Part 20
See Introduction, p. 7. This anomaly led Huschke to the inadmissible supposition that this was the single addition made to the calendar of Numa in the republican period. He accepts Varro’s explanatory story, _Röm. Jahr_, p. 224.
Footnote 713:
See below, p. 327.
Footnote 714:
_R. G._ i. 532: see Mommsen’s criticism in _C. I. L_ 321 f.
Footnote 715:
Macrob. 6. 11. 36; Plut. _Rom._ 29, _Camill._ 33. See also O. Müller’s note on Varro, _L. L._ 6. 18.
Footnote 716:
_L. L._ 6. 18.
Footnote 717:
This is Varro’s account; the Etruscans are a variant in Macrobius, l. c.
Footnote 718:
Dionys. 2. 56; Plut. _Rom._ 29. See Lewis, _Credibility of Early Roman History_, i. 430.
Footnote 719:
Introduction, p. 15.
Footnote 720:
Cic. _de Rep._ 1. 16; Plut. _Rom._ 27.
Footnote 721:
Liv. 1. 16 ‘Ad exercitum recensendum.’ Lustratio came to be the word for a review of troops because this was preceded by a religious _lustratio populi_.
Footnote 722:
e. g. Gilbert, i. 290; Marq. 325.
Footnote 723:
_L. L._ 6. 18. Details have vanished with the great work here quoted, the _Antiquitates divinae_.
Footnote 724:
Schwegler suggested the parallel, i. 534, note 20. For the Bouphonia see especially Mannhardt, _Myth. Forsch._ 68. For other such rites, Lobeck, _Aglaophamus_, 679, 680.
Footnote 725:
Bücheler, _Umbrica_, 114.
Footnote 726:
The idea of the scapegoat was certainly not unknown in Italy; Bücheler quotes Serv. (_Aen._ 2. 140) ‘Ludos Taureos a Sabinis propter pestilentiam institutos dicunt, _ut lues publica in has hostias verteretur_.’ See on the Regifugium, below, p. 328.
Footnote 727:
See examples in Frazer, _Golden Bough_, ii. 160 foll. The one from the Key Islands is interesting as including a flight of the people.
Footnote 728:
Nissen, _Landeskunde_, 406.
Footnote 729:
_C. I. L._ p. 269.
Footnote 730:
Macrob. 1. 11. 36; Plut. _Camill._ 33.
Footnote 731:
Aug. _de Civ. Dei_, 4. 8.
Footnote 732:
_de Feriis_, 9.
Footnote 733:
The last point is in _Camill._ 33-6: cp. _Rom._ 29. 6.
Footnote 734:
The bearing of these customs on the Nonae Caprotinae, and on the Greek story of Lityerses, was suggested by Mannhardt, _Myth. Forsch._ 32. Mr. Frazer gives a useful collection of examples, _G. B._ ii. 363 foll. The custom survives in Derbyshire (so I am told by Mr. S. B. Smith, Scholar of Lincoln College), but only in the form of making the stranger ‘pay his footing.’
Footnote 735:
_G. B._ i. 381.
Footnote 736:
It was the custom, says Macrobius (i. 10) ‘ut patres familiarum, frugibus et fructibus iam coactis, passim cum servis vescerentur, cum quibus patientiam laboris in colendo rure toleraverant.’ The old English harvest- or mell-supper, had all the characteristics of Saturnalia (Brand, _Pop. Antiq._ 337 foll.).
Footnote 737:
Tertullian, _de Spect._ 5.
Footnote 738:
See below, p. 208.
Footnote 739:
This point—the union of free- and bond-women in the sacrifice—seems to prove that Nonae Caprotinae and ancillarum feriae were only two names for the same thing. Macrobius connects the legend of the latter with the rite of the former (i. II. 36).
Footnote 740:
Plut. _Rom._ 29. Varro, _L. L._ 6. 18 writes ‘in Latio.’
Footnote 741:
Deecke, _Die Falisker_, 89; Roscher, in _Lex._ s. v. Juno, p. 599.
