Part 17
It is rather to the ideas of peoples like the early Teutons and Celts that we must look for mental conditions resembling those of the early Italians, than to the highly developed poetical mythology of the Vedas; and it is in the direction which Mr. Vigfusson pointed out that I think we should search for the oldest Italian ideas of Fortuna and for the causes which led to her popularity and development. In a valuable paper, to which I shall have occasion to refer again, Prof. Nettleship[687] suggested that Carmenta (or Carmentes) may be explained with S. Augustine[688] as the goddess or prophetess who tells the fortunes of the children, and that this was the reason why she was especially worshipped by matrons, like Mater Matuta, Fortuna and others. The Carmentes were in fact the Norns of Italy. Such a practical need as the desire to know your child’s fortunes would be quite in harmony with what we know of the old Italian character; and I think it far from impossible that Fortuna, as an oracular deity in Italy, may have been originally a conception of the same kind, perhaps not only a prophetess as regards the children, but also of the good luck of the mother in childbirth. Perhaps the most striking fact in her multifarious cults is the predominance in them of women as worshippers. Of the very Fortuna Primogenia of whom we have been speaking Cicero tells us that her ancient home at Praeneste was the object of the special devotion of mothers[689]. The same was the case with Fortuna Virilis, Muliebris, Mammosa, and others.
If we look at her in this light, there is really no difficulty in understanding why what seems to us at first sight a very vague conception, ‘the goddess who brings,’ should not have meant something very real and concrete to the early Italian mind. And again, if that be so, if Fortuna be once recognized as a great power in ways which touched these essential and practical needs of human nature, we may feel less astonishment at finding her represented either as the daughter or the mother of Jupiter. Such representation could indeed hardly have been the work of really primitive Italians; it arose, one may conjecture, if not from some confusion which we cannot now unravel, from the fame of the oracle—one of the very few in Italy—and the consequent fame of the goddess whose name came to be attached to that oracle. Or, as Jordan seems to think, it may have been the vicinity of the rock-oracle to the temple of Jupiter which gave rise to the connexion between the two in popular belief; a belief which was expressed in terms of relationship, perhaps under Greek influence, but certainly in a manner for the most part absent from the unmythological Italian religion. Why indeed in the same place she should be mother as well as daughter of Jupiter (if Cicero be accurate in his account, which is perhaps not quite certain) may well puzzle us all. Those who cannot do without an explanation may accept that of Prof. Max Müller, if they can also accept his etymology. Those who have acquired what Mommsen has called the ‘difficillima ars nesciendi,’ will be content with Jordan’s cautious remark, ‘Non desunt vestigia divinum numen Italis notum fuisse deis deabusve omnibus et hoc ipso in quo vivimus mundo antiquius[690].’
But Fortuna has not only been conjectured to be a deity of the dawn; she has been made out to be both a moon-goddess and a sun-goddess. For her origin in the moon there is really nothing of any weight to be urged; the advocate of this view is one of the least judicious of German specialists, and his arguments need not detain us[691]. But for her connexion with the sun there is something more to be said.
The dedication day of the temple of Fors Fortuna was exactly at the summer solstice. It is now St. John the Baptist’s day, and one on which a great variety of curious local customs, some of which still survive, regularly occur; and especially the midsummer fires which were until recently so common in our own islands. Attention has often been drawn to the fondness for parallelism which prompted the early Christians to place the birth of Christ at the winter solstice, when the days begin to grow longer, and that of the Baptist—for June 24 is his reputed birthday as well as festival—at the summer solstice when they begin to shorten; following the text, ‘He must increase and I must decrease[692].’ Certainly the sun is an object of special regard at all midsummer festivals, and is supposed to be often symbolized in them by a wheel, which is set on fire and in many cases rolled down a hill[693]. Now the wheel is of course a symbol in the cult of Fortuna, and is sometimes found in Italian representations of her, though not so regularly as the cornucopia and the ship’s rudder which almost invariably accompany her[694]. Putting this in conjunction with the date of the festival of Fors Fortuna, the Celtic scholar Gaidoz has concluded that Fortuna was ultimately a solar deity[695]. The solar origin of the symbol was, he thinks, quite forgotten; but the wheel, or the globe which sometimes replaces it, was certainly at one time solar, and perhaps came from Assyria. If so (he concludes), the earliest form of Fortuna must have been a female double of the sun.
