Part 10
Four is unusual; three is the common number in religious rites.
Footnote 275:
‘Conversus ad ortus Die quater, et vivo perlue rore manus.’ Ovid may perhaps be using _ros_ for fresh water of any kind; see H. Peter’s note (Pt. II, p. 70). But the virtues of dew are great at this time of year (e. g. May-day). See Brand, _Pop. Ant._ 218, and Mannhardt, _A. W. F._ 312. Pepys records that his wife went out to gather May-dew; _Diary_, May 10. 1669.
Footnote 276:
The word is _camella_ in Ovid, _Fasti_, 4. 779; cp. Petron. _Sat_, 135, and Gell. _N. A._ 16 7.
Footnote 277:
Or as Propertius has it (4. 4. 77):
‘Cumque super raros foeni flammantis acervos Traiicit immundos ebria turba pedes.’
Footnote 278:
Ovid, _Fasti_, 4. 801 foll.; Prop. 4. 4. 73; Varro, _R. R._ 2. 1. 9. Many other references are collected in Schwegler, _R. G._ i. 444, note 1. The tradition was certainly an ancient one, and the pastoral character of the rite is in keeping with that of the legend. It is to be noted that the sacrificing priest was originally the Rex Sacrorum (Dionys. 1. 88), a fact which may well carry us back to the earliest Roman age.
Footnote 279:
Ovid, _Fasti_, 4. 733 foll. ‘Sanguis equi suffimen erit vitulique favilla. Tertia res durae culmen inane fabae.’ Whether the bonfire was burnt on the Palatine itself does not seem certain, but it is a reasonable conjecture.
Footnote 280:
He points out (p. 316) that the throwing of bones or burnt pieces of an animal into the flames is common in northern Europe: hence bonfire = bonefire.
Footnote 281:
_A. W. F._ 316; Frazer, _G. B._ ii. 274 foll.
Footnote 282:
Preller-Jordan, i. 268. Soranus is thought to be connected etymologically with Sol. With this, however, Deecke disagrees (_Falisker_, 96).
Footnote 283:
So called by Virg. _Aen._ II. 785 and Serv. ad loc. Who the deity really was, we do not know. Apollo here had no doubt a Graeco-Etruscan origin. Deecke (_Falisker_, 93) thinks of Dis Pater or Vediovis; quoting Servius’ account and explanation of the cult. That the god was Sabine, not Etruscan, is shown by the word _hirpi_.
Footnote 284:
Or of Soracte, if Soranus = Soractnus (Deecke).
Footnote 285:
Serv. l. c. tells the aetiological legend. Cp. Plin. _N. H._ 7. 11. It has been dealt with fully by Mannhardt, _A. W. F._ 318 foll.
Footnote 286:
Plin. l. c.; Varro (ap. Serv. l. c.) asserted that they used a salve for their feet which protected them. The same thing is said, I believe, of the Harawara in India.
Footnote 287:
According to Strabo, p. 226, this fire-ceremony took place in the grove of Feronia, at the foot of the hill. Feronia may have been a corn- or harvest-deity, and of this Mannhardt makes all he can. We may at least guess that the rite took place at Midsummer.
Footnote 288:
Cp. the cult of Zeus Lykaios in Arcadia; Farnell, _Cults of the Greek States_, i. 41.
Footnote 289:
_Myth., Ritual, and Religion_, ii. 212.
Footnote 290:
This peculiar notation is common to this day and Aug. 19 (the Vinalia Rustica), and to the Feralia (Feb. 21). See Introduction, p. 10.
Footnote 291:
Ovid, _Fasti_, 4. 877, asks: ‘Cur igitur Veneris festum Vinalia dicant, Quaeritis?‘
Footnote 292:
Varro, _L. L._ 6. 16; Fest. 65 and 374. The latter gloss is: ‘Vinalia diem festum habebant, quo die vinum novum Iovi libabant.’ Ovid, _Fasti_, 4. 899, after telling the Mezentius story (alluded to in the note in Praen.), adds
Dicta dies hinc est Vinalia: Iuppiter illam Vindicat, et festis gaudet inesse suis.