Footnote 742:
See above, p. 143.
Footnote 743:
One naturally compares the ficus Ruminalis and the foundation-legend of Rome.
Footnote 744:
It is curious that the practice in husbandry called _caprificatio_, or the introduction of branches of the wild tree among those of the cultivated fig to make it ripen (Plin. _N. H._ 15. 79; Colum. II. 2) took place in July; and it strikes me as just possible that there may have been a connexion between it and the Nonae Caprotinae.
Footnote 745:
Mannhardt, _Myth. Forsch._ l. c.
Footnote 746:
Macrob. 3. 2. 11 and 14. Macrobius also quotes Varro in the 15th book of his _Res Divinae_ ‘Quod pontifex in sacris quibusdam vitulari soleat, quod Graeci παιανίζειν vocant.’ Perhaps we may compare _visceratio_: Serv. Aen. 5. 215.
Footnote 747:
Above, p. 176.
Footnote 748:
Marq. 170.
Footnote 749:
See Marq. 384, and _Lex._ s. v. Apollo 447.
Footnote 750:
Liv. 25. 12.
Footnote 751:
The MSS. of Livy (27. 23) have a.d. iii _Nonas_, no doubt in error for a.d iii Idus. Merkel, _Praef._ xxviii.; Mommsen, _C. I. L._ 321.
Footnote 752:
Liv. 25. 12; 26. 33; Festus, 326; Cie. _Brutus_, 20, 78, whence it appears that Ennius produced his _Thyestes_ at these _ludi_. Cp. the story in Macrob. 1. 17. 25.
Footnote 753:
Liv. 27. 23.
Footnote 754:
Liv. 3. 63. This older shrine Livy calls Apollinar. The temple that followed it was the only Apollo-temple in Rome till Augustus built one on the Palatine after Actium; this is clear from Asconius, p. 81 (ad Cic. in toga candida), quoted by Aust, _de Aedibus sacris_, 7. It was outside the Porta Carmentalis, near the Circus Flaminius. A still more ancient Apollinar is assumed by some to have existed on the Quirinal; but it rests on an uncertain emendation of O. Müller in Varro, _L. L._ 5. 52.
Footnote 755:
Liv. 40. 51. The Romans seem originally to have called the god _Apello_, and connected the name with _pellere_. Paulus, 22; Macrob. 1. 17. 15.
Footnote 756:
Liv. 5. 13.
Footnote 757:
_Lex._ s. v. Apollo, 446.
Footnote 758:
Müller-Deecke, _Etrusker_, ii. 69.
Footnote 759:
Strabo, p. 214; Herodotus, 1.167.
Footnote 760:
Jordan on Preller, i. 265.
Footnote 761:
_Aen._ 11. 785 ‘Summe deum, sancti custos Soractis Apollo,’ &c.
Footnote 762:
Serv. _Aen._ 10. 316 ‘Omnes qui secto matris ventre procreantur, ideo sunt Apollini consecrati, quia deus medicinae est, per quam lucem sortiuntur. Unde Aesculapius eius fingitur filius: ita enim eum [esse] procreatum supra (7. 761) diximus. Caesarum etiam familia ideo sacra retinebat Apollinis, quia qui primus de eorum familia fuit, exsecto matris ventre natus est. Unde etiam Caesar dictus est.’
Footnote 763:
A concise account by Roscher, _Lex._ s. v. Apollo 448; Boissier, _Religion Romaine_, i. 96 foll.; Gardthausen, _Augustus_, vol. ii, p. 873. For the _ludi saeculares_ see especially Mommsen’s edition of the great but mutilated inscription recently discovered in the Campus Martius (_Eph. Epigr._ viii. 1 foll.); Diels, _Sibyllin. Blätter_, p. 109 foll.; and the _Carmen Saeculare_ of Horace, with the commentaries of Orelli and Wickham.
Footnote 764:
_L. L._ 6. 18 fin. and 19 init.
Footnote 765:
Festus, 119. s. v. Lucaria.