All hints are useful in Roman antiquities, and something may yet be made of this. But it cannot be accepted until we are sure of the history and descent of this symbol in the representations of Fortuna; it is far from impossible that the wheel or globe may in this case have nothing more to do with the sun than the rudder which always accompanies it. In any case it can hardly be doubted that it is not of Italian origin; it is found, e. g. also in the cult of Nemesis, who, like Tyche, Eilithyia, and Leucothea, is probably responsible for much variation and confusion in the worship of Italian female deities[696]. As to the other fact adduced by Gaidoz, viz. the date of the festival, it is certainly striking, and must be given its full weight. It is surprising that Prof. Max Müller has made no use of it. But we must be on our guard. It is remarkable that we find in the Roman calendars no other evidence that the Romans attached the same importance to the summer solstice as some other peoples; the Roman summer festivals are concerned, in accordance with the true Italian spirit, much more with the operations of man in dealing with nature than with the phenomena of nature taken by themselves. It is perhaps better to avoid a hasty conclusion that this festival of Fors Fortuna was on the 24th because the 24th was the end of the solstice, and rather to allow the equal probability that it was fixed then because harvest was going on. Columella seems to be alluding to it in the following lines[697]:
Sed cum maturis flavebit messis aristis Allia cum cepis, cereale papaver anetho Iungite, dumque virent, nexos deferte maniplos, Et celebres Fortis Fortunae dicite laudes Mercibus exactis, hilaresque recurrite in hortos.
The power of Fortuna as a deity of chance would be as important for the perils of harvest as for those of childbirth; and it is in this connexion that the Italians understood the meaning of that cornucopia which is perhaps her most constant symbol in art[698].
Lastly, there is a formidable question, which may easily lead the unwary into endless complications, and on which I shall only touch very briefly. How are we to explain the legendary connexion between the cult of Fortuna and Servius Tullius? That king, the so-called second founder of Rome, was said, as we have seen, to have erected more than one sanctuary to Fortuna, and was even believed to have had illicit dealings with the goddess herself[699]. The dedication-day of Fors Fortuna was said to have been selected by him, and, as Ovid describes it, was a festival of the poorer kind of people, who thus kept up the custom initiated by the popular friend of the plebs.
Since the Etruscan origin of Servius Tullius has been placed beyond a doubt by the discovery of the famous tomb at Vulci, with the paintings of Cales Vibenna released from his bonds by Mastarna[700], which has thus confirmed the Etruscan tradition of the identity of Mastarna and Servius preserved by the emperor Claudius in his famous speech[701], it would seem that we may consider it as highly probable that if Servius did really institute the cult of Fortuna at Rome, that cult came with him from Etruria. This by no means compels us to look on Fortuna as an Etruscan deity only; but it seems to be a fact that there was an Etruscan goddess who was recognized by the Romans as the equivalent of their Fortuna[702]. This was Nortia, a great deity at Volsinii, as is fully proved by the remains found there[703]; and we may note that the city was near to and in close alliance with Vulci, where the tomb was found containing the paintings just alluded to. Seianus, a native of Volsinii[704], was supposed to be under the protection of this deity, and, as we have already seen, to possess an ancient statue of her.
In her temple a nail was driven every year as in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus[705], and hence some have concluded that she was a goddess of time. It cannot, however, be regarded as certain whether this nail-driving was originally symbolical only, or at all, of time; it may quite as well remind us of the famous Fortuna of Antium and the ‘clavos trabales’ of Horace’s Ode[706]. However this may be, it is a fair guess, though it must be made with hesitation, that the Fortuna of Servius was the equivalent of this Nortia, to whom the Roman plebs gave a name with which they were in some way already familiar. Mastarna continued to worship his native deity after he was settled in Rome; and the plebs continued to revere her, not because of his luck, which was indeed imperfect, but simply because she was his protectress[707]. If we try to get beyond this we lose our footing; and even this is only conjecture, though based upon evidence which is not entirely without weight.
