Part 25
Mommsen, _Unteritalische Dialekten_, 341; _Lex._ 637. The Jupiter _Cacunus_ of _C. I. L._ 6. 371 and 9. 4876 also points to _high places_, and there are other examples.
Footnote 963:
_Aen._ 9. 567.
Footnote 964:
Wordsworth, _Fragments and Specimens_, p. 564.
Footnote 965:
_Sat._ 1. 15. 14.
Footnote 966:
Deecke, _Etruskische Forschungen_, iv. 79 foll.
Footnote 967:
_Lex._ s. v. Iuppiter, p. 634.
Footnote 968:
Servius _Ecl._ 10. 27; _Dict. of Antiquities_ (ed. 2), s. v. Triumphus.
Footnote 969:
Farnell, i. 184 foll. See also Dion. Hal. 1. 21. 2; Deecke, _Die Falisker_, p. 88; _Lex._ s. v. Juno, 591; Roscher, _Juno und Hera_, 76.
Footnote 970:
_Lex._ 643.
Footnote 971:
H. Jordan, _Symbolae ad historiam religionum Italicarum alterae_. Königsberg, 1885.
Footnote 972:
‘Orceria·Numeri·nationu·cratia·Fortuna·Diovo·filei·primocenia·donom dedi’ (_C. I. L._ xiv. 2863). There are later inscriptions in which she appears as ‘Iovis (or Iovi) puero,’ in the sense of female child (_C. I. L._ xiv. 2862, 2868). The subject is discussed by Mommsen in _Hermes_ for 1884, p. 455, and by Jordan op. cit. See also _Lex._ s. v. Fortuna, 1542 foll., and s. v. Iuppiter, 648.
Footnote 973:
_Symbolae_, i. p. 8, and cp. 12. For the apparent parallel in the myth of the birth of Mars see on March 1.
Footnote 974:
_Hermes_, 1884, p. 455 foll.
Footnote 975:
Gellius, _N. A._ 5. 12; Ovid, _Fasti_, 3. 429 foll.; and see above on May 21. For Hercules, Jordan l. c. and his note on Preller, ii. 298. For Caeculus, Wissowa, in _Lex._ s. v.
Footnote 976:
_C. I. L._ xiv. 2862 and 2868.
Footnote 977:
The _tria signa_ of Liv. 23. 19, placed ‘in aede Fortunae’ by M. Anicius after his escape from Hannibal, with a dedication, may possibly have been those of Fortuna and the two babes (Preller, ii. 192. note 1): but this is very doubtful.
Footnote 978:
Jordan, _Symbolae_, 10; _Lex._ s. v. Fortunae, 1543; Fernique, _Étude sur Préneste_, 78.
Footnote 979:
Gerhard, _Antike Bildwerke_, Tab. iv. no. 1, gives an example: the children here, however, are not babes, and the mother has her arms round their necks. It seems more to resemble the types of Leto with Apollo and Artemis as infants (_Lex._ s. v. Leto, 1973), as Prof. Gardner suggests to me.
Footnote 980:
Ad _Aen._ 7. 799.
Footnote 981:
_Lex._ s. v. Iuppiter, 640.
Footnote 982:
See Fernique, _Étude sur Préneste_, pp. 79-81.
Footnote 983:
Fernique, op. cit. p. 79.
Footnote 984:
Fernique, 139 foll. Wissowa writes of Praeneste as ‘a special point of connexion between Latin and Etruscan culture’ (_Lex._ s. v. Mercurius, 2813).
Footnote 985:
Plutarch, _Parallela_, 41.
Footnote 986:
See at end of April, p. 95.
Footnote 987:
Liv. 1. 31. 3 ‘visi etiam audire vocem ingentem ex summi cacuminis luco, ut patrio ritu sacra Albani facerent.’
Footnote 988:
e. g. the vases of very primitive make (Henzen, _Acta Fratr. Arv._ 30).
Footnote 989:
Liv. 27. 11 (B.C. 209).
