interrogate the Calendar as to the nature of the divine beings
who in these same stages of development were the objects of
popular worship. The simplest way to do this will be to
present a table showing the list of the most ancient festivals,
with the deities concerned in them, so far as they can be
identified, in a parallel column: —
Festivals.
KALENDS
IDES
EQUIRRIA
LIBERALIA
FORDICIDIA
CERIALIA
PARILIA
ROBIGALIA
LEMURIA
ARGEORUM SACRA
AGONIA
VESTALIA
MATRALIA
POPLIFUGIA
LUCARIA
NEPTUNALIA
FURRINALIA
PORTUNALIA
VINALIA
CONSUALIA
VOLCANALIA
OPICONSIVIA
MEDITRINALIA
FONTINALIA
AGONIA
CONSUALIA
SATURNALIA
OPALIA
DIVALIA
LARENTALIA
AGONIA
CARMENTALIA
LUPERCALIA
QUIRINALIA
FERAL I A
TERMINALIA
REGIFUGIUM
Deities.
JUNO.
JUPITEB,
MARS.
LIBER.
TELLUS?
CERES.
PALES ?
ROBIGUS.
Ghosts (unburied).
Unknown.
VEDIOVIS ?
VESTA.
MATER MATUTA.
Unknown.
>?
NEPTUNUS.
FURRINA ?
PORTUNUS.
JUPITER.
CONSUS.
VOLCANUS.
OPS CONSIVA.
Unknown.
FONS ?
Unknown.
CONSUS.
SATURNUS.
OPS.
ANGERONA ?
LARENTIA ?
JANUS ?
CARMENTA.
Unknown.
QUIRINUS.
BURIED ANCESTORS.
TERMINUS.
Unknown.
CONCLUSION 337
Here it will be noticed that in those festivals which seem to
be survivals from the oldest stratum of civilization (the period
of Faunus, as Preller has named it), viz. the Lupercalia, Parilia,
Fordicidia, Argeorum Sacra, the deities concerned are either
altogether doubtful, or so wanting in clearness and prominence
as to be altogether subordinate in interest to the details of the
ceremony. The Parilia and Fordicidia were believed in later
times to have belonged to Pales and Tellus ; but our authority
for the grounds of such belief is not strong, and as a matter
of fact these two, together with the sacrifice of the October
horse, were interconnected by details of antique ceremonial,
rather than separately defined by their relation to particular
numina. In other festivals which may have possibly come
down from the oldest period, the deity is almost entirely lost.
Here is good evidence of the indistinctness of the Koman con-
ception of the divine ; the cult appealed to this people as the
practical method of obtaining their desires, but the unseen
powers with whom they dealt in this cult were beyond their
ken, often unnamed, and only visible in the sense of being
seated in, or in some sort symbolized by, tree or stone or
animal. They are often multiplex, like the Fauni, Silvani,
Lares, Penates, Semones, Carmentes ; or they run into each
other, like Bona Dea, Maia, Tellus, Ceres, Dea Dia, and others.
Only the great deity of the stock stands out at all clearly ;
Father Mars of the Romans ; Father Diovis of the whole Latin
race ; to these we may perhaps add the Hercules or Genius,
and Juno, representing respectively the male and female
principles of human life.
In the second and third of the strata which the Calendar
offers to the excavator, representing the ordered life of the
household and afterwards of the city, we still find much of the
same indistinctness. Vesta indeed, the spirit of the hearth-fire,
becomes clearly though not personally delineated ; so too, but
in a less degree, does Janus the spirit of the doorway. Two
other groups of spirits also occupy the house ; the Lares, who
may have been the spirits of dead ancestors duly buried, and
the Penates or spirits of the store -chamber; both of them
becoming sufficiently clear in the popular conception to be
represented by images at a very early period. But in the
round of ancient festivals, some at least of the so-called gods,
z
338 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
so far as we can guess at their original nature, hardly deserve
that name. Liber and Ceres seem to have been originally
general names for an ill-defined class of spirits ; Robigus is the
spirit of the mildew ; Census and Ops are not personalities,
but numina protecting the gathered harvest, as Saturnus pro-
bably protected the sown seed. The Compitalia was concerned
only with the Lares Compitales, spirits of the crossways ; in
the Paganalia we have but very indistinct information as to the
object of worship. The Vinalia, marking a later and more
skilled agricultural process, seems on the other hand always
to have been clearly connected with Jupiter himself.
Thus in the so-called period of Numa, the period of the
earlier monarchy and the first organization of the city-state,
the religious life of the community had become highly
systematized in respect of the cult, of the priest in charge of
it, and the ius which governed all the citizens in their relation
to the world of divinities. Of any real change however in the
character of these divinities, of any approach to polytheism in
the way of an increased individuality of conception, of iconic
representation, or definite temple-worship, the Calendar then
drawn up supplies no certain evidence. There may indeed
have been a tendency towards a clearer definition of numina,
arising from the very fact of the definite organization of prayer
and sacrifice, and of the allotment of cults to particular priest-
hoods or families. There may, even at that early stage in
Roman history, have been an influence at work on the Roman
mind, coming from Etruria and Greece, where polytheism
found its nourishment in works of art and mythological fancy.
These ai e possibilities of which we must take account, but the
Calendar has nothing positive to tell us of them.
It is when we advance to the later monarchy, which we
may speak of without hesitation as an Etruscan dynasty, that
we find a change beginning, both in the forms and objects of
the cult, which marks an epoch in Roman religious history.
The oldest Calendar, that of the large letters in the Fasti, tells
us of course nothing of this. But in the additamenta ex fastis,
and in later literary allusions, we have a considerable body of
material to help us in following out the character and conse-
quences of this change. It is at this point, or rather at the
end of the monarchy, that we begin to hear of the building
CONCLUSION 339
of real temples, as distinct from luci, sacella, arae, or fana ; of
the introduction into these of statues of the gods, of the Graecus
ritus in sacrifice, and of the appearance of new deities, some of
them apparently connected with new elements of population.
This epoch is most clearly marked by the building of the
great temple on the Capitol of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva,
an Etruscan Trias, perhaps ultimately of Greek origin, whose
statues, as we have seen, were invited in true polytheistic
fashion to partake of a feast every year on the Ides of
September, the dies natalis of the temple. This temple was
dedicated in B. c. 509, directly after the expulsion of Tarquinius
Superbus. The next of which we hear is that of the old
Roman Saturnus (B.C. 497), now strangely represented by a
fettered statue, and worshipped henceforward Graeco ritu, with
the head uncovered. Next comes Mercurius (B. c. 495), a god
unknown to the most ancient Fasti ; then Ceres, the Greek
Demeter under a familiar Italian name (B.C. 493); next For-
tuna with a statue (B.C. 486), an imported goddess, to whom
Servius Tullius, if tradition can be trusted, had already erected
temples. To this same age belongs probably the temple of
Diana on the Aventine, with a Greek £6avav • and the intro-
duction of Apollo-worship as a popular cult. If we follow the
catalogue of dedications during the two centuries following the
abolition of the monarchy ', we find that out of fourteen of
which the dates are known to us, six are Greek or Graeco-
Etruscan, three more admit before long a non-Roman ritual
under the influence of the duoviri sacris faciundis, and fivo are
known to have contained statues from an early period. Only
three, those of Dius Fidius, of Juno Lucina, and of Mater Matuta,
can be said to have been genuine Roman foundations. Without
doubt a great change is here indicated which has come over
the Roman religion, both in cult and theology. New elements
of population, new relations with conquerors or conquered,
new commercial enterprise, new experiences of war, famine,
and pestilence, bring in new deities, suggest recourse to new
divine aids. The old Rome is almost a thing of the past ; the
cults and deities of the Numan period no longer suffice, and
are perhaps already beginning to be forgotten ; the oldest
1 Collected by Aust in his work de Aedibvs sacnV, pp. 4 foil.
Z 2
340 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
priesthoods begin to give place in all except empty externals
to the semi-political colleges of pontifices and augurs, and to
the important new foundation of duoviri sacris faciundis ; the
old Italian ritual of simple apparatus and detailed ceremony
is becoming overshadowed by the showy ceremonial of lecti-
sternia and supplicationes.
Was there no reaction, we may well ask, against a tendency
so expansive and denationalizing ? I answer this question with
hesitation, for so far as I am aware it has never yet been fully
investigated. But I am strongly disposed to believe that there
was such a reaction in the third century B. c., in the period, that
is, between the Samnite wars and Hannibal's invasion of Italy.
This, unlike the preceding century, was a period of almost
uniform success of the Roman arms, and one in which the
State was at no time in serious peril ; and the temptation to
have recourse to strange divinities, as a patient betakes himself
to new physicians, would not present itself to the minds of the
senate or the priesthoods. If we pursue the history of the
temple-foundations of this period, under Aust's invaluable
guidance, the result is very remarkable. Between 304 and
217 B.C. we know the dates of twenty-five foundations; and
of these no less than twenty are in honour of indigenous, or
at least what I may perhaps call, home-made deities. No
doubt there is a growing tendency to identify Roman gods
with Greek ; but this does not show itself plainly till the end
of the century, and the only genuine Greek foundation is that
of Aesculapius, the consequence of a severe pestilence in 293 B.C.
Three or four, e.g. those of Fors Fortuna, Minerva Capta, and
Feronia, were probably of non-Roman origin ; but they were
transplanted from the near neighbourhood of Rome and may
almost count as indigenous.
In contemplating the Roman foundations of this period we
are struck by certain indications of the activity of the pontifices,
as distinguished from the duoviri sacris faciundis; i. e. the
activity of that college of priests whose special charge was
the Roman religion proper, and who were only indirectly con-
cerned with foreign introductions. For example, we may note
with interest a group of four agricultural deities, to whom
temples were dedicated in the eight years between 272 and
264 B.C., the years, that is, of the pacification and settlement
CONCLUSION 341
of Italy after the invasion of Pyrrhus1. These deities were
Census, Tellus, Pales, and Vortumnus. Owing to the loss of
Livy's second decade we cannot be very certain of the imme-
diate object of these foundations ; but wo may guess that they
had a definite meaning in connexion with the events of the
time, and that they were chiefly the work of the pontifical
college. Less distinct perhaps, but still worth noticing, is
a group of foundations in honour of deities connected with
water2, i.e. to Tempestates, Juturna and Fons, which seem
to have had some reference to the naval operations of the First
Punic War. The temple of Juturna was vowed by Lutatius
Catulus in the battle at the Aegates Insulae in 241 B.C. ; that
to the Tempestates by Cornelius Scipio, when the fleet was
almost destroyed near Corsica in 259 B.C. ; and that of Fons
in the Corsican war in 231 B.C. It was characteristic of the
Eoman mind, and of the pontifical methods, thus to connect
the spirits of the springs in Rome with those of the sea and
its tempests.
It is at this time also that we notice the appearance of
abstractions resolved into deities, such as Salus, Spes, Fides,
Honos et Virtus, Concordia, and Mens. These, as I have said
elsewhere3, are not genuine old Roman cults, but pontifical
creations in the spirit of the old Roman impersonal and
daemonic ideas of divine agency. In connexion with these
I may mention the conviction which has grown upon me in
the course of these investigations, that it was in this reactionary
period, as we may call it, that the . pontifices drew up that
extraordinary list of deities, classified according to their
functions in relation to man and his activity and suffering,
which we know as the Indigitamcnta. This seems to me
characteristic of the period, inasmuch as it was probably based
on the old Roman ideas of divine agency, now systematized
by something like scientific terminology and ordered classifica-
tion. It is the old national belief in the ubiquity of the world
of spirits, now edited and organized by skilled legal theologians.
But it would be beyond the province of this work to venture
further into this tangled question.
From the Hannibalic war to the end of the Republic is the
1 Aust, op. cit , p. 14, note i. ' Aust, op. cit., p. 15, note i.
* Above, p. 190.
342 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
period of the decay and downfall of the old Roman religion.
This period need not detain us long ; it has been no part of
my plan to exhibit this religion on its death-bed, for the Fasti
do not admit us to that scene. They show us a living and
genuine, not a spurious and enfeebled religious life. A few
salient facts shall suffice as illustrations of the slow process of
this dissolution.
At the very outset of the period we mark the solemn
introduction into Rome of Cybele, the Magna Mater Idaea,
and the stone which was supposed to represent her ; and we
are thus warned that even the Greek cults, with all their
adjuncts of art and mythology, are no longer sufficient for
Roman needs. The State is once more in peril, and the far-
reaching struggle with Hannibal has brought her into touch
with new peoples and cults. The Greeks do indeed continue
to be the chief invaders of the Roman religious territory, but
the religion they bring with them is a debased one. The
extraordinary rapidity with which the orgiastic rites of
Dionysus spread over Italy in 186 B.C. proves at once that
the Italian religious forms were wearing out, and that the
Greek substitute was no longer a wholesome one \ From
this time forward the lower strata of population show a
tendency to run after exciting Oriental forms of worship,
which neither the attempted restoration of the old religion
by Augustus, nor the subsequent rapid growth of Christianity,
could entirely and permanently check. Among the educated
classes the old beliefs were being eaten away by the acids of
a second-hand philosophy. The Greeks had long begun to
inquire into the nature of the gods, and they passed on their
disintegrating criticism to their conquerors. Euhemerus, the
arch-destroyer of ancient faiths, became known to the Romans
through a translation by Ennius at the beginning of the second
century B. c. ; and it took only another century and a half to
produce the sceptical and eclectic treatise of Cicero, De Natura
Deorum.