Footnote 505:
What can be said for this view may be read in Roscher’s article in _Lex._ s. v. Iuno, p. 575, note.
Footnote 506:
Roscher’s treatment of Juno Moneta (_Lex._ s. v. Iuno, 593) seems to me pure fancy; this writer is apt to twist his facts and his inferences to suit a prepossession—in this case the notion of a ἱερὸς γάμος of Jupiter and Juno.
Footnote 507:
Liv. 7. 28; Ovid, _Fasti_, 6. 183; Macrob. 1. 12. 30.
Footnote 508:
On this point see Lewis, _Credibility of Early Roman Hist._ vol. ii. 345.
Footnote 509:
Dionys., 13. 7, says, Χῆνες ἱεροὶ περὶ τὸν νεὼν τῆς Ἥρας; but this is no evidence for an early _temple_ of Juno Moneta.
Footnote 510:
Apparently she was fond of such birds: crows also were ‘in tutela Iunonis’ at a certain spot north of the Tiber (Paul. 64), and at Lanuvium (Preller, i. 283).
Footnote 511:
Liv. 6. 20.
Footnote 512:
I have assumed that _Moneta_ is connected with _moneo_; but there are other views (Roscher, _Lex._ 593). Livius Andronicus (ap. Priscian, p. 679) helps us to the meaning by translating Μνημοσύνη (of the _Odyssey_) by _Moneta_.
Footnote 513:
Macrob. _Sat._ 1. 12. 22 and 31. There was no temple of Carna there but Tertullianus (_ad Nat._ 2. 9) mentions a _fanum_.
Footnote 514:
Cp. also the explanation from _iuniores_ (e. g. in Ovid, _Fasti_, 6. 83 foll.).
Footnote 515:
Macrob. 1. 12. 33 ‘Cui pulte fabacia et larido sacrificatur.’
Footnote 516:
Even in the fourth century A.D. this was so: see the calendar of Philocalus.
Footnote 517:
Colum. II. 2. 20; Pallad. 7. 3; Hartmann, _Das Röm. Kal._ 135.
Footnote 518:
_H. N._ 18. 117.
Footnote 519:
See above on Lemuria, p. 110.
Footnote 520:
_de Feriis_, xiii.
Footnote 521:
_C. I. L._ iii. 3893.
Footnote 522:
There is really nothing in common between the two: see Wissowa in _Lex._ s. v. Carna, following Merkel, clxv. What the real etymology of Carna may be is undecided; Curtius and others have connected it with _cor_, and on this O. Gilbert has built much foolish conjecture (ii. 19 foll.). I would rather compare it with the words Garanus or Recaranus of the Hercules legend (Bréal, _Herc. et Cacus_, pp. 59, 60), and perhaps with Gradivus, Grabovius. The name of the ‘nymph’ Cranae in Ovid’s account is in some MSS. Grane or Crane. H. Peter (_Fasti_, pt. ii. p. 89) adopts the connexion with _caro_: she is ‘die das Fleisch kräftigende Göttin’ (cp. Ossipago).
Footnote 523:
_Fasti_, 6. 169-182. Lines 101-130 are concerned with Cardea; 130 to 168, or the middle section of the comment, seem, as Marquardt suggested (p. 13, note), to be referable to Carna (as the averter of _striges_), though the charms fixed on the _postes_ show that Ovid is still confounding her with Cardea.
Footnote 524:
The word _strix_ is Greek, or at least identical with the Greek word. But the belief in vampires is so widely spread (cf. Tylor, _Prim. Cult._ ii. 175 foll.) that we must not conclude hastily that it came to Italy with the Greeks: it is met with as early as Plautus (_Pseud._ 3. 2. 20). Cf. Pliny, _H. N._ 11. 232.