Footnote 990:
Niebuhr, _Hist. of Rome_, ii. 37. Strong arguments are urged against this view by Aust, _Lex._ 696.
Footnote 991:
Paul. Diac. 87. The lucus is mentioned in the corrupt fragments of the Argean itinerary (see on May 15) in Varro, _L. L._ 5. 50 (see Jordan, _Topogr._ ii, 242): where I am inclined to think the real reading is ‘Esquiliis cis Iovis lucum fagutalem’; ‘Iuppiter Fagutalis’ in Plin. _N. H._ 16. 37; a ‘vicus Iovis Fagutalis,’ _C. I. L._ vi. 452 (110 A.D.).
Footnote 992:
For Iuppiter Viminius and his ara, Fest. 376.
Footnote 993:
Liv. 1. 10; Dionys. 2. 34; Propert. 5. (4.) 10.
Footnote 994:
For other examples of this practice see Bötticher, _Baumkultus_, pp. 73 and 134; Virgil, _Aen._ 10. 423, and Servius, ad loc.; Statius, _Theb._ 2. 707.
Footnote 995:
Corn. Nep. _Atticus_, 20; cf. Mommsen, _Res Gestae Divi Augusti_, p. 53; Dion. Hal. 2. 34. 4. This is apparently what Livy alludes to in 1. 10, attributing it, after Roman fashion, to Romulus: ‘Templum his regionibus, quas modo animo metatus sum, dedico sedem opimis spoliis.’ For a discussion of the shape of this temple see Aust, in _Lex._ s. v. Iuppiter, 673. He is inclined to attribute it (679) to the A. Cornelius Cossus who dedicated the second _spolia opima_ in B.C. 428 (Liv. 4. 20).
Footnote 996:
The meaning of the cult-title is obscure; _Lex._ s. v. Iuppiter, 673.
Footnote 997:
Paul. Diac. 92; Serv. _Aen._ 12. 206.
Footnote 998:
Aust, in _Lex._ 676. The idea is that of Helbig in his _Italiker in der Poebene_, 91 foll. Cp. Schwegler, _Röm. Gesch._ i. 681, and Preller, i. 248 foll. H. Nettleship, _Essays in Latin Literature_, p. 35, and Strachan-Davidson (Polybius, _Prolegomena_, viii) discuss the oath _per Iovem lapidem_ usefully. Nettleship saw that the passage of Servius is the only one which ‘gives any real support’ to the notion that the god was represented by a stone; and Strachan-Davidson notes the aetiological method of Servius.
Footnote 999:
Cp. his note on the ‘sceptrum’ (_Aen._ 12. 206), which he explains as being the substitute for a ‘simulacrum’ of Jupiter. Was this ‘simulacrum’ a stone? If so he would have said so. Obviously he knew little or nothing about these cult-objects.
Footnote 1000:
_de Civ. Dei_ 2. 29. S. Augustine couples it with the focus Vestae, as something well known: and this could not be said at that time of any object in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius. The epithet Capitolinus would suit the stone of Terminus far better; and this is, in fact, made almost certain by Servius’ language when speaking of Virgil’s ‘Capitoli immobile saxum’ (_Aen._ 9. 448), which he identifies with the ‘lapidem ipsum Termini.’ Doubtless if we could be sure that such a stone existed, we might guess that it was an aerolite (Strachan-Davidson, p. 76, who quotes examples).
Footnote 1001:
So Nettleship, l. c.: and Strachan-Davidson, l. c.
Footnote 1002:
He quotes Plin. _N. H._ 37. 135 ‘cerauniae nigrae rubentesque et similes securibus.’
Footnote 1003:
Communicated to Mr. Strachan-Davidson, and mentioned by him in a note (op. cit. p. 77). An instance in Retzel, _History of Mankind_, vol. i. p. 175. The other suggestion, that it was a meteoric stone, is also quite possible: for Greek examples, see Schömann, _Griech. Alterthümer_, ii. 171 foll.