Footnote 766:
The battle of the Allia was fought on the 18th, the day before the first Lucaria. This no doubt suggested the legend connecting the two, especially as the Via Salaria, near which was the grove of the festival, crossed the battle-field some ten miles north of Rome.
Footnote 767:
See Friedländer in Marq. 487; Plutarch, _Q. R._ 88.
Footnote 768:
Mommsen in _Ephemeris Epigraphica_, ii. 205.
Footnote 769:
i. III; Liv. 24. 3; Cato, ap. Priscian, 629. Much useful matter bearing on _luci_ as used for boundaries, _asyla_, markets, &c., will be found in Rudorff, _Gromatici Veteres_, ii. 260.
Footnote 770:
‘Light’ is not uncommon in England for a ‘ride’ or clearing in a wood.
Footnote 771:
Below, pp. 222, and 228.
Footnote 772:
On the whole subject of the religious ideas arising from the first cultivation of land in a wild district I know nothing more instructive than Robertson Smith’s remarks in _Religion of the Semites_, Lecture iii.; I have often thought that they throw some light on the origin of Mars and kindred numina. The most ancient settlements in central Italy are now found to be on the tops of hills, probably once forest-clad (see Von Duhn’s paper on recent excavations, _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, 1896, p. 125). For a curious survival of the feeling about woods and hill-tops in Bengal, see Crooke, _Religion, &c., in India_, ii. 87.
Footnote 773:
_R. R._ 139. For _piacula_ of this kind see also Henzen, _Acta Fratr. Arv._ 136 foll.; Marq. 456.
Footnote 774:
See below, p. 312.
Footnote 775:
See a passage in Frontinus (_Grom. Vet._ 1. 56: cp. 2. 263).
Footnote 776:
_Röm. Jahr_, p. 221, and note 81 on p. 222.
Footnote 777:
Festus, 377 ‘Umbrae vocantur Neptunalibus casae frondeae pro tabernaculis.’ Wissowa (_Lex._ s. v. Neptunus, 202) compares the σκιάδες of the Spartan Carneia (also in the heat of summer), described in Athenaeus, 4. 141 F.
Footnote 778:
Müller-Deecke, _Etrusker_, ii. 54, with Deecke’s note 51 b. The Etruscan forms are Nethunus and Nethuns. The form of the word is adjectival like Portunus, &c.; but what is the etymology of the first syllable? We are reminded of course of Nepe or Nepete, an inland town near Falerii; and to this district the cult seems specially to have belonged. Messapus, ‘Neptunia proles,’ leads the Falisci and others to war in Virg. _Aen._ 7. 691, and Halesus, Neptuni filius, was eponymous hero of Falerii (Deecke, _Falisker_, 103). There is no known connexion of Neptunus with any coast town.
Footnote 779:
13. 23. 2: cp. Varro, _L. L._ 5. 72.
Footnote 780:
See above, p. 60.
Footnote 781:
Cp. Serv. _Aen._ 5. 724 ‘(Venus) dicitur et Salacia, quae proprie meretricum dea appellata est a veteribus.’
Footnote 782:
Gell. 5. 12; Henzen, _Act. Fratr. Arv._ 124. Wissowa, in his article ‘Neptunus,’ goes too far, as it seems to me, when he asserts that the ‘pater’ belonged to all deities of the oldest religion. See below, p. 220.
Footnote 783:
Liv. 5. 13. 6; Dionys. 12. 9. Wissowa, _Lex._ s. v. Nept. 203, for his further history as Poseidon.
Footnote 784:
Wissowa in _Lex._ l. c. I doubt if much can be made of the argument that the Neptunalia on the 23rd is necessarily connected with the Lucaria on the 17th and 19th—i. e. three alternate days, like the three days of the Lemuria in May.
Footnote 785:
Varro, _L. L._ 5. 84 ‘Furinalis (flamen) a Furina quoius etiam in fastis Furinales feriae sunt’: cp. 6. 19 ‘Ei sacra instituta annua et flamen attributus: nunc vix nomen notum paucis.’