Again, nothing is more characteristic of this period than the
contempt and neglect into which the old priesthoods gradually
fell ; Rome now swarmed with a mongrel population that
knew little of them and cared less. In the year 209 B. c. even
1 See especially the speech of the consul Postumius in Livy 39. 15.
CONCLUSION 343
the priesthood of Jupiter was filled by the youthful black
sheep of an old patrician family, apparently for no other
reason than the hope that so objectionable a character might
be reformed by the many quaint restrictions imposed upon the
office '. Of the flamines in general, of the Fratres Arvales,
Salii. Sodales Titii, and others of the ancient priesthoods we
henceforward hear little or nothing until the revival of learning
and religion in the Augustan age. Old forms continued to
be used, but mainly for political purposes, like the obnuntiatio
or observation of lightning ; and only those religious offices
which had considerable political power continued to be sought
after by men of light and leading.
Temples continued to be vowed and built, especially in the
earlier part of this period ; but their cults are, with few
exceptions, of Greek origin, or are new and fanciful forms of
old worships, such as the Lares Permarini, Venus Verticordia,
Fortuna Equestris, Ops Opifera, Fortuna Huiusce Diei. Before
the fall of the Kepublic a great number of the old temples had
fallen almost irretrievably into decay ; Augustus tells us in his
record of his own reign that he restored no less than eighty-two
of them. This too is the period when the identification of
Roman gods with Greek became a general fashion ; a process
which had begun long before, but originally with a genuine
meaning and object, not as the sport of a sceptical society
educated in Greek speculation. Salus takes the attributes of
Hygieia, Mater Matuta becomes Leucothea, Faunus Pan,
Sancus Hercules, Carmenta Nicostrate, Neptunus Poseidon,
the god of Soracte, Apollo Soranus ; and even the greater gods
like Mars, Diana, and others assume more and more the
likeness and mythical adornmpnt of their supposed Greek
equivalents.
The civil troubles of the age of revolution completed the
work of disintegration. Men became careless, reckless, self-
regarding ; the 8fiai8aifinvln of which Polybius could say only
just before the revolution began, that more than anything
else it served to knit the Roman state together, was lost to
view in the tumult of political passion and personal greed.
Not indeed that it was altogether extinct ; that could nevei;
be, and never has been the case in Italy. Augustus, who
1 See a paper by the author in Classical Review, vol. vii. p. 193 foil.
344 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
came by degrees to know the people he governed better than
any statesman in Italian history, was well aware that to
inspire the Koman world once more with confidence, he must
bring the religious instinct into play again. The task he thus
set himself he accomplished with extraordinary skill and tact ;
the old religion seemed to live again, the old priesthoods were
revived, the old minutiae of worship were restored. He did
what he could to bring to life again even the spirit and the
principles of the old religio ; and in the Carmen Saeculare of
Horace, written to his order at a moment when he wished
to make these things obvious to the eyes of all Komans, we
probably have the best succinct exposition of them to be
found in Koman literature1. But of the Augustan revival,
and of the reasons why it could not be permanent, I must
forbear here to speak further.
I have yet to say a few words in answer to the interesting
question whether the religious system we have been examining
had any appreciable influence on the character of the Eoman
people : whether it contributed to build up that virtus of the
State and the individual which enabled them to subdue and
govern the world, as the pietas of Aeneas in the poem armed
him for the subjugation and civilization of the wild Italian
tribes. The question may at first sight seem a superfluous
one, since the religion of a people is rather the expression
of its own genius for dealing with the perplexities of human
life, than a vera causa in determining its character ; yet it is
worth asking, for it is unquestionable that the peculiar turn
taken by a nation's religious beliefs and practices does in
course of time come to react upon its character and morals.
It has often been said of the Eoman religion that it had
nothing to do with righteousness, and was without ethical
value. The admirable criticism of it given by Mommsen in
the first volume of his History may originally have suggested
this view ; but if so, the copyists have exaggerated the opinion
of the master in one particular point, failing to give due weight
to the general tenor of his exposition. However this may be,
1 Note for example the way in which Horace has contrived to introduce
in combination the ideas of the fertility of crops and herbs, of marriage
and the increase of population, of public morality and prosperity.
CONCLUSION 345
we certainly are now always invited to conclude that this
great people, which in its dealings with human beings dis-
covered an extraordinary genius for expansion and adaptation,
in its attitude to the supernatural remained cooped up within
curiously narrow mental limits, drawing no real sustenance
either from its primitive beliefs or its quaint and detailed
practice. The current views of this kind have just lately
been so well summed up in an admirable English work on the
latest age of Eoman society and thought, that I cannot do
better than borrow a few sentences from it ' : —
' The old Eoman theology was a hard, narrow, unexpansive
system of abstraction and personification, which strove to
represent in its Pantheon the phenomena of nature, the
relations of man in the State or in the clan, every act and
feeling and incident in the life of the individual. Unlike the
mythologies of Hellas and the East, it had no native principle
of growth, or adaptation to altered needs of society and the
individual imagination. It was also singularly wanting in
awe and mystery. The religious spirit which it cultivated
was formal, timid, and scrupulous. . . . The old Roman
worship was businesslike and utilitarian. The gods were
partners in a contract with their worshippers, and the ritual
was characterized by the hard and literal formalism of the
legal system of Rome. The worshipper performed his part
to the letter with the scrupulous exactness required in pleadings
before the praetor. To allow devotional feeling to transgress
the bounds prescribed by immemorial custom was "super-
stitio."'
It is impossible to deny that there is much truth in all this ;
yet I may venture to express a doubt whether it contains the
whole truth. The fact is that the subject needs a more
historical treatment, and perhaps also something of the his-
torical imagination, to do it full justice.
In the earliest periods of Roman civilization, those of the
family and the beginnings of the State, the Roman attitude
towards the supernatural was, if I am not mistaken, a real
contributing cause towards the formation of virtus. It was
not merely an attitude of business and bargaining. So far
1 It gives me pleasure to quote this passage from Roman Society in the
last century of the Western Empire (p. 63) by my old friend Professor Dill.
346 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
as we know it, the common form of address to the gods was
not 'send me what I want — sun, rain, victory, &c., and you
shall then have these gifts ' ; but ' I give you these sacrifices
and expect you to do your part ; in taking all this trouble
to act correctly by you, I establish a right as against you.'
It is true that in one particular form of dealing with the gods,
the vow, or solemn undertaking (votum), the transaction wears
more the character of a definite bargain ; if the god will do
certain things, he shall then have his reward. So Cloanthus
in Virgil addresses the gods of the sea ' —
Di, quibus imperium est pelagi, quorum aequora curro,
Vobis laetus ego hoc candentem in litore taurum
Constituam ante aras, wti reus, extaque salsos
Proiciam in fluctus et vina liquentia fundam.
But the votum was the exception, not the rule ; it was a
promise made by an individual at some critical moment, not
the ordered and recurring ritual of the family or the State. It
takes its peculiar form simply because the maker of the vow
is not at the particular moment in a position to fulfil it. The
normal attitude of the Roman in prayer and sacrifice was not
this ; it is much more exactly expressed in the formula of the
farmer's prayer already quoted in these pages : ' Father Mars,
I pray and beseech thee 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.'
This is the usual and natural attitude of all peoples in sacri-
ficing to their gods, and is far from being peculiar to Kome ;
but it was the nature of the Eoman to express it in a more
formal and definite way than others, and this led to an out-
ward religion of formulae which has done much to obscure for
us, as indeed for the Eomans themselves, the real thought
underlying them.
These exact formulae of invocation and sacrifice were really
the outward expression of a fear of the unknown, and its power
to hinder and injure man ; for the old Roman did not know
his gods intimately, inasmuch as they took no human shape,
and did not dwell in buildings made by hands. We have
illustrated this ignorance of his again and again, and the
1 A en. 5. 235.
CONCLUSION 347
vagueness and fluidity of the religious conceptions of the
Roman mind. The remedy for this weakness was found, as
with the Jews, in a remarkable formularity of ritual, both
as regards time, placQ, and method of worship : in a series
of elaborate prescriptions drawn up by experts, going even so
far as to anticipate the consequence of an unintentional
omission or error by piacular acts. This in time, and under
State organization, became a science, and finds its parallel in
the science of legal formulae. But there was a difference
between the twjo sciences, even for the Roman. In religious
acts, the human mind is dealing with the unseen and un-
known, not with human beings who can be calculated with
or outwitted. His fear of the unknown was thus for the
primitive Roman a wholesome discipline ; and his attitude
towards it he aptly and characteristically called religio, because
it bound him to the performance of certain regulated duties,
calculated to keep his footsteps straight as he walked daily
in this unseen world : duties which even in the family and
clan must have been to some extent systematized, and which
when the city-state was reached took the definite form of
a calendar of public prayers, sacrifices, and festivities.
Now surely in this motive of fear, thus remedied by exact
ritual, we may trace a true civilizing element — the idea of
Duty, Pietas, which as Cicero defined it, was ' iustitia erga
deos': righteous dealing towards the gods, in expectation of
righteous treatment on their part. And he would be a bold
man who should assert that ' iustitia erga deos ' had no effect
in inducing the habit of ' iustitia erga homines ': in other
words that it could not react upon conduct. In the pietas of
the one typical Roman in literature both these elements are
equally present. The pietas of Aeneas is a sense of duty
towards god and man alike ; to his father, his son, and his
people, as well as to the will of the gods, and to that solemn
mission which is at once the religion of his life and the key
to the great Roman poem '. This is indeed that same sense
of duty and responsibility which governed every Roman in
authority in the best days of the State, whether paterfamilias,
patronus, priest, or magistrate, and which was the motive
power in the working of a constitution which lasted for cen-
1 See Nettleship, Essays in Latin Literature, pp. 103, 104.
348 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
turies, though only resting on a basis of trust. In this pieias,
it is true, we find no sense of contrition for sin, no humbling
of the individual self before an almighty Governor of the
world ; but we do find a very sensitive conscientiousness,
arising from the dread of neglect or trespass in the discharge
of religious observance, in the trust committed by family or
State to its constituted representative. And this trust included
also the discharge of duties to other men, the neglect of which
might bring down the anger of the Unknown, and even compel
the surrender of a criminal as sneer to an offended deity. We
find abundant evidence of this aspect of the religio in the
language of solemn oaths and treaties, and especially in con-
nexion with the cult of the great Jupiter.
I maintain then that in this Eoman religion, in spite of
its dryness and formality, there was a distinct ethical and
civilizing element. And in conclusion I may perhaps raise the
question whether it was really, as has been so often asserted,
such a conception of the unseen as could never admit of
elevation and expansion. A religion, which in its best and
simplest forms, could bind men together in the orderly dutiful
life of family, gens, state, and federation, could hardly, if left
to itself, have speedily become an inanity, even though based
on the motive of fear rather than that of brotherly love. But
this religion, as the State became more fully matured, came
under the influence of two retarding causes. First, its ritual,
always obnoxious to formularism, was gradually deprived of
its meaning by great priesthoods which from causes which
need not be here discussed became powerful political agencies.
Secondly, the contact with a mature system of polytheism,
adorned and in some sort materialized by art and literature,
drew away the mind of the simple and wondering Roman from
the task of developing his religious ideas in his own way.
When a new world of thought broke on the conquering Roman
of the Republic, his own religious motives were already drying
up under the influence of a powerful State- organization. His
pietas lived on after a fashion for centuries, but more and more
it lost that hold on the conscience, that appeal to trust and
responsibility, which had once promised it a vigorous life
and growth. While foreign gods and cults attracted his
attention and admiration, or appealed to his sense that there
CONCLUSION 349
was no quarter from which supernatural aid might not be
called in for the advancement of his State, they failed to bind
his conscience with the wholesome motives which lay at the
root of his old native religio. And neither in the reaction
of the fourth century B.C., nor in the protests of an austere
Cato in the second, nor in the elaborate revival of Augustus,
much less in any later effort of philosopher or autocrat to
return to the old ways, was any permanent resuscitation of
discipline or conduct possible. The problem of giving a real
religion to the world-state into which the Koman dominion
had then grown, was not to be solved either by Koman pietas
or Hellenic polytheism.
NOTES ON TWO COINS.
A. DENARIUS OF P. LICINIUS STOLO (p. 42).
Obv. AVGVSTVS TR POT Augustus, laureate, on horse-
back to r.
Rev. P. STOLO Helmet (apex) between two shields.
IIIVIR
The forms of the helmet and shields are very archaic and
interesting, appearing to point to a very early period. The
helmet bears a marked likeness to that worn on Egyptian
monuments by the Shardana, one of the races that invaded
Egypt about the thirteenth century B.C. The shield seems to
consist of two small round bosses connected by an oval boss.