Footnote 1004:
Liv. 30. 43.
Footnote 1005:
We may compare the ‘orbita’ of the cult of Jupiter Sancius at Iguvium: Bücheler, _Umbrica_, 141. See above, p. 139.
Footnote 1006:
It may be as well to say, before leaving the subject, that I certainly agree with Mr. Strachan-Davidson that the ordinary oath, ‘per Iovem lapidem,’ where the swearer throws the stone away from him (described by Polybius, 3. 25), has nothing to do with the ritual of the Fetials.
Footnote 1007:
Festus, p. 2. Cp. 128, where this stone is distinguished from the other, which was the ‘ostium Orci.’ Serv. _Aen._ 3. 175.
Footnote 1008:
Serv. l. c. Marquardt, and Aust following him, add the matrons with bare feet and the magistrates without their praetexta: but this rests on the authority of Petronius (_Sat._ 44), who surely is not writing of Rome, where the ceremony was only a tradition, to judge by Fest. p. 2.
Footnote 1009:
Varro, _L. L._ 6. 94.
Footnote 1010:
O. Gilbert, ii. 154: adopted by Aust, 658, who adds some slight additional evidence: e. g. the ‘Iovem aquam exorabant’ of the passage from Petronius.
Footnote 1011:
Tylor, _Prim. Cult._ ii. 235-7: for the Greek Zeus, Farnell, _Cults_, i. 44 foll.
Footnote 1012:
Preller, i. 190. I cannot say that I find evidence earlier than the passage of Tibullus, 1. 7. 26 (Jupiter Pluvius).
Footnote 1013:
Note that the Flamen Dialis is not mentioned along with the Pontifices by Servius, l.c.
Footnote 1014:
See on May 15.
Footnote 1015:
_Golden Bough_, i. 11 foll.; Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_, 595 foll.; abundant examples in the works of Mannhardt, see indices.
Footnote 1016:
From _Samoa_, by G. Turner, p. 145.
Footnote 1017:
Compare together Nonius, 547. 10; 559. 19 (s. v. trulleum), from Varro; Festus, 128, s. v. ‘manalis lapis,’ from Verrius Flaccus. The suggestion that the stone was hollow is O. Gilbert’s.
Footnote 1018:
Aust, _Lex._ 657, who believes the Romans to have been mistaken. The _locus classicus_ is Ovid, _Fasti_, 3. 285 foll.; a more rational account in Liv. 1. 20; Plin. _N. H._ 2. 140. Note the position of the altar of this Jupiter, i. e. the Aventine.
Footnote 1019:
_Germania_, 9.
Footnote 1020:
7. 3.
Footnote 1021:
Festus, 55.
Footnote 1022:
In _Röm. Chronologie_, p. 175 foll. Preller (i. 258) had already seen that the ceremony was a religious one, but believed it to be annual, and used for the reckoning of time.
Footnote 1023:
‘An sich hat der Nagel gewiss mit dem Jahre nichts zu thun, sondern steht in seiner natürlichen und wohlbekannten Bedeutung der Schicksalsfestung, in welcher er als Attribut der grausen Nothwendigkeit (saeva Necessitas), der Fortuna, der Atropos bei römischen Schriftstellern und auf italischen Bildwerken begegnet.’ Mommsen, op. cit. 179. He alludes, of course, to Horace, _Od._ 1. 35, and 3. 24, and to the Etruscan mirror mentioned by Preller (p. 259): see Gerhard, _Etr. Spiegel_, i. 176. But the interpretation of this mirror, as given by Preller, seems to me very doubtful.
MENSIS OCTOBER.
