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UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

The Sacra Idulia in Ovid's Fasti

A Study of OykTs Credibility in
£;■ Regard to the Place and the
Victim of this Sacrifice

BY
HORACE WETHERILL WRIGHT

A THESIS

PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN

PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR

THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

'v.

° u A ~ NEWARK, NEW JERSEY

F2W7

1917
c. 1
ROBA

1917

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

The Sacra Idulia in Ovid's Fasti

A Study of Ovid's Credibility in

Regard to the Place and the

Victim of this Sacrifice

HORACE WETHERILL WRIGHT

A THESIS

PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN

PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR

THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

2Jbr ITeacx 3jfrrss

NEWARK, NEW JERSEY

1917

I am happy in having this opportunity gratefully to acknowl-
edge the valuable suggestions and kindly criticism and proof-
reading of Professors J. C. Rolfe, W. B. McDaniel, R. G. Kent,
Assistant Professors G. D. Hadzsits and H. B. Van Deventer,
and Doctors T. A. Buenger and E. H. Heffner of the University
of Pennsylvania ; also the helpful suggestions and kindly reading
and criticism of the first chapter given by Professor Kirby F.
Smith of Johns Hopkins University, who was Acting Director
of the School of Classical Studies of the American Academy in
Rome during my Fellowship in that Institution.

H. W. W.

PREFACE

The passages in Ovid's Fasti which relate to the sacra Idulia
give rise to three problems, namely, the place of sacrifice, the sex
of the victim, and the age of the victim. The scope of this thesis
is confined to the first two problems. The third is so intimately
related to a study of the iuvenci offered Jupiter on January 1,
that it has seemed best to reserve it for a future article, in which
the investigation will be directed as much to cattle as to sheep
and will, therefore, involve a close study of other sacrifices besides
the sacra Idulia.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum; cited CIL.

Daremberg et Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquites grecques et

romaines.
Fowler, W. Warde, Roman Festivals, London, 1908 ; cited R. F.

Fowler, W. Warde, The Religious Experience of the Roman

People, London, 1911 ; cited R. B. R. P.
Franke, C, De Ovidii Fastorum Fontibus Capita Tria, diss.,

Halle, 1909.
Henzen, Acta Fratrum Arvalium, Berlin, 1874; cited Act. Fr.

Arv.
Huelsen-Carter, The Roman Forum, 2nd ed., Rome, 1909.

Jordan, Topographic der Stadt Rom, Berlin, 1871-1907; Vol. I, 3,
by Ch. Huelsen, 1907; cited Jordan.

Keil, Grammatici Latini, Leipzig, 1857-1880; cited Keil.

Krause, De Romanorum Hostiis Quaestiones Sclectae, diss.
Marburg, 1894; cited Krause.

Mau-Kelsey, Pompeii, Its Life and Art, 2nd ed., New York, 1904.

Merkel, R., Prolegomena to his edition of Ovid's Fasti, Berlin,

1841.
Neue-Wagener, Formenlehre der lateinischen Sprache, 3rd ed.,

Leipzig, 1902 ; cited Neue-Wagener.
Overbeck-Mau, Pompeii, 4th ed., Leipzig, 1884.
Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Fncyclopadie der classischen Altertumszvis-

senschaft; cited Paul.-Wiss.
Peter, Hermann, Ovid Fasten I, 4th ed., text and commentary,

Leipzig, 1907.

Peter, Hermann, Ovid Fasten II, critical notes, 3rd ed., Leipzig,

1889.
Platner, Topography and Monuments of Ancient Rome, 2nd ed.,

Boston, 1911.
Schanz, Geschichte der romischen Litteratur, 3rd ed., 1907-1913,

in Ivan von Muller's Handbuch der klassischen Altertums-

wissenschaft ; cited Schanz.
Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 3rd ed.,

London, 1891.
Teuffel and Schwabe, History of Roman Literature, translation

from the fifth German edition by George C. W. Warr, Lon-
don, 1891.
Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, Leipzig: cited Thesaurus.
Van Deman, Esther Boise, The Atrium Vestae, Washington, D.

C, Carnegie Institution, 1909.

Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Romer, in Ivan von Muller's
Handbuch der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, Munich,
1912; cited Wiss.

The editions cited of the following authors, unless otherwise
stated in the text, are :

Festus and Paulus Diaconus, O. Miiller, Leipzig, 1889.

Gellius, Teubner text, Leipzig, 1903.

Macrobius, Teubner text, Leipzig, 1893.

Varro, de Lingua Latina, Goetz and Schoell, Leipzig, 1910.

THE SCENE OF THE SACRA IDULIA.

One of the most interesting sacrifices mentioned in Ovid's
Fasti, and one which presents some of the knottiest problems, is
that of the ovis Idulis,1 or sheep sacrificed on the Ides of every
month to Jupiter by the Flamen Dialis.2 Where was this cere-
mony performed? Ovid (Fasti I 587-88) says,

"Idibus in magni castus Iovis aede sacerdos
Semimaris flammis viscera libat ovis."

According to him, then, the burnt offering was made in an aedes
of Jupiter. Before turning to the question of what aedes is
meant, it will be of interest to discuss on what part of the sacred
premises the Romans were accustomed to slay a victim and burn
its exia, the portion offered to the god ; in other words, whether
Ovid's phrase in aede be ritualistically correct.

The Latin in with the ablative covers the meaning of both "in"
and "on" in English. Now while mention is made again and again
in the Acta Fratrum Arvalium of the immolatio or slaying of
victims in Capitolio,3 the phrase means "on" the Capitoline,
rather than in the temple of the Triad ; for we have a passage4 "in
Capitolio .. in tem[plo Iovis optimi maximi? fratres Arvales]
Iov[i] o(ptimo) m(aximo) bovem marem immolarunt," where the
distinction is clearly drawn between the hill and the temple. More-
over, the words in templo are extraordinary, for in turning over
page after page of the Acta we continually read of sacrifice to
Jupiter in Capitolio, but here only is the temple distinctly
specified. Even more illuminating is the immolation "in templo
novo divo Aug(usto)" of a bos mas,6 for on another page we

'Fasti I, 56; Macrob. I, 15, 16; Paul. 104, 17.

' Macrob. I, 15, 16; F. I, 587-88.

'Henzen, Act. Fr. Arv., p. XXXVI, p. XLIII et al. The parenthesis
indicates the filling out of an abbreviation, and the bracket a break in the
original inscription.

4 Henzen, Act. Fr. Arv., p. CXXII.

• Henzen, Act. Fr. Arv., p. LXIX.

meet with the sacrifice to Divus Augustus ad templum novum6
and again the words, "an[te templum novum divo Augusto
bovemj marem et div[ae Augustae vaccam i]mmolavit."T

At once the question arises, what is meant by templum. The
author in Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities* in discussing Augus-
tus' use of the two words templum and aedes in the Monumentum
Ancyranum 19, 20, and 21, makes the following observation:

"It seems to us a truer view that the use of templum for aedes
was coming in before the end of the Republic, and that Augustus
in speaking by name of pre-existing temples, uses the term which
originally described them, but in those which he has just built
uses the term now in vogue."

Vitruvius throws some light on the word, in III, 4, 4:

"Gradus in fronte constituendi ita sunt uti sint semper inpares.
Namque cum dextro pede primus gradus ascendatur, item in
summo templo primus erit ponendus."

This is translated by Morris Hicky Morgan as follows :

"The steps in front must be arranged so that there shall always
be an odd number of them ; for thus the right foot, with which
one mounts the first step, will also be the first to reach the level
of the temple itself."

The writer of the article on templum in Daremberg et Saglio's
Dictionaire des antiquites grecques et romaines0 thus comments
on the passage:

"Un passage de cet auteur semblerait meme montrer que ce
terme, en architecture religieuse, indiquait seulement l'aire sur
laquelle s'elevaient les murs et les colonnes de l'edifice ; la surface
superieure du podium est pour lui le summum templum."

This view seems correct, namely, that Vitruvius means by
summum templum the upper surface of the podium, the area
on which the walls and colonnade rested, and upon which one
stepped on reaching the head of the stairway. Templum would
then be identical with podium. This is a strict interpretation of
the passage, but, by a natural extension, templum would include
not only the summum templum or upper surface, but the walls

'Act. Fr. Arv., p. XLVIII, a. 39.
' Act. Fr. Arv., p. LXIII, a. 57.
* Vol. II, p. 773.
•p. 107.

and colonnade which surrounded it, and any sacrifice performed
in templo would probably have been offered in the cella or in the
portico. In buildings of the Maison Carree type, however, a strict
interpretation of the word templum would include also the steps
cut in the podium and leading to the upper surface.10

Varro11 and Granius Licinianus, quoted by Macrobius,12 tell of
the immolation of victims "in" the Regia, and in the foundations of
a temple excavated at Alatri are traces of an altar in the pronaos.13
The mere fact, however, that the preposition in is employed only
in rare instances would indicate that the place of sacrifice was
unusual, and especially is this seen in the contrast above noted in
the Acta Fratrum Arvalium between in templo and in Capitolio.
In the three sacrifices to Augustus we have in, ad, and ante
templum novum. Ad and ante appear to mean about the
same thing, and must be references to immolation outside
the templum proper and in front of the steps leading up the
podium to the portico. One more passage from the Acta Fratrum
Arvalium must be quoted: "in Capitolio ante cellam Iunonis
reg(inae) . .fratres Arvales convenerunt et immolaverunt. .
I(ovi) o(ptimo) m(aximo) b(ovem) m(arem) a(uratum),
Iunoni reg(inae) b(ovem) f(eminam) a (uratam), Minervae
b(ovem) f(eminam) a(uratam).14 Here, whether ante cellam
Iunonis reginae implies in the portico, on the steps of the podium,
or in front of the steps, it is alike definitely stated that the sacri-
fice was not inside the cella.

" See Mau-Kelsey, Pompeii, pp. 49, 64, 131 ; Overbeck-Mau Pompeii,
pp. 69, 70, 115, 116; Huelsen-Carter Roman Forum, pp. 90, 149; H. B.
Walters The Art of the Romans, plate IX. For steps outside the podium
and merely attached to it compare Mau-Kelsey, pp. 86, 173; Overbeck-Mau,
96; etc. Can it be possible that the references recording a sacrifice in
templo refer to such offering at an altar on the steps and naturally included,
according to the stricter interpretation of Vitruvius. in the templum?
The architecture of the Regia (for the immolation of victims in regia
see notes 11 and 12) and the fact that at Alatri the traces discovered of
an altar were in the pronaos (cf. n. 13), would be against such a view,
as is also the construction of those temples whose steps are outside the
podium and whose altars stand in front of the steps.

11 L. L. VI, 12.

u Macrob. I, 16, 30.

"Rom. Mitt. IV, 144; VI, 350.

uAct. Fr. Arv., p. CXCVII, a. 213.

The very construction, however, of a Roman temple, standing
as it did on a lofty podium and reached by a flight of steps, con-
stitutes a natural obstacle to the immolation of larger animals
either in the cella or in the portico. Roman reliefs15 and the
miniatures of the Codex Vaticanus 3225 of Vergil, a manu-
script in rustic capitals,18 represent the victim as being slain, or
about to be slain, at an altar in front of the temple, and at
Pompeii there still exists a number of such altars, placed either
in front of the steps or on one of the lower rounds,17 while altars
of this nature have not been discovered either in the portico or in
the cella.

But Ovid's passage does not discuss the slaying of the
victim. It merely says that the exta {viscera) were burned in
the cedes of great Jupiter.18 Did the slaying, then, take place
outside and the burning of the exta within? In such of the
reliefs as portray the actual killing of the animal the act is not
being performed on the altar but beside it. True, the victim
here shown is a bull, but there is no reason to suppose that the
procedure was otherwise in the case of sheep or swine.19 Fur-
thermore, the miniature in a Vatican MS. of Vergil which shows
an altar on one of the lowest steps of the podium, displays a
fire burning on the altar.20 The altars outside cella and por-

10 Relief in the Conservatori of Marcus Aurelius sacrificing before the
temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus (see Brunn-Bruckmann, plate 269) ;
relief on an altar in front of the temple of Vespasian at Pompeii (see Mau-
Kelsey, p. 107); Clarac, Musce de Sculpture, plates 218, 310; reliefs on
the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius (see Cichorius, plates 10,
38, 62, 63, 66, 72, 76, and Petersen-v. Domaszewski-Calderini, plates 13A,
38B). The relief on the silver cup from Boscoreale in the cabinet of
Baron Edmund Rothschild (see Monum. Piot. V, plates 34-36).

" Published in Rome, Officina Danesi, Via di Bagni 1899, illustrations
13, 18, 22 (all three giving the altar at the foot of the steps), and 31
(giving the altar on the bottom rounds).

17 See Mau-Kelsey, pp. 64, 83, 86, 108, 125, 166, 167, 171 ; Overbeck-Mau,
pp. 71, 95, 111, 115, 117; cf. also the altar on a lower round of the steps
of the temple in a miniature of a Vatican MS. of Vergil (see Daremberg
et Saglio, figure 409, p. 348 under ara).

"I, 587-8.