It is strikingly like the Mycenaean shield as shown on a
number of monuments, and far earlier than the so-called
Boeotian shield which was common in Greece from the sixth
century onwards. The Roman writers themselves seem to
have been puzzled by this shape (Marindin, article ' Salii ' in
Smith's Diet. Antiq.), and there can be little doubt that it came
down from a time when the 'Mycenaean' civilization was
common to Greece and Italy.
NOTES ON TWO COINS 351
The figure on the coins of M. Sanquinius (Babelon, Mon. de
la Repub. Horn. ii. 4 1 7), who wears a horned helmet and long
tunic and carries a herald's staff and round shield, has been
identified by several authorities as one of the Salii. This,
however, is certainly wrong. Both on this coin, and later
coins of Domitian, the personage is closely connected with the
Ludi Saeculares. Dr. Dressel, in the Ephem. Epigr. viii. 314,
maintains him to be a herald proclaiming the festival. This
would admirably suit the caduceus ; but the decorations of the
helmet seem to me to be not plumes, as Dr. Dressel thinks,
but horns, like those on the headpiece of Juno Lanuvina. In
any case the person is no Salius.
B. DENARIUS OF L. CAESIUS (p. 101).
Obv. Youthful bust 1., hair disordered, striking with thunder-
bolt. Behind, a monogram.
Rev. L. CAESI Two young male figures seated to r. Each
has drapery wrapped round waist, and grasps a spear. Between
them, a dog, which one of them caresses. In field, in mono-
grams, LARE Above, head of Vulcan and pinchers (moneyer's
mark). The monogram of the obverse was read by Mommsen
AP for Apollo ; but the closed P was not at that time in use:
the interpretation of Montagu (Numismatic Chronicle, 1895,
p. 162) as Roma is therefore to be preferred. The head appears
to be that of Vedius or Vejovis, whose statue at Koine carried
in the hand a sheaf of arrows, which would naturally be con-
fused with the Greek thunderbolt. Other heads of Vejovis
on Roman coins, as those of the Gens Fonteia, are more
Apolline in type, with long curls and laurel-wreath.
The two seated figures of the reverse are identified by the
inscription as Lares. They are clearly assimilated to the Greek
Dioscuri, early adopted at Rome. The dog, however, which
352 THE ROMAN FESTIVALS
sits between them is an attribute properly belonging to them.
Dr. Wissowa in Koscher's Lexicon (p. 1872) says that they are
clad in dogs' skins ; this, however, is certainly not the case, an
ordinary cloak or chlamys falls over their knees.
This representation of the Lares stands by itself, the deities
are frequently represented in later art, especially wall-paintings
and bronze statuettes, but their type is that of boys who hold
cornucopiae or drinking vessel, and are fully clad.
P. G.
INDEX OF SUBJECTS
Acca Larentia, 74, 93, 275, 276, 324.
Aedes Herculis : see Forum Boariiun.
Aedes Vestae : see Vesta.
Aediles, plebeian, 75, 76, 92.
Aesculapius, 105, 191, 278 ; con-
nexion with Vediovis, 122, 278 ;
temple, 278, 340.
Agonia : December, 265, 281 ;
January, 277, 280-2 ; March, 54,
281 ; May, 121, 281.
Agonus (or Agonalis), 323.
Agriculture: festivals, 3, 71, 79-82,
85-8, 88-91, 113-4, 124-8, 145-
54, 204-6, 206-9, 212-4, aS6-8.
268-73, 324-7, 335.
Alban Mount : Feriae Latinae held
at> 95- 97. 227-8 ; temple of
Jupiter Latiaris, 95-6, 228.
Ambarvalia, 114, 124-8, 154.
Anoilia, 38-9, 41-3, 45-6, 250 ;
lustration, 57-9, 248, 250; moving,
39. 4i, 43-4, "5-
Ancillamm Feriae, 176-8.
Angerona, 274-5 ; goddess of Diva-
lia, 274, 336.
Anna Peienna : festival, 44, 50-1,
53, 163 ; legends, 51-4, 60; popu-
larity with lower classes, 44, 50-1 ;
representative of year, 52-3.
Aphrodite : connexion with Venus,
69, 86.
Aplu, 181.
Apollo, 89, 191, 250 ; comparison
with Mars, 39 40 ; connexion
with Aesculapius, 278 ; with
Vediovis, 122, 181, 225, 278 ;
coupled with Latona, 181, 186,
200; festivals, 173, 179-81; func-
tions, 180, 278 ; Medicus, 180 ;
restoration of worship by Augus-
tus, 180 (n. 4), 181-2 ; Soranu?,
84, 181 ; temples, 180, 182 ;
worship, 117, 179-82, 339.
April : character, 6, 9, 33, 66-7 ;
connexion with Venus, 67, 69 ;
festivals, 66-97 ; origin of name,
*>» 33. 66 ; prevalence of female
deities, 67.
Ara Maxima : see Circus Mr.ximus.
Argei : see also Sacella Argeorum,
150, 151 ; explanations of custom,
114, 116-20; mourning of Fla-
minica Dialis, 112, 115, 119, 151 ;
origin of name, 112-3; 118-9;
puppets thrown into Tiber, 52,
57, 100, 111-20; substitution for
human victims, 112, 115, 116-7,
119.
Armilustrium, 45, 58, 249, 250-1.
Army : importance of curiae, 303,
305 ; mustering, 133.
Artemis, 200.
Asylum, 122, 183 (n. 3), 327 ; con-
nexion with Vediovis, 122.
Attains, King of Pergamus, 69.
August : character, 189-90 ; festi-
vals, 189 214.
Augustus, revival of religion, 19,
181-2, 190, 280, 342, 343-4, 349.
Aventine : plebeian quarter, 75 6,
199 ; temples, 59, 74-6, 101-5,
158, 198-200, 201, 206, 232, 267,
339-
Beans : harvest, 130, 255 ; use as
food, 132-3 ; use in ritual, 83,
A a
254
INDEX OF SUBJECTS
109-10, 131 ; religious character,
91, no, 130-1.
Beating bounds, see Lustrations ;
productive of fertility, 104, 178-
9, 262, 302, 311, 315, 318-21.
Bellona, 134-5.
Birds : used in augury, 139-40.
Bona Dea, 95 ; connexion with
Dainia, 105-6; with Maia, 99,
100, 123, 210 ; earth goddess, 71,
103, 104, 106 ; functions, 104-5,
1 06; men excluded from wor-
ship, 102-3, 142, 256 ; myrtle not
allowed in temple, 103-4 : tem-
ple, 101-5 ; women's sacrifice,
255-6; worship, 102-6, 150.
Bouphonia, 176, 329.
Brutus, M. Junius, 130.
Caesar (Julius): birthday, 174;
calendar, 4, 5-6, n, 14-5.
Cakes : see also Salt-cake ; heads of
animals decked with, 148, 242,
244 ; sacrifices, 53-5, 155, 161,
295, 304.
Calendar : see a'so Year, 248-50 ;
authorities on, 13-4, 16-9; diver-
gences, 36, 45, 241, 265-6;
Julian : see Caesar; marks of days,
8-10 ; republican, 14-20 ; secrecy,
8-9, ii ; surviving, 5-6, 11-4.
Campus Martius, 247-8 ; festivals,
50-1 ; races, 44-5, 208, 242, 249,
330 ; sacrifice of October-horse,
241-3,247-9.
Capitolium, 129-30, 327 ; connexion
with Saturnus, 269-70 ; temples,
43, 85, 129-30, 145, 157-8, 214,
216-7, 229, 291, 293, 326-7.
Caprotinae, Nonae : see Nones.
Cardea : confusion with Carna,
131-2.
Caristia, 308 9.
Carmenta. 167, 291-3 ; festival,
277, 290-3 ; temple, 291, 293.
Carrnentalia, 15, 277, 290-3.
Carmentes : see Carmenta.
Carna, 130 ; confusion with Cardea,
131-2 ; festival, 130-3.
Castor and Pollux : see Dioscuri.
Cerealia, 15, 72 3, 77 9, 92; foxes
loosed in Circus Maximus, 77 9,
94; plebeian character, 70, 77,92.
Ceres, 73 4, 295, 338 ; connexion
with Drinettr, 73, 74, 181 ; with
plebeians, 74-7, 92 ; festival,
7a~3) 77-9t 92> 294-6 ; goddess
of crops, 67, 71, 73, 126 ; Greek
influence on, 73, 75-6, 105 ; sac-
rifices, 103, 105, 295 ; temple,
74-6, 93.
Cernunnos : identification with
Janus. 286.
Character of Romans, 65 ; influence
of religion on, 344-9.
Charlton-on-Otmoor : lustration of
fields, 128, 246.
Circus Flaminius : games, 217, 252,
253 ; temples, 134, 135, 180, 202,
211.
Circus Maximus, 190 ; altar of
Census, 178, 190, 206-7, 209;
Ara Maxima, 138, 189, 190, 193-7;
festivals, 77-8, 94 ; races, 208 ;
temples, 92, 160, 202, 204.
Cnaeus Flavius, n.
Coins, 350-2 ; heads on, 286-7, 351.
Comitia Curiata : meetings, 63, 64,
123. 305.
Comitium, 57-8.
Compitalia, 255, 277, 279-80, 294,
335- 338.
Conhualia, 115, 178, 189, 206-9, 290;
Vestal Virgins present, 115, 150 ;
winter, 267-8.
Consuls : connexion -with Feriae
Latinae, 95, 96 ; entrance on
office, 5, 95, 190, 278 ; laying
down of office, 216.
Census, 324, 338 ; altar in Circus
Maximus, 178, 190, 206-7, 2O9 >
connexion with horses, 207-8 ;
with Ops, 212-3; festivals, 115,
178, 206-9, 267-8 ; temple, 206,
267.
Corn : supply, 76 ; trade, 121 ;
wolf : see Corn-spirit.
Corn-spirit: animal representation,
78, 83, 90-1, 94, 244-5, 264; death
and renewal of life, 83, 118, 246-7,
316-7 ; human representation,
177, 245 ; races in rites, 245-6,
330 ; rites to aid growth of corn,
41, 83-4 ; rites to propitiate, 90-1,
244-8.
Creek Indians : festivals of first-
fruits, 152-3.
Cross-roads, 279-80.
Curiae, 16, 71, 303 4 ; festivals,
71-2,219,302-6,335; flamen,304.
INDEX OF SUBJECTS
355
Curio Maximus, 303-4.
Curis, 303.
Damia : connexion with Bona Dea,
105-6.
Days: calendar marks in, 8-ro;
market, 8 ; number in months,
2-3.
Dead: ancestor worship, 161,275-6,
300, 308-9 ; burial, 108, 109,
307 ; cult chiefly in February, 3,
6» 33> ic?> 299> 30°; festivals,
106-10, 131, 275-6, 306-10 ; offer-
ings, 308 ; spirits : see Ghosts.
Dea Dia, 71, 105 ; centre of ritual
of Fratres Arvales, 74, 105 ; con-
nexion with Ceres, 74.
December, 7 ; character, 255 ; festi-
vals, 33, 255-76.
Deities : abstractions resolved into,
190-1, 341 ; chthonic, 207, 210,
2 1 1-2 ; dualism of male and
female, 61-2, 212-3, 221 > female,
67, 71, 74, 106 ; fluctuation be-
tween male and female, 67, 73 80,
232-3 ; images : see Images ; im-
personality, 106, 137, 139, 213;
221-2,295,311,337 ; multiplicity,
144, 167, 241, 259-60, 291-3, 337 ;
prayers : see Prayers ; symbols,
122, 139, 161, 169, 170, 230, 235 ;
women's : see Women.
Delphi : Roman dealings with, 181.
Demeter, 103,110; connexion with
Ceres, 73, 74, 181.
Demons : see Evil spirits.
Diana : connexion with Artemis,
200 ; coupled with Hercules, 181,
186; festival, 198-200; functions,
198, 200-1 ; Nemorensis, 183 ;
temples, 198-200, 339.
Dionysus : connexion with Liber,
54-5, 74, 88 ; introduction of cult
into Italy, 88, 342 ; sacrifice at
Tenedos, 329.
Dioscuri, 296-7, 351 ; temples, 202,
296.
Dis Pater, 120. 212, 269.
DiusFidius, 327 ; antiquity, 135 6;
connexion with Genius Jovis,
142-5 ; with Hercules, 137-9,
142-4 ; with Jupiter, 138-41, 221 ;
with Semo Sancus, 136-8, 144 ;
temple. 135, 136, 141.
Divalia, 274-5.
Dogs : connexion with Lares prae-
stites, toi, 351-2; sacrifices, 89-
91, 101, 209, 311, 312, 314.
Earth : deities, 67, 71, 74, 103, 104,
106, 256, 294-5; spiritualized as
feminine, 103, 106.
Epulum Jovis : see Jupiter.
Equirria, 44-6, 330-1.
Esquiline : cults, 228 ; divisions,
266 ; temples, 38.
Etruscans : influence on Roman
religion, 171-2, 185-6, 200, 219-
20, 222-3, 229> 234~5> 338-40 5
trias, 218, 220, 229, 235, 239.