In the Italy of historical times, the one agricultural feature of this month was the vintage. The rustic calendars mark this with the single word _vindemiae_[1024]. The vintage might begin during the last few days of September, but October was its natural time, though it is now somewhat earlier: this point is clear both from Varro and Pliny[1025]. But the old calendars have preserved hardly a trace of this; and in fact the only feast which we can in any way connect with wine making (the Meditrinalia on the 11th) is obscure in name and its ritual unknown to us. We may infer that the practice of viticulture was a comparatively late introduction; and this is borne out by such facts as the absence of wine in the ritual of the Latin festival[1026], and the words of a _lex regia_ (ascribed to Numa) which forbade wine to be sprinkled on a funeral pile[1027]. Pliny also expressed a decided opinion that viticulture was _multo serior_: and lately Hehn[1028] has traced it to the Italian Greeks on etymological grounds. It can hardly have become a common occupation in Latium before the seventh or possibly even the eighth century B.C.
Probably if Ovid had continued his _Fasti_ to the end of the year we might have learnt much of interest about this month: as it is, we have only scraps of information about a very few primitive rites, only one of which can be said to be known to us in any detail; and the interpretation of that one is extremely doubtful.
KAL. OCT. (OCTOBER 1). N.
[FIDEI] IN CAPITOLIO. TIGILL[O] SOROR[IO] AD COMPITUM ACILI. (ARV.)
The sacrifice here indicated to Fides in the Capitol is clearly the one which Livy ascribes to Numa[1029]: ‘Et soli Fidei sollemne instituit. Ad id sacrarium flamines bigis, curru arcuato (i. e. ‘covered’) vehi iussit, manuque ad digitos usque involuta rem divinam facere: significantes fidem tutandam, sedemque eius etiam in dextris sacratam esse.’ Dionysius also mentions the foundation, without alluding to the peculiar ritual, but dwelling on the moral influence of the cult both in public and private life[1030].
The personification of a moral idea would hardly seem likely to be as old as Numa; yet there are points in the ritual which suggest a high antiquity, apart from tradition. It was the three chief flamines who thus drove to the Capitol—i. e. those of Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus; these at least were the three who had been just instituted by Numa (Liv. 1. 20), and to them Livy must be referring. As has been often pointed out, the presence of flamines at a rite is always evidence of its antiquity; and in this case they may have represented the union of the two communities of Septimontium and Quirinal in a common worship on the Capitol, this central point being represented by the Flamen Dialis. The curious fact that the right hands of these flamens were wrapped up to the fingers in white cloth is another obvious sign of antiquity, and is explained as meaning that the right hand, which was given to another in pledging one’s word, then as now[1031], was pure and clean, as was the mind of the pledger[1032]. A sacred object, statue or victim, was often thus wrapped or tied with fillets (_vittae_); and the μύσται in the Eleusinian mysteries seem to have worn a crocus-coloured band on the right hand and right foot[1033]. The statue of the goddess in her temple had probably the right hand so covered, if at least we are at liberty so to interpret the words of Horace, ‘albo Fides velata panno’[1034].
A word about the _tigillum sororium_[1035]. What this was, and where it was, can be made out with some certainty; beyond that all is obscure. It was a beam, renewed from time to time, let into the opposite walls of a street which led down from the Carinae to the Vicus Cyprius, now the via del Colosseo[1036]. It remained till at least the fourth century A.D. It is now generally explained as a primitive Janus-arch, apparently on the ground that one of the altars below it was to Janus Curiatius[1037]. As it seems, however, to have been a single beam, without supports except the street walls[1038], I am unable to understand this conclusion; and as the Roman antiquaries never supposed it to be such, we can hardly do so safely. They believed it to be a memorial of the expiation undergone by the legendary Horatius for the murder of his sister. Acquitted by the people on appeal, he had to make religious expiation, and this he did by the erection of an altar to Janus Curiatius, and another to Juno Sororia[1039], and by passing under a yoke, which was afterwards represented by the _tigillum_.
We may leave the _tigillum_ as really inexplicable, unless we are to accept the suggestion of Roscher[1040], that the germ of the legend is to be found in the practice of creeping through a split tree to get rid of spell or disease. The two altars demand a word.