Footnote 293:
Ovid, _Fasti_, 4. 871
Templa frequentari Collinae proxima portae Nunc decet; a Siculo nomina colle tenent.
He seems to have confused this temple with that on the Capitol (Aust, _de Aedibus_, 23).
Footnote 294:
Liv. 40. 34. 4.
Footnote 295:
Aust, ib. p. 24. Varro wrote a satire ‘Vinalia περὶ ἀφροδισίων.’ Plutarch (_Q. R._ 45) confuses Vinalia and Veneralia.
Footnote 296:
Festus, 264 and 265; in the Vallis Murcia (or Circus maximus), and the lucus Libitinae. (In 265, xiii Kal. Sept. should be xiv.) For the date of the former temple, 293 B.C., Liv. 10. 31. 9.
Footnote 297:
Varro, _R. R._ 1. 1; Fest. 265; Preller-Jordan, i. 441.
Footnote 298:
_C. I. L._ iv. 2776.
Footnote 299:
Varro, _L. L._ 6. 16. See _Myth. Lex._ s. v. Iuppiter, 704 foll.
Footnote 300:
Mommsen, _C. I. L._ 326. Vindemia is the _grape_-harvest. Hartmann, _Röm. Kal._ 138, differs from Mommsen on this point.
Footnote 301:
_Q. R._ 45.
Footnote 302:
Fest. 65.
Footnote 303:
_H. N._ 18. 287.
Footnote 304:
_L. L._ 6. 16. _Hortis_ is Mommsen’s very probable emendation for _sortis_ of the MSS. O. Müller has _sacris_, which is preferred by Jordan (Preller, i. 196).
Footnote 305:
264.
Footnote 306:
Mommsen (_C. I. L._ 326) thinks that there is no mistake in the gloss; but that the Vinalia Rustica represent a later and luxurious fashion of allowing a whole year to elapse before tasting the wine, instead of six months. From the vintage, however (end of September or beginning of October), to August 19 is not a whole year. See under August 19.
Footnote 307:
‘Tria namque tempora fructibus metuebant, propter quod instituerunt ferias diesque festos, Robigalia, Floralia, Vinalia.’ That the Vinalia here referred to is the August one is clear, not only from the order of the words, but from what follows, down to the end of sec. 289. Secs. 287 to end of 288 deal with the Vinalia priora _parenthetically_; in 289 Pliny returns to the Vinalia altera (or rustica), after thus clearing the ground by making it clear that the April Vinalia ‘nihil ad fructus attinent.’ He then quotes Varro to show that in August the object is to avert storms which might damage the vineyards. Mommsen, _C. I. L. 326_, seems to me to have misread this passage.
Footnote 308:
Ovid, _Fasti_, 877 foll.: the legend was an old one for it is quoted by Macrob. (_Sat._ 3. 5. 10) from Cato’s _Origines_. See also Hehn, _Kulturpflanzen_, 65 foll., who is, however, in error as to the identification of Jupiter (Liber) with Ζεὶς Ἐλευθέριος.
Footnote 309:
See Columella, 2. 12; Plin. _N. II._ 18. 91; and article, ‘Mildew,’ in _Encycl. Brit._ For the botanical character of this parasite see Worthington Smith’s _Diseases of Field and Garden Crops_, chs. 21 and 23; and Hugh Macmillan’s _Bible Teachings from Nature_, p. 120 foll.
Footnote 310:
_N. H._ 18. 273: cp. 154. Pliny thought it chiefly the result of _dew_ (cf. mil_dew_, German mehl_thau_), and was not wholly wrong.
Footnote 311:
The masc. is no doubt correct. Ovid, _Fasti_, 4. 907, uses the feminine Robigo, but is alone among the older writers in doing so: see Preller-Jordan, ii. 44, note 2.
Footnote 312:
Indigitation is the fixing of the _local action_ of a god to be invoked, by means of his name, if I understand rightly Reifferscheid’s view as given by R. Peter in _Myth. Lex._ s. v. Indigitamenta, p. 137. The priest of the Robigalia was the flamen Quirinalis: Quirinus is one form of Mars.