Evil spirits : expulsion, 40-1, 43,
107; human scapegoat, 40- 1, 46-9.
Fairs, 253.
Fasti : see Calendar ; Ovid's, see
Ovid.
Fauna, 103.
Faunalia, 255, 256-8.
Faunus, 103, 257-8 ; connexion with
Lupercalia, 257-8, 262, 312-3 ;
with Pan, 258, 259, 313 ; deriva-
tion of name, 258-9 ; festival,
256 8; functions, 80, 261-3, 278 ;
multiplicity, 259-60, 313 ; origin,
257-8, 259, 261, 263-5; temples,
257-8, 278, 302 ; woodland char-
acter, 260-1.
Favonius, 258, 259, 264 ; Feb. 7th.
277, 299.
February, 3, 4, 6, 7 ; character, 6,
66, 299; festivals, 3, 6, 33, 298-
331 ; origin of name, 6, 298.
Feralia, 10, 107, 306, 309-10.
Feretrius : see Jupiter.
Feriae Latinae, 95-7, 227-8, 335.
Feriae Sementivae, 294-6.
Feronia, 199, 252-4 ; temple, 253.
Fertility: customs to produce, 94-5,
104, 178-9, 262, 302, 311, 315,
318-21.
Festivals, 15, 18-9, 44, 336 ; agricul-
tural, 3, 71, 79-82, 85-8, 88-91,
113-4, 124-8, 145-54, 204-6,206-
9, 212-4, 256-8, 268 73, 324-7,
335 ; of curiae, 16, 71-2, 219,
302 6, 335; domestic, 107, 306-
10 ; harvest, 124-8, 145-54, 189-
90, I95-6, 2°7-9, 2i2-4, 243-4,
294-6 ; marked in calendars, 15-6 ;
men's, 102-3, 142, 194; of monies,
A a 2
356
INDEX OF SUBJECTS
16, 265-7, 335 ; moveable, 15, 95,
124, 255-6, 277, 279, 294, 303 ;
pagi, 16, 257, 294-6, 335; pastoral,
96-7 ; patrician, 68 (n. 2), 70 ;
plebeian, 44, 50-1, 68, 70, 92, 163,
I7It 253; of sacella, 16, 111-20,
335 ; survival of, 127-8, 312, 321 ;
times of, 7, 59, 70, 169-70, 174,
189, 256, 290 ; transition from
rustic to urban : see Religion ;
women's, 38, 67-8, 102-3, 142,
148, 154-6, 178-9, 255-6, 291.
Fetiales, 230-1 ; declaration of war,
134, 230 ; lapis silex, 230-1.
Fidenates : legends about, 174, 175,
177, 178.
Fides, 237 ; festival, 237 8.
Fig-tree of Rumirui, 310, 334.
Fire: deities, 189, 209-10; sacred
fire of Vesta : see Vesta.
Firstfruits : gathering. 151-3; offer-
ing, 195, 21 1-2.
Fisovius Sancius : see Fisus.
Fisus, 137, 139.
Flamines, 35, 288, 335, 342 3; anti-
quity of deity proved by, 92, 187,
201, 237; Flamen Carmentalis,
292; Flamen curiae, 304; Flamen
Dialis,86-8, 204. 221, 313 ; Flamen
Floralis, 92; Flamen Furinalis,
187 ; Flamen Martialis, 237, 323 ;
Flamen Palalualis, 267 ; Flamen
Pomonalis, 201 ; Flamen Portu-
nalis, 202; Flamen Quirinalis, 89,
209, 237, 276, 333, 334 ; Flamen
Volcanalis, 123. 210; Flamen Vol-
turnalis, 214 ; Flaminica Dialis,
56 (n.s), 112, 115, I46, 149, 151,
153, 221 ; representative of sons
of the family, 36, 147, 288, 334.
Flora, 92 3, 240, 324 ; festivals, 91-
5; functions, 67, 93, 94; temples,
92, 202, 324.
Floralia, 91-5; haiea and goats
loosed in Circus Maximus, 94.
Fons (or Fontus), 240-1, 258 ; tem-
ple, 341.
Fontinalia, 240-1.
Fordicidia, 71-2, 83, 243; character,
66, 115, 150; share of Vestal Vir-
gins in, 71, 83, 115, 150.
Fornacalia, 302-6, 335.
Fors Fortuna : see Fortuna.
•7 Fortuna, 67 ; connexion with Jupi-
ter, 166, 168, 223-5; with Nortia,
171-2 ; with Servius Tullius, 68,^
156 7, 162, 171-^; explained as*"
dawn-goddess, 164-6 ; explained
as moon-goddess, 1 68-9 ; explained
as sun-goddess, 168-71; festivals,
67-9 ; 161-72 ; Fors, 124, 161-3,
340; functions, -167-8, *i7o-i ;
huiusce diei, 164-5, 343 ; origin of
name, 163-4, 166-7; Primigenia,
72, 124, 165-6, 167-8, 223^4, 254 ;
statues, 156-7, 339 ; symbols, 169,
170-1 ; te"mpies. 68, 72, 124, 156-
7, 161-2, 166, 339, 343; Virilis,
68 ; women especially worship,
167-8 ; worshipped at Praeneste,
72, 124, 166, 168, 223.
Forum : meeting of curiae in, 305,
306; temples, 271, 273-4. 296,
339
Forum Boarium : Aedes Herculis,
193 ; temples, 154, 156-7, 339.
Forum Olitorium : temple, 302.
Foxes, 78 ; loosed at Cerealia, 77-9 ;
94.
Fratres Arvales, 42 ; Acta Fratrum
Arvalium. 17, 125; calendar, 12;
decline of, 184-5, 343 ; ritual of,
48, 74, 92 3, 105, 125, 127, 136,
240-1. 271, 282.
Freedwomen : worship of Feronia,
253-
Furiae : confusion with Furrina,
187, 188.
Furrina (or Furina), 187-8.
Furrinalia, 173, 187-8.
Gaia Caecilia, 141.
Games (ludi), 15, 50 ; Apollinares,
173, 179-80; Cereales, 72-3; com-
pitales, 279-80 ; Florae, 91-5 ;
horse races, 44-5, 58, 91, 180,
208, 242, 245-6, 248-9 ; Megale-
siaci, 69-71 ; plebeii, 180, 217,
252, 253; Romani, 215, 216-7,
252 ; saeculares, 182.
Gates : see Porta.
Geese : sacred to Juno, 129-30.
Genita Mana, 101.
Ghosts : purification of house from,
100, 109-10, 131 ; classification of,
108-9.
Gods : see Deities.
Guilds, 62, 121 ; tibicines, 157-8.
Harawara, 84.
INDEX OF SUBJECTS
357
Hares : loosed at Floralia, 94.
Harvest, 154, 189; customs, 177-8,
245-6 ; festivals, 124-8, 153-4,
189-90, 195-6, 207-9.
Healing deities, 104-5, J8°> I9I»
278.
Heimdal : equation with Janus, 286.
Hephaestus, 123.
Hercules : connexion with Dius
Fidius or Semo Sancus, I37--9,
142-4; with Genius. 143-4, 194-5,
196, 337 ; with Juno, 142-4 ;
with Mars, 194-5, 196 ; coupled
with Diana, 181, 186; Invictus,
201; legends, 102, 112, 138, 193,
196-7 ; representative of male
principle, 103, 143, 194 ; temples,
135, 201; Victor, 138; worship,
193-7 5 worship confined to men,
loa, 103, 142, 194.
Hermes, 120-1 ; connexion with
Mercury, iai, 186.
Hirpi Sorani : rites at Soracte, 84,
317-
Horatius : legend, 238-9.
Horses : connexion of Census with,
207-8 ; of Mars with, 330 ; decked
with flowers, 207-8 ; heads decked
with cakes, 242, 244.
Horta Quirini, 324.
Ides, 8 ; sacred to Jupiter, 8, 10,
120, 157, 198, 215, 241.
Iguvium : inscription found at, 17,
II4, 127, 137, 139, 176, 231.
Images and statue* ef gods, 81, 141,
156-7, 200, 201, 218, 228, 239.
Indigitamenta, 71, 191,192,274,341.
Indigites, 192.
Inuus, 312-3.
Isis worship, 252.
January, 5-7 ; character, 6, 33, 277 ;
consuls enter office in, 5, 95, 278 ;
festivals, 6, 277-97 » origin of
name, 6, 7, 33, 99.
Janus, 270 ; connexion with Cardea,
131-2 ; with January, 6, 33, 99 ;
with Saturnus, 270 ; with tigil-
lum sororium, 238-9; with Vesta,
282-3, 287-8, 334-5 ; cult-titles,
289-90; geminus, 286; god of
entrances, 282-3, 286-9, 335, 337 ;
origin of cult, 282-9 > ^«'x 8ac*
rorum connected with worship
of. 282, 288, 334-5 ; temples, 204,
270.
July, 2, 3. 173; festivals, 174-88.
June: character, 6, 33; festivals,
130-72 ; origin of name, 6, 99-
loo ; 129-30.
Juno, 312 ; Caprotina, 178 ; con-
nexion with Boiia Dea, 142 ;
with Hercules, 142-4 ; with June,
99-100, 129 ; with Jupiter, 134,
218, 221, 223-5 > with Mars, 37-8,
133-4 » with tigillum sororium,
238-9 ; cult at Praeneste, 166,
224 ; Curitis, 223, 239 ; festivals,
174, 178-9 ; Kalends sacred to,
8, 38, 129, 239, 241 ; Lucina, 38,
105, 156; Moneta, 129 30 ; one
of Etruscan trias, 218, 220, 229,
235, 339 ; representative of female
principle, 38, 141, 143, 178, 221,
321 (n. i), 337 ; Sospita, 302 ;
temples, 38, 157-8, 215, 216-7,
302, 326-7.
Jupiter, 97,220 1,313 ; Capitolinus,
97, 158 ; cella Jovis, 217 ; con-
nexion with Dius Fidius or Semo
Sancus, 138-41, 221 ; with For-
tuna, 166, 168, 223-5; with Juno,
134, 218, 221, 223-5 ; with
Mercurius. 120 ; with Terminus,
326-7 ; with wine, 55, 88, 240 ;
Elicius, 232, 233 ; epulum Jovis,
215, 216, 217-20, 233-4, 253;
Fagutalis, 228 ; Feretrius, 229-30,
232, 334J festivals, 85-8, 157-9,
174, 216-20, 375, 338; Fulgur,
239 ; functions, 55, 88, 97, 141,
322, 229-30, 232, 326 ; Ides sacred
to, 8, 10, 120, 157, 198, 215, 241 ;
Indiges, 192 ; Invictus, 158 ;
Latiaris, 97, 198, 227-8 ; Liber,
55, 88 ; Lucetius, 222 ; one of
Etruscan trias, 218, 220, 229, 235,
339 ; Puer, cult at Praeneste, 166,
224-7 ; stones connected with,
230-3, 234 ; temples, 95-6, 157-8,
315, 216-7, 228, 229, 233, 326-7,
339 > Viminius, 229 ; worship in
groves, 183, 227 ; worship in
Italy, 221-3 i worship on hills,
95, 222, 227, 234.
Juturna, 293 ; temple, 341.
Kalends, 8 ; sacred to Juno, 8, 38 ;
129, 239, 241.
358
INDEX OF SUBJECTS
Kings, 36, 63, 282 ; represented by
Pontifex Maximus, 147. 288 ;
represented by Rex sacrorum, 8,
213, 282, 288.
Lapis : see Stones.
Larentalia, 275-6.
Larentia : see Acca Larentia.
L:ires, 136, 309, 337 ; compitales or
domestic!, 101, 338; praestites,
100 -i, 335.
Latin Festival : see Feriae Latinae.
Latins, common worship of Romans
and, 95-7, 198 9, 335.
Latona, coupled with Apollo, 181,
1 86, 200.
Laurel, 83 ; sacred to Mars, 35-6.
Lectisternium, 180-1, 186. 200,273 ;
connexion with epulumJovis.2i8.
Lemuria, 100, 106-10, 131, 174, 290.
Leucothea, 154.
Liber, 312, 338 ; connexion with
Dionysus, 54-5, 74> 88.
Libera, 74.
Liberalia, 54-6 ; cakes used at, 53-4,
55-
Litania Maior, 91, 127.
Lucaria, 15 ^n. i), 173, 174, 182-5,
186-7.
Luceres. 185.
Ludi : see Games.
Lupercal, 310-1, 318.
Lupercalia, 298, 299, 310-21 ; deity
of, 257-8, 262, 312-3; sacrifices
at, 101, 311, 312-4 ; salt-cake
used, no, 115, 311 ; whipping to
produce fertility, 104, 179, 262,
302, 311, 315, 318-21.
Luperci, 311, 312-3, 319-20; deriva-
tion of name, 311, 317.
Lupercus, 311, 312.
Lupines, 94.