Footnote 786:
See Wissowa’s short and sensible note in _Lex._ s. v. Furrina. For the confusion with Furiae, Cic. _de Nat. Deor._ 3. 46; Plut. _C. Gracch._ 17; _Lex._ s. v. Furiae. Jordan, in Preller, ii. 70, is doubtful on the etymological question.
Footnote 787:
p. 71.
Footnote 788:
In Preller, ii. 121.
Footnote 789:
_Röm. Jahr_, 221.
MENSIS SEXTILIS.
August is with us the month when the corn-harvest is begun; in Italy it is usually completed in July, and the final harvest-festivals, when all the operations of housing, &c., have been brought to a close, would naturally have fallen for the primitive Roman farmer in the sixth month. The Kalends of Quinctilis would be too early a date for notice to be given of these; some farmers might be behindhand, and so cut off from
## participation. The Kalends of Sextilis would do well enough; for by the
Nones, before which no festival could be held, there would be a general cessation from labour. No other agricultural operations would then for a time be specially incumbent on the farmer[790].
Before the Ides we find no great festival in the old calendar, though the sacrifice on the 12th at the _ara maxima_ was without doubt of great antiquity. The list begins with the Portunalia on the 17th; and then follow, with a day’s interval between each, the Vinalia Rustica, Consualia, Volcanalia, Opeconsivia, and Volturnalia. The Vinalia had of course nothing to do with harvest, and the character of the Portunalia and Volturnalia is almost unknown; but all the rest may probably have had some relation to the harvesting and safe-keeping of crops, and the one or two scraps of information we possess about the Portunalia bear in the same direction. Deities of fire and water seem to be propitiated at this time, in order to preserve the harvest from disaster by either element. The rites are secret and mysterious, the places of worship not familiar temples, but the _ara maxima_, the underground altar of Consus, or the Regia; which may perhaps account for the comparatively early neglect and decadence of some of these feasts. We may also note two other points: first, the rites gather for the most part in the vicinity of the Aventine, the Circus Maximus, and the bank of the Tiber; which in the earliest days must have been the part of the cultivated land nearest the city[791], or at any rate that part of it where the crops were stored. Secondly, there is a faint trace of commerce and connexion between Rome and her neighbours—Latins and Sabines—both in the rites and legends of this month, which may perhaps point to an intercourse, whether friendly or hostile, brought about by the freedom and festivities of harvest time.
NON. SEXT. (AUG. 5). F. (NP. ANT.)
SALUTI IN COLLE QUIRINALE SACRIFICIUM PUBLICUM. (VALL.)
SALUTI IN COLLE. (AMIT. ANT.)
NATALIS SALUTIS. (PHILOC.)
The date of the foundation of the temple of Salus was 302 B.C., during the Samnite wars[792]. The cult was probably not wholly new. The _Augurium Salutis_, which we know through its revival by Augustus, was an ancient religious performance at the beginning of each year, or at the accession of new consuls, which involved, first the ascertaining whether prayers would be acceptable to the gods, and secondly the offering of such prayers on an auspicious day[793]. Two very old inscriptions also suggest that the cult was well distributed in Italy at an early period[794]. Such impersonations of abstract ideas as Salus, Concordia, Pax, Spes, &c., do not belong to the oldest stage of religion, but were no doubt of pontifical origin, i. e. belonged to the later monarchy or early republic[795]. We need not suppose that they were due to the importation of Greek cults and ideas, though in some cases they became eventually overlaid with these. They were generated by the same process as the gods of the Indigitamenta[796]—being in fact an application to the life of the state of that peculiarly Roman type of religious thought which conceived a distinct _numen_ as presiding over every act and suffering of the individual. This again, as I believe, in its product the Indigitamenta, was an artificial priestly exaggeration of a very primitive tendency to see a world of nameless spirits surrounding and influencing all human life.