19 Cf. Arist. Peace, 1017 sqq., and the picture in Daremberg et Saglio
under ara, fig. 417, p. 349.

" Daremberg et Saglio under ara, fig. 409, p. 348. Unfortunately they
fail to give the number of the MS.

tico, therefore, cannot be explained on any theory that they were
used for the slaying of the victims. The exta must have been
burned upon them. Reisch, the author of the article on altars in
Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopadie, when noting that in the Greek
ritual there are but isolated examples of animal sacrifices in the
temples, makes the practical observation that it would have been
damaging to the cult images and the costly votive offerings, had
fat and flesh been regularly burned in the poorly ventilated cella.21
The same criticism would apply to Roman worship.

The conclusion is, therefore, that the usual custom in animal
sacrifices was to slay the victim and burn its exta outside the cella
and portico of the temple, and, if Ovid's words in Iovis aede
refer to cella or portico, the ceremony of the Ides was either
different in this regard from the usual practise22 or the poet has
not represented it correctly. Metrical reasons demand in aede
rather than ad aedem. Let us see now whether the poet has
informed us correctly.23

To what temple of Jupiter does Ovid refer when he says in
magni Iovis aede? The thought at once arises of the great tem-
ple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline, seat of the
most important cult of Jupiter in the Roman world, yet the epi-
thet magni, though applied to this divinity in Ex Ponto, IV, 9,
29-32, proves nothing, for the poet elsewhere confers it on Jupiter
as a mere epithet.24 Now, as will presently be pointed out, the

" Under Altar, p. 1650.

" But cf. in regia Varro L. L., VI, 12 and Macrob. I, 16, 30.
" In any case, whether Ovid's expression be true or untrue of this
particular ceremony, we have seen that instances do exist of the per-
formance of sacrifice in templo, on one occasion even in the temple of
Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Ovid's words, therefore, seem to me a note-
worthy bit of evidence in support of those references which reveal sacrifice
in aede on certain occasions. It is doubtful if even his carelessness and
poetic license would have misrepresented one of the most conspicuous and
widely recognized customs of Roman ritual, had he not been aware that
the rule allowed occasional exceptions.
M Tristia III, I, 33-38, describing the house of Caesar on the Palatine:
"Singula dum miror, video fulgentibus armis
Conspicuos postes tectaque digna deo.
'Et Iovis haec 'dixi 'domus est'? Quod ut esse putarem,

Augurium menti querna corona dabat.
Cuius ut accepi dominum, 'non fallimur', inquam,
'Et magni verum est hanc Iovis esse domum'."
Fasti V, 40, of the Gigantomachia : "magnum bello sollicitare Iovem."

priest who performed the sacrifice on the Ides was the Flamen
Dialis,25 and it seems to me that W. Warde Fowler28 is justified
in his assumption that this priest had no special connection with
the temple of Optimus Maximus, which was under the charge
of an aedit mis. Professor Fowler is arguing from the absence
of all evidence to connect the Flamen with this cult and from
his extreme antiquity in Latin religious history.27 The two great
festivals of Jupiter at which he is known to have officiated,
namely, the auspicatio vindemiae and the sacra Idulia, were
celebrated to Jupiter the great Indo-European sky-god, in whose
control of the weather lay the possibility of a successful
vintage;28 to whom all Ides, the period of the full moon, were
sacred ;29 and who is hailed by the Salii in their hymn as
Lucetius, the giver or source of light.30 The cult of Optimus
Maximus, on the other hand, did not arrive in Rome until
late in the history of the kingship, was of Etruscan origin,
and was distinctly political, a character which it always pre-
served.31 Professor Fowler32 seems inclined to reject the Flamen
Dialis as the officiating priest on the Ides,33 and at any rate
continues to place the seat of this sacrifice on the Capitolium.

25 Macrob I, 15, 16: "quam (ovem Idulem) hoc nomine vocant Tusci
et omnibus Idibus Iovi immolatur a flamine"; Ov. Fasti I, 587-8, "castus
. . . sacerdos".

" R. E. R. P., p. 239 and n. 41.

* R. E. R. P., pp. 128 and 239. The origin of his office is ascribed to
Numa by Ennius ap. Varro, L. L., VII, 45 and Liv. I, 20, 1-2.

K Fowler, R. F., pp. 85-8.

"Macrob. I, 15, 15: "lure hie dies Iovis fiducia vocatur, cuius lux non
finitur cum solis occasu, sed splendorem diei et noctem continuat inlu-
strante luna, quod semper in plenilunio, id est medio mense, fieri solet";
18: "Ut autem Idus omnes Iovi ita Kalendas Iunoni tributas et Varronis
et pontificalis adfirmat auctoritas."

38 Macrob. I, 15, 14: "Nam cum Iovem accipiamus lucis auctorem, unde
et Lucetium Salii in carminibus canunt"; Wissowa, p. 114 and notes 2
and 3. Fowler, R. E. R. P., p. 129.

"Fowler, R. E. R. P., pp. 129, 237-9; Dionys. Ill, 69; IV, 59; Liv. I,
38, 7; Plut. Poplicola XIII; XIV.

" R. E. R. P., p. 239, n. 41 and n. 38 to p. 129.

"He cites the use of Sacerdotes by Festus, p. 290 ("eo itinere utantur
sacerdotes idulium sacrorum conficiendorum causa") and does not appear
to consider castus sacerdos (F. I. 587) a reference to the Flamen. Cf.
what he says (n. 38 to p. 129) on Hor. C. Ill, 30, 8: "dum Capitolium
scandet cum tacita virgine pontifex". There is no reason to suppose that
this last passage refers to the sacrifice on the Ides.

As both Ovid3* and Macrobius,35 however, tell us that it was
offered to Jupiter, and Macrobius says a flamine, it appears
obviously impossible that any other flamen or priest of any sort
than that of Jupiter can be intended, especially as Ovid's epithet
castus saccrdos expressly fits the character of the Flamen
Dialis. I fully agree then with Professor Fowler in his hypo-
thesis that the Flamen Dialis, because of his extreme antiquity in
Latin religious history and his superintendence over the rites of
the primitive Indo-European sky-god, can have had no special
connection with Optimus Maximus, because this Jupiter was
political and a late importation from Etruria. It is thus impos-
sible for the sacra Idulia to have been offered both at this temple
and by this priest. I cannot, however, reject the priest, for the
passages above noted from Ovid and Macrobius are too con-
clusive in support of his connection with the sacra Idulia. I
must, therefore, reject the temple, for the words in magni Iovis
aede are by no means a certain reference to the aedes of the
great political god, any more than to one of the other Jupiter
cults in Rome.38

"Fasti I, 56; 587-8.

"I, 15, 16 (see n. 25 above).

" I cannot see how the Etruscan etymology which Macrobius gives for
the words "Ides" and ovis Idulis can be used as an argument against the
genuinely Latin origin of the Roman festival. Even if his etymology
be correct, there is no reason to doubt that the worship of the sky-god
on the day of the full moon can easily have antedated any name that
later crept into the calendar for that day. Macrob. I, 15, 14: Iduum
porro nomen a Tuscis, apud quos is dies Itis vocatur, sumptum est
Item autem illi interpretantur Iovis fiduciam, nam cum Iovem accipiamus
lucis auctorem . . . iure hie dies Iovis fiducia vocatur, cuius lux non
finitur cum solis occasu, sed splendorem diei et noctem continuat in-
lustrante luna; . . . diem igitur qui vel nocturnis caret tenebris Iovis
fiduciam Tusco nomine vocaverunt; unde et omnes Idus Iovis ferias
observandas sanxit antiquitas"; and I, 15, 16: "quam (ovem Idulem)
hoc nomine vocant Tusci". A parallel rite may well have existed among
the Etruscans, but it seems very improbable that the word "Ides" was
derived from the Etruscan. Varro (L. L., VI, 28), says: "Idus ab eo
quod Tusci itus vel potius quod Sabini idus dicunt". Corssen (Uber die
Sprache der Etrusker, Vol. II, PP- 237-238), gives a number of corre-
sponding roots from the Indo-Germanic languages, all containing the idea
of brightness or heavenly light. Cf. Walde (Lateinisches etymologisches
Worterbuch, p. 375).

II.

We must now consider two passages of vital importance in
determining the scene of the sacrifice. Festus (p. 290, M tiller's
edition) and Varro (L. L., V, 47) both say that the procession
of priests passed along the Sacra Via in this festival. Festus'
words are :

"Sacram viam quidam appellatam esse existimant. .quod eo
itinere utantur sacerdotes idulium sacrorum conficiendorum
causa, itaque ne eatenus quidem, ut vulgus opinatur, sacra appel-
landa est a regia ad domum Regis sacrificuli, sed etiam a Regis
domo ad sacellum Streniae, et rusus a regia usque in arcem."
"Some persons believe that the Sacred Way is so called because
the priests use that street in performing the sacra Idulia. There-
fore, it must be named Sacra, not only, as is commonly supposed,
from the Regia to the house of the Rex Sacrificulus, but likewise
from the house of the Rex to the shrine of Strenia, and back
from the Regia all the way to the Arx."

The use of itaque, meaning "therefore," as well as the state-
ment which it introduces, show that Festus means that the pro-
cession passed along the entire length of the Sacra Via and that
thus the name should be applied to the whole street from the
sacellum of Strenia near the Colosseum and the Carinae, which
lay south of the modern Via Cavour along the Via dei Serpenti,
as far as the Arx.37 Varro says:

"Carinae postea cerionia, quod hinc oritur caput sacrae viae
ab Streniae sacello quae pertinet in arce(m) qua sacra quotquot
mensibus feruntur in arcem et per quam augures ex arce profecti
solent inaugurare."

"Carinae afterwards cerionia (the spelling is corrupt), because
at this point the Sacred Way begins, from the shrine of Strenia,

" See Jordan I, 3, pp. 258-259, 262-263, and maps; Kiepert and Huelsen,
Forma Urbis Romae Antiquae, 2nd. ed. maps.

and extends to the Arx. By the Sacred Way sacra are carried
every month to the Arx and along it the augurs, having started
from the Arx, are accustomed to take omens."

Against this last quotation it may be argued that the words
"sacra quotquot mensibus feruntur in arcem" are indefinite, and
might apply to some other sacra than the Idulia, but we know of
no other monthly festival which included a procession along the
Sacred Way to the Arx, and Festus' passage expressly states that
this procession took place on the Ides. The offering must then
have been made at some point along the Sacred Way, if not on the
Arx itself, on which the Sacred Way terminated.

III.

But Ovid's words are in Iovis aede, and no temple of Jupiter
is known to have stood on the Arx. O. Gilbert (Geschichte und
Topographic der Stadt Rom, pp. 236-237) conjectured that the
aedes was that of Jupiter Stator on the summa sacra via38 and
near the arch of Titus. The same objections, however, apply to
this cult as to that of Optimus Maximus. Jupiter Stator was
not the sky-god but a military Jupiter, and his temple was vowed
in the third Samnite war and dedicated shortly afterward, long
after that of the great god of the Capitol.39 The passages in the
first book of Livy (I, 12) and Ovid (Fasti VI, 793), which
represent this temple as vowed by Romulus, appear to be purely
literary tradition, for the promise is that of a templum™ and
none could have been erected before 294 B. C. or the consul
would not have made the vow when his army was retreating
before the Samnites. Livy attempts to reconcile his later account
with the earlier by stating in Book X (37, 14-16), that Romulus
had vowed only a fanum,*1 but the contradiction none the less

88 Jordan I, 3, pp. 20-23.

"Liv. X, 36, 11; Wiss., p. 122, and notes 8 and 9.

*°Liv. I, 12: "Hie ego tibi templum Statori Iovi, quod monumentum
sit posteris tua praesenti ope servatam urbem esse, voveo".

41 "In ea pugna Iovis Statoris aedem votam, ut Romulus ante voverat ;
sed fanum tantum, id est locus templo effatus (sacratus), fuerat. Ceterum
hoc demum anno, ut aedem etiam fieri senatus iuberet, bis eiusdem voti
damnata re publica, in religionem venit".

remains, and the application of the title Optimus Maximus to
Jupiter Stator in Livy's first passage42 is still further proof of
the careless and purely literary character of Livy's account.
There is as good reason, therefore, to reject the Stator temple
as the scene of the sacra Idulia as that of Jupiter Optimus Maxi-
mus ; for the Stator cult was still later, and for this reason, and
also because of its military character, was no more the cult of the
primitive sky-god than was that of Optimus Maximus, nor could
it have been in the hands of so ancient a religious personage as
the Flamen Dialis.43

IV.

Now there was another religious edifice on the Sacra Via,
against which the objections above mentioned do not hold good.
The Regia44 goes back to the hoary beginnings of a community
about the Forum valley on the adjacent hills, and was, as
the name implies, first the house of the king.45 Tradition
describes it as the abode of Numa, or at least the place where
he discharged his priestly functions.48 Later on it became the
central point of the activities of the college of pontifices and the
official headquarters of the Pontifex Maximus, upon whom most
of the religious functions of the king devolved after the fall of

"I, 12: "Haec precatus, velut si sensisset auditas preces, 'hinc', inquit,
'Romani, Iuppiter optimus maximus resistere atque iterare pugnam iubet."