Lustrations. 68, 83-5, 298 ; aedes
Vestae, 148-9, 151-4 ; Argei, 100,
113-4, 115, 119; arms, 58-9, 248-
9, 250 i ; bound- beating, 1 14, 125-
8, 304. 319; crops, 100, 114, 124-
8, 154 ; ghosts, 100 ; Lupercalia,
315-6, 319-21; people, 175-6;
processions, in, 113-4, 125-6,
3355 rites, 299-302; sheep, 8t ;
shields, 58-9, 248, 250 ; trumpets,
63-4, "3-
Magna Mater Idaea: festival, 67,69-
71; introduction into Rome, 67,
69-70, 102, 342 ; stone represent-
ing, 69-70, 342 ; temple, 70.
Maia, 98-100 ; connexion with Bona
Dea, 99, 100, 123, 129 ; with Mer-
curius, 98-9, 120 ; with Volcanus,
123, 210.
Mamuralia, 45-50.
Mamurius : expulsion of Mamurius
Veturius. 40-1, 46-9; festival, 44-
50 ; smith, 39, 45-6 ; variant for
Mars, 39, 41, 45.
Manes, 108, 300, 308.
March, 2, 3 ; beginning of year, 5,
33, 38 ; connexion with Mars, 33-
5, 48, 64-5, 99 ; festivals, 5, 35-
65 ; New Year's Day, 5, 35-43*
278 ; origin of name, 33, 99.
Marcus Fulvius Nobilior, n.
Market days, 8.
Marriages, 293 ; customs, 142 ; ill-
omened in March and May, 60, 67,
loo, 109, 293 ; prohibited, 146,
308.
Mars, 53, 60, 313 ; birthday, 5, 36-
8, 60 ; comparison with Apollo,
39 40 ; connexion with Hercules,
194-5, 196 ; with Juno, 37-8,
133-4; with March, 33-5, 48,
• 64-5, 99 ; with Minerva, 53, 59-
60, 62 ; with Nerio, 60-2, 186 ;
with Quirinus, 322-3; withRobi-
gus, 89, 324 ; with Romulus, 33,
37 in. 3) 5 with Silvanus, 55, 194 ;
festivals, 44-6, 57-63, 123,241-50;
29°, 313. 330-1 ; functions, 34-5,
41, 43, 64-5, 89, 248-9, 250, 262 ;
god of powers of vegetation and
reproduction, 34-5 ; 41, 48-9, 64,
126-7, 196 ; Greek influence, 35,
37 ; laurel sacred to, 35-6 ; origin,
34-5, 64; priests: see Salii ; Sac-
rarium Martis, 39, 44, 324, 335 ;
shields : see Ancilia ; temples, 133-
4, 232; war-god, 126, 207, 248,
249.
Mater Larum, 240.
Mater Matuta, 154-6, 165.
Matralia, 154-6, 165.
Matronalia, 38.
May, 2, 3 ; character, 6, 33, 100 ;
festivals, 33, 98-128 ; origin of
name, 6, 33, 98-100.
Meals : see also Epulum Jovis ; sac-
rificial, 81,96-7. 194, 218-20. 308,
309-
INDEX OF SUBJECTS
359
Meditrinalia, 236, 239-40.
Megalesia, 69-71.
Men : exclusion from cults, 102-3,
142, 256 ; oaths of, 138-9, 142.
Mens, 145.
Mercurius : connexion with Hermes,
121, 186 ; with Jupiter, 120 ; with
Maia, 98 9, 120; coupled with
Neptunus, 181, 186; god of trade,
121 ; temples, 121, 339.
Mildew : see Rust.
Minerva : connexion with Mars,
53> 59-6o, 62 ; with Nerio ; 59-62 ;
festivals, 59, 62, 158 ; goddess of
trumpet players, 62, 158 ; nail
driven into cella of, 234-5 ; one
of Etruscan trias, 218, 220, 229,
235, 339 5 temples, 59, 157-8, 215,
216-7. 326-7, 339.
Mola salsa : see Salt-cake.
Monies, 266-7 5 festivals of, 16,
265-7, 335-
Months, 5-7, 33-4; divisions. 7-8;
lunar, 7 ; names, 5-7, 33-4, 99-
100; number of days, 2-3; solar, i.
Mundus, 211-2 ; open, 211-2, 239,
252.
Myrtle, 68 ; excluded from temple
ofBonaDea. 103-4.
Nails driven into temples, 172, 217,
234-5-
Nemesis, 170.
Neptunalia, 173, 185-7.
Neptunus, 185-7 i connexion with
Poseidon, 185, 186, 187 ; with
Salacia, 186 ; coupled with Mer-
curius, 181, 186; functions, 185,
187.
Nerio, 134-5 ; connexion with Mars,
60-2, 186 ; with Minerva, 59-62.
Nerthus, 117.
New Year : see March.
Nones, 7, 8; Nonae Caprotinae, 174,
175, !78-9.
Nortia, 235 ; connexion with For-
tuna. 171 2.
November : character, 252 ; festi-
vals, 252-4.
Numa : connexion with calendar,
4» 335-6; legends, 262-3, 278.
Numbers : lucky and unlucky, 3.
Oak of Jupiter Feretrius, 229, 232,
334-
Oaths, 138 9, 142, 231, 297, 327 ;
Jupiter's connexion with, 139,
229-30. 326 ; taken at Ara Maxi-
ma, 138-9.
Octaeteris cycle, 2-3.
October, 2, 3 ; character, 236-7 ;
festivals, 237-51.
October-horse, 45, 58, 241-50; blood
kept by Vestal Virgins, 83, 150,
243, 247 ; corn-spirit represented
by, 83, 244-8 ; races, 45, 58. 242,
245-6; sacrifice of, 83. 241-2.
Opalia, 255, 273-4.
Opeconsivia, 115, 150, 189, 212-4,
290.
Ops, 74, 338 ; connexion with Con-
sus, 212-3; with Saturnus, 212,
273-4 ! Consiva, 212 ; festival,
115, 150, 212-4, 273-4; Opifera,
210 ; temple, 273-4.
Oracles : Faunus, 262-3.
Oscilla : see Puppets.
Ovid : Fasti, 6-7, 13, 14, 36-7, 173,
236 7.
Paganalia, 16, 294-6, 335, 338.
Pagus, 257, 294, 335 ; festivals, 16,
257, 294-6, 335, 338.
Palatine: divisions, 266; Lupercal :
see Lupercal ; mundus : see Mun-
dus ; rites celebrated, 276, 310-2,
318-9 ; temples, 70, 180 (n. 4,,
182 ; union with Subura, 247.
Palatua, 267.
Pales, 67, 80, 267 ; festival, 79-85 ;
offerings, 81, 103.
Pan : connexion with Faunus, 258,
259) 3i3-
Parentalia, 210, 276, 299, 300,
306-10, 335.
Parilia, 66, 79-85, no, 243. 247 ;
character, 66, 115, 150; share of
Vestal Virgins in, 71, 83, 115.
Penates, 337.
Persephone, 75.
Picumnus, 201.
Pinarii, 193.
Plebeians : festivals, 44, 50-1, 68,
70, 92, 163, 171, 253 ; quarter,
75, 77 5 secession, 53, 75-7 ;
temples, 75-6, 92, 199.
Pomona, 201.
Pons sublicius, Argei thrown from,
112, 113-4.
Pontifices, 114; decline, 3423;
360
INDEX OF SUBJECTS
growing importance. 339-41 ;
influence on religion, 190-1, 192,
213, 214, 257-8, 341 ; Pontifex
Maximus, 147, 288 ; priestesses,
105-6 ; share in festivals, 112,
114, 276.
Poplifugia, 7, 15 (n. i), 173, 174-6,
179. 183, 328.
Porta : Agonensis, 281 ; Capena,
J33j 232> Carmentalis, 180 ^n. 3),
290, 291, 293 ; Fontinalis, 240 ;
Sanqualis, 135, 140 ; Trigemina,
201.
Portunalia, 189, 202-4.
Portunus, 202-4, 2I4-
Poseidon : connexion with Neptu-
nus, 185, 186, 187 ; Hippios, 208.
Potit:i, 193.
Praeneste, 254 ; cult of Fortuna,
72, 124. 166, 168, 223-4, 254 ; cult
of Jupiter Puer, 166, 224-7 >
foreign influence, 166, 227.
Prayers, 81-2, 89-90, 126-7, 133,
155, 184, 191, 295, 308, 346.
Presents given at festivals, 38, 272,
278.
Priests : see Pontifices.
Primig-inia : see Fortuna.
Proserpina, 212.
Prostitutes, festival of, 93.
Punic Wars, 19,69-71, 179; insti-
tution of festivals and temples
due to, 19, 69, 179, 341, 342.
Puppets : Argfi thrown into Tiber,
111-20; oscilla hung on trees,
96, r 1 6, 296.
Purification: see Lustration.
Pythagoreans, no.
Quinctilis : see July.
Quinquatrus, 45,57-62, 290; minus-
culae, 157-9.
Q -urinal, 237, 281, 322 ; cults, 229,
322-4 ; temples, 124, 135, 136,
141, 190-1, 322, 324.
Quirinalia, 304-5, 322-4.
Quirinus, 305, 322-4 ; temples, 191,
322, 323.
Quirites, 322.
Races : see Games.
Regia, 190, 213, 220, 282, 335;
laurel fixed on, 5, 35 ; sacrarium
Martis in, 39, 44, 324, 335 ; sacra-
rium Opis in, 213.
Regifugium, 174, 327-30, 331.
Religion, 1 8-2OJ authorities^ 332-3;
.based dncuftC 20, 333-4.; daemo-
nistic character, 7*4, io67i37, 139,
213, 221-2, 226-7, 232-3, 295, 313;
decline, 341-3 ;
encet 171-2, 210-20, 229, 234-5 ',
Greek intiu-
. 191, i94?
248-9,273^3^2^^43; influence on
characTer7344-9 ; Oriental influ-
ence, 19, 252 ; pontifices' influ-
ence, 190-1, 192, 213, 2i£, 257-8,
341 ; reaction against foreign
' 340-1, ^^jrepTesenta;
tive of "stagea uf growlh, 334-8 ;
1-eTival by Augustus: see Augustus;
transition from aniconicto iconic,
219-20, 229, 233-4 : transition
from rustic to urbant oo, 91, 103,
tqJ3^? 1 8-50*^53^8/279' 80, 294.
Reproduction, spirit fiee"Cofn-spirit.
Rex sacrorum, 8, 335 ; connexion
with Janus worship, 282, 288,
334-5 > representative of king,
8, 213, 282, 288 ; representative
of head of household, 213, 282,
288, 334.
Robigalia, 66, 88-91.
Robigus, 324, 338 ; connexion with
Mars, 89, 324 ; festival, 88-91.
Romulus, 4 ; connexion with Mars,
33» 37 (n- 3) J with Quirinus, 322 ;
legends, 175-6, 229, 310.
Rust, red, 88-9, 91.
Sabine women, legend. 178, 208-9.
Sacella Argeorum, 16, 56-7, 111-2,
335 » procession round, 56, in,
"3-4- 335-
Sacrifices, 51. 54, 56, 62, 86, 209,
267, 313-4 ; bean meal and lard,
T3°> *33 ; boar, 210; bull, 126;
cakes, 53-5, 155, 161, 295, 304 ;
cereals, 292-3 ; cheese, 96, 228 ;
cow, 71 ; dog, 89-91, 101, 209,
311, 312, 314 ; fig-tree, 178 ; fish,
209-10 ; flight after, 176, 328,
329-30 ; goat, 122, 311, 312, 314 ;
heifer, 96, 179. 193, 217, 228 ;
honey, 309, 325; horse, 241-2;
human, relics of, 112, 115, 116-7,
"9> 315; kid, 257; lamb, 64,
i°5> 325 J milk> 81, 96, 103, 228,
INDEX OF SUBJECTS
361
309 ; millet, 81 ; oil, 309 ; pig,
105, 126, 256, 272, 325; proces-
sion of victims, 126 ; ram, 282 ;
red calf, 210 ; sacrificial meal, 81,
96-7, 194, 228; salt-cake (mola
salsa), no, 115, 148, 311 ; sheep,
89, 96, 126 ; sow, 295 ; water,
309 ; wine, 87, 103, 257, 309, 325.
Salacia, 186.
Salii, 36, 39-43, 58, 194, 250, 331,
334 ; Agonenses, 41, 54, 281, 323 \
Carmen Saliare, 39, 41, 45, 49,
289 ; Collini, 41, 54, 320, 323 ;
mansiones Saliorum, 41, 44 ;
number, 41, 42 ; Palatini, 41,
320, 323 ; shields : see Ancilia ;
skins worn by, 47-8, 49-50.
Salt-cake (mola salsa) : made by
Vestal Virgins, uo-i, 115, 148,
r49> I53i 205, 3" ? used at Ides
of September, no, 115, 311 ; used
at Lupercalia, no, 115, 311 ; used
at Vestalia, no, 115, 148, 311.
Salus, 190-1, 343.
Sancus : see Semo Sancua.
Saturnalia, 15, 177, 255, 268-73,335.