Footnote 525:
_Fasti_, 6. 155 foll.
Footnote 526:
The _arbutus_ does not seem to be mentioned in connexion with charms except in this passage; we might have expected the laurel. Bötticher, _Baumkultus_, 324.
Footnote 527:
The sucking-pig is sacrificed, as we gather from _prosecta_ below; i. e. to Carna: cp. the cakes of _lard_ eaten this day (169 foll.).
Footnote 528:
Cp. in the process of ghost-laying (above, p. 109) the prohibition to look at the beans scattered.
Footnote 529:
For the blackthorn (Germ. _Weissdorn_) see Bötticher, _Baumkultus_, 361. Varro, ap. Charisium, p. 117 ‘fax ex spinu alba praefertur, quod purgationis causa adhibetur.’
Footnote 530:
This is the passage that must have inspired O. Crusius in his paper on beans in _Rhein. Mus._ xxxix. 164 foll. ‘Beans,’ he says, ‘were the oldest Italian food, and like stone knives, &c., survived in ritual.’ We want, indeed, some more definite proof that they were really the oldest food; and anyhow their use had not died out like that of stone implements. They were a common article of food at Athens: Aristoph. _Knights_, 41; _Lysist._ 537 and 691. But it is not unlikely that their use in the cult of the dead may be a survival, upon which odd superstitions grafted themselves. For a parallel argument see Roscher, _Nektar und Ambrosia_, 36; Rhys, _Celtic Mythology_, 356.
Footnote 531:
_Sat._ 1. 12. 32.
Footnote 532:
No safe conclusion can be drawn from Tertullian’s inclusion (_ad Nat._ 2. 9) of the _fanum_ of Carna on the Caelian among those of _di adventicii_. O. Gilbert has lately tried to make much of this (ii. 42 foll.), and to find an Etruscan origin for Carna: but see Aust on the position of temples outside the _pomoerium_ (_de Aedibus sacris_, 47).
Footnote 533:
Liv. 7. 23; Dionys. 6. 13.
Footnote 534:
See on March 1, above, p. 37.
Footnote 535:
Aust, _de Aedibus sacris_, p. 8. The _Fasti Venusini_ are ‘omnium accuratissimi’; ib. p. 43. Aust goes so far as to doubt the true Roman character of this Mars, and believes him to be the Greek god Ares. See his note in _Lex._ 2391. The date of foundation is not certain, but was probably not earlier than the Gallic war, 388 B.C., if it is this to which Livy alludes in 6. 5. 8.
Footnote 536:
Liv. 10. 19. There was a tradition that Ap. Claudius, _Cos._ 495 B.C., had dedicated statues of his ancestors in a temple of Bellona (Pliny, _N. H._ 35. 12).
Footnote 537:
Serv. _Aen._ ix. 53.
Footnote 538:
Liv. 1. 32. 12; Marq. 422.
Footnote 539:
Ovid, _Fasti_, 6. 205 foll.; Paulus, 33.
Footnote 540:
Willems, _Le Sénat de la République_, ii. 161.
Footnote 541:
This was originally suggested by Gellius (13. 23), ‘perhaps not without some reason,’ says Marquardt (75). This suggestion has grown almost into a certainty for the writer in the _Lexicon_, in a manner very characteristic of the present age of research. There would be some reason to think that Bellona (or Duellona) was an ancient goddess of central Italy, if we could be sure that the inscription on an ancient cup, in the museum at Florence, which may be read ‘Belolae poculum’ (_C. I. L._ i. 44), refers to this deity. See _Lex._ s. v. Belola.
Footnote 542:
Ovid, _Fasti_, 6. 209. See _Commentarii in honorem Th. Mommseni_, 262 foll. (Klügmann), and R. Peter in _Lex._ s. v. Herc. p. 2979.
Footnote 543:
Preller-Jordan, ii. 296.
