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The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic
THE ROMAN FESTIVALS OF THE PERIOD OF THE REPUBLIC
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE RELIGION OF THE ROMANS
BY
W. WARDE FOWLER, M.A.
FELLOW AND SUB-RECTOR OF LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1899
_All rights reserved_
OXFORD: HORACE HART
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
FRATRIS FILIIS
I. C. H. F
H. G. C. F
BONAE SPEI ADOLESCENTIBUS
PREFACE
A word of explanation seems needed about the form this book has taken.
Many years ago I became specially interested in the old Roman religion,
chiefly, I think, through studying Plutarch’s _Quaestiones Romanae_, at
a time when bad eyesight was compelling me to abandon a project for an
elaborate study of all Plutarch’s works. The ‘scrappy’ character not
only of the _Quaestiones_, but of all the material for the study of
Roman ritual, suited weak eyes better than the continual reading of
Greek text; but I soon found it necessary to discover a thread on which
to hang these fragments in some regular order. This I naturally found in
the _Fasti_ as edited by Mommsen in the first volume of the _Corpus
Inscriptionum Latinarum_; and it gradually dawned on me that the only
scientific way of treating the subject was to follow the calendar
throughout the year, and to deal with each festival separately. I had
advanced some way in this work, when Roscher’s _Lexicon of Greek and
Roman Mythology_ began to appear in parts, and at once convinced me that
I should have to do my work all over again in the increased light
afforded by the indefatigable industry of the writers of the Roman
articles. I therefore dropped my work for several years while the
Lexicon was in progress, and should have waited still longer for its
completion, had not Messrs. Macmillan invited me to contribute a volume
on the Roman religion to their series of _Handbooks of Archaeology and
Antiquities_.
Having once set out on the plan of following the _Fasti_, I could not
well abandon it, and I still hold it to be the only sound one:
especially if, as in this volume, the object is to exhibit the religious
side of the native Roman character, without getting entangled to any
serious extent in the _colluvies religionum_ of the last age of the
Republic and the earlier Empire. The book has thus taken the form of a
commentary on the _Fasti_, covering in a compressed form almost all the
public worship of the Roman state, and including incidentally here and
there certain ceremonies which strictly speaking lay outside that public
worship. Compression has been unavoidable; yet it has been impossible to
avoid stating and often discussing the conflicting views of eminent
scholars; and the result probably is that the book as a whole will not
be found very interesting reading. But I hope that British and American
students of Roman history and literature, and possibly also
anthropologists and historians of religion, may find it useful as a book
of reference, or may learn from it where to go for more elaborate
investigations.
The task has often been an ungrateful one—one indeed of
Dipping buckets into empty wells
And growing old with drawing nothing up.
The more carefully I study any particular festival, the more (at least
in many cases) I have been driven into doubt and difficulty both as to
reported facts and their interpretation. Had the nature of the series
permitted it, I should have wished to print the chief passages quoted
from ancient authors in full, as was done by Mr. Farnell in his _Cults
of the Greek States_, and so to present to the reader the actual
material on which conclusions are rightly or wrongly based. I have only
been able to do this where it was indispensable: but I have done my best
to verify the correctness of the other references, and have printed in
full the entries of the ancient calendars at the head of each section.
Professor Gardner, the editor of the series, has helped me by
contributing two valuable notes on coins, which will be found at the end
of the volume: and I hope he may some day find time to turn his
attention more closely to the bearing of numismatic evidence on Roman
religious history.
It happens, by a curious coincidence, that I am writing this on the last
day of the old Roman year; and the lines which Ovid has attached to that
day may fitly express my relief on arriving at the end of a very
laborious task:
Venimus in portum, libro cum mense peracto,
Naviget hinc alia iam mihi linter aqua.
W. W. F.
Oxford: _Feb. 28, 1899_.