Saturn us, 120, 268-71 ; connexion
with Ops Consiva, 212, 273-4 >
festival, 268-73; functions, 270,
338 ; temples, 71, 273-4, 339-
Scapegoat, 176 ; Mamurius Vetu-
rius, 40-1, 46-9.
Seianus : owner of statue of For-
tuna, 156-7, 171.
Semo Sancus, 160, 327 ; connexion
with Dius Fidius, 136-8, 144 ;
functions, 139-41.
Semones, 136.
Senate, 134.
September: characterr2i5~6; festi-
vals, 215-35.
Septimontium, 16, 265-7, 335.
Servius Tullius, 280 ; connexion
with Fortuna, 68, 156-7, 162,
171-2, 339 ; Etruscan origin, 157,
171 ; founder of temples, 68, 162,
198-9, 339-
Sextilis : see August.
Sheep : fold decorated, 80-1 ; lus-
tration, 81 ; sacrifice, 89, 96, 126.
Sibylline books, 68, 69, 74, 92, 93,
145, *79> 181.
Silvanus, 55, 103, 258, 261, 262 ;
connexion with Mars, 55, 194.
Sinus, 90.
Slaves, 155 ; deities of, 199, 253-4 ;
festivals open to, 38, 162-3, J78-9,
193, 194, 199-200, 272-3, 280;
manumissions, 253-4.
Snakes, 104.
Sol Indiges, 191-3.
Soranus, 160 ; Apollo, 84, 181.
Sosigenes, 4.
Spells, 80-1, 83, 84, 96, 109-10, 150,
243, 279-80, 296, 301, 309-10;
rain, 119-20, 232-3.
Spirits : dead, see Ghosts ; evil, see
Evil spirits.
Statues : see Images.
Stones, sacred, 140 ; lapis silex,
230-2 ; manalis, 211, 232-3 ; oath
per lovem lapidem, 138, 231 ;
representing Magna Mater Idaea,
69 70, 342 ; Terminus, 230-1,
326-7, 334-
Strenia, 278.
Stultorum feriae, 304-6, 322.
Subura, 247, 266.
Summanalia, 161.
Summanus, 160-1. 241.
Sun, 84 ; deities of, 35, 168-70, 191-
3, 283-4 i symbols of, 139, 169-70.
Supplicatio, 191.
Tacita, 210, 309-10.
Tanaquil, 141.
Tarquinii, 75-6, 121, 280, 327-8;
worships introduced by, 96, 181.
Tellus, 67, 71, 74, 294 5 ; festivals,
71-2, 294-6 ; sacrifices, 71, 295.
Tempestates, temple, 341.
Temples, 339-43 ; of Aesculapius in
insula, 278, 340; Apollo at Ac-
tium, 182 ; Apollo in Flaminian
fields, 180 ; Apollo Palatinus on
the Palatine, 180 (n.4), 182; Bel-
lona in Circo Flaminio, 134 ; Bona
Dea on the Aventine, 101-5 ;
Carmenta at Porta Carmentalis,
291, 293; Castor and Pollux ad
Forum, 296 ; Castor and Pollux in
Circo Flaminio, 202 ; Ceres, Liber,
and Libera on the Aventine, 74-6,
339 i Census on the Aventine,
206, 267 ; Diana on the Aventine,
198-200, 339 ; Dius Fidius on the
Quirinal, 135, 136, 141 ; Faunus
in insula, 257-8, 278 ; Feronia at
Tarracina, 253 ; Flora ad Circum
Maximum, 92, 202 ; Flora or
362
INDEX OF SUBJECTS
Horta QuirSni on Quirinal, 324;
ForsFortuna trans Tiberim, 161-
2i 339 5 Fortuna in Foro Boario,
156-7, 339; Fortuna HuiusceDiei,
l65> 343 > Fortuna Primigenia at
Praeneste, 72 ; Fortuna Primi-
genia on the Quirinal, 124 ; For-
tuna Virilis, 68 ; Hercules near
the Circus Flaminius, 135 ; Her-
cules Invictus ad portam trigemi-
nain. 201 ; Janus ad Theatrum
Marcelli, 204 ; Juno Lucina on
the Esquiline, 38 ; Juno Moneta
in arce, 129-30 ; Juno Sospita ad
Forum Olitorium, 302 ; Jupiter,
Juno, and Minerva in Capitolio,
157-8, 215, 216-7, 326-7, 339;
Jupiter Elicius under the Aven-
tine, 232 ; Jupiter Feretrius in
Capitolio, 229 ; Jupiter Invictus,
158; Jupiter Latiaris on the
Alban Mount, 95- 6, 228; Juturna,
341 ; Magna Mater Idaea, 70 ;
Mars extra Portam Capenam, 133-
4, 232 ; Mater Matuta in Foro
Boario, 154 ; Mens in Capitolio,
145 ; Mercurius, 121, 339; Minerva
on the Aventine, 59, 158; Ops ad
Forum, 273-4 > Quirinus in Colle,
191, 322 ; round, 193 ; Salus on
the Quirinal, 190-1 ; Saturnus ad
Forum, 271, 273-4, 339; Sum-
manus ad Circum Maximum, 160 ;
Tempestates, 341 ; Vediovis in
arce, 43 ; Vediovis in insula, 122,
277 ; Vediovis inter duos lucos,
122 ; Venus ad Circum Maximum,
204 ; Venus Erycina in Capitolio,
85, I45; Venus Verticordia, 68,
343 ; Victory on the Palatine, 70 ;
Volcanus in Circo Flam in io, 211 ;
Vortumnus on the Aventine, 201,
341-
Terminalia, 4, 324-7, 335.
Terminus, 324, 326-7 ; festival,
324-7 ; stone, 230-1, 326-7, 334.
Theatrum Marcelli, 204.
Tiber, worship, 214.
Tiber island : temples, 122, 257-8,
277, 278, 340.
Tiberinus, 120, 303, 214.
Tibicines : see Trumpets.
Tigillum sororium, 238-9.
Tina (or Tinia), 222-3.
Tirones, 56.
Tithes: offered on Ara Maxima, 138 ;
J95-7 ! offered to Hercules Victor,
138-9.
Toga virilis, assumption of, 56.
Totemism, 84-5, 101, 231-2, 334.
Treaties : Dius Fidius' connexion
with, 141 ; Jupiter's connexion
with, 229-30, 326; making, 229-
30; ratified at Ara Maxima, 138.
Tree-worship, 228-9, 232, 234.
Tribuni : celerum, 58-9 ; militum,
58 ; plebis, 75.
Trumpets, 63-4, 159 ; lustration,
63-4, 123 ; players, 62, 157-9.
Tubilustrium, 44, 45, 62-4, 123, 290;
connexion with Minerva, 62 ;
festival of Mars, 62, 290.
Vediovis, 121-2, 160, 225, 277-8 ;
connexion with Apollo, 122, 181,
225, 277 ; festivals, 43, 121-2,
277-8 ; temples, 43, 122, 277.
Vegetation spirit : see Corn-spirit.
Veneralia. 67-9.
Venus : connexion with April, 67,
69 ; with Fortuna, 68 ; with wine,
86, 204 ; Erycina, 85, 145 ; festivals,
167-8, 85-6 ; functions, 67, 86 ;
Greek influence, 67, 69, 86 ;
Mimnermia (or Meminia), 145 ;
temples, 68, 85-6, 145, 204, 343 ;
"Verticordia, 68-9, 343.
Vesta : aedes, 148-9, 151-4, 335 ;
connexion with Janus, 282-3,
^287-8, 334-5; festival, 145-54;
functions, 150; hearth-goddess,
J47-8, 150, 282-3, 287-8, 334,
337 ; laurels fixed on aedes, 5, 36,
^53 5 penus Vestae, 83, 148, 149-
5°j I53) 288 ; origin of cult, 146-8,
149, 282-3 ; sacred fire, 5, 35, 114,
M7-8, 150-1, 153-
Vestalia, 145-54; character, 115,
126, 154 ; mourning of Flaminica
Dialis. 115, 146, 149, 151, 153;
salt-cake used, no, 115, 148.
Vestal Virgins, 36, 68-9, 306, 324,
335 > festivals shared in, 52, 57,
71, 85, 112, 114-15, 150, 256;
functions, 147, 149-51, 288; re-
presentative of daughters of
family, 36, in, 147, 149, 213, 256,
288, 334 ; salt-cake made by, no-
i, 115, 148, 149, 153, 205, 311.
Vet<-hes, 94.
INDEX OF SUBJECTS
363
Victory, temple of, 70.
Viminal, cults on, 229.
Vinalia, 10, 338; connexion with
Jupiter, 85, 86-8, 338; with
Venus, 85-6, 204 ; Priora, 85-8 ;
Rustica, 10, 85, 86, 87, 189, 204-6.
Vitulatio, 179.
Volcanalia, 189, 209-11.
Volcanus, 209-11 ; connexion with
Maia, 123, 210 ; festivals, 123,
209-10; functions, 123-4, 210 ;
temple, an.
Volturnalia, 214.
Volturnus. 214.
Volupia, 274.
Vortumnus, 201, 341.
War: conduct of, 216; declaration
of, 134, 230 ; gods of, 126, 134-5,
207, 248, 249.
Water : deities of, 187, 189.
Weddings : see Marriages.
Weeks : eight days, 7, 8.
Wells and springs : sanctity, 240.
Wheel symbol, 161, 169-70.
Wills: sanctioned by Comitia Cu-
riata, 63, 123.
Wine: festivals, 85-8, 204-6, 236,
239-40; introduction of vine into
Italy, 88, 97, 236 ; Jupiter's con-
nexion with, 55, 88, 240 ; Venus'
connexion with, 86, 204; vintage,
236.
Wolf : corn ; see Corn-spirit ; sacred
to Mars, 31 1, 334.
Women, 262 ; deities of, 38, 68, 102-
3, 106, 155-6, 167-8,200-1,291-3;
excluded from worship of Her-
cules, 102, 103, 142, 194; festivals,
38, 67-8, 102-3, 142, 148, 154-6,
178-9, 255-6, 291 ; oaths, 142 ;
rites to produce fertility, 94-5,
104, 178-9, 262, 302, s'ti, 315,
318-21.
Woods, importance in religion,
183-4.
Year: beginning, 5-7, 35-6, 278;
lunar, 1-3 ; method of reckoning,
1-4 ; solar, 1-3.
INDEX OF LATIN WORDS
Aedes, 135.
Agone? 281.
Agonia, 281.
Amiculum lunonis,
179, 3ia, 321 (n. i).
Ancile, 38, 41, 42. 43,
46, 58, 248, 250.
Annare perennare, 51.
Annus, i, 52.
Aperio, 66.
Argea, 56.
Argei, 52, 56, 57, in
(n.4), 112, 113,118-9.
Asylum, 122, 183 (n. 3),
327-
Augurium Salutis, 190.
Auspicatio vindemiae,
204, 205.
Baculum, 64.
Balineum, 67.
Bidental, 140.
Bidentes, 140.
Bulla, 96 (n. 5).
Caeli templum, 141.
Camella, 82 (n. 4).
Caprificatio, 178 (n. 8).
Cara cognatio, 306,
308.
Cardo, 132.
Carmen, 291.
Carpentum, 291.
Casnar, 119 (n. i).
Cerei, 272.
Cerfia, 73.
Cerfus, 73.
Cerus, 73.
Cingulum, 142.
Februum, 6, 83, 298,
Cippus, 319.
301, 311,321-
Clava, 64.
Feriae, 8.
Clavis, 203.
Flamen, 36, 147.
Clavus, 234, 235.
Foculus, 55.
Clypeus, 141.
Focus, 242.
Collegium, 157.
Forda, 71.
Columella, 134.
Fornax, 306.
Comitialis, 9.
Fur, 187.
Compitum, 279, 280,
Furfare, 188.
294.
Furvus, 187.
Condere, 207.
Fuscus, 187.
Covella, 8 (n. i).
Creare, 73.
Genialis, 55.
Creppi, 262, 318.
Genius, 55.
Curia, 16, 71, 303.
Curio, 304.
Hostia praecidanea,
Damiatrix, 105, 106.
Damium, 105.
Decumae, 195, 196.
Decuria, 140.
Dies parentales, 107,
306.
Edepol, 297.
Endotercisus, 10.
Equorum probatio, 216
(n- 5).
Fabariae kalendae , 130.
Fanum, 135.
Far, 304.
Fari, 259.
Fas (or Fastus), 8.
Favere, 258.
Februare, 188, 298
(n. i).
301.
Herbarium, 104.
Horda, 71.
Impius, 299.
Incinctus, 309.
Incubus, 262.
Indiges, 192, 193.
Indigitamenta, 191,
192, 341.
Janua, 6, 7, 282.
Janus, 6, 282, 286, 287.
Lapis Capitolinus,
230-1.
Lapis manalis, 211,
232, 233.
Lapis silex, 230, 231.
Larva, 108.
La u re a. 36.
INDEX OF LATIN WORDS
365
Leetisternium, 181,
200, 218, 273.
Lectus genialis, 142,
143-
Lemur, 108, 109, 183.
Lex templi, 198.
Liba, 53, 55, 155 (n. 7).
Liberalis, 55.
Litania maior, 91, 127.