"The article on Jupiter in Daremberg et Saglio (p., 711) states that
the quindecemviri sacris faciundis had charge of the cult of Jupiter
Stator: "Le culte de Jupiter Stator etait celebre sous la surveillance des
Quindecemvirs". The value of the statement is unhappily weakened by
the absence of any reference to substantiate it. If it be so, however, it
furnishes weighty additional testimony against the Stator temple as the
scene of the sacra Idulia; for these priests were of later origin than the
other Roman sacerdotal colleges (see Wiss., p. 534), had charge of the
Sibylline Books (Wiss., p. 536), and probably a superintendence over
foreign rites whose importation these oracles had directed, and did not
include any flamen among their number (Wiss., pp. 542-3).

44 Jordan I, 2, pp. 302-4; Wiss., p. 502.

45 Festus, p. 279 : "Regia domus ubi rex habitat." Cf . Wiss., p. 502, and
Jordan I, 2, pp. 423-9.

" Solin. I, 21 ; Plut. Numa XIV ; Tac. Ann. XV, 41.

the monarchy.47 Here at the appropriate festivals offerings were
made to certain of the oldest Roman divinities,48 and here on all
Nundinae or market days, says Granius Licinianus,*9 the Flam-
inica Dialis sacrificed a ram to Jupiter himself. This sacrifice
by the wife of the Flamen Dialis on the market-days is comparable
to that by her husband on the Ides ; and the Regia alone, therefore,
of any sacred edifice yet known along the Sacra Via or at its
terminus can be conceived of as the scene of the sacra Idulia.

But Varro says that the sacra of the Ides were carried to the
Arx.80 His words are "sacra quotquot mensibus feruntur in
arcem." This statement from such an authority as Varro would
at once settle the question of the scene of the sacrifice, were it not
for Ovid's words in magni Iovis aede, for, as mentioned above,
no aedes of Jupiter is knovrn to have stood on the Arx. Ovid,
however, does not speak of the immolatio, but only mentions the
burning of the exta.

Can it be, then, that the victim was led in procession along the
Sacra Via to the Arx and there slain, but its exta afterwards car-
ried back to the Regia and offered in a chapel of Jupiter in that
building? We know of two parallels which might justify such a
theory. The first is that of the dog and sheep of the Robigalia,
which were slain in Rome in the morning and whose exta were
later offered to Robigus in the grove of that deity at the fifth
milestone on the Via Claudia, whither they had been borne in
solemn procession.51 The second example is connected with the
Regia itself : the tail of the horse sacrificed to Mars in the Campus
Martius on the Ides of October was carried with all possible speed
to the Regia and the blood allowed to drip on its hearth.52 Mars
indeed appears to have held a very prominent position in the cults

** Wiss., p. 502; Huelsen-Carter, The Roman Forum, p. 193.

48 To Ops Consiva in her own chapel in the Regia (CIL. V, p. 327;
Varro, L. L. VI, 21); to Juno on the Kalends by the Regina sacrorum
(Macrob. I, IS, 19) ; to Janus on the Agonium by the Rex sacrorum
(Varro, L. L. VI, 12) ; etc.

**Ap. Macrob. I, 16, 30: "Flaminica omnibus nundinis in regia Iovi
arietem soleat immolare".

"Z,. L. V, 47 (see above).

51 Ov. F. IV, 907-36; Fasti Praenestini on Apr. 25 (CIL. V, p. 316);
Fowler, R. F., p. 89.

"Festus, p. 178; Fowler, R. F., pp. 241-2.

of the Regia. It was here that his sacred spears were kept,53 and
Jordan even goes so far as to assume that he was the protecting
deity of the place.54 However this may be, Ovid's expression
in magni Iovis aede is a curious term in view of the nature of
the building and the variety of divinities there worshipped, and
perhaps we have already sufficient reason for concluding that the
Regia had nothing whatever to do with the sacra Idulia. But
before convicting Ovid of making so gross an error as saying that
the offering was burned at an aedes, if the entire ceremony really
took place out-of-doors, I should like to present an elaborate mass
of testimony based on two lines of the Fasti themselves. In II,
69-70, Ovid is discussing sacrifices made on February 1 at three
places. The lines are :

"Ad penetrale Numae Capitolinumque Tonantem
Inque Iovis summa caeditur arce bidens."
I shall first enter into a rather lengthy discussion to prove
penetrale Numae equal to "Regia."

H. Peter in his edition of the Fasti7'5 understands penetrale
Numae as a reference to the Atrium Vestae in its restricted
sense, the building utilized as the dwelling of the Vestals ; for he
interprets Fasti VI, 263-4, as meaning that Numa lived in the
Domus Vestalium and not in the Regia. The words are :
"Hie locus exiguus qui sustinet atria Vestae
Tunc erat intonsi regia magna Numae."

Regia he takes in the general sense of "palace."

There is reason to believe, however, that the Romans employed
the terms Atrium Vestae and Regia interchangeably, and even that
the two were at the outset parts of one and the same building.
Let us examine the evidence set forth by Dr. Esther Boise Van
Deman in her monograph, The Atrium Vestae.

The architectural history of the Atrium of the Republic
"extends from the early republican or even the regal period to that

Gell. IV, 6; Wiss., p. 502 and n. 5.

1,2, pp. 424-5.

Notes on II, 69 and VI, 257 sqq. ; also critical note on VI, 263 sqq.

of the early empire." This earlier Atrium was wholly destroyed
in the fire of Nero, to whom the first rebuilding dating entirely
from the imperial period is due. True, "many of the walls were
restored more than once before their final destruction and new
walls were added," but the level, orientation, and essential features
of the republican Atrium remained the same down to Nero's day.58
The centre of this republican structure lying below the level ot
Nero was a square court corresponding to the atrium of a private
house. Portions of the walls of this court have been preserved.
From it the term atrium spread to the entire building, and within
it stood the aedes Vestae, just as the shrine of the goddess had its
place in every private atrium.57 According to a recent article by
Dr. Van Deman, Methods of Determining the Date of Roman
Concrete Monuments {American Journal of Archaeology, Vol.
XVI, p. 393), the extant foundations and podium of the
aedes Vestae not only antedate Nero but fall in the Augustan
period between 14 and 12 B. C. Both these and the walls of
the central court thus appear to be the very masonry existing in
Ovid's day, and a glance at plan A of her Atrium Vestae shows us
the aedes half surrounded by the court. In the earliest period,
then, we may rest assured, the aedes was completely surrounded
by the court, and stood probably in its northwest corner. That
the Domus publica, or residence of the Pontifex Maximus, was
structurally a part of the Atrium, we are informed by Dio Cassjus,
(LIV, 27), who, in relating how Augustus when Pontifex re-
moved to the Palatine, says :

«-?;7 fjtivcoi tou bcnsikiaq xwv tspwv (sc. ocxcav)
Tal; r.z\ xap6svot? eSwv.sv eicet8t] ojaoto'./c; xat?
oiwfryeffiv a'j-wv Y]v>>,

"but he gave the house of the Rex sacrorum to the Vestal Vir-
gins, since it was joined to their dwelling by a party-wall."

Dio has confused the names Rex sacrorum and Pontifex Maxi-
mus, but this does not impair the value of his testimony that the
house was 6u6to'.*/oc .58 Dr. Van Deman believes that certain
remains immediately to the east of the republican court belong to
the Domus publica.™ At any rate the passage in Dio is conclusive,
and since we have seen that even in Ovid's own time the Atrium

" The Atrium Vestae, pp. 4-5, 9-10, 15.
" The Atrium Vestae, pp. 4-5, 9-10.
H Wiss., pp. 502-503, n. 7.
CT The Atrium Vestae, p. 13.

Vestae proper, or Domus Vestalium, and the Domus publica were
parts of one building, while the aedes Vestae virtually made up a
third part of the same, what is more natural than to infer that the
fourth factor in the group, the Regia, was also in the beginning
structurally united with the rest ? Such is the opinion of Dr. Van
Deman,80 who states in a foot-note that the road now separating
the temple from the later Regia is not original.81 She continues :

"With the gradual breaking up of the simple cult of which the
king's house had been the centre, and the growing independence
of the various priesthoods among which the several religious func-
tions of the king had been divided, the necessity arose for the
assignment to them of distinct official residences. At this time it
is probable that the parts of the Atrium became independent ; for
during the later Republic and the early Empire, in place of a single
complex structure bearing one name, there were recognized four
separate parts with as many distinct names, two of which were,
however, those applied earlier to the whole structure."62

This indiscriminate application of the terms Regia and Atrium
Vestae seems to be attested by several passages. First of all Livy
(XXVI, 27, 3) says in describing a conflagration in the Forum:

"Conprehensae lautumiae forumque piscatorium et atrium
regium. Aedis Vestae vix defensa est," and again (XXVII, 11,
16):

"Locaverunt inde reficienda quae circa forum incendio con-
sumpta erant, septem tabernas, macellum, atrium regium."

This blending of the two names is curious. Cicero, writing to
Atticus63 of the latter's interview with Caesar, then Pontifex
Maximus, says : "Visum te aiunt in regia." The reference is evi-
dently to Atticus' performance of the morning salutatio, which
was made at the residence, not office, of the person receiving the
call. In Caesar's case this would be at the Domus publica, which
Cicero here designates under the general term Regia for the
whole building. A third passage is that of Ovid above quoted,
which Peter construes so differently:

* The Atrium Vestae, p. 9.
1 The Atrium Vestae, p. 9, n. 2.
' The Atrium Vestae, p. 11.
'Ad. Att.X,3z.

'64

"Hie locus exiguus qui sustinct atria Vestae
Tunc erat intonsi regia magna Numae.""

Dr. Van Deman65 cites this as a particularly illuminating exam-
ple of the identity of the two names.

If this is so, perhaps Tristia III, 1, 29-30, is to be understood in
the same way :

"Hie locus est Vestae, qui Pallada servat et ignem,
Haec fuit antiqui regia parva Numae."

"This place is Vesta's.. .This is the little Regia which once be-
longed to ancient Numa."

But, if regia and locus, that is Atrium, are not here used
interchangeably, then the only remaining conclusion is that regia
is employed in its restricted sense and refers to the building proper
of that name. In that case, even if Ovid did mean by Fasti VI,
262-4, that the Domus Vestalium was Numa's palace, as Peter
supposes, yet the passage from the Tristia would contradict the
poet, and commit him by his own statement to the current view
supported by Solinus and Plutarch, which gives that honor to
Regia.66

We have seen that the Regia and the Atrium were probably in
the beginning structurally united ; or, at least, that the Romans of
the classical period appear to make use of either name indiffer-
ently; but even were this view incorrect, regia in Tristia III,
1, 29-30, cannot refer to any one part of the temenos of Vesta
except the edifice to which the term "Regia" was technically
applied. Therefore, since Ovid, like Solinus and Plutarch,67
couples the Regia with Numa's name, penetrate Numae in
Fasti II, 69, should be taken as a reference to that building and
not to the Domus Vestalium.

64 F. VI, 263-4.

M The Atrium Vestae, p. 10, n. 4.

w Solin. I, 21 : "propter aedem Vestae in Regia, quae adhuc, ita
appellatur" ; Plut. Numa XIV : «£5£iVaxo jiXtioioy xou trfe 'Eo-riag ieoov
rryv xodovnevnv 'Piniav olovri 6aoi.\Ewv o!/.Tina».

" Cf. Tac. Ann. XV, 41, "Numaeque Regia et delubrura Vestae," or
are these words a further illustration of the interchanging of the two
terms?

VI.

But why this elaborate digression to prove penetrate Numae
identical with "Regia"? The lines are:

"Ad penetrale Numae Capitolinumque Tonantem
Inque Iovis summa caeditur arce bidens,"68
that is, on the first of February, the date assigned in the poem, a
bidens was slain in sacrifice at each of three places, the Regia,
the temple of Jupiter Tonans on the Capitolium, and in arce.
Let us first determine the meaning of arx in this passage.

Correct technical usage would confine the application of the
word arx in Roman topography to the fortified northern spur of
the Capitoline Hill. Both poets and historians, however, when
writing of the Capitoline, frequently employ it more loosely. H.
Peter in his notes on Fasti II, 70, is of the opinion that Iovis
summa arce" means the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.69
I can find but one parallel for this interpretation. It will be noted
in a moment. Arx is sometimes employed in reference to a build-
ing, but only where the idea of a stronghold or castle is more
plainly implied than in the present instance.70. It is really the
Latin equivalent of cfxpoxoXn; and in instances where it is used
of an actual building the derived meaning is almost invariably
dependent on the original thought of the lofty and easily defended
situation which the structure occupies. The parallel to Peter's
interpretation of Fasti, II, 70, is arce Iovis in Fasti VI, 18,
which, because of the connection with 33-34, I take with Peter

M F. II, 69-70.

"' See especially critical note in his edition.