Footnote 313:
_de Spectaculis_, 5.
Footnote 314:
Cato, _R. R._ 141; Preller-Jordan, i. 340.
Footnote 315:
Strabo, 613: see Roscher, _Apollo and Mars_, p. 62. Ἐρυσίβη = mildew, of which ἐρυθίβη is the Rhodian form.
Footnote 316:
See Mommsen’s ingenious explanation in _C. I. L._ 316.
Footnote 317:
_Fasti_, 4. 901 foll. The victims had been slain at Rome and in the morning; and were offered at the grove later in the day (see Marq. 184).
Footnote 318:
Villis mantele solutis (cp. Serv. _Aen._ 12. 169).
Footnote 319:
_R. R._ 141.
Footnote 320:
So we may perhaps translate _quo sidere moto_: but Ovid certainly thought the star rose (cf. 904). Hartmann explains Ovid’s blunder by reference to Serv. _Georg._ 1. 218 (_Röm. Kal._ 193). See also H. Peter, ad loc.
Footnote 321:
Mannhardt, _Myth. Forsch._ 107 foll.
Footnote 322:
Festus, 285; Paul, 45. It was outside the Porta Catularia, of which, unluckily, nothing is known.
Footnote 323:
_N. H._ 18. 14 ‘Ita est in commentariis pontificum: Augurio canario agendo dies constituantur priusquam frumenta vaginis exeant et antequam in vaginas perveniant.’ For ‘_et_ antequam’ we should perhaps read ‘_nec_ antequam.’ The _vagina_ is the sheath which protects the ear and from which it eventually protrudes; and it seems that in this stage, which in Italy would occur at the end of April or beginning of May, the corn is peculiarly liable to ‘rust.’ (So Virg. _Georg._ 1. 151 ‘Ut mala _culmos_ Esset robigo’: i. e. the stalks including the _vagina_.) See Hugh Macmillan, op. cit. p. 121.
Footnote 324:
_Myth. Forsch._ 106. Mr. Frazer (_G. B._ ii. 59: cp. i. 306) takes the other view of this and similar sacrifices, but with some hesitation.
Footnote 325:
It must be confessed that the occurrence of red colour in victims cannot well be always explained in this way; e. g. the red heifer of the Israelites (Numbers xix), and the red oxen of the Egyptians (Plut. _Isis and Osiris_, 31). But in this rite, occurring so close to the Cerialia, where, as we have seen, _foxes_ were turned out in the _circus maximus_, the colour of the puppies must have had some meaning in relation to the growing crops.
Footnote 326:
‘Ludi cursoribus maioribus minoribusque.’ What these were is not known: Mommsen, _C. I. L._ 317.
Footnote 327:
Usener, _Religionsgeschichte_, i. 298 foll.
Footnote 328:
See Introduction, p. 15.
Footnote 329:
Plin. _N. H._ 18. 286; two years earlier, according to Velleius, 1. 14. This is, I think, the only case in which a deity taken in hand by the _decemviri sacris faciundis_ cannot be traced to a Greek origin; but the characteristics of Flora are so like those of Venus that in the former, as in the latter, Aphrodite may be concealed. The games as eventually organized had points in common with the cult of Aphrodite at Hierapolis (Lucian, _Dea Syr._ 49; Farnell, _Cults_, ii. 643); and it is worth noting that their date (173 B.C.) is subsequent to the Syrian war. Up to that time the games were not regular or annual (Ovid, _Fasti_, 5. 295).
Footnote 330:
Tac. _Ann._ 2. 49; Aust, p. 17.
Footnote 331:
Plebis ad aediles: Ovid, ib. v. 287; Festus, 238, probably in error, calls the Publicii _curule_ aediles.
Footnote 332:
Ovid, ib. 5.277 foll., in which he draws a picture of the misdoings of the landholders. Cp. Liv. 33. 42, for the temple of Faunus _in insula_, founded by the same means.
Footnote 333:
Ovid, ib. 5. 352.
Footnote 334:
Steuding in _Myth. Lex._ s. v. Flora. There was a Sabine month Flusalis (Momms. _Chron._ 219) = Floralis, and answering to July. Varro considered Flora a Sabine deity (_L. L._ 5. 74).