Lituus, 64.
Lucar, 183.
Lucus, 183, 185.
Ludi, 15.
Lupus, 311.
Lustratio. 58, 66, 175
(n.8 , 176, 301.
LUX, 222.
Maena, 209, 309.
Mane, 156.
Manes, 108, 109, 156.
Maniae, IX&
Mansiones Salioruin,
4i, 44-
Manus, 156.
Matrimus, 42.
Maturus, 156.
Matuta, 156.
Mecastor. 297.
Me dius iiclius, 138.
Me hercule, 138.
Mellarium, 103.
Mercator, xai.
Minium, 218, 223.
Minusculus, 158.
Mola salsa, no, 149,
155 (n- 7)» 3"-
Moneta, 129, 130.
Montanus, 267.
Monies, 16, 266-7.
Mundus, 21 1-2, 283.
Musium, 240.
Nefas, 299.
Nefastus. 9, 151.
Nemus, 183.
Nodus herculaneus,
142.
Numen, 34, 35, 183.
Nundinae, 8, 270.
Obnuntiatio, 343.
Ocris iisiu.s, 222.
Off a penita, 247 (n. i).
Orbis, 139, 141.
Oscilla, 96, 116, 296.
Paganus, 267.
Pagus, 16, 114, 257,
294, 335-
Palatuar. 80 (n. 3).
Parentatio, 275, 276,
306.
Patrimus, 42.
Pecuarius, 257.
Penus, 148, 149, 150
(n. i), 153, 212, 213,
288.
Per lovem (lapidem),
138, 230 (n.a), 231.
Persillum, 202 ^n. i).
Piamen, 301.
Pietas, 347-8.
Pistrina, 304.
Pomoerium, 133 (n. 3),
134, an, 302 (n. i),
319, S2?-
Pompa, 216 (n. 51.
Pontifex, 114.
Portus, 202, 203.
Postriduanus, 9.
Primigenia, 165, 223.
Purgamentum, 301.
Puteal, 140.
Quadrata (Roma), 211.
QuandoRexCoinitiavit
Fas, 10, 63.
Quando Stercus Dela-
t mil Fas, io> 146,
149.
Quiuquare, 58.
Regia, 148.
Religio, 298, 300, 347.
Religiosus, 9, 151.
Robigo, 78, 88, 89.
Ros, 82 (n.^;.
Sacella Argeorum, 16,
56, in.
Sacellum. in, 112, 113,
!3°, 135, 154-
Sacer, 75, 174, 348.
Sacra Argeorum, 10,
in.
Sacrosanctitas, 75.
Salax, 186.
Salum, 186
Sanqualis avis, 139.
Sapa, 82.
Satio, 269.
Sceptrum, 230.
Serere. 269, 289.
Sexagenaries de ponte,
112, 116.
Sigillaria, 272.
Simulacrum, 57, 113,
118.
Solis pulvinar. 191.
Stolae longae, 159.
Strenae, 278.
Strix, 132.
Stultorum feriae, 304,
306.
Suffimen, 83.
Summanalia, 161.
Tabularia, 269.
Tibia, 63, 159.
Tigillum sororium,
237, 238.
Tiro, 56.
Toga libera, 56.
Trabea, 41.
Transvectio equitum,
133, 296 (n. 6 .
Tribunus celerum, 58,
59-
Tribunus militum, 58.
Tuba, 63, 64, 123.
Tunica picta, 41.
Urfita, 139.
Vegrandia farra, 121.
Vescus, 121.
Vesta, 282.
Vestal is, 36.
Vestigia fugae, 176,
183.
Vicus, 280.
Vindemia, 86, 88, 204,
205, 236.
Virga, 178.
Visceratio, 179.
Vitulatio, 179.
Vitulus, 179.
Votum, 346.
INDEX OF LATIN AUTHORS QUOTED
APPULEIUS,
PAGE
CICERO,
PAGE
de Genio Socratis, 15 .
. 1 08
de Nat. Deor., 2. 27. 67 .
287
ARNOBITJS,
2. 6l . .
145
adv. Nationes, 3. 40 .
• 73
2. 68
150
„ 7- 21
. 312
. 3. 20
240
„ 7- 49
. 70
3- 46
187
AUGUSTINUS (ST.),
3- 48 .
155
de Civ. Lei, 2. 27 . .
• 93
de Divinatione, i. 10
1 60
„ a. 29 .
. 230
„ i. 17. 30 »
64
ff 4- 8 .
177, 274
„ I. 101
262
ii 4- " .
167, 292
„ 2. 41
166
„ 4- 23 •
1 60, 326
de Legibus, i. 14. 40
299
AUSONIUS, de Feriis, 9
. 177
2. 3. 8 .
333
„ a. 21. 54
276
a. 48 .
308
CAESAR, Bell. Gatt., 6. 16 .
117, 286
de Officiis, 3. 10 . . .
322
CALPURHIUS, Ed. T. 8 foil.
. 263
de RepubL, 1. 16
175
CATO,
„ 2. 12 .
208
de Re Rustica, 83 . .
. 194
Brutus, 14. 56
292
» 132 .
. 218
„ 20. 78
180
» J39 •
. 184
Ep. ad Att., i. 12 . . .
256
» 141 .-
89, 126
6. i. 8 . .
it
„ 156 foil. .
. 105
„ 9. 9. 4 .
54
up. Dionys. a. 49 .
• 137
ii 13.52 .
268
op. Priscian. 7. 337 . .
. 198
M 15-25
256
CENSORINUS,
ad Fam. 12. 25
54
de Die Natali, 2. 20
. 66
ad Q. Fratr., 2. 3. a .
322
„ 20. 4
• 3
COLUMELLA,
„ 20. 2
• 97
de Re Rustica, a. 8. a . 255,
271
ClCEEO,
„ 2. 12
88
de Harusp. Resp., 12. 24 .
. 70
„ 10.311 .
170
» n- 37 •
• 256
„ II. 2 . 178, 2I4,
299
pro Roscio Amer., 35. 100 .
112, Il6
„ 12. 4
213
in Verrem, i. 10. 31
• 215
CORNELIUS NEPOS,
de Domo, 28. 74 . .
. 267
Alticus, 20 ....
229
in Pisonem, 4. 8 .
• 279
pro Flacco, 38. 95 . .
. 308
ENSIUS, Fragm., 5. 477
2IO
INDEX OF LATIN AUTHOKS QUOTED
FESTUS & PAULUS* (ed. Muller).i>AGE
FESTUS & PAULUS (ed. Muller) . PAG1;
P. 2. Aquaelicium . . 232
326. Thymelici ludi . . 180
5. Ambarvales hostiae . 125
333. Scribonianum . . 140
19. Arniilustrium . . 250
334. Sexagenaries de ponte 1 1 1
22. Apellinem . . 180
340. Septimontium . . 265
23. Aureliam familiam . 191
343. Servorum dies . . 199
33. Bellona - . . 134
348. Summanalia . . 161
45. Catularia porta . . 90
Septimontium . . 266
56. Claudere . . . 203
374. Vinalia . . .85
63. Cingulum . . . 142
377. Umbrae ... 185
64. Corniscae . . . 130
Curiales mensae . 303
GAIUS, 2. 101 . . . .63
68. Damium . . . 105
GELLIUS, A.,
Daps . . . 218
Noctes Atticae, 4. 9. 5 . . 9
75. Depontani • . .112
„ 5. 12 . 122, 1 86, 225
85. Fontinalia . . 240
„ 10. 15
Februarius mensis
56, no, 115, 313
298, 321
„ 10. 24. 3 . . 279
87. Fagutal . . . 228
„ ii. 6. i . . 142
92. Feretrius . . 138, 230
„ 12. 8. 2 . . 2l8
93. Fornacalia . . 304
» 13- 23
97. Gradivus . . .37
123, 186, 212
119. Larentalia . . 275
„ 16. 7 . . 8a
122. Mater Matuta . . 156
„ 16. 16. 4 . . 291
123. Meditrinalia . . 240
,, 18. 2. ii . . 70
128. Ma nal is lapis . . 211
„ 18. 7. 2 . . 291
150. Marti us mensis . . 5
154. Mundus . . .211
„ 20. 2 . . 63
GROMATICI AUCTOKES (ed. Rudorff.),
165. Nefasti dies . . 9
„ vol. i. 56 . 184
178. October equus . . 242
„ 141 . 325
179. October equus . . 242
, „ 164. 126
197. Oscines . . . 140
, „ 302. 258
209. Picta toga . . . 206
210. Piscatorii ludi . . 209
, „ 350. 326
, vol. ii. 263 . 184
217. Persillum . . . 202
229. Propter via in . .138
HORACE,
0(1 I 21 2O I
Proversum fulgor . 160
I 28 . 2QQ
233. PoVtus . . . 203
238. Praebia . . .141
i- 35 • 157, i7°> 235, 238
38 08
241. Praebia . . • . 136
. o . . . . jo
242. Pudicitiae Signum . 157
3- J7 • .• • • a7a
3x8 2^6
245. Publica Sacra 16, in, 256
Palatualis flamen . 80
253. Pollucere merces . 195
• M.U • . • • ~J**
Sat, i. 8. 24 . . . . 109
„ 2. 6. 20 foil. . . . 289
254 Quinquatrus . . 59
ISIDOKUS, 15. II. I . . . 307
Quirinalia . . 304, 322
264. Kustica Vinalia . 86,204
JULIUS OBSEQ.UENS, 19 . .36
278. Regifugium . 62, 328
JUVENAL,
297. Sororium tigillum . 238
Sat., 2. 83 foil. . . .256
309. Subura . . . 266
„ 2. 86 . . . 105, 256
316. Stultorum feriae . 304
„ 6. 314 foil. . . 256
322. Saturnia . . . 269
„ 9- 53 • • • .38
1 Both excerptors being contained in the same volume, they are here
combined for convenience.
368
INDEX OF LATIN AUTHORS QUOTED
LACTANTIUS,
PAGE
LlVY,
PAC.B
In$t. (de Falsa Rcligione),
24. 3 .
. . I83
i. 15. 8
• 137
25. 13
• 179
OS. 27 5
26. II . .
. 199, 253
i. 21. 45 ...
y*JJ i *J
• 32I
33 •
. 180
IO3. 106
27. 6 . .
*7S
LlVY,
»^>
/ •
ii
fw
. 228
Bk. i. a
52, 247
23 .
. 180
5
265, 312
29. 10 . .
. . 69
7
• 193
14
. . 69
10 ...
. 229
36 . .
• 254
ID . .
• 175
3°- 39
• 73
20 ...
4i, 233
43
. 231
24 ...
. in
31- 21
. 277
26 ...
. 238
32. i .
• 96, 137
31-3 •
. 227
33- 25
• 75
32. 12
• 134
42
257, 278. 302
45 •
. 198
34- 53
124, 277, 302
55 •
. 4
35- 10 •
. 242
a. 5 •
. 191
36. 2 .
. 217
21 ...
. 270
37- 33
44, 96, 250
3. 31, 32 fin. .
• 75
38. 57 •
.218
55
• 75
39- 15
• 343
63 ...
. 180
40. 34. 4 .
. 86
4. 20
. 229
45
. . 96
5- 13 • l8°,
1 86, 200
51
. 180
19 ...
• 154
41- 13
. . 140
23 ...
• 154
16
. . 96
40 ...
• 323
LUCAN, 3. 153 .
. . 269
52 ...
. 41
LUCRETIUS, 5. 654
. . 156
85 ...
. 187
6. 5 . • •
• 134
MACROBIUS,
20 ...
. 13°
Saturnalia i. 7. 34
. 96, 296
33 ...
• 155
„ i. 8. 3
. 270
7- 3 •
• 234
„ . 9. a
. 283
23 ...
• 133
„ . 9. 16
. 285 289
28 . . .
. 129
„ . 10. 2
. 267
8. 9 • • •
. 288
„ . 10. II
• 275
20 ...
141, 135
, . 10. 19
. 271
22 ...
. 136
, .". 36
. . 178
9- 30
. 158
.11.48
. 269
40 ...
. 41
, .11.49
. 272
46 ...
9, it
, . 12. 6
35, 5r
xo. 19 ...
. 134
, . 12. 12
. . 67
23 ...
• 75
, . 12. l6
11,98
31.9 .
86, 204
, . 12. l8
. . 2IO
46 ...
. 162
, . 12. 22
. 130
n. (Epit.')
. 278
, . 12. 25
. . 1O2
14. (Epit.)
. 160
, . 12. 30
. 129
21. I ...
• *99
, • 12. 33
• 134
22. I . . 245,
253, 271
. 12. 38
. 194
9 •
. 145
, . 15- 9
. 8
33- 7 •
. 211
, • J5- H
. 222
33- 19 •
. 225
, . 16. 3
. . IO
31
• H5
.16. 5
. 28l
MACKOBIUS,
Saturnalia . 16. 14 ,
16. 16
16. 17 & 18,
16. 22
16. 30
17- 15
17. 25
19. 17
3- 2. ii
3- 2. I4
3- 13. 3 ,
3- 5- 10
MARTIAL, 4. 64. 17 .