Livy’s language seems to suggest that these were in the care of the gens Horatia[1041]: ‘Quibusdam piacularibus sacrificiis factis, quae deinde genti Horatiae tradita sunt.’ If so, perhaps the whole legend of Horatius, or at any rate its connexion with this spot, arose out of this gentile worship of two deities, of whom the cult-titles were respectively Curiatius and Sororia. The coincidence of Janus and Juno is natural enough; both were associated with the Kalends[1042]. But the original meaning of their cult-titles at the Tigillum remains unknown. All we can say is that the Janus of the _curiae_ and the Juno of a sister may certainly have given point to a legend of which the hero was acquitted by the Comitia Curiata for the murder of a sister[1043].
3 NON. OCT. (OCTOBER 5). C.
This was one of the three days on which the _mundus_ was open: see on August 24.
NON. OCT. (OCTOBER 7). F.
IOVI FULGURI, IUNONI CURRITI[1044] IN CAMPO. (ARV. PAUL.)
Of these worships in Rome nothing else is known. Iuno Curitis is the goddess of Falerii, whose supposed ἱερὸς γάμος was referred to above[1045].
V ID. OCT. (OCTOBER 11). NP.
MEDITR[INALIA]. (SAB. MAFF. AMIT.)
FERIAE IOVI. (AMIT.)
This was the day on which the new wine was tasted. There is no real evidence of a goddess Meditrina. The account in Paulus is as follows: ‘Mos erat Latinis populis, quo die quis primum gustaret mustum, dicere ominis gratia “Vetus novum vinum bibo, veteri novo morbo medeor.” A quibus verbis etiam Meditrinae deae nomen conceptum, eiusque sacra Meditrinalia dicta sunt[1046].’ Varro had already given the same account: ‘Octobri mense Meditrinalia dies, dictus a medendo, quod Flaccus flamen Martialis dicebat hoc die solitum vinum novum et vetus libari et gustari medicamenti causa: quod facere solent etiam nunc multi quom dicunt: Novum vetus vinum bibo, novo veteri vino morbo medeor.’
Note _a_. A parallel practice of tasting both old and new crops is to be found in the ritual of the Fratres Arvales, who in May ‘fruges aridas et virides contigerunt,’ i. e. the old grain and the new[1047].
Note _b_. The belief that the new wine (_mustum_) was wholesome and non-inebriating is discussed charmingly by Plutarch (_Quaest. Conv._ vii. 1).
Note _c_. Mommsen, _C. I. L._ 1. 2. 332, points out that the real deity here concerned was doubtless Jupiter: see under Vinalia, p. 86.
III ID. OCT. (OCTOBER 13). NP.
FONT[INALIA]. (SAB. MAFF. AMIT. MIN. IX.)
FERIAE FONTI. (AMIT.)
All we know of this very ancient festival is contained in a few words of Varro[1048]: ‘Fontinalia a Fonte, quod is dies feriae eius; ab eo tum et in fontes coronas iaciunt et puteos coronant.’
The holiness of wells and springs is too familiar to need illustration here. The original object of the garlanding was probably to secure abundant water.
It is generally assumed that there was a god Fons or Fontus, to whom this day was sacred. There was a delubrum Fontis[1049]; an ara Fonti on the Janiculum[1050]; and a porta Fontinalis in the Campus Martius. Fons also appears with Flora, Mater Larum, Summanus, &c., in the ritual of the Fratres Arvales[1051]. The case seems to be one of those in which multiplicity passes into a quasi-unity: but Fons did not survive long in the latter stage.
ID. OCT. (OCT. 15). NP.
EQUUS AD NIXAS FIT. (PHILOC.)
No calendar but the late one of Philocalus mentions the undoubtedly primitive rite of horse-sacrifice which took place on this day. Wissowa has tried to explain this difficulty, which meets us elsewhere in the Calendar, e. g. on the Ides of May (Argei), June 1 (festival of Carna)[1052]. Where two festivals fell on the same day, _both_ would not be found in calendars which were meant for the use, not of the pontifices themselves, but of the unlearned vulgar; for the latter would not be able to distinguish, or to get one clear name for the day, and confusion would result. Now all Kalends and Ides were sacred to Juno and Jupiter respectively; all other rites falling on these days would stand a chance of being omitted, unless indeed they were noticed in later annotations such as we find cut in smaller letters in the Fasti Praenestini and others.