Footnote 335:
Varro, _L. L._ 7. 45. Flora had an ancient temple _in colle_, near the so-called Capitolium vetus (Steuding, l. c.), i. e. in the ‘Sabine quarter.’
Footnote 336:
Henzen, _Acta Fratr. Arv._ 146.
Footnote 337:
Ov. 5. 331 foll ‘Volt sua plebeio sacra patere choro.’
Footnote 338:
Val. Max. 2. 10. 8. Steuding in _Myth. Lex._ has oddly misunderstood this passage, making Val. Max. write of this custom as an ancient one, whereas he clearly implies the opposite. It was no doubt the relic of some rude country practice, degenerated under the influence of city life.
Footnote 339:
Lactantius, _De falsa religione_, i. 20.
Footnote 340:
Aug. _Civ. Dei_, ii. 27.
Footnote 341:
Friedländer on Martial, 8. 67. 4.
Footnote 342:
H. Peter takes this to mean that they were let loose from a net and hunted into it again. See note ad loc. 5. 371.
Footnote 343:
See above, p. 77.
Footnote 344:
_Sat_. 5. 177:
Vigila et cicer ingere large Rixanti populo, nostra ut Floralia possint Aprici meminisse senes.—Cp. Hor. _Sat._ 2. 3. 182.
Footnote 345:
Friedländer, _Sittengeschichte_, ii. 286; and his note on Martial, 8. 78.
Footnote 346:
_Kind. u. Korn._ 351 foll.
Footnote 347:
Another point that may strike the reader of Ovid is the wearing of
## parti-coloured dress on these days (5. 355: cp. Martial, 5. 23)—
Cur tamen ut dantur vestes Cerialibus albae, Sic haec est cultu versicolore decens?
Flora answers him doubtfully. Was this a practice of comparatively late date? See Friedländer, _Sittengeschichte_ ii. 275.
Footnote 348:
Mommsen in _C. I. L._ vi. p. 455 (Tabula fer. Lat.). The day was March 15 from B.C. 222 to 153; in earlier times it had been frequently changed. See Mommsen. _Chron._ p. 80 foll.
Footnote 349:
On this office and its connexion with the _feriae_ see Vigneaux, _Essai sur l’histoire de la praefectura urbis_, p. 37 foll.
Footnote 350:
Plin. _H. N._ 3. 69; Dionys. 4. 49. The difficult questions arising out of the numbers given by these authorities are discussed by Beloch, _Italischer Bund_, 178 foll., and Mommsen in _Hermes_, vol. xvii. 42 foll.
Footnote 351:
Aust, in _Myth. Lex._ s. v. Iuppiter, p. 689.
Footnote 352:
_C. I. L._ vi. 2021.
Footnote 353:
Condensed from the account given by Aust, l. c. See also Preller-Jordan, i. 210 foll. The chief authority is Dionys. 4. 49.
Footnote 354:
e. g. Liv. 32. 1, 37. 3, in which cases some one city had not received its portion. The result was an _instauratio feriarum_.
Footnote 355:
See below, p. 294 (Feriae Sementivae). The meaning of the _oscilla_ was not really known to the later Romans, who freely indulged in conjectures about them. Macrob. 1. 7. 34; Serv. _Georg._ 2. 389; Paul. 121. My own belief is that, like the _bullae_ of children, they were only one of the many means of averting evil influences.
Footnote 356:
See the passages of Livy quoted above, and add 40. 45 (on account of a storm); 41. 16 (a failure on the part of Lanuvium).
Footnote 357:
Macrob. 1. 16. 16 ‘Cum Latiar, hoc est Latinarum solemne concipitur, nefas est proelium sumere: quia nec Latinarum tempore, quo publice quondam indutiae inter populum Romanum Latinosque firmatae sunt, inchoari bellum decebat.’
Footnote 358:
See under Sept. 13.
Footnote 359:
For the characteristics and meaning of the common sacrificial meal see especially Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, Lect. viii.
Footnote 360:
Helbig, _Die Italiker in der Poebene_, 71.