5-23
8.67. 4 . ,
14- i .
MARTIANUS CAPELLA i. 45 ,
2. 162
MINUCIUS FELIX,
Octavius 24. 3 . ,
OVID Fasti i. 318
324 •
333 •
585 . .
629 .
661 .
, 658 folL
, 681 .
1. 705 .
2. 19 foil.
2. 31
3. 33 •
2. 47 foil.
3. 50
a. 55 foil-
2. 267 foil.
a. 371 foil.
2. 425 Ml.
a. 525 .
a. 527 foil.
2. 571
2. 617 foil.
2. 623
2. 643 foil.
2. 667 .
2. 671
2. 853 .
2. 858 foil.
3. 57 •
3- *35 •
3- 235 •
3- 647 •
.TIN
AUTHORS QUOTED
369
PAGE
PAGE
9
OVID, Fasti 3. 771 foil.
.
• 56
97
» 3- 79i
.
• 56
211
3- 835 foil.
.
• 59
9
„ 4. 633 foil.
.
• 71
270
„ 4. 68 1 foil.
.
• 77
1 80
„ 4-7" •
.
. 78
1 80
ii 4- 733 •
.
• 83
238
i> 4- 737 •
.
. 80
179
,i 4- 739 •
.
. 81
179
„ 4- 763 .
.
. 82
194
ii 4- 87* .
•
. 86
88
„ 4. 899 .
.
• 85
52
„ 4. 901 foil.
.
89-90
95
ii 4- 939 •
»
. 90
93
ii 5- I29 foil.
.
. 100
271
„ 5. 149 foil.
.
. 101
284
ii 5- 255 •
.
• 37
108
ii 5- 33i foil.
.
• 93
» 5- 37 * «
.
. 94
47
ii 5- 419 foil.
•
• 307
i, 5- 431 •
•
. 109
281
ii 5- 725 .
.
. 123
281
ii 6- 155 folL
.
• 132
281
,i 6. 213 .
,
. 136
282
„ 6. 219 foil.
.
. 146
291
i 6. 307 .
.
. 319
292
6. 395 foil.
-,
. 148
295
, 6. 617 .
,
• 157
294
, 6. 650 .
.
. 157
295
, 6. 659 .
.
• 159
296
i 6. 731 .
.
. 100
301
, 6. 775 foil.
.
. 161
300
Trist. 2. 549 .
•
• 13
300
Ars Amat. 3. 637 .
•
. IO2
6
Metamorph. 14. 623 foil.
.
. 2OI
324
302
310
PALLADIUS,
3"
de Re Rustica 7.3. .
•
. J30
320
PERSIUS, Sat. 5. 177 .
•
. 94
306
PLISIUS,
305
Hist. Nat. 2. 52 .
.
. 160
3«>9
„ 2. 140 .
•
. 233
309
„ 3- 69 .
'.
• 95
3°9
ii 7- ii •
.
. 84
325
„ 7. 120 .
.
. 69
326
, 8. 194 .
•
. 156
327
, 10. 20 .
•
. 140
331
, ii. 250 .
.
• 237
331
, ii. 232 .
.
. 132
255
14. 88 .
103 & 236
36
i 15- 79 •
. 178
34
„ 16. 235 .
.
• 38
51
„ 18. 8 .
.
3°5, 335
B
b
37°
INDEX OF LATIN AUTHORS QUOTED
PLIMIUS,
PAGE
SERVIUS,
PACK
Hist. Nat. 18. 15 . .
• 76
ad Virg. Aen. 8. 314 .
. 107
„ 18. 16 .
. 70
i, 8. 336 .
167, 293
„ 18. 24 .
. 236
„ 8. 641 .
. 230
. 88
n 9- 53 •
• 154
„ 18. 117 .
. 131
ii 9- 448 .
230, 327
„ 18. 118 .
. no
„ lo. 316 .
. l82
„ 18. 273 foil. .
. 88
ii 12. 139 .
• 293
„ 18.284 .
87, 205
„ 12. 206 .
• 230
,i 18.315 .
. 236
SENECA (M. ANNAEUS),
,, 29 passim .
. 105
Ep. 12. a . . .
. 142
,, 34- 54 • •
. 165
„ 18. i
n 35- 19 •
. 19*
Quaest. Nat. 2. 41 .
• 157
,. 35- 154 •
. 75
SILIUS ITALICUS, 8. 50 foil.
• 51
„ 36. 204 .
. 280
STATIUS, Tlieb. 2. 707
. 229
„_ joe
. 231
PORPHYRIO,
. «o
on Hor. Epist. 2. 2. 209 .
60, 108
SUETONIUS,
PBOBUS,
Vespasianus 5 . .
• 51
on Virg. Georg. x. 10
25, 260
Vitellius i . . .
. 258
PBOPEBUUS, 4. i. 26
. 310
de Grammaticis 19 .
. 12
4-4-77 •
. 82
SYMMACHUS, Epist. 10. 35 .
. 278
4- 4- 75
. 80
4. 9- 74
• 137
TACITUS,
4- 10.
. 229
Germania, 9 . . .
. 234
5 (4)- i. 9 •
• 243
Annals, 2. 49 . .
. 204
5 (4). 2. 61 .
• 47
„ 11.24
. 171
„ 12.23
. 190
QUINTILIAH, I. 7. 12 . .
. 191
„ 12.24
TERTULLIAN,
206, 318
Apol. 42 ...
. 272
SEE vi us,
ad Nat. 2. 9 . . .
130, 133
ad Virg. Ed. 3-77 •
. 125
de Monogam. 17 . .
• 155
„ 4- 62 .
. 142
de Spectaculis, 5 .
89, I78
n 8. 32 .
. 220
8 . .
2O6, 209
„ 8. 82 .
. no
de Praescript. Haeret. 451 .
- 333
ii lo- 27 .
. 223
TIBULLUS,
,, Georg. i. 7 .
74
ii y i
,, I. IO .
/ T
. 258
„ 2. 385 .
• 207
1, 2. 389 .
^ i
. 06
81
l> 3. I .
•y+f
. 80
2. s. 81 .
. 2OI
80
,, Aen. i. 292 .
• 337
ii i. 720 .
• 145
VALERIUS MAXIM us,
„ 2. IIS
. 260
310 foil.
If *j
y, 2. 140 •
• «wy
. 176
218
»> a- 351 •
/v
. 108
8. IS 2.
60
11 3- 175 •
. 232
VARRO,
n 4- 5i8 .
. 109
de Lingua Latino,
,i 5- 241 .
• 155
5. 41 . . .
. 266
i» 5- 724 .
. 186
43 -. •
. 198
„ 7- 603 .
- 39
4° 55, 57, i"
, 201, 323
•i 7- 799 •
. 226
50
. 228
INDEX OF LATIN AUTHORS QUOTED
371
VARRO,
VARRO,
de Lingua Latino,
PAGE
de Re Rustica,
PACK
57
64, 212
35 ...
255, 271
66
136, 141, 327
36 ...
. 277
72
. 186
65 ...
. 205
74
« . 160
go
*T
83
. 114
5. 6 .
»«t
. . 2IO
Sat. Menipp. fragm., 506 .
• 53
85 '. '.
• 57
op. Charisium, 117 .
. 132
91
. . 64
ap. Aug. Civ. Dei, 7. 24 .
. 150
106
. 155
ap. Nonium, 13 . .
. 208
153
. 251
189 . .
. 156
6. 12 .
. 282
VELLETOS PATERCULUS,
ZJ1
. . 298
14
53-55
VIRGIL,
15 .
70, 79, 194
Eel. 5. 66 . .
. 103
16
85, 86, 204
Georg. i. 10 . .
. 260
17
. - 158
» J5r • •
• 9°
18
. 174, 182
„ 211
. 271
19
. 202
„ 338 foil.
. 125
20 . .
. 67. 205
» 344
. 103
21 . .
. . 212
„ 419
. 206
22 ..
. 240
,, 462 foil.
. 192
23
. 274
„ 498
. 192
24
. 266
,, 2.538 .
. 271
25
. 279
Aen. i. 292 . . .
. 322
26
• 295
» 5-49
. 308
27
. 8
»» 77 ••
. 103
29
. 8
» 79 • •
.308
30
9. 3°o
>» 255
. 346
31
10, 63, 329
„ 662 ..
. 2IO
33
. 146, 149
„ 7. 45 foil.
. 058
33
. 66
„ 8 i foil.
. 263
34
. 319
„ 691 ..
. I85
62
. 250
„ 8. 281
. 194
94
. 232
„ 314 foil.
. 258
7. 26 . .
• 73
>t 331 • •
. 269
44
. in
„ 600 ..
. 261
45
80, 92, 2OI
,, 630 . .
• 3"
de Re Rustica,
„ 10.423
. 229
i. i •
67, 86
» "-785
84, 181
28. 29 . .
. 299
VlTRUVIUS,
30
. 66
I. 7. I .
. 211
00 -
. 189, 216
00
34
. 236
B b 2
INDEX OF GREEK AUTHORS QUOTED
329
315
AELIAK, Hist. Anim. 12. 34
APOLLONIUS RHODIUS, 4. 478
ARISTOPHANES,
Knights, 41 . . . .133
Lysistrata, 537 . . . 133
,,69! ... 133
ARISTOTLE, Oecon., p. 1349 b . 155
PAGE DlONYSIUS OF HiLl CARN ASSUS, PAGE
69 . . . . 56, 326
14 . . . 280, 282
15 56
26 . . . . .199
40 156
49 95
58 • 135, 141
5- 13 * . 278
Dio CASSITJS, 16 . . 262
37- 35 • • • • 102, 255 6. r . 269, 274
47-i8 174 13 . 133, 296
55-77 296 89 75
58. 7 157 7« i 76
DlODOBUS SlCULUS, p. 337 9. 60 . . . 135, 141
(IS- 14) 155 10. 42 75
DIONYSIUS OF HALICAKNASSUS, 12. 9 186
1. 21 223 13. 7 130
31 258
32 310 EusTATHrns,
33 . . 206, 246 ad Horn. Od. 22. 335 . . 138
34 • • 269
38 . . 112, 116 LUCIAN, Dea Syria 49 . . 92
40 . . 138, 193 LYDUS, LAURENTTOS,
79,8o . 310 „ 3. 3 . 294
88 . . 79, 80, 83 „ 3. 29 . 46, 50
2. 19 . . . 70 „ 4. a 41, 284, 289
23 • . 305, 313 » 4- 24 . . 306
3i • • 229 „ 4. 36 . 46, 50
40 306 „ 4. 42 . 60, 62
48 323 >» 4- 45 • 67
50 303 „ 4- 49 • 7i
70 39 Fragm. p. 118, ed. Bekker . 265
7i 38
73 114 NICOLAUS DAMASCENUS,
75 237 Vita Caesaris 21 . 320
3-22 238
S2 271 PLUTARCH,
45 114 Romulus 4 . . . 276
INDEX OF
GREEK
AUTHORS QUOTED
373
PLUTARCH,
PAGE
PLTJTABCIT,
PAGE
Romulus,ii .
. 2TI
Quaestiones Romanae,
„ 21 . 101, 291,
310, 314
i i 55 •
. 158
„ 27 .
175 foil.
>
, 56 .
. 290
„ 29 ...
175 foil.
i
, 60 .
• 194
Camillus 33 .
175 foil.
>
, 68 .
. TOI
Poplicola 14 . .
. 217
;
i 69 •
266 foil.
CoriolanuK 3 . . .
. 296
>
, 74 •
. 69
C. Graccftws 17 .
. 187
>
, 86 .
115, "9
Mantis 26 ...
165, 297
II
, 87 •
• 3°3
Cicero 19 & 20 . .
I°2, 255
II
i 90 •
• 194
Caesar 61 . . .
• 310
>»
i 94 •
. 278
^Kaesftones Graecae 12
• 49
II
» 97 •
. 242
„ Gtmvtvtttfes 6. 8
. 49
J>
, in .
• 3"
»> i> 7- 1
. 240
ParaUela 41 .
. 227
„ Romanae 3
. 200
de Fortuna Romanorum 5.
10 . 145
if
4 •
199, 201
de Iside et Osiride 31 .
. 91
»>
16 .
• *55
POLYBIUS, 12. 4b . .
. 241
i>
18 .
. 195
„ 21. 10
44, 250
i»
20
. 103
PROCOPIUS,
ii
22
. 289
de Bell. Goth. i. 25 .
. 283
it
28 .
138, 327
i. 3- 13 •
. 117
11
30 .
. 141
i
34 •
270, 276
STRABO,
i
40 .
. 207
p. 180 (Bk. 4. 5) .
. 200
i
42 .
. 270
p. 226 (Bk. 5. 9) .
84, 155
i >
45 -
86,87
p. 613 (Bk. 13. 64)
. 89
i i
46 .
. 324
p. 639 foil. (Bk. 14. 20) .
. 40
i »
5i •
. 100
p. 660 (Bk. 10, 8)
. "7
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Scientific Knowledge of the Ancients. By PAUL SHOREY,
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Latin Inscriptions in relation to Literature and Life.
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