'"Liv. II, 7, 6, "alto . . loco arcem inexpugnabile fore" of the house of
Poplicola on the Velia; Tac. Ann. XIV, 31, "templum divo Claudio con-
stitutum quasi arx aeternae dominationis" ; Agric. 45: "intra Albanam
arcem sententia Messalini strepebat," of the imperial villa (cf. Octavia,
"receptus arce") ; Hor. S. II, 6, 16: "ubi me in montes et in arcem ex
urbe removi"; etc.

to signify the Optimus Maximus temple,71 though the Thesaurus
understands it of Jupiter's heavenly abode as in such passages
as Fasti I, 85, "Iuppiter arce sua totum cum spectat in orbem."
The expression arx Iovis or its equivalent, arx Tonantis, where
Tonantis is a mere epithet equal to Iovis72 occurs in other pas-
sages of Ovid. In Fasti VI, 349-350, we have :

"Nomine quam pretio celebratior arce Tonantis,
Dicam, Pistoris quid velit ara Iovis."
For these lines there is absolutely no proof that arce Tonantis
means either the temple or the portion of the hill to which Capi-
toliuni was applied rather than the Arx in its true sense of the
northern spur of the Capitoline Hill, since nothing is known of
this altar to Jupitor Pistor.73 Arce Iovis in Fasti IV, 635, the
scene of part of the sacrifice of the Fordicidia, is equally indefi-
nite, and can as easily refer to the true Arx. Tibullus (II, 5, 25)
furnishes a further example of the expression :

"Sed tunc pascebant herbosa Palatia vaccae,
Et stabant humiles in Iovis arce casae,"
where there is no thought of the temple, or apparently of either
summit in particular, but the idea is merely that of the Capitoline
Hill in a general sense as compared with the Palatine. But Peter
in his note on Fasti II, 69-707i cites Livy (XXVIII, 39, 15)
as evidence of the use of arx in the sense of Capitolium. The
words "Iovi Optimo Maximo praesidi Capitolinae arcis" do not
compel this narrow interpretation, however. They are indefinite
and appear to me to be employed rather of the hill as a whole.

71 F. VI, 17-18:

"Ex illis fuit una, sui germana mariti,

Haec erat (agnovi), quae stat in arce Iovis".
F. VI, 33-34:
"Si torus in pretio est, dicor matrona Tonantis,
Iunctaque Tarpeio sunt mea templa Iovi".
" Fasti VI, 33-4; 349; IV, 585; Heroid. IX, 7; Mctam. II, 466;
Hor. Epod. II, 29; Statius Sihae IV, 4, 58; Achil. I, 1-2; Martial V,
55; V, 72; VII, 60, 1-2; etc.

73 Cf. Jordan I, 2, p. 50: "Unsicher bleibt der Standort des Altars des
Juppiter Pistor", and n. 51. "Das die von Ovid, Lactantius (I, 20, 33),
erwahnte ara Iovis Pistoris auf dem Capitol stand . . ist unerweislich".
Preller (I, p. 194), while placing it on the Capitol says (n. 5) : "Das die
ara Iovis Pistoris auf dem Capitol gestanden ist nicht bezeugt und folgt
nicht nothwendig aus Ovid".

74 See n. 69 above.

If, however, they be taken in a restricted sense at all, Capitol-
inae arcis points naturally to the actual citadel, especially with
the word "defender," praesidi, on which the genitive depends.
Likewise the same expression in Livy VI, 20, 9, because of the
co-ordinate use of Capitolium atque arcem in the same passage,
can refer only to the hill in general:

"Identidem Capitolium spectans Iovem deosque alios devocasse
ad auxilium fortunarum suarum precatusque esse, ut quam
mentem sibi Capitolinam arcem protegenti ad salutem populi
Romani dedissent, earn populo Romano in suo discrimine darent ;
et orasse singulos universosque, ut Capitolium atque arcem
intuentes, ut ad deos inmortales versi de se iudicarent."

The same is true of the passage in Tacitus Hist. Ill, 71, too
long to quote. Any siege or storming of the Capitoline Hill would
naturally involve both spurs, so Capitolina arx is likely to be noth-
ing more than a general term for the entire mount. In Livy's
account of Tarpeia's treason and the battle over the Sabine women,
arx certainly means the entire hill, unless it refer to the true
Arx alone, for we even find the words "quod inter Palatinum
Capitolinumque collem campi" (I, 11-12), the distinction being, as
in Tibullus II, 5, between the Palatine and Capitoline Hills. Ovid
himself affords one of the most striking examples of the use of
the word meaning the hill in general, where Mars in addressing
an assemblage of the gods speaks of their abodes in arce, that is,
their temples, which lay on both spurs (Fasti VI, 367). Compare
with this Livy (VI, 16, 2), "Iuppiter Optime Maxime Iunoque
regina ac Minerva ceterique dii deaeque qui Capitolium arcemque
incolitis." One other passage in Ovid (Tristia IV, 2, 55-56),
besides that already mentioned (Fasti VI, 18), may be a reference
to the Capitolium alone, though it would appear to mean the hill
and not the building. The lines are descriptive of the offering
at a triumph, and are as follows :

"Inde petes arcem et delubra faventia votis ;
Et dabitur merito laurea vota Iovi."

It is Jupiter Optimus Maximus, of course, whose temple is re-
ferred to in delubra. Even in these lines, however, I do not see
why arcem cannot be applied vaguely to the Capitoline as a
whole, though the thought of the southern spur is certainly more
prominent. Now there are two other passages in the Fasti in

which the same adjective modifies arx as in II, 70. The first
of these (I, 257-264) treats of Tarpeia's treason with the words
(261-262), "Sabinos ad summae tacitos duxerit arcis iter," which
seem to me certainly to refer, like Livy I, 11-12, if not to the true
Arx, at least to the Hill in general. That summae is here parti-
tive, meaning "the top of the Arx," is shown by comparing it with
Livy I, 22, which speaks of the battle between the Romans and
the Sabines as taking place in infima arce, "at the bottom of the
Arx," as described in I, 12. Summae arcis cannot, then, here
refer to the temple. In the second of these two Ovidian pas-
sages arx is used unmistakably of the northern spur of the Hill,
the words being (VI, 183), "arce in summa Iunoni templa Mone-
tae facta," for the temple of Juno Moneta is well known to have
stood on the Arx. In view of these parallels I think there can be
no doubt whatever that in Iovis summa arce of II, 70, cannot
refer to the temple, but rather means the top of the hill.

Since in Fasti II, 69-70, we have sacrifices at three places, the
Regia (penetrate Numae), the temple of Jupiter Tonans, which
stood on the summit of the Capitolium near the temple of Optimus
Maximus, and thirdly, on top of the arx of Jupiter, Iovis summa
arce cannot here refer to the hill as a whole or to the Capitolium
proper, for the Capitolium has already been mentioned in the
second place. Therefore the last place cannot well be other than
the true Arx. The Arx was, like the Capitolium, sacred to Jupiter,
for it was here that the augurs performed their function of inter-
preting his will75 and of sacrificing with secret rites ;7B and the
augurs were interpretes Iovis Optimi Maximi77 The sacra Non-

75 Liv. I, 18, 6-1Q; Varro L. L. V, 47.

"Paul., p. 16 (under Arcani), "sive a genere sacrificii, quod in arce fit
ab auguribus, adeo remotum a notitia vulgari, ut ne litteris quidem man-
detur, sed per memoriam successorum celebretur".

" Cic. de Leg. II, 20. The title Optimus Maximus in this connection
may seem to associate that cult with the Arx. All that is probably meant,
however, is that with the advent of the cult of Optimus Maximus as the
supreme deity of the state, the augurs, whose science was consulted before
commencing any act of political importance, became associated with this
greatest of the Jupiters, but continued to function on the same hill-top
where they had always interpreted the signs of the weather-god. Varro
{L. L. V, 52), tells of another auguraculum on the Quirinal, doubtless
overshadowed after the establishing of the Etruscan dynasty, by that on
the Arx.

alia were held on the Arx,78 and we know furthermore that the
worship of Jupiter on hill-tops was a primitive custom in Rome,
as in the rest of Italy.79 Moreover, this Jupiter, who was worship-
ped out of doors on hill-tops in the primitive religion and whose
will was interpreted by the augurs, was the great Aryan weather-
god, and the offering on the Arx was unquestionably to him.
Jupiter Tonans too was a weather-god. Therefore, since we have
sacrifices on February 1 on both Arx and Capitolium to Jupiter in
his aspect of a weather-deity, the sacrifice in the Regia on that day
must have been to the weather- Jupiter, just as was the ram
offered there by the Flaminica Dialis on the Nundinae.

We have seen, then, that on February 1 a bidens was immo-
lated to the Jupiter of the weather at the Regia, at the Tonans
Temple, and on the Arx. This implies that the entire ceremony
took place at each of the three places, and the victim could not
have been slain on the Arx and its exta brought down to the
Regia to be burned. There is absolutely no necessity, therefore,
for reading any such action into the ceremony of the sacra Idulia,
and the conclusion must be that the Regia played no part in the
festival of the Ides, but that when Varro says "sacra quotquot
mensibus feruntur in arcem" (L. L. V, 47, see above) he means
that the sacra Idulia were carried to the Arx, and that there the
victim was slain and its exta burned.

VII.

How, then, could Ovid have made such a mistake as to say that
the exta was given to the flames in magni Iovis aede, when no
aedes of Jupiter is known to have stood on the Arx? The answer
is not hard to find. It is extremely probable that Ovid, however
often he might have seen the procession pass along the Sacra Via,
never witnessed the sacrifice, for the celebration was a survival
from the oldest Roman religious history, and, we may infer, was
attended solely by the priests. The leading sources,80 however,

78 Varro L. L. VI, 28.

Wiss., p. 116 and n.
n. 41.

I shall deal with this question more fully in a subsequent article.

"Wiss., p. 116 and n. 5; Fowler, R. F., pp. 228-9; R. E. R. P., p. 129
and n. 41.

which Ovid consulted on questions of Roman religion in his I-'asti
were Varro's writings81 and a lost book of Fasti by Verrius Flac-
cus, of which fragments have been preserved in its epitome, the
Fasti Praencstini, and in such passages of Festus' and Kudus'
abridgments of the de Vcrborum Significatu as show their deriva-
tion from a calendar of festivals.82 The de Vcrborum Significatu
itself was not published in time to be a source for Ovid, whose
poem, except for the few passages revised at Tomi, must have
been written between the publication of Verrius' Fasti, 4-6 A. D.,

81 See Peter's Edition, p. 16; Schanz, Gcschichte der romischen Littcratur,
2 I, p. 314; Franke, De Ovidii Fastorum Fontibus Capita Tria (diss.
Halle, 1909), pp. 51-52. Merkel, critical notes to his edition.

"Schanz 2 I, p. 313: "Fur Ovid war ein Handbuch notwendig, in dem
nach dem Kalender die Feste atiologisch behandelt waren ; denn die
Annahme, dass sich Ovid erst den Stoff zusammensuchte, ist ganz unwahr-
scheinlich. Wie durch Combination geschlossen wird, verfasste der
beruhmte Grammatiker, Verrius Flaccus, ein solches Handbuch, und aus
diesem gelehrten Werk ist, wie Mommsen (CIL. P, p. 285), (p. 313,
p. 314), zu erweisen versucht hat, der praenestinischen Steinkalender, den
Sueton mit Verrius Flaccus in Beziehung bringt, nur ein Auszug. Dieses
Handbuch benutzte aber Verrius Flaccus auch in seiner Schrift, de
verborum significatu ; cf. Winther, De Fastis Verrii Flacci ab Ovidio
adhibitis, p. 42; Franke, p. 32. Aus der Uebereinstimmung zwischen
Ovid und Verrius Flaccus schloss Winther dass das kalendarische Hand-
buch des Verrius Flaccus, soweit die romischen Sagen in Betracht kamen,
die einzige Quelle sei. Gegen diese Hypothese nahmen Stellung H. Peter,
Ausg. I* p. 16 Anm. 2; H. Willers, p. 39; M. Rabenhorst, p. 70; H.
Willemsen, p. 32; P. Wessner, Berl. philol. Wochenschrift 1910 Sp. 680.
Unrichtig ist in der Wintherschen Hypothese das Einquellenprinzip
outriert worden; treffend Wissowa, p. 271, 'Iusto plura huic fonti tribuit
nimiusque fuit in aliis auctoribus excludendis; qui ut Varronem nisi
intercedente Verrio ab Ovidio adhibitum esse injuria negavit.' Aber
wenn wir einerseits das Einquellenprinzip verwerfen, so muss anderer-
seits doch daran festgehalten werden, dass die Grundlage der ovidischen
Dichtung ein Handbuch bildete und dass dieses hochst wahrscheinlich
von Verrius Flaccus herriihrte". See particularly the able treatment of
this subject by Karl Franke, De Ovidii Fastorum Fontibus Capita Tria,
Halle, 1909, too long to be quoted here, in which he points out that a
passage in Festus like that on the Quinquatrus, p. 254, where the words
"Minervae autem dicatum eum diem existimant, quod eo die aedis eius
in Aventino consecrata est", are appended to an explanation of the word
Quinquatrus, adds nothing to the explanation of the word and betrays
itself as having been transferred from a calendar, pp. 29-32.