Footnote 361:
Robertson Smith, op. cit., 278 foll.
Footnote 362:
Cic. _pro Plancio_, 9. 23.
MENSIS MAIUS.
Was the name of this month taken from a deity Maia, or had it originally only a signification of _growing_ or _increasing_, such as we might expect in a word derived from the same root as _maior_, _maiestas_, &c.? The following passage of Macrobius will show how entirely the Roman scholars were at sea in their answer to this question[363]:
‘Maium Romulus tertium posuit. De cuius nomine inter auctores lata dissensio est. Nam Fulvius Nobilior in Fastis quos in aede Herculis Musarum posuit[364] Romulum dicit postquam populum in maiores iunioresque diuisit, ut altera pars consilio altera armis rem publicam tueretur, in honorem utriusque partis hunc Maium, sequentem Iunium mensem uocasse[365]. Sunt qui hunc mensem ad nostros fastos a Tusculanis transisse commemorent, apud quos nunc quoque uocatur deus Maius, qui est Iuppiter, a magnitudine scilicet ac maiestate dictus[366]. Cingius[367] mensem nominatum putat a Maia quam Vulcani dicit uxorem, argumentoque utitur quod flamen Vulcanalis Kalendis Maiis huic deae rem diuinam facit. Sed Piso uxorem Vulcani Maiestam non Maiam dicit uocari. Contendunt alii Maiam Mercurii matrem mensi nomen dedisse, hinc maxime probantes quod hoc mense mercatores omnes Maiae pariter Mercurioque sacrificant[368]. Adfirmant quidam, quibus Cornelius Labeo consentit, hanc Maiam cui mense Maio res diuina celebratur terram esse hoc adeptam nomen a magnitudine, sicut et Mater Magna in sacris uocatur adsertionemque aestimationis suae etiam hinc colligunt quod sus praegnans ei mactatur, quae hostia propria est terrae. Et Mercurium ideo illi in sacris adiungi dicunt quia uox nascenti homini terrae contactu datur, scimus autem Mercurium uocis et sermonis potentem. Auctor est Cornelius Labeo huic Maiae id est terrae aedem Kalendis Maiis dedicatam sub nomine Bonae Deae et eandem esse Bonam Deam et terram ex ipso ritu occultiore sacrorum doceri posse confirmat. Hanc eandem Bonam deam Faunamque et Opem et Fatuam pontificum libris indigitari, &c.’
It is clear from this passage that the Romans themselves were not agreed, either in the case of May or June, that the name of the month was derived from a deity. No Roman scholar doubted that Martius was derived from Mars, the characteristic god of the Roman race; but Maia was a deity known apparently only to the priests and the learned. Had she been a popular one, what need could there have been to question so obvious an etymology? And if she were an obscure one, how could she have given her name to a month? As a matter of fact March is the only month of which we can be sure that it was named after a god. Even January is doubtful, June still more so. The natural assumption about this latter word would be that it comes from Juno, more especially as we find in Latium the words Junonius and Junonalis as names of months[369]. But if Junius came from Juno, it must have come by the dropping out of a syllable; and this, in the case of a long and accented _o_, would be at least unlikely to happen[370]. Nor can we discover any sufficient reason why the month of June should be called after Juno; none at any rate such as accounts for the connexion of Mars with the initial month of the year. This is enough to show that the derivation of June from Juno must be left doubtful; and if so, certainly that of May from Maia. In the case of this month, not only does the natural meaning of mensis Maius suit well as following the mensis Aprilis, but there is no cult of a deity Maia which is found throughout the month.
Any one who reads the passage of Macrobius with some knowledge of the Roman theological system will hardly fail to conclude that Maia is only a priestly _indigitation_ of another deity, and that the name thus invented was simply taken from the name of the month as explained above. This deity was more generally known, as Macrobius implies, by the name Bona Dea, and her temple was dedicated on the Kalends of May.