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Calendar 21
Festivals of March 33
Festivals of April 66
Festivals of May 98
Festivals of June 129
Festivals of July 173
Festivals of August 189
Festivals of September 215
Festivals of October 236
Festivals of November 252
Festivals of December 255
Festivals of January 277
Festivals of February 298
Conclusion 332
Notes on Two Coins 350
Indices 353
ABBREVIATIONS.
The following are the most important abbreviations which occur in the
notes:
_C. I. L._ stands for _Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_. Where the volume
is not indicated the reference is invariably to the _second_ edition of
that part of vol. i which contains the _Fasti_ (Berlin, 1893).
Marquardt or Marq. stands for the third volume of Marquardt’s _Römische
Staatsverwaltung_, second edition, edited by Wissowa (Berlin, 1885). It
is the sixth volume of the complete _Handbuch der Römischen Alterthümer_
of Mommsen and Marquardt.
Preller, or Preller-Jordan, stands for the third edition of Preller’s
_Römische Mythologie_ by H. Jordan (Berlin, 1881).
_Myth. Lex._ or _Lex._ stands for the _Ausführliches Lexicon der
Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie_, edited by W. H. Roscher, which
as yet has only been completed to the letter N.
Festus, or Paulus, stands for K. O. Müller’s edition of the fragments of
Festus, _De Significatione Verborum_, and the _Excerpta ex Festo_ of
Paulus Diaconus; quoted by the page.
INTRODUCTION
I. The Roman Method of Reckoning the Year.[1]
There are three ways in which the course of the year may be calculated.
It can be reckoned—
1. By the revolution of the moon round the earth, twelve of which = 354
days, or a ring (_annus_), sufficiently near to the solar year to be a
practicable system with modifications.
2. By the revolution of the earth round the sun i. e. 365-1/4 days; a
system which needs periodical adjustments, as the odd quarter (or, more
strictly, 5 hours 48 minutes 48 seconds) cannot of course be counted in
each year. In this purely solar year the months are only artificial
divisions of time, and not reckoned according to the revolutions of the
moon. This is our modern system.
3. By combining in a single system the solar and lunar years as
described above. This has been done in various ways by different
peoples, by adopting a cycle of years of varying length, in which the
resultants of the two bases of calculation should be brought into
harmony as nearly as possible. In other words, though the difference
between a single solar year and a single lunar year is more than 11
days, it is possible, by taking a number of years together and reckoning
them as lunar years, one or more of them being lengthened by an
additional month, to make the whole period very nearly coincide with the
same number of solar years. Thus the Athenians adopted for this purpose
at different times groups or cycles of 8 and 19 years. In the Octaeteris
or 8-year cycle there were 99 lunar months, 3 months of 30 days being
added in 3 of the 8 years—a plan which falls short of accuracy by about
36 hours. Later on a cycle of 19 years was substituted for this, in
which the discrepancy was greatly reduced. The Roman year in historical
times was calculated on a system of this kind, though with such
inaccuracy and carelessness as to lose all real relation to the
revolutions both of earth and moon.
But there was a tradition that before this historical calendar came into
use there had been another system, which the Romans connected with the
name of Romulus. This year was supposed to have consisted of 10 months,
of which 4—March, May, July, October—had 31 days, and the rest 30; in
all 304. But this was neither a solar nor a lunar year; for a lunar year
of 10 months = 295 days 7 hours 20 minutes, while a solar year =
365-1/4. Nor can it possibly be explained as an attempt to combine the
two systems. Mommsen has therefore conjectured that it was an artificial
year of 10 months, used in business transactions, and in periods of
mourning, truces[2], &c., to remedy the uncertainty of the primitive
calculation of time; and that it never really was the basis of a state
calendar. This view has of course been the subject of much criticism[3].