30
and his own banishment in the year 9.83 As the passage from

"If Festus, p. 347a25, "ubi nunc est aedis Concordiae inter Capitolium
et Forum", is copied from Verrius without interpolation and refers to
the temple after its restoration in A. D. 10, or one year after Ovid's
banishment, we have here sufficient evidence that the de Verborum Signifi-
catu was published too late for Ovid's use. R. Merkel, in the Pro-
legomena to his edition of the Fasti, p. XCV, not only uses this refer-
ence as an argument, but makes capital of the fact that Festus seven
times draws on Ateius Capito in matters of pontifical law, who was
probably born about the year 34 B. C. and died in 22 A. D. ; (see Tac.
Ann., Ill, 75, Frontinus Aq. 102. Teuffel and Schwabe Hist, of Roman Lit-
erature, Warr's translation, I, 265, and Schanz 2 I, p. 532), for, if Verrius
drew on him, how could the de Verborum Significatu have been written
until Ateius had become old and mature enough to publish a learned
work? Ateius wrote two hundred and sixty-one books on human and
divine law, and if he followed Varro's order of writing those on human
law first, it would place the date of his work on pontifical law so much
later. Suetonius (de Grammaticis et Rhetoribus 17) says of Verrius Flac-
cus : "Decessit aetatis exactae sub Tiberio". Schanz 2 I, p. 506, says : "Wahr-
scheinlich fallt das Werk (de Verborum Significatu) in die Regierungszeit
des Tiberius". "When Ovid began the Fasti cannot be definitely deter-
mined," says Schanz, 2 I, p. 308, who adds : "at any rate after the love
poems were finished. The 4th book falls in the period following the
conflagration on the Palatine because of which a restoration of the tem-
ple of Magna Mater by Augustus became necessary", in the year 3 A. D.
(See Fasti IV, 348). "The nature of the work prevented its being com-
posed in a continuous chain". Peter, in the introduction to his edition,
pp. 10-11, says that at any rate the composition fell some time after
Augustus' restoration of the Julian Kalender in 8 B. C, and Book IV
after 3 A.D. In a footnote, however (n. 4), he asserts that the question
has in the main been solved by Merkel's industry and acumen. Merkel
believes that Ovid began his work in the year 755 A. U. C. (p. X C I V
and CCLV). He was banished in 9 A. D., and seems to have done
little with the poem after that date, beyond revising Book I. It is, there-
fore, highly improbable that the de Verborum Significatu was written
before his banishment. On the other hand Franke, pp. 4-5, shows con-
vincing evidence that Verrius' Fasti were written between A. U. C. 757
and 759. As Ovid undoubtedly used these as a source (see n. 82, quota-
tion from Schanz) and we have seen above that for another reason
Ovid's 4th book must have been written after 3 A. D. or 756, surely it
seems safe to conjecture that his poem, except its revised portions, was
composed in the four or five years between the completion of Verrius'
Fasti and his own banishment. I am indebted to Professor Kirby Flower
Smith for the suggestion that the publication of Verrius' book would
naturally stimulate Ovid to a similar essay in the field of poetry.

Festus above quoted,84 relating to the Arx and the sacra Idulia,
is an explanation of the name Sacra Via and the mention of the
day and festival is incomplete and subordinate, it cannot well have
been transferred from Verrius' work on the calendar; but
although notes in the Praenestini pertaining to the Ides have been
lost, the poet must either have read a note in Verrius' book of
Fasti to the effect that on the Ides a sheep was offered to Jupiter
on the Arx, or else he derived his information from Varro and
read perhaps something to this effect : Idibus flatnen Dialis in arce
Iovi vervecem immolat. At any rate, being a poet and story-
teller rather than a scholar, he seems undoubtedly to have
bestowed but a superficial reading on his learned authority, and
seeing the word arx, to have understood it in the loose, general
application to the entire hill, so often given it,85 the thought of the
Capitolium and temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, however,
being more prominent in his mind, as in his own lines from
Tristia (IV, 2, 55-56), already quoted.86 He has thus made the
mistake of assigning to the great political Jupiter of the Capitoline
temple a sacrifice made out of doors on the Arx to the primitive
weather-god, and has even gone so far as to record the offering
as taking place in aede, when we know that sacrifices in the
cella or the portico were extremely rare and that the usual
custom in temple cults was to burn the exta on an altar on or
before the steps of the podium.

wp. 290 (Midler's edition).

M See above: Tibullus II, 5, 25; Ov. F. VI, 367; Liv. I, 12, 22; XXVIII,
39, IS.
"See above, and cf. also n. 71.

THE SEX OF THE OVIS IDULIS.

My first chapter dealt with the question of the place of the
sacrifice, the conclusion being that, through a misunderstanding
of his source, Ovid has fallen into a statement that is decid-
edly incorrect. The present task is to examine his two remarks
concerning the sex of the victim and their credibility in the light
of what is further known about this sacrifice and about Roman
sacrificial ritual as a whole. Ovid's two passages are Fasti1 I, 56 :

"Idibus alba Iovi grandior agna cadit",
and I, 587-588:

"Idibus in magni castus Iovis aede sacerdos
Semimaris flammis viscera libat ovis,"
which are apparently at variance in that agna would seem to
represent the female, while semimas ovis is unmistakably not the
female but the vervex. Is this inconsistency real or only on the
surface?

Before a closer scrutiny of the problems in this individual
ceremony, it will be well to review the general prescriptions of
Roman pontifical law in their bearing on the victim of the Ides,
confining attention to the ritual of the Roman State, to the
exclusion of sacra privata and Graccus ritus, whose practices
were materially different from the purely Roman customs sur-
viving from Rome's prehistoric beginnings.2

Our trustworthy sources for this study are inscriptions and
the works of Roman writers on pontifical law, in so far as frag-
ments of those works have survived to us, and, to a greater or
less degree, other Greek and Roman scholars and antiquarians.

1 Hereafter to be cited as F.

2Wiss., p. 420, and n. 3 to p. 420. C. Krause, De Romanorum Hostiis
Quaestiones Selectae. Krause's thesis, though containing serious errors,
is the most convenient handbook for a study of Roman sacrificial victims,
and is frequently referred to by Wissowa.

The poets are unreliable on questions of ritual,3 unless, as
appears to be true in the case of the sacra Idulia, they are corro-
borated by scholarly prose writers,4 but they often afford val-
uable testimony where the proof turns partly on questions of
language or of style. This is especially true of Ovid himself.5

As is well known, Roman pontifical law laid down the rules
of ritualistic observance with an almost painful exactness and
devotion to detail.6 One of its fundamental principles was that
male animals should be offered to male deities, female to female.7

There are three striking exceptions8 to this rule in the prose

* Krause, pp. 22-23 and n. 1.

* The problem of the present chapter is that Ovid F. I, 588 calls the
victim of the Ides a verve x, yet in I, 56 says grandior agna, while the
feminine form agna is supported by Paulus, p. 104, and by Macrobius I, 15,
16; see p. 4 below.

1 See Chapter I. Here I showed that the sacra Idulia must have taken
place on the northern spur of the Capitoline Hill, technically known as
the Arx, but that Ovid and other writers loosely employ the term arx of
the hill as a whole, sometimes the thought of the Capitolium, or southern
spur, being more prominent in their minds ; that Ovid, then, when he read
in his source that the sacrifice took place in arce, understood the phrase as
a reference to the hill in general but more particularly to the Capitolium,
and so incorrectly recorded that the sacrifice took place in the great temple
of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, which stood on that spur.

8 Cic. de Leg. II, 29 : "Nam illud ex institutis pontificum et haruspicum
non mutandum est, quibus hostiis immolandum cui maioribus, cui lactenti-
bus, cui maribus, cui feminis." Ateius Capito ap. Macrob. Ill, 10, 4. Wiss.
p. 413.

7 Wiss., p. 413. Krause, pp. 19-20, and the list of sacrifices on p. 31 sqq.

' An apparent exception that would apply equally to all sacrifices is the
passage of Servius, ad Aen. VIII, 641 : "In omnibus sacris feminini generis
plus valent victimae. Denique si per marem litare non possent succidanea
dabatur femina; si autem per feminam non litassent succidanea adhiberi
non poterat," which has been refuted by Krause, pp. 30-31. Krause quotes
Livy XLI, 15 : "Alter consul curam adiecit, qui, quod caput iecinori de-
fuisset, tribus bubus perlitasse negavit; senatus maioribus hostiis usque
ad litationem sacrificari iussit". Wissowa throws the weight of his author-
ity against Servius, and cites Krause in a footnote, pp. 415-416 and notes
7 and 8.

writers, however, which I expect to prove to be only apparent :"
the sacrifice of a capra to Vediovis (Gell. V, 12, 12) ; of an agna
to Jupiter at the auspicatio vindemiae (Varro L. L. VI. 16) ;10
and of the ovis Idulis to Jupiter. As the proof for my position
on the first two is bound up with that for my position on the
third, which is the real subject of the present dissertation, I shall
proceed at once to a discussion of the ovis Idulis.

Four places have survived in Roman literature that pertain to
the victim of the Ides, namely, those of Ovid, above quoted, and
two prose passages, one in Paulus Diaconus11 and one in Macro-
bius.12 Paulus says :

"Idulis ovis dicebatur quae omnibus Idibus Iovi mactabatur".

The words in Macrobius are:

"Sunt qui aestiment Idus ab ove Iduli dictas, quam hoc nomine
vocant Tusci et omnibus Idibus Iovi immolatur a fiamine".

Let it be noted that the relative pronoun modifying ovis in
both instances is feminine. Therefore, these two passages, with
that of Varro just cited on the agna of the auspicatio vindemiae,
taken in connection with grandior agna in Fasti I, 56, would
seem to constitute rather a strong argument in favor of the
offering of female victims to Jupiter, especially of a female sheep
on the Ides.

8 Krause, p. 20 sqq., contends that these exceptions are merely ap-
parent, but his arguments are in the main superficial, and he does not
seem to me to offer convincing proof. He fails to produce any testimony
that the agna of the auspicatio vindemiae was male, except (p. 15) to draw
the inference from Paulus, p. 6, that agna was of common gender and
to conclude (p. 22) in contradiction of this hypothesis that Varro (L. L.
VI, 16) had made a mistake. As regards the ovis Idulis (pp. 11-12), he
makes the assertion that ancient and modern writers wrongly agree that it
was female, and thus leaves out of account Ovid's positive statement that
the victim was a vervex, which Krause quotes but otherwise ignores ; he is
chiefly concerned with proving that the animal was the arics rather than
the vervex or castrated male. Altogether there is need of a thorough in-
vestigation to establish the nature of this sacrifice.

""Nam aliquot locis vindemiae primum ab sacerdotibus publice fiebant,
ut Romae etiam nunc; nam flamen Dialis auspicatur vindemiam et ut
iussit vinum legere agna Iovi facit, inter cuius exta caesa et proiecta flamen
t porus vinum legit."

11 p. 104.

* I, IS, 16.

But it can hardly be poetic license or carelessness that caused
Ovid in I, 588, to say that the animal was semimas, or castrated.
Agna, as will be seen later, is an ordinary term which Ovid might
easily have written for stylistic reasons. Semimas ovis, on the
contrary, is an unusual expression, and the poet is going out of
his way to employ it. But vervex stands in the Acta Fratrum
Arvalium13 as the only one of the sheep kind to be offered to
Jupiter, while Janus on the other hand receives each time an
aries1* and the goddesses oves. So detailed a statement of pon-
tificial ritual, therefore, as semimas ovis Ovid would scarcely have
written, had not the word vervex stood before him in the source
which he used. Thus this line of Ovid is corroborated by the
Acta Fratrum Arvalium, our most authoritative epigraphic source
on sacrifices in ancient Rome, and this combined testimony is
arrayed against the apparent evidence of Ovid's line on the agna,
Varro's vindemia passage and* what Paulus and Macrobius write
about the ovis Idulis.

Modern scholarship has failed to reach a definite conclusion
regarding the sex of this victim. While Klausen {Aeneas und die
Penaten, p. 930) says "agna opima," and Aust {Die Religion der
Romer, p. 168) "ein mannliches Schaf," Samter says merely "ein
Schaf,"15 C. Julian in Daremberg et Saglio16 "un mouton," and
Wissowa17 "ein weisses Schaf {ovis Idulis) ," while elsewhere he
is quite explicit, that at the Agonium, for example, the sacrifice
was "ein Widder" and at the suovetaurilia a "Schafbock."18

There are several passages in the surviving literature which
point to a common gender for ovis like bos, that is, that the
modifiers were either masculine or feminine adjectives and pro-
nouns, according to the sex of the particular animal under con-
sideration.19 They are as follows : Festus (p. 286) :

" Henzen, pp. CLXXXVI and CCXIV.

"Cf. F. I, 318 and 333-34; Varro L. L. VI. 12.

18 In Paul.-Wiss., VoL VI, p. 2491.

"Vol. II., p. 1162.

17 p. 114 of Religion und Kultus der Romer.

"pp. 103 and 142.

"F. IV, 631 : "Forda ferens bos est, fecundaque dicta ferendo"; Act. Fr.
Arv., p. CLXXXVIII bovem feminam; et al. Cato Origines, 103: "Trini
boves; Ov. F., Ill, 732, "Deque triumphato viscera tosta bove"; et al.

"Etiam in commentariis sacrorum pontificalium frequenter est
hie ovis et haec agnus ac porcus, quae non ut vitia, sed ut antiquam
consuetudinem testantia debemus accipere,"
and Gellius (XI, 1, 4) quoting Varro:

"Quando nunc quoque a msagistratibus populi Romani more
maiorum multa dicitur vel minima vel suprema, observari solet,
ut oves genere virili appellentur; atque ita M. Varro verba haec
legitima, quibus minima multa diceretur, concepit : 'M. Terentio,
quando citatus neque respondit neque excusatus est, ego ei unum
ovem multam dico.' Ac nisi eo genere diceretur negaverunt
iustam videri multam."

