The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic An...

143. Op. cit. 208.

144. See Pauly, Encycl. vol. i. 2223. This is Wissowa’s opinion.

145. See on Jan. 9.

146. Cic. ad Fam. 12. 25. 1; Att. 9. 9. 4; Auct. Bell. Hisp. 31.

147. Varro, L. L. 6. 14 ‘In libris Saliorum, quorum cognomen Agonensium, forsitan his dies ideo appellatur potius Agonia.’ So Masurius Sabinus (in Macrob. Sat. 1. 4. 15), ‘Liberalium dies a pontificibus agonium Martiale appellatur.’

148. See above, p. 53, where I have expressed a doubt whether this custom originally belonged to the Liberalia. It is alluded to in Ovid, Fasti, 3. 725 foll., and Varro, L. L. 6. 14.

149. This is the view of Wissowa in Myth. Lex. s. v. Liber, 2022. Cp. Aust, Lex. s. v. Iuppiter, 662.

150. It is only once attested of Roman worship, viz. in the calendar of the Fratres Arvales (Sept. 1 ‘Iovi Libero, Iunoni Reginae in Aventino,’ C. I. L. i. 214); but is met with several times among the Osco-Sabellian peoples.

151. So Hehn, Kulturpflanzen, &c., p. 70 foll. But Hehn is only thinking of the later Liber, whom he considers an ‘emanation’ from Jupiter Liber = Dionysus, introduced with the vine from Greece. See Aust, Lex. s. v. Iuppiter, 662.

152. See on April 23.

153. Ovid, Fasti, 3. 771 foll.

154. Marq. Privatleben, i. 122 note 2.

155. Ovid, l. c., 783 foll.; Marq. l. c. and 123, 124. Military service began anciently at seventeen (Tubero, ap. Gell. 10. 28): though even praetextati sometimes served voluntarily (Marq. op. cit. 131). Even if not called out at once, the boys would begin the practice of arms from the assumption of the toga virilis.

156. Marq. op. cit. 124. Libero in Ca[pitolio], Farn. For Iuventas, Dion. Hal. 3. 69, 4. 15.

157. This result is obtained by comparing Ovid, Fasti, 3. 791

Itur ad Argeos—qui sint, sua pagina dicet—

Hac, si commemini, praeteritaque die.

(where he refers to his description of the rite of May 15, and appears to identify the simulacra and sacella), with Gell. N. A. 10. 15, who says that the Flaminica Dialis, ‘cum it ad Argeos’ was in mourning dress: also with the fragments of the ‘Sacra Argeorum’ in Varro, L. L. 5. 46-54. These have been shown by Jordan (Topogr. ii. 271 foll.) to be fragments of an itinerary, meant for the guidance of a procession, an idea first suggested by O. Müller. The further questions of the route taken, and the distribution of the sacella in the four Servian regiones, are very difficult, and need not be discussed here. See Mommsen, Staatsrecht, iii. 123 foll.

158. L. L. 5. 85 ‘Salii a salitando, quod facere in comitio in sacris quotannis et solent et debent.’

159. i. p. 81 (Keil). Why the Comitium was the scene does not appear. Preller has suggested a reason (i. 364), which is by no means convincing.

160. It was adopted by Usener (p. 222, note 6), but has obtained no further support. For another curious etymology of the latter part of the word latrus, which, however, does not assist us here, see Deecke, Falisker, p. 90 (Dies ater = dies alter = postridie).

161. Wissowa, de Feriis, ix.

162. Mommsen, in C. I. L. 312.

163. Mommsen, R. H. i. 78, note 1.

164. Festus, 254 ‘Quinquatrus appellari quidam putant a numero dierum qui fere his (? feriis iis) celebrantur: qui scilicet errant tam hercule quam qui triduo Saturnalia, et totidem diebus Compitalia; nam omnibus his singulis diebus fiunt sacra. Forma autem vocabuli eius exemplo multorum populorum Italicorum enuntiata est, quod post diem quintum Iduum est is dies festus, ut apud Tusculanos Triatrus,’ &c.

165. Wissowa, op. cit. viii. We find one in April, between the Fordicidia (April 15) and Cerialia (April 19).

166. Ovid, Fasti, 3. 809 ‘Una dies media est, et fiunt sacra Minervae,’ &c.

167. Ovid, Fasti, 3. 835 foll.

Caelius ex alto qua mons descendit in aequum,

Hic ubi non plana est sed prope plana via,

Parva licet videas Captae delubra Minervae

Quae dea natali coepit habere suo.

As from the note in Praen. we learn that March 19 was also the dedication-day of Minerva on the Aventine, there must either be a confusion between the two, or both had the same foundation-day. About the day of Minerva Capta there is no doubt; for that of Minerva on the Aventine see Aust, de Aedibus, p. 42.

168. Preller, i. 342; Usener, Rh. Mus., xxx. 221; Roscher, Myth. Lex. s. v. Mars, 2410; Lyd. de Mens. 4. 42; Gell. 13. 23 (from Gellii Annales) is the locus classicus for Nerio.

169. Nerio gen. Nerienis (Gell. l. c., who compares Anio Anienis).

170. Ovid, Fasti, 3. 850: ‘forti sacrificare deae,’ though clearly meant to refer to Minerva, is thought to be a reminiscence of a characteristic of Nerio (‘the strong one’), attached to her supplanter.

171. Aul. Gell. l. c.

172. Usener, l. c., passim.

173. H. Jordan expressed a somewhat different view in his Symbolae ad hist. Ital. religionum alterae, p. 9. He thinks that ‘volgari opinione hominum feminini numinis cum masculo coniunctionem non potuisse non pro coniugali aestimari.’ But this would seem to imply that the opinio volgaris was a mistaken one: and if so, how should it have arisen but under Greek influence?

174. Mommsen, in a note on the Feriale Cumanum (Hermes, 17. 637), calls them weibliche Hilfsgöttinnen; and this is not far removed from the view I have expressed in the text. The other alternative, viz that we have in these names traces of an old Italian anthropomorphic age, with a mythology, is in my view inadmissible. I see in them survivals of a mode of thought about the supernatural which might easily lend itself to a foreign anthropomorphizing influence.