The history of the temple is interesting[797]. Not long after its dedication its walls were painted by Gaius Fabius, consul in 269 B.C., whose descendants, among them the historian, bore the name of Pictor, in commemoration of a feat so singular for a Roman of that age[798]. It was struck by lightning no less than four times, and burnt down in the reign of Claudius. Livy[799] tells us that in 180 B.C., by order of the decemviri a supplicatio was held, in consequence of a severe pestilence, in honour of Apollo, Aesculapius, and Salus; which shows plainly that the goddess was already being transformed into the likeness of the Greek ῾Υγίεια, and associated rather with public health than with public wealth in the most general sense of the word.
VI ID. SEXT. (AUG. 9). F. (ALLIP.) NP. (AMIT. MAFF. ETC.)
SOLI INDIGITI IN COLLE QUIRINALE. (AMIT. ALLIF.)
SOL[IS] INDIGITIS IN COLLE QUIRINALE SACRIFICIUM PUBLICUM. (VALL.)
There was an ancient worship of Sol on the Quirinal, which was believed to be of Sabine origin. A _Solis pulvinar_ close to the temple of Quirinus is mentioned, and the Gens Aurelia was said to have had charge of the cult[800].
But the Sol of August 9 is called in the calendars _Sol Indiges_. What are we to understand by this word, which appears in the names Di Indigetes, Jupiter Indiges, or Indigetes simply? The Roman scholars themselves were not agreed on the point; the general opinion was that it meant ‘of or belonging to a certain place,’ i. e. fixed there by origin and protecting it[801]. This view has also been generally adopted, on etymological or other grounds, by modern writers, including Preller[802]. Recently a somewhat different explanation has been put forward in the _Mythological Lexicon_, suggested by Reifferscheid in his lectures at Breslau. According to this view, _Indiges_ (from _indu_ and root _ag_ in _agere_) was a deity working in a particular act, business, place, &c., of men’s activity, and in no other; it is of pontifical origin, like its cognate _indigitamenta_, and is therefore not a survival from the oldest religious forms[803].
The second of these explanations does not seem to help us to understand what was meant by Sol Indiges; and its exponent in the _Lexicon_, in order to explain this, falls back on an ingenious suggestion made long ago by Preller. In dealing with Sol Indiges, Preller explained Indiges as = _index_, and conjectured that the name was not given to Sol until after the eclipse which foretold the death of Caesar, comparing the lines of Virgil (_Georg._ 1. 463 foll.):
Sol tibi signa dabit. Solem quis dicere falsum Audeat? ille etiam caecos instare tumultus Saepe monet, fraudemque et operta tumescere bella. Ille etiam exstincto miseratus Caesare Romam: Cum caput obscura nitidum ferrugine texit, Impiaque aeternam timuerunt saecula noctem.
Preller may be right; and if he were, we should have no further trouble in this case. In the pre-Julian calendar, on this hypothesis, the word Indiges was absent. This is also the opinion of the last scholar who, so far as I know, has touched the question; but Wissowa[804], with reason as I think, reverts to the first explanation given above of the word Indiges (‘of or belonging to a certain place’), and believes that the word, when added to Sol in the Julian calendar, was simply meant to distinguish the real indigenous Sun-god from foreign solar deities.
PRID. ID. SEXT. (AUG. 12). C.
HERCULI INVICTO AD CIRCUM MAXIM[UM]. (ALLIF. AMIT.)
[HERCULI MAGNO CUSTODI IN CIRCO FLAMIN[IO] (VALL.) is generally taken as a confusion with June 4[805].]
This is the only day to which we can ascribe, on the evidence of the calendars, the yearly rites of the _ara maxima_, and of the _aedes Herculis_ in the Forum boarium. These two shrines were close together; the former just at the entrance of the Circus maximus, the latter, as has been made clear by a long series of researches, a little to the north-east of it[806]. We are led to suppose that the two must have been closely connected in the cult, though we are not explicitly informed on the point.