But no better solution has been found; the hypothesis that the year of
10 months was a real lunar year, to which an undivided period of time
was added at each year’s end, to make it correspond with the solar year
and the seasons, has not much to recommend it or any analogy among other
peoples. It was not, then, the so-called year of Romulus which was the
basis of the earliest state-calendar, but another system which the
Romans themselves usually ascribed to Numa. This was originally perhaps
a lunar year; at any rate the number of days in it is very nearly that
of a true lunar year (354 days 8 hours 48 minutes)[4]. It consisted of
12 months, of which March, May, July, October had 31 days, and the rest
29, except February, which had 28. All the months therefore had an odd
number of days, except the one which was specially devoted to
purification and the cult of the dead; according to an old superstition,
probably adopted from the Greeks of Southern Italy[5], that odd numbers
were of good omen, even numbers of ill omen. This principle, as we shall
see, holds good throughout the Roman calendar.
But this reckoning of the year, if it ever existed at all, could not
have lasted long as it stood. As we know it in historical times, it has
become modified by applying to it the principle of the solar year. The
reason for this should be noted carefully. A lunar year, being about 11
days short of the solar year, would in a very short time become out of
harmony with the seasons. Now if there is one thing certain about the
Roman religious calendar, it is that many at least of its oldest
festivals mark those operations of husbandry on which the population
depended for its subsistence, and for the prosperous result of which
divine agencies must be propitiated. These festivals, when fixed in the
calendar, must of course occur at the right seasons, which could not be
the case if the calendar were that of a purely lunar year. It was
therefore necessary to work in the solar principle; and this was done[6]
by a somewhat rude expedient, not unlike that of the Athenian
Octaeteris, and probably derived from it[7]. A cycle of 4 years was
devised, of which the first had the 355 days of the lunar year, the
second 355 + 22, the third 355 again, and the fourth 355 + 23. The extra
periods of 22 and 23 days were inserted in February, not at the end, but
after the 23rd (_Terminalia_)[8]. The total number of days in the cycle
was 1465, or about 1 day too much in each year; and in course of time
even this system got out of harmony with the seasons and had to be
rectified from time to time by the Pontifices, who had charge of the
calendar. Owing to ignorance on their part, misuse or neglect of
intercalation had put the whole system out of gear before the last
century of the Republic. All relation to sun and moon was lost; the
calendar, as Mommsen says, ‘went on its own way tolerably unconcerned
about moon and sun.’ When Caesar took the reform of the calendar in hand
the discrepancy between it and the seasons was very serious; the former
being in advance of the latter probably by some weeks. Caesar, aided by
the mathematician Sosigenes, put an end to this confusion by extending
the year 46 B.C. to 445 days, and starting afresh on Jan. 1, 45
B.C.[9]—a day henceforward to be that of the new year—with a cycle of 4
years of 365 days[10]; in the last of which a single day was added,
after the _Terminalia_. This cycle produced a true solar year with a
slight adjustment at short intervals; and after a few preliminary
blunders on the part of the Pontifices, lasted without change until A.D.
1582, when Pope Gregory XIII set right a slight discrepancy by a fresh
regulation. This regulation was only adopted in England in 1752, and is
still rejected in Russia and by the Greek Church generally.
II. Order of Months in the Year.
That the Roman year originally began with March is certain[11], not only
from the evidence of the names of the months, which after June are
reckoned as 5th (Quinctilis), 6th (Sextilis), and so on, but from the
nature of the March festivals, as will be shown in treating of that
month. In the character of the religious festivals there is a distinct
break between February and March, and the operations both of nature and
of man take a fresh turn at that point. Between the festivals of
December and those of January there is no such break. No doubt January
1, just after the winter solstice, was even at an early time considered
in some sense as a beginning; but it is going too far to assume, as some
have done, that an ancient religious or priestly year began at that
point[12]. It was not on January 1, but on March 1, that the sacred fire
in the Aedes Vestae was renewed and fresh laurels fixed up on the Regia,
the two buildings which were the central points of the oldest Roman
religion[13]. March 1, which in later times at least was considered the
birthday of the special protecting deity of the Romans, continued to be
the Roman New Year’s Day long after the official beginning of the year
had been changed to January 1[14]. It was probably not till 153 