Luckily the entry in Philocalus’ calendar is supplemented sufficiently from other sources. The earliest hint we get comes from the Greek historian Timaeus, and is preserved in a fragment of the twelfth book of Polybius[1053]. Timaeus after the Greek fashion connects the horse-sacrifice with the legend of Troy and the wooden horse: but he also tells us the important detail that on a certain day _a war-horse was killed with a spear in the Campus Martius_[1054]. The passage is no doubt characteristic of Timaeus, both in regard to the detail, and the mythology which Polybius despised. But though we do not know that Timaeus was ever at Rome, we may hope that he was correct in the one
## particular which we do not learn from other sources, viz. the slaughter
of the horse with the sacred weapon of Mars.
Fuller information comes from Verrius Flaccus, as represented in the epitomes of Festus and Paulus Diaconus[1055]. On this day there was a two-horse chariot race in the Campus Martius; and the near horse of the winning pair was sacrificed to Mars—killed with a spear, if we may believe Timaeus. The place is indicated in Philocalus’ calendar as ‘ad nixas,’ i. e. the _ciconiae nixae_, which seem to have been three storks carved in stone with bills crossing each other[1056]: this however was non-existent under the Republic. The real scene of the sacrifice must have been an old ‘ara Martis,’ and that there was such an altar in the Campus we know for certain, though we cannot definitely fix its position[1057]. The tail of the horse was cut off and carried with speed to the Regia so that the warm blood might drip upon the focus or sacred hearth there. The head also was cut off and decked with cakes; and at one time there was a hard fight for its possession between the men of the two neighbouring quarters of the Via Sacra and the Subura. If the former carried off the prize, they fixed it on the wall of the Regia; if the latter, on the turris Mamilia[1058].
It is probable[1059], though not quite certain, that the congealed blood from the tail was used, together with the ashes of the unborn calves sacrificed on the Fordicidia, as ‘medicine’ to be distributed to the people at the Parilia on April 21.
The rite of the ‘October-horse’ had been adequately described and in some degree explained by Preller, Marquardt, Schwegler, and others[1060], before the late Dr. Mannhardt took it in hand not long before his death[1061]. Mannhardt studied it in the light of his far-reaching researches in folk-lore, and succeeded in treating it as all such survivals should be treated, i.e. in bringing it into relation with the practices of other peoples—not so much by way of explaining its original meaning precisely, as in order to make some progress by its help towards an understanding of the attitude of primitive man to the supernatural. His conclusions have been generally accepted, and, with very slight modifications, are to be found in Mr. Frazer’s _Golden Bough_ (ii. 64), and in Roscher’s article ‘Mars’ in the _Mythological Lexicon_ (2416). Recently, however, they have been called in question by no less a person than Prof. Wissowa[1062] of Berlin, who seems to take a different view of the Mars-cult from that at which we thought we had at last safely arrived: it may be as well therefore to give yet another account of Mannhardt’s treatment of the question, and to follow his track somewhat more elaborately than Mr. Frazer. It does not of course follow that he has said the last word; but it is as well to begin by making clear what he _has_ said.
1. This is _the last of the series of harvest festivals_, as we may call them generically. We have had the Ambarvalia and the plucking of the first ears by the Vestals in May: the Vestalia in June[1063]; the festivals of Consus and Ops Consiva in August; and lastly we find this one coming after all the fruits of the land have been gathered in. In this respect it is parallel to the Pyanepsia and Oschophoria of the Greeks, to the Jewish feast of Tabernacles[1064], and to the true Michaelmas harvest-festivals of modern Europe, which follow at an interval the great variety of quaint harvest customs which occur at the actual in-gathering. Even now in the Roman Campagna there is a lively festival of this kind in October.