The _round_ temple indicates a very ancient worship, as in the case of the aedes Vestae, and the legends confirm this. The story of Hercules and Cacus, the foundation-legend of the cult, whatever be its origin, shows a priesthood of two ancient patrician families, the Potitii and Pinarii[807]. Appius Claudius, the censor of 312 B.C., is said to have bribed the Potitii, the chief celebrants, to hand over their duties to public slaves[808]; but in the yearly rites, consisting chiefly in the sacrifice of a heifer, these were presided over by the praetor urbanus, whose connexion with the cult is attested by inscriptions[809]. That there was at one time a reconstruction of the cult, especially in the direction of Greek usage, seems indeed probable; for the praetor wore a laurel wreath and sacrificed with his head uncovered after the Greek fashion[810]. But there is enough about it that was genuine Roman to prove that the foundation-legend had some of its roots in an ancient cult; e. g. at the sacred meal which followed the previous sacrifice in the evening, the worshippers did not lie down but sat, as was the most ancient practice both in Greece and Italy[811]. Women were excluded, which is in keeping with the Italian conception of Hercules as Genius, or the deity of masculine activity[812]. The sacrifice was followed by a meal on the remainder, which was perhaps an old practice in Italy, as in Greece. In this feature, as in two others, we have a very interesting parallel with this cult, which does not seem to have been noticed, in the prescription given by Cato for the invocation of Mars on behalf of the farmer’s cattle[813]. After prescribing the material of the offering to Mars Silvanus, he goes on as follows: ‘Eam rem divinam _vel servus, vel liber licebit faciat_. Ubi res divina facta erit, _statim ibidem consumito_. _Mulier ad eam rem divinam ne adsit_, neve videat quomodo fiat. Hoc votum in annos singulos, si voles, licebit vovere.’ Here we have the eating of the remainder[814], the exclusion of women, and the
## participation in the cult by slaves; the exclusion of women is very
curious in this case, and seems to show that such a practice was not confined to worships of a sexual character. It is also worth noting that just as Cato’s formula invokes Mars Silvanus, so in Virgil’s description of the cult of the _ara maxima_[815], we find one special feature of Mars-worship, namely the presence of the _Salii_[816]. It is hardly possible to suppose that Virgil here was guilty of a wilful confusion: is it possible, then, that in this cult some form of Mars is hidden behind Hercules, and that the Hercules of the _ara maxima_ is not the Genius after all, as modern scholars have persuaded themselves?
But what marks out this curious cult more especially from all others is the practice of offering on the _ara maxima_ ‘decumae’ or tithes, of booty, commercial gains, sudden windfalls, and so on[817]. The custom seems to be peculiar to this cult, though it is proved by inscriptions of Hercules-cults elsewhere in Italy—e. g. at Sora near Arpinum, at Reate, Tibur, Capua and elsewhere[818]. But these inscriptions, old as some of them are, cannot prove that the practice they attest was not ultimately derived from Rome. At Rome, indeed, there is no question about it; it is abundantly proved by literary allusions, as well as by fragments of divine law[819]. Was it an urban survival from an old Italian rural custom, or was it an importation from elsewhere?
In favour of the first of these explanations is the fact that the offering of _first-fruits_ was common, if not universal, in rural Italy[820]. They are not, indeed, known to have been offered specially to Hercules; but the date, Aug. 12, of the sacrifice at Rome might suggest an original offering of the first-fruits of the Roman ager, before the growth of the city had pushed agriculture to some distance away. Now first-fruits are the oldest form of tribute to a god as ‘the lord of the land,’ developing in due time into fixed tithes as temple-ritual becomes more elaborate and expensive[821]. In their primitive form they are found in all parts of the world, as Mr. Frazer has shown us in an appendix to the second volume of his _Golden Bough_[822]. It is certainly possible that in this way the August cult of the _ara maxima_ may be connected with the general character of the August festivals; that the offering of the first-fruits of harvest gave way to a regulated system of tithes[823], of which we find a survival in the offerings of the tenth part of their booty by great generals like Sulla and Crassus. As the city grew, and agriculture became less prominent than military and mercantile pursuits, the practice passed into a form adapted to these—i. e. the _decumae_ of military booty or mercantile gain[824].