It is difficult to characterize the position of the month of May in the religious calendar. It was to some extent no doubt a month of purification. At the _Lemuria_ the house was purified of hostile ghosts; the curious ceremony of the Argei on the Ides is called by Plutarch the greatest of the purifications; and at the end of the month took place the _lustratio_ of the growing crops. We note too that it was considered ill-omened to marry in May, as it still is in many parts of Europe. The agricultural operations of the month were not of a marked character. Much work had indeed to be done in oliveyards and vineyards; some crops had to be hoed and cleaned, and the hay-harvest probably began in the latter part of the month. In the main it was a time of somewhat anxious expectation and preparation for the harvest to follow; and this falls in fairly well with the general character of its religious rites.
KAL. MAI. (MAY 1.) F.
LAR[IBUS]. (VEN.) L——. (ESQ.)
This was the day on which, according to Ovid[371], an altar and ‘parva signa’ had been erected to the Lares praestites. They were originally of great antiquity, but had fallen into decay in Ovid’s time:
Bina gemellorum _quaerebam_ signa deorum, Viribus annosae facta caduca morae[372].
Ovid himself had apparently not seen the _signa_, though he looked for them; and no doubt he took from Varro the description he gives. They had the figure of a dog at their feet[373], and, according to Plutarch, were clothed in dogs’ skins. Both Ovid and Plutarch explained the dog as symbolizing their watch over the city; though Plutarch, following, as he says, certain Romans, preferred to think of them rather as evil demons searching out and punishing guilt like dogs. The mention of the skins is very curious, and we can hardly separate it from the numerous other instances in which the images of deities are known to have been clothed in the skins of victims sacrificed to them[374]. We may indeed fairly conclude that the Lares were chthonic deities, and as such were originally appeased, like Hekate in Greece[375], by the sacrifice of dogs. We have already had one example of the dog used as a victim[376]. Two others are mentioned by Plutarch[377]; in one case the deity was the obscure Genita Mana, and in the other the unknown god of the Lupercalia, both of which belong in all probability to the same stratum of Italian religious antiquity as the Lares. Whether we should go further, and infer from the use of the skins that the Lares were originally worshipped in the form of dogs[378], is a question I must leave undecided; the evidence is very scanty. There is no trace of any connexion with the dog in the cult of the Lares domestici[379], or Compitales.
This is also the traditional day of the dedication of a temple to the Bona Dea, on the slopes of the Aventine, under a big sacred rock. It is thus described by Ovid[380]:
Est moles nativa loco. Res nomina fecit: Appellant Saxum. Pars bona montis ea est. Huic Remus institerat frustra, quo tempore fratri Prima Palatinae signa dedistis aves.
Templa Patres illic oculos exosa viriles Leniter acclivi constituere iugo. Dedicat haec veteris Clausorum nominis heres, Virgineo nullum corpore passa virum. Livia restituit, ne non imitata maritum Esset et ex omni parte secuta virum.
The allusion to Remus fixes the site on the Aventine. The date is uncertain[381]; so too the alleged foundation by Claudia, which may be only a reflection from the story of the part played by a Claudia in the introduction of the _Magna Mater Idaea_ to Rome[382]. The temple, as Ovid says, was restored by Livia, in accordance with the policy of her husband, also at an unknown date.
Of the cult belonging to this temple we have certain traces, which also help us to some vague conception of the nature of the deity. It should be observed that though in one essential particular, viz. the exclusion of men, this cult was similar to that of December, it must have been quite distinct from it, as the latter took place, not in a temple, but in the house of a magistrate _cum imperio_[383].
1. The temple was cared for, and the cult celebrated, by women only[384]. There was an old story that Hercules, when driving the cattle of Geryon, asked for water by the cave of Cacus of the women celebrating the festival of the goddess, and was refused, because the women’s festival was going on, and men were not allowed to use their drinking-vessels; and that this led to the corresponding exclusion of women from the worship of Hercules[385]. The myth obviously arose out of the practice. The exclusion of men points to the earth-nature of the Bona Dea; the same was the case in the worship of the Athenian Demeter Thesmophoros. The earth seems always to be spiritualized as feminine even among savage peoples[386], and the reason of the exclusion of men is not difficult to conjecture, just as the exclusion of women from the worship of Hercules is explained by the fact that Hercules represents the male principle in the ancient Roman religion[387].