Footnote 544:
See below, p. 146.
Footnote 545:
9. 60, where Ζεὺς Πίστιος = Dius Fidius.
Footnote 546:
4. 58: cp. Liv. 8. 20; Aust, _de Aedibus sacris_, p. 51. Of the porta Sanqualis I shall have a word to say presently.
Footnote 547:
Mr. Lang (_Myth, Ritual_, &c., ii. 191) has some excellent remarks on this subject.
Footnote 548:
_Fasti_, 6. 213.
Footnote 549:
See Wordsworth’s _Fragments and Specimens of Early Latin_, p. 157 ‘Semunes alternos advocapit cunctos.’ I follow Jordan’s explanation of ‘Semunes,’ in _Krit. Beiträge_, 204 foll.
Footnote 550:
Aelius Dium Fidium dicebat Diovis filium, ut Graeci Διόσκορον Castorem, et putabat hunc esse Sancum ab Sabina lingua et Herculem a Graeca’ (Varro, _L. L._ 5. 66).
Footnote 551:
Festus, 241. This is probably the _sacellum_ of Livy, 8. 22.
Footnote 552:
_C. I. L._ vi. 568: again (ib. 567), ‘Semoni Sanco deo fidio.’ Sancus is, of course, a name, not an adjective: we find Sangus in some MSS. of Livy, 32. 1. For the well-known curious confusion with Simon Magus, Euseb. _H. E._ 2. 13.
Footnote 553:
Bréal, _Tables Eugubines_, 71; Bücheler, _Umbrica_, 65 foll. As Preller remarks, Fisus stands to Fidius as Clausus to Claudius (ii. 271). At Iguvium there was a hill, important in the rites, which bore this name—_ocris fisius_.
Footnote 554:
Aelius Stilo ap. Varro, l. c.; Ovid, l. c.; Propert. 4. 9. 74; Lactantius, 1. 15. 8; Schwegler, _R. G._ i. 364; Preller, ii. 272; O. Gilbert, i. 275, note; Ambrosch, _Studien_, 170. Jordan, however, in a note on Preller (273) emphatically says that the Sabine origin of the god is a fable; and for the illusory distinction between Latins and Sabines in Rome see Mommsen, _R. H._ i. 67, note, and Bréal, _Hercule et Cacus_, p. 56. Sancus was no doubt a Sabine deity and reputed ancestor of the race (Cato ap. Dionys. 2. 49: cp. 4. 58); but it does not follow that he came to Rome as a Sabine importation.
Footnote 555:
Varro, _L. L._ 5. 66; Festus, 229 (Propter viam); and Paulus, 147 (medius fidius).
Footnote 556:
Cp. Plutarch, _Quaest. Rom._ 28 (‘Why are boys made to go out of the house when they wish to swear by Hercules?‘) with Varro, ap. Nonium, s. v. _rituis_, and _L. L._ 5. 66.
Footnote 557:
See below on Sept. 13, p. 231. The silex was taken out of the temple of Jupiter Feretrius (Paulus, 92).
Footnote 558:
Eustath. ad _Od._ 22. 335; Hermann, _Gr. Ant._ ii. 74. Cp. A. Lang, _Myth_, &c. ii. 54: ‘the sky hears us,’ said the Indian when taking an oath.
Footnote 559:
Dionys. 1. 40.
Footnote 560:
See the opinions of Hartung, Schwegler, and Preller, summed up by Bréal, _Hercule et Cacus_, 51 foll.; and R. Peter in _Lex._ s. v. Hercules, 2255 foll.
Footnote 561:
Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, p. 233.
Footnote 562:
Bücheler, _Umbrica_, 7; Bréal, _Tables Eugubines_, 270.