Again Paulus (p. 195) says:

"Ovem masculino genere dixerunt, ut ovibus duobus non
duabus."

From these examples it will be seen that the use of ovis as a
common gender noun suggests that the excerpts from Paulus (p.
104), ovis quae, and from Macrobius (I, 15, 16), ovis quam, refer
to female victims. But I shall show that the ovis Idulis was a
male, and hence the common gender theory does not furnish the
correct explanation of these two prose passages.

Equally suggestive with this study of nouns of common gender
is a study of the gender of pronouns with nouns of unquestion-
able gender. I find no examples of feminine relatives modifying
masculine nouns and but one reliable instance of the opposite
process.20 There is also, however, a passage in Varro's de Lingua
Latina,21 in which the manuscripts give the reading quorum
after a feminine antecedent, though the vulgate and two earlier
editors22 print quarum. This antecedent, it should be stated, is
haec, plural of the demonstrative; not the neuter plural, however,
but an old form of the feminine.23 In spite of the fact that it
contains certain serious corruptions, the passage may throw light
on the two prose references24 to the ovis Idulis, and shall, there-
fore be quoted :

20 Pompeii Commentum, p. 249 (Keil V, p. 206) : "Quis tu es mulier qui
me hoc nuncupasti nomine".
31 V, 98.

22 Mulier and Lindemann.

23 See Miiller's edition on the passage and Sommer Laut und Formcn-
lehre, p. 423 in 2d ed.

24 See preceding page, p. 35, and notes 11 and 12.

"Aries qui feam dicebant ares, veteres nostri ariuga, hinc
ariugas.25 Haec sunt quorum in sacruficiis exta in olla non in
vera coquuntur, quas et Accius scribit et in pontificiis libris
videmus."

The first thing to be noted here after the hardly explainable cor-
ruption qui, is the gender of earn, which, if it is really an accusa-
tive form of the demonstrative is ea id, refers to aries. The vul-
gate, followed by Miiller, prints quod eum. In view of the cor-
ruption of the line, however, I shall not attempt an argument on
this pronoun, but wish merely to direct attention to it. The
point desired to emphasize particularly is that, although the
word ariuga or arviga was bestowed a great part of the time
on males, its gender is shown by the forms haec and quas to
be feminine. The word hostia, though covering both male and
female victims, is well known to have but one gender, feminine,
and after a careful perusal of the surviving passages relating to
arviga,26 I can see no other meaning in the word than that it was
a special kind of hostia, referring very frequently to the male,
but properly modified at all times by the feminine of the pronoun.
This arviga passage constitutes, as it were, a bridge over which
we pass to the real solution of the problem confronting us in
this chapter.

There is a class of animal names known as epicenes from the
Greek eirsxotvo? which have but one word form and one gram-
matical gender to denote both sexes, some words of this class
being masculine, some feminine, as hie passer, haec aquila.27

"The text followed is that of Goetz and Schoell. The most serious and
unmistakable corruption is in qui and earn, for which Goetz and Schoell,
though printing the reading of the best MS., offer the emendation quidam.
The more recent MSS. and the Thesaurus give arviga rather than ariuga;
Paul. (p. 100) harviga.

26 Varro L. L., V, 98 : the part quoted above and "In hostiis earn dicunt
ariugem quae cornua habeat"; Paul., p. 100; Velius Longus (Keil, VII, 73,
9) "Ar(v)iga quae est hostia."

27 Lane, Latin Grammar, revised ed., paragraph 411, gives the following
definition : "Epicenes have one ending and one grammatical gender, though
applicable to animals of either sex. Thus aquila, eagle, is feminine, though
it may denote a he-eagle as well as a she-eagle; anates, ducks, feminine,
includes drakes." See also for definitions Diom, I, 276 (Keil, I, 301, 10) ;
Charisius, II, 89 (Keil, I, 153, 15) ; Donatus (Keil, IV, 375, 22) ; etc., and
cf. Neue-Wagener Formenlehre, I, p. 926 sqq.

One of the many good definitions is that of Charisius, I, 8 (Kcil
I, 17, 10) :

"Adicitur. . .genus quod Graece e-nrtxoivov dicitur, Latine pro-
miscuum, ut haec mustela, aquila. Nam etsi mas sit mustela vel
aquila, tamen feminino genere tantum dicitur. Item hie passer
quamvis masculino genere proferatur, tamen etiam femininum
genus significat."

Neue-Wagener28 say "the names of most animals belong to
this class, generally of the smaller animals, but especially those
in which there is no occasion to differentiate the male from the
female." A few animals of considerable size are epicene, how-
ever, for volpes, as will presently be seen, is decidedly so, and
panthera is shown to be so by Cicero, by Pliny, by Phaedrus, and
finally by Varro.29 Furthermore a marked differentiation of sex
is sometimes made, as, for example, in the expression ct mas
et femina aquila,30 which does not indicate a different gram-
matical gender,31 and in Pliny's expression volpis masculac,32
where the form of the adjective masculac shows that the gram-
matical gender of volpis is feminine, but the adjective itself
proves the animal to be unmistakably male. But the most com-
mon use of epicenes is in passages where the animal mentioned

28 Formenlehre, I, p. 927 sqq. They furnish quite a long list (p. 927) of
each gender, including among the feminines panthera, volpes, bidens (the
sheep), avis, anas, aquila, merula, and apis.

29 Pliny, N. H., VIII, 62 and 63; Phaedrus, III. 2: "Panthera et Pas-
tores", where nothing is implied as to the animal's sex. Cicero, Epist. ad
Fam. VIII, 9, 3: "Fere litteris omnibus tibi de pantheris scripsi : turpe tibi
erit Patiscum Curioni decern pantheras misisse, te non multis partibus
plures; quas ipsas Curio mihi et alias Africanas decern donavit, ne putes
ilium tantum praedia rustica dare scire". For the Varro passage see p.
40 above.

80 Varro, L. L., VIII, 2, 7.

31 Neue-Wagener, I, p. 919. Priscian, V, 8, 42 (Keil, II, p. 169) states
that in the earliest times aquila was of common gender; but in classical
times, at least, we find no more epicene word in the language. It is quoted
as a stock example of the epicene in all the definitions above quoted or
cited (see note 27 and note 28). In Serv. ad Aen. I, 394, Interpol. Scrv.
ad Eel., VI, 42, Suet. Aug. 96, etc., it is an epicene with nothing implied
as to sex.

" N. H., XXVIII, 166; for gender, also see Phaedrus.

may be either male or female, or in the case of a group, the refer-
ence may be to beasts of both sexes; in other words, where the
reference to sex is wholly indefinite. This is best shown by a
long passage from Varro (L. L. IX, 55 sqq.),33 which it will be
well to bear in mind throughout the remainder of this dissertation.

"Negant, cum omnis natura sit aut mas aut femina aut neutrum,
(non) debuisse ex singulis vocibus ternas figuras vocabulorum
fieri, ut albus, alba, album; nunc fieri in multis rebus binas, ut
Metellus, Metella . . ., nonnulla singula, . . . ; dici cor-
vum, turdum, non dici corvam, turdam; contra dici pantheram,
merulam, non dici patherum, merulum, . . . Ad h(a)ec dici-
mus omnis orationis, quamvis res naturae subsit, tamen si ea in
usu(m) non pervenerit, eo non pervenire verba; ideo equus
dicitur et equa: in usu enim horum discrimina; corvus et corva
non, quod sine usu id quod dissimilis natura (e). Itaque quaedam
al(i)ter olim ac nunc; nam et turn omnes mares et feminae
dicebantur columbae, quod non erant in eo usu domestico quo
nunc, (nunc) contra propter domesticos usus quod internovimus,
appellatur mas columbus, femina columba."

These animal words are not discussed as nouns of common
gender and of one declension, as hie or haec corvus and turdus, hie
or haec panthera and merula. The evidence proves them unmis-
takably to be epicenes. First of all let us note the testimony of
other passages on the animal names chosen. Varro himself says
(R. R. Ill, 5, 6) :

"Turdi, qui cum sint nomine mares, re vera feminae quoque
sunt. Neque id non secutum ut esset in merulis, quae nomine
feminino mares quoque sint."

Here, though omitting the designation epicene, he shows em-
phatically that such is the usage of the words turdus and merula.
Again, corvus is defined by name as epicene (promiscuus) by
Consentius (Ars, Keil V, 30) :

"In promiscuis . . . sub uno articulo uterque sexus signifi-
catur. Nam cum dico masculino genere corvus, neque nomine
neque articulo confusionem generis separare possum: tarn enim
femina quam masculus corvus masculino genere enuntiatur. Item

13 Text of Goetz and Schoell ; cf. with Servius' Commentary on Donatus,
p. 1782 (Keil, IV, 408).

cum dico cornix, sexum nulla ratione discernere possum, quoniam,
sive masculus sive femina sit, feminino genere cornicem appello.
Nam in corvo f emininum et in cornice masculinum genus intellegi
necesse est."

That panthera too is epicene is perceived both by its use in
the various passages above cited34 and by its choice in the lines of
the dc Lingua Latina (IX, 55 sqq.) to accompany corvus, tardus.
and merula. But Varro's own words prove that he is discussing
epicenes, not nouns of common gender. It will be best to restate
this portion of the passage in translation :

"We say that, although all language is based upon distinctions
arising from conditions in the natural world, yet if these natural
conditions are turned to no practical employment by man, such
distinctions fail to be expressed in speech ; therefore we have the
words equus and equa, for there is a distinction in the way these
two words are employed ; on the contrary, we do not say corvus
and corva, for a discrimination of sex is here of no practical
benefit. For this reason certain words were formerly differently
used from the manner of their employment to-day ; at one time,
for example, all pigeons, male and female, were called columbae,
because they were not put to that domestic use to which they
are now given over. Now, however, for domestic purposes, we
make a distinction, calling the male pigeon columbus, the female,
columba."

If Varro were here discussing common gender, hie and haec
corvus, for instance, the natural condition of the bird, male or
female, would be every whit as distinctly expressed by the pro-
noun as if the termination in -a had been employed to differ-
entiate the female and that in -us had been confined to the male.

Since beyond doubt this passage of Varro is a discussion
of epicenes, attention must once more be called to my state-
ment made immediately before the passage was quoted, namely,
that epicene names for animals commonly show that there
is no definite thought of sex in the writer's mind. This is
the whole point of Varro's definition; that man does not
make a linguistic division based on the sex of animals, unless
there is practical need of a distinction. The names of most

34 See n. 29.

animals, therefore, are epicene, and the use of epicenes seldom
offers any direct information concerning their sex. Varro, how-
ever, has neglected to mention that his rule of vagueness must
admit of occasional exceptions, in which an epicene is proved to
be of a sex directly opposite to that indicated by its grammatical
gender. A step in this direction appears in the scholiast to
Germanicus' Aratea, "Iovem in aquilam transfiguratum"35 and
in Apuleius' Metamorphoses III, 25, "non avem me sed asinum
video." In both of these selections the bird is certainly a male,
because in either case a male has been metamorphosed. Yet in
all extant literature aquila and avis are of feminine gender.36
The most perfect illustration of the employment of an epicene
in unquestionable reference to the sex opposed to its grammatical
gender is volpis mascidae in Pliny (AT. H. XXVIII, 166),
which has already been noted. This development produces the
purest epicene, and is the logical outcome of the more common
usage in which the sex is not distinctly specified. It would seem
possible only in the case of true epicenes, if such a term may be
employed ; that is, of words which have only one grammatical
gender, like volpes, merula, corvus, panthera, aquila, and avis.37
Now aquila has been shown to be a true and unquestionable
epicene. Therefore, when we read in Varro {L. L. VIII, 2, 7}
ct mas et femina aquila, there is every reason to agree with
Neue- Wagener,38 that the expression does not indicate a differ-
ence of grammatical gender. It is not to be regarded, then, as
identical with the similar epithets applied to bos, which has been
seen to be of common gender, but aquila mas is in a class with
volpis masculae of Pliny.39 I likewise believe that this is the
very manner in which ovis mas is employed by Varro (L. L. V,
98), "si cui ovi mari testiculi dempti et ideo vi natura versa,

85 Breysig, p. 160.

36 See Thesaurus and cf. note 28 and note 31.

K Later on it will be shown that certain words which are by no means
true epicenes, are sometimes employed after the manner of epicenes, when
nothing is implied as to their sex.

38 Seen. 31.

89 See n. 32.

verbex declinatum," and by Ovid in the expression40 semimaris
ovis. In other words, it will presently be shown that the word
ovis is epicene.

It will at once be objected that the passages of Gellius (XI, 1, 4)
and Festus (p. 286), which record the words of Varro and Ver-
rius respectively and have been quoted earlier in this work,41
show the gender of ovis to be common. It must be observed,
however, that Varro so uses it only in an antiquated legal
formula, and that Gellius and Festus mention the usage only to
explain it, because in their day it was strange and unusual. Xot
only was this common gender for ovis a curiosity in classical
Latin, but, if we remember Varro's rule illustrated by columba*2
I think I am justified in the conjecture that ovis began in the
earliest times as a feminine epicene for the sheep kind without
distinction of sex, just as it will be proven to be in historic times ;
that this usage persisted, but in the course of development in the
still prehistoric Latin the usage in common gender, hie and hacc
ovis, arose in those cases where a differentiation of male and
female was important, especially in religious ritual, where with
the advent of animal sacrifices and the offering of male victims
to male divinities and female to female, practical necessity com-
pelled a distinction in sex to be observed. While in historic
times, owing to the limitations of the Latin vocabulary, ovis was
retained as the particular term for the ewe, and arics and vert ex
instead of hie ovis became the more common and conventional
terms for "ram" and "wether," ovis remained (as it had always
been) the general name for the sheep kind, like the English
sheep and the German Schaf. So much for my conjecture. It
will now be shown that in the classical period ovis was the generic
term for sheep and that its gender was feminine.

Cicero says (N. D. II, 63) :

"Quid enim oves aliud afferunt, nisi ut earum villis confectis
atque contextis homines vestiantur"?

This is supplemented by Isidorus, Origines XII, 1, 8-9:

"Discretio est autem inter armenta et greges: nam armentn

40 F. 1,588.

41 See pp. 36 and 37 above.

42 See p. 40 above.

equorum et bourn sunt, greges vero caprarum et ovium . . .
Apud veteres initio non tauri sed oves in sacrificio mactarentur.
. . . Vervex ... a viribus dictus, quod ceteris ovibus sit
fortior."

Note especially the last words, "Vervex . . . ceteris ovibus
sit fortior," which, taken in connection with the Cicero passage
just quoted and with Columella VII, 4,43 prove that the ancient
flocks, like those of to-day,44 were made up of both ewes and
wethers, the latter being slaughtered while their flesh was still
tender, but after they had yielded a goodly supply of wool. In
these passages of Cicero and Isidorus, ovis can signify but one
thing, the sheep kind as a whole. Isidorus moreover says in the
same selection :

"Ex his (sc. ovibus) quasdam bidentes vocant, eas quae inter
octo dentes duos altiores habent, quas maxime gentiles in sacri-
ficium offerebant."

Here and also in the Cicero quotation (earum), the feminine
gender of ovis as well as its general meaning is well illustrated.
Further excellent examples are the Pseudo-Acron scholiast to
Horace (C. 111,23, 14):

"Bidentes autem proprie dicuntur oves duos annos habentes,
sic vocatae ab eminentioribus dentibus, qui circa duos annos nas-
cuntur," and Servius (ad Aen. VI, 39) :

"Bidentes autem, ut diximus supra (IV, 57) oves sunt circa
bimatum, habentes duos dentes eminentiores ; quae erant aptae
sacrificiis."45

45 "Plures autem in eiusmodi gregibus, quam in hirtis, masculos enutrire
oportet. Nam priusquam feminas inire possint mares castrati, cum bima-
tum expleverint, enecantur, et pelles eorum propter pulchritudinem lanae
maiore pretio, quam alia vellera, mercantibus traduntur".

"Farmers' Cyclopedia, abridged agricultural records from publications
of U. S. Dept. of Agric. and Experiment Stations, Vol. I, p. 368: (On
eastern Nevada sheep raising) : "They (the sheep) usually reach the
shearing grounds . . . about the first of April. The sheep are then sepa-
rated into ewe bands and wether bands, the ewes and their lambs of the
previous year having run together during the winter. . . Two crops of
wool are also obtained from each lamb, as they are not usually sold until
about two years old (Cf. Columella's bimatum), which differs from the
practice in the Sierras". The Encyclopedia Britannica (1911 ed., article on
Agriculture) I, p. 408, speaks of wether sheep above twelve and under
twenty- four months old.

43 Also Paul, p. 4; Gell. XVI, 6, 12. Bidens is recognized by Neue-
Wagener as an epicene (I p. 927).

These last passages have to do with bidentes, which are seen to
be sheep of an age sufficiently advanced to display a certain
phenomenon in their teeth. This phenomenon, however, is not
confined to the female, but appears equally in the male.

Ovis, therefore, is epicene, and, moreover, a true epicene, like
volpes, aqnila , merula, avis, panthera, corvus, and others.40 It is
epicene, because it has just been proved to be the generic term for
sheep without thought of sex, to have only one grammatical gen-
der, feminine,47 and yet, as a true epicene, to be carried to its
logical development, so that on a few occasions, such as we have
encountered in Ovid,48 and in Varro,49 it is employed strictly of
the male.

If we return, then, for one moment from the study of epicenes
to our subject of the sacra Idulia, it will be recalled that Roman
ritual required the sacrifice of male animals to male divinities and
of female to female. The actual ritualistic custom is thus seen
to be quite in accord with the words of Paulus and Macrobius,50
who, although they apply the correct gender of the relative pro-
noun in writing "Idulis ovis . . . quae" and "ab ove Iduli
. . . quam," do so with no more thought of sex than did
Varro (L. L. V, 98) in writing "Haec (sc. arvigae) sunt . . .
quas" ; for arviga, though a hostia and of feminine gender, was
often used of the ram.51 The sex of the ovis Idulis was male,
therefore, as is to be expected in a sacrifice to Jupiter.

It remains to discuss Ovid's use of the feminine form agna in
Fasti I, 56. This in itself would not offer serious difficulty, for
had it suited his purpose, Ovid might not have hesitated to write
agna, even if bearing definitely in mind the female significance of
the termination in -a. Vergil in his famous line (Aen. VIII, 641 •.

** No matter that it often means the ewe, for we know that even so
widely recognized an epicene as avis frequently refers to the female bird
alone, e. g. Cic. N. D. 11,129: "Gallinae avesque reliquae . . . quietum
requirunt ad pariendum locum"; Plin. N. H. X, 147: "Ceterae aves Si
anno (pariunt)"; X, 165: "nee alia (avis) plures (quam XX pullos parit)".

47 Except in a few legal survivals of prehistoric times.

48 P. I, 588.
-L.L. V,98.

50 Paul. p. 104; Macrob. I, 15, 16. See page 35 above.

51 See above p. 38.

"caesa iungebant foedera porca," may employ porca in this man-
ner, inasmuch as the commentators mentioned as quidam by the
interpolator of Servius, explain porca on the ground of euphony.58
Perhaps the quidam mentioned in the interpolation of Servius are
Quintilian and Porphyrio, the commentator on Horace. The lat-
ter says :53

"Adtende feminino genere agnam maluisse dicere quam agnum
secundum illud Vergilianum : 'Et caesa iungebant foedera porca' ;
nescio quid enim quaedam eloquutiones per femininum genus
gratiores fiunt."

Quintilian's words are (Inst. VIII, 3, 19) :

"Quaedam non tarn ratione quam sensu iudicantur; ut illud,
'caesa iungebant foedera porca,' fecit elegans fictio nominis ; quod
si fuisset porco, vile erat."

These three explanations of the feminine form in -a on the
ground of euphony are good as far as they go,54 but they hardly
account for Varro's mention of the offering of an agna to Jupiter
at the auspicatio vindemiae or for what Gellius writes of the sacri-
fice of a capra to Vediovis. Once more it becomes necessary to
fall back on epicenes.

First of all it must be pointed out that there are certain words
which, though not strictly of the epicene class, in that they admit
both genders, are nevertheless often employed in the epicene
manner described by Varro,55 namely, in a vague, general sense
referring to either or both sexes. Their gender is arbitrarily
chosen, being sometimes masculine, sometimes feminine, but there
is no thought of sex in the writer's mind.

52 Serv. Interpol, ad Aen VIII, 641 : "Quidam 'porcam' euphoniae gratia
dictam volunt".

" C. I, 4, 12.

"Servius himself (ad Aen VIII, 641), after recognizing that ritualistic
observance called for porco, gropes about in a maze of explanations for the
use of the feminine : "Falso autem ait 'porca' : nam ad hoc genus sacrificii
porcus adhibebatur. Ergo aut usurpavit genus pro genere ut 'timidi
venient ad pocula dammae', cum has dammas dicamus, item supra (631)
lupam cum artis sit 'hie' et 'haec' lupus. Aut certe illud ostendit, quia
. . . " From this point on see note 8 above, which also notes the unre-
liability of this passage in questions of ritual.

55 L. L. IX, 55. See above p. 40.

One word notably so employed is canis, which is ordinarily of
common gender because the natural difference of sex is so often
forced upon one's attention owing to the intimate association of
dog and man. When employed with absolutely no thought, how-
ever, of male and female, the gender of canis is determined accord-
ing to the writer's whim or preference. A few examples will
suffice: Varro (R. R. II, 9, 6) in discussing the purchase of dogs
uses the masculine gender:

"Magni interest ex semine esse canes eodem, quod cognati max-
ime inter se sunt praesidio," and again in treating of their food
says (II, 9, 8) : "Cibatus canis propior hominus . . . Dili-
genter ut habeat cibaria providendum. Fames enim hos ad
quaerendum cibum ducet." Once more in regard to buying dogs
he says (II, 9, 5) :

"Videndum ne a venatoribus aut laniis canes emas, alteri quod
ad pecus sequendum inertes; alteri, si viderint leporem aut cer-
vum, quod eum potius quam oves sequentur. Quare a pastoribus
empta melior, quae oves sequi consuevit, aut sine ulla consuetu-
dine quae fuerit."

In this passage both genders are used, yet each time dogs are
mentioned the reference must be to both sexes. Toward the close
of the chapter Varro speaks of protecting the watchdogs with
collars armed with nails,

"quod si lupus aliusve quis his vulneratus est, reliquas quoque
canes facit, quae id non habent, ut sint in tuto."

In these words both sexes are referred to without doubt, and
furthermore, there immediately follows a discussion of the num-
ber of dogs necessary for the flock, and we meet with the words :

"Villatico vero gregi in fundum satis esse duo, et id marem et
feminam." If one may differentiate, then, between the word and
the usage, one would say that canis, while not a true epicene,
quite frequently receives that epicene usage, which Varro has
described, namely, that in which there is no thought of sex.56

Neue-Wagener present a small list of animal names with the
double endings in -us and -a, which they say57 are epicenes to the
extent that they may be used in either form for the species in

56 L. L. IX, 55. See above p. 40.
w I, pp. 927-930.

general without reference to sex, although grammatically those in
-us are masculine and those in -a feminine. A good example of
this is seen in Pliny (.V. H. VIII, 141) :

"Lacertae inimicissimum genus cocleis, negantur semestrem
vitam excedere. Lacerti Arabiae cubitales, in Indiae vero Nysa
monte XXIV in longitudinem pedum, colore fulvi aut punicei, aut
caerulei," where, whether the termination be in -ae or in -i, the
entire species is meant, including both sexes. Another word of
this type is simius, simia, the latter being the commoner,58 but
simius appearing in Phaedrus' fable of the wolf, the fox, and
the ape.59

Varro60 tells us that the word columba was originally an epicene,
and that when the pigeon came into wide domestic use and man
found it convenient to differentiate between the sexes, the mascu-
line form, columbus, was introduced for the sake of distinction.
We find, however, that in those instances where this word is
employed indefinitely without sex distinction, the form in -a is
usually retained.61 Sometimes, on the contrary, we meet with the
masculine, columbi.62 Either form of this word can thus be
given the epicene usage, although the form in -a was originally
a true epicene.

If one will turn now to the word agna, and that with which it
is closely associated, porca, attention must once more be called
to my translation of Varro's definition63 (p. 41 above), the
point of which is that man does not make a linguistic division
based on the animal's sex unless there is a practical need of such
distinction. Much of the time there is a manifest need of distin-
guishing the sexes of agnus and agna, porcus and porca, as in the
cases of equas and equa, columbus and columba, mentioned by

M Plin. VIII, 54, 215.

" Phaedr. I, 10.

•° See n. 56.

" Only one or two examples will be quoted here : Plin. X, 35 : "Columbae
et turtures octonis annis vivont". Varro R. R. Ill, 2, 13: "alterum (sc.
genus pastionum) villaticum in quo sunt gallinae ac columbae et apes et
cetera", and 14; III, 5, 7: "volucres . . . vernaculae ut gallinae ac colum-
bae".

° Colum. VIII, 8, 1 : "palumbos columbosque cellares pinguissimos
facere"; and 10, 2: "(Turdi) locum aeque munitum et apricum, quam
columbi desiderant".

" R. R. IX, 55.

Varro.64 On the other hand, as in the case of columba, so the
reference in agnus or porcus is often only generic, with absolutely
no thought of sex. This was, we have seen, the original use of
columba** and it was retained in classical literature after the form
columbus had come into use.06 Although agnus and porcus are
used so very frequently of the male alone, there are a number of
passages in which they are employed in as epicene a manner as
columba is known to have been, for example, Cicero de Senec.
XVI, 56:

"Villa . . . abundat porco, haedo, agno, gallina,"
and Varro on several occasions :
R. R. II, 1, 20:

"Fere ad quattuor menses a mamma non disiunguntur agni,
haedi tres, porci duo,"
R. R. II, 2, 15:

"Deinde matres cum grege pastum prodeunt, retinent agnos,
ad quos cum reductae ad vesperum, aluntur lacte et rursus dis-
cernuntur,"
and II, 2, 17:

"Cum depulsi sunt agni a matribus diligentia adhibenda est ne
desiderio senescant."

Agnus and porcus in all these selections must refer to lambs
and pigs in general without thought of sex.

There survive also some interesting passages showing a com-
mon gender for agnus and porcus in the earlier times and in
ritualistic survivals. The first of these (Festus, p. 286) has been
already noticed in connection with the antiquated common gender
usage of ovis,G7 but must be quoted here for present purposes :

"Etiam in commentariis sacrorum pontificalium frequenter est
hie ovis et haec agnus ac porcus, quae non ut vitia sed ut antiquam
consuetudinem testantia debemus accipere."

Perhaps second in importance is Paulus (p. 6) :
"Agnus ex Graeco <x\x\6q deducitur, quod nomen apud maiores
communis erat generis, sicut lupus.''

" P. R. IX, 55.

" R. R. IX, 55.

M See n. 59.

" See p. 37 and p. 43 above.

If the epithets mas and femina are to be taken as indicative of
common gender, which appears to be their most frequent usage,
porcits is of common gender in Cato's de Agricultura
CXXXIV. The selection is too long for quotation. Although
pertaining to private ceremonial, it is highly ritualistic and most
definite in recording the details of sacrifice and the formulae of
prayer. In it porcus femina and porca are employed several
times interchangeably.68 Festus also says in reference to a law
of Numa (p. 222) :

"Si tanget (sc. pellex aram Iunonis) . . . agnum femi-
nam caedito."

But most significant for the present argument are Festus' words
on page 189, in which he seems to be drawing his authority from
the pontifical books :

"Ianui Quirino agnum marem caedito."

This expression has its counterpart in the inscription recording
the Ludi Saeculares of 17 B. C, now in the Terme Museum.69
That section which relates to the sacrifice to the Moerae contains
the words:

"uti huius]sacrifici acceptrices sitis Villi agnarum feminarum
et Villi capraru[m feminarum proprijarum inmolandarum ;
harum rerum ergo macte hac agna femina inmolanda estote fitote
v[olente]s propitiae," etc.

The words hac agna femina exclude any other interpretation
than that of common gender for agna in this passage, although it
is the only surviving passage in which agna is so employed.70

If now it be permissable to turn for a moment to poetry, a line
of Ovid will be found of particular interest (Fasti, IV, 648) :

68 With this passage cf. Cicero de Leg. II, 22, 57.

69 C I L. VI, 42, 32323.

70 Feminam agnam quoted by Augustine from Leviticus (Quaestionum
in Heptateuchum Libri VII in the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum
Latinorum, Vienna 1895, 3, 3, p. 236) is a translation of the original
Hebrew, not a Latin usage. As quoted by Augustine the passage reads:
'Offeret pro his quae deliquit domino, pro peccato quo peccavit feminam
ab ovibus agnam', and with this cf. the translation made at London in
1580 from the Hebrew: "Itaque adducito reatum suum Jehove propter
peccatum suum quo peccabit foeminam e grege ovem", and King James
translation into English: "And he shall bring his trespass offering unto
the Lord for his sin which he hath sinned, a female from the flock, a
lamb". Augustine's comment is : "usitata locutione 'agnam feminam'
dicit, quasi possit esse non femina".

"Agnaque nascendo saepe necabat ovem."
While the form in -a may well be chosen by the poet for
stylistic purposes, yet it refers as clearly to the male as to the
ewe lamb and forms a striking counterpart to the epicene use of
agnus and porcus in Cicero71 and Varro72 quoted above. Prose
passages in which agna and porca are employed as epicenes are
few, but that of Paulus (p. 235) is highly important:

"Porci effigies inter militaria signa quintum locum obtinebat,
quia confecto bello inter quos pax fieret, caesa porca foedus fir-
mare solebant."

Porci effigies seems to be a clear reference to the boar, for
Pliny73 says that the aper held fifth place among the animals on
military standards; caesa porca may be a reminiscence of
Vergil74 ; but in whatever way this passage is regarded, the thought

" de Senec. XVI, 56 ; see p. 49 above.

72 R. R. II, 1, 20; II, 2, 15 and 17; see p. 49 above.

" N. H. X, 16.

" The theory of the slaughter of female animals to Jupiter in treaty-
making (see Neue-Wagener I, p. 925-926) is not well supported by the
existing evidence. Porcus, to be sure, was of common gender in early
religious formulae, but that does not affect the sex of the pig slain in the
conclusion of a treaty, for Livy, I, 24, 8, says : "Turn illo die, Iuppiter,
populum Romanum sic ferito, ut ego hunc porcum hie hodie feriam (cf.
IX, 5, 3; XXI, 45, 8; Cic. de Invent. II, 30, 91) ; also in Varro, R. R. II,
4, 9, the mention of this sacrifice in the same passage with that of a pig at
the marriage ceremony in no wise proves the word feminine, for the
wedding victim was chosen not because of its sex but because of some
mysterious connection between the pig and the pudenda nndiebria, as seen
in the Greek use of ytiiooz, in the comic poets (cf. Aristoph. Ach. 77X)
and the close relation between SsXcx; and Zz\fjc, (see L- Meyer, Griech.
Etym. Ill, p. 256.) Varro's passage is : 'Initiis Cereris porci inmolantur,
et . . . initiis pacis foedus cum feritur, porcus occiditur, et nuptiarum
initio antiqui reges ac sublimes viri in Etruria in coniunctione nuptiali nova
nupta et novus maritus primum porcum inmolant. Prisci quoque Latini
etiam Graeci in Italia idem factitasse videntur. Nam et nostrae mulieres,
maxime nutrices, naturam qua feminae sunt in virginibus appellant
porcum, et graecae choeron, significantes esse dignum insigne nuptiarum".
The porcus of the wedding ceremony should be the male, as the deity who
presided over the confarreatio was Jupiter (see Wiss. pp. 118-119). The
initio, Cereris, which Varro mentions, were undoubtedly the Eleusinian
mysteries, and sacrifices at the Eleusinia were naturally celebrated accord-
ing to Greek ritual. The pig had an intimate connection with Demeter,
goddess of earth fertility (see Andrew Lang in The Nineteenth Cen-
tury, Apr. 1887, p. 562), just as it had with the fertility of females. The
whole thought, therefore, in these cases mentioned by Varro, is rather
of the pig species, and although in at least two of the three sacrifices which
he mentions the victim was actually male, he probably employed porcus
as an epicene without thought of sex.

of sex seems decidedly weak, and I am disposed to see in it an
epicene usage closely analogous to that of lacertae, lacerti in
Pliny's account of the lizards.

Thus we see that porcus and agnus are used as epicenes ;75 that
in the antiquated speech which survived in ritualistic formulas,
porcus and agnus are used as possessing common gender;76 that,
therefore, porcus and agnus are used of both sexes interchange-
ably. Porca is also used as an epicene interchangeably with
porcus?1 Agna is an epicene in Fasti, IV, 648,78 and is denned
with remarkable precision in a ritualistic inscription,79 as though
there could be doubt about the sex. In the light, therefore, of
Varro's plain statement that columba was used as an epicene, I
believe that he so employed agna in his account of the sacrifice
to Jupiter at the auspicatio -vindemiae, and had in mind no thought
of the animal's sex.80 Since, therefore, we have seen that Roman
pontifical law demanded the sacrifice of male victims to male
divinities, there is no reason to doubt that the agna of the
auspicatio vindemiae was a male.

The second apparent exception to the general rule of sacrifice81
has thus been shown to be nothing more than apparent. The first,
an offering of a capra to Vediovis,82 is easily disposed of in the
same manner. Cato, quoted by Varro,83 employs the word as an
epicene in speaking of the habits of wild goats. Varro himself
goes further and uses caprae of wild and domestic goats alike, in
a close connection with the epicene word oves:

" See notes 71 and 72.

76 Festus, pp. 286, 222, and 189 ; Paul. p. 6 ; see pp. 49-50 above.

77 Paul. p. 235 and see p. 51 above.

78 Can praecidanea agna defined by Festus (p. 223) be epicene? True
it occurs in the same passage with the definition of praecidanea porca,
which Festus says was an offering to Ceres, but the words, "praecidanea
agna vocabatur quae ante alias caedebatur", do not seem to me to point
to any single divinity. If this be true, the offering might be to a god as
well as to a goddess, and alias could well mean alias hostias.

n See n. 69 above.

80 See n. 10 above.

81 Cf. pp. 34-35 above and n. 10.

82 p. 35 above. Gellius sas : "Eum deum (i. e. Vediovem) plerumque
Apollinem esse dixerunt ; immolaturque ritu humano capra eiusque ani-
malis figmentum iuxta simulacrum stat". For Krause on this sacrifice, see
his thesis, p. 21.

M R. R. II, 3, 3.

"In Originum libro Cato scribit haec : 'in Sauracti et Fiscello
caprae ferae sunt, quae saliunt e saxo pedes plus sexagenos.'
Oves enim quas pascimus ortae sunt ab ovibus feris: sic quas
alimus (caprae) a capris feris ortae. . . . Quidam etiam dant
operam ut ex insula Melia capras habeant, quod ibi maximi ac
pulcherrimi existimantur fieri haedi."

Isidorus, likewise, so employs the word in a passage quoted
before :84

"Discretio est autem inter armenta et greges: nam armenta
equorum et bourn sunt, greges vero caprarum et ovium."

Finally, in the inscription recording the Ludi Saecularcs of 17
B. C, caprarum is limited by feminarum, as though the noun were
insufficient in itself to establish the sex, a treatment which is
identical with that of agnarum feminarum in the same passage.85

If we return from this long digression to prove that an epicene
usage existed for agna and capra in prose, and glance once more
at Ovid's line (P. I, 56) :

"Idibus alba Iovi grandior agna cadit,"
it will be recalled that agna might have been written for stylistic
purposes.86 Now, however, the point has been reached where
it will readily be perceived that the poet's use of agna rests on a
more solid foundation than mere euphony.

The fact is that, while both Vergil87 and Ovid doubtless selected
the forms porca and agna with a metrical and stylistic purpose in
view, yet their choice of the feminine form for animal names
was in perfect accord with the epicene usage in prose discussed
and practiced by Varro,88 and so did no violence to established
principles of the language. Without doubt, the two poets gave
no thought whatever to the actual sex of the animal. There are
many examples89 in the poets of an epicene use of the forms
terminating in -a, one of the most striking being Ovid's line above
quoted (P. IV, 648) :

"Agnaque nascendo saepe necabat ovem,"
but before closing it will be sufficient to call attention to one or

**Orig. XII, 1, 8; see pp. 43-44.

88 See p. 50 above, and n. 69.

*" See above pp. 45-46.

a Aen. VIII, 641 ; see pp. 45-46 above.

L. L. IX, 55; see p. 40 above. L. L. VI, 16.
1 Cf. Virg. Eel. II, 21 ; Stat. Theb. VII, 397; et al.

two more passages which illustrate Ovid's use of the epicene. In
the first of these, a true epicene, ovis, a common gender noun, bos,
and a first and second declension noun with masculine termina-
tion for male and feminine for female, caper and capella, are
employed as epicenes, for the poet is relating the origin of the
sacrifice of the several animal kinds, irrespective of sex (F. I,
357-384) :

" 'Rode, caper, vitem ; tamen hinc, cum stabis ad aram,

In tua quod spargi cornua possit, erit.'
Verba fides sequitur. Noxae tibi deditus hostis

Spargitur adfuso cornua, Bacche, mero.
Culpa sui nocuit, nocuit quoque culpa capellae:

Quid bos, quid placidac commeruistis ovesf
Quid tuti superest, animam cum ponit in aris

Lanigcrumqne pecus ruricolaeque boves?"
In these lines, although there is some thought of the masculine
in caper (1. 357), caper and capella (1. 361) are used interchange-
ably, and capella refers to the entire goat kind without sex dis-
tinction. This interchangeable use of caper and capella is also
found in Ovid's long, aetiological account of the Lupercalia (F,
II, 267-452), where capella in the earlier line (361: "Cornipedi
Fauno caesa de more capella") is used as an epicene, but line 441
of the later story,

" 'Italidas matres,' inquit, 'sacer hircus inito,' "
proves that Ovid knew the victim (caper,90 capella) to be a male.
The Lupercalia passages constitute a perfect parallel to those on
the sacra Iduli-a.91

Thus we have seen that Ovid's two statements regarding the
ovis Idulis are perfectly consistent, no matter whether he says
agna or semimas ovis. It was the male, not the perfect male, but
the vervex ; for, as has been shown,92 the Acta Fratrum Arvalium
prescribe the sacrifice of verveces to Jupiter, and Ateius Capito
in his first book on sacrificial law (quoted by Macrobius III, 10)
says : "Iovi tauro, verre, ariete immolari non licet." Moreover,
Ovid would hardly have made so specialized a statement as
semimaris, had he not read the word or its equivalent, vervex,
in his source.

90 "Ille caprum mactat".

81 Capella = caper: agna = semimas ovis.

82 See n. 13.

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Full text of "The Sacra Idulia in Ovid's Fasti : a study of Ovid's credibility in regard to the place and the victim of this sacrifice"

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