Footnote 563:
Preller, ii. 273, and Jordan’s note. In M. Gaidoz’s _Études de Mythologie Gauloise_, i. 64, will be found figures of a hand holding a wheel, from Bar-le-Duc (the wrist thrust through one of the holes), which may possibly explain the _urfita_, and which he connects with the Celtic sun-god. In this connexion we may notice the large series of Umbrian and Etruscan coins with the six-rayed wheel-symbol (Mommsen, _Münzwesen_, 222 foll.), which, as Professor Gardner tells me, is more probably a sun-symbol than merely the chariot-wheel convenient for unskilful coiners.
Footnote 564:
8. 20.
Footnote 565:
For the bird, Plin. _N. H._ 10. 20; Festus, 197 s. v. _oscines_, and 317 (_sanqualis avis_). Bouché-Leclercq, _Hist. de la Divination_, iv. 200. For the gate cp. Paulus, 345, with Liv. 8. 20; Jordan, _Topogr._ ii. 264.
Footnote 566:
Liv. 41. 13, with Weissenborn’s note. The stone was perhaps the same as one which had shortly before fallen into the grove of Mars at Crustumerium (41. 9).
Footnote 567:
_C. I. L._ vi. 567. 568; and _Bull. dell’Inst._, 1881, p. 38 foll. (This last with a statue, which, however, may not belong to it: Jordan’s note on Preller, ii. 273.) Wilmanns, _Exempla Inscr. Lat._ 1300.
Footnote 568:
Marq. 263; B.-Leclercq, iv. 51 foll. The Scholiast on Persius, 2. 27, is explicit on the point. But Deecke, in a note to Müller’s _Etrusker_ (ii. 275) doubts the connexion of the _decuria_ with _bidental = puteal_.
Footnote 569:
Festus, s. v. Scribonianum (p. 333: the restoration can hardly be wrong) ‘[quia ne]fas est integi, semper ibi forami[ne aper]to caelum patet.’
Footnote 570:
_L. L._ 5. 66 ‘ut ea videatur divum, id est caelum.’ He connects the word _divum_ with _Dius_ Fidius. See Jordan in the collection of essays ‘in honorem Th. Mommseni,’ p. 369.
Footnote 571:
Martianus Capella, 1. 45 (p. 47 in Eyssenhardt’s edition). See Nissen’s explanation in _Das Templum_, p. 184, and plate iv. In this account Jupiter occupies the chief place: Sancus is there, alone in the 12th _regio_. But doubt has been cast on Nissen’s view by the discovery of an actual representation of the _caeli templum_ (see Aust, in _Lex._ s. v. Iupiter, 668).
Footnote 572:
Dionys. 4. 58. In 9. 60 he says that this temple was only vowed by Tarquinius, and not dedicated till 466 B.C. (Aust, _de Aedibus sacris_, p. 6); but there must have been a still earlier sanctuary of some kind (Livy writes of a _sacellum_, 8. 20. 8). Dionysius is interesting and explicit; he calls Dius Fidius Ζεὺς Πίστιος, and adds the name Σάγκος. The treaties next in date, those with Carthage, were kept in the aedilium thesaurus, close to the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus (Polyb. 3. 22; Mommsen, _Staatsrecht_, ii. 1 (ed. 2) 481 note). Here we seem to see the authority of the ancient Dius Fidius already losing ground.
Footnote 573:
Plut. _Quaest. Rom._ 30; Varro, ap. Plin. _N. H._ 8. 194; Festus, 238. It was Reifferscheid’s conjecture that she was a female Dius Fidius (see Wissowa, _Lex._ 1190). Fest. 241 adds ‘cuius ex zona periclitantes ramenta sumunt.’
Footnote 574:
_Bull. dell’ Inst._, 1867, 352 foll. Reifferscheid was prevented by death from working his view out more fully; but R. Peter (see _Lex._ s. v. Hercules, 2267) preserved notes of his lectures.
Footnote 575:
Gellius, 11. 6. 1. For Juno as female equivalent of Genius see article ‘Iunones’ in _Lex._ But it does not seem proved that this was the old name, and not an idea of comparatively late times.
Footnote 576:
Seneca, _Ep._ 12. 2.
Footnote 577:
See below, on Aug. 12, p. 194.
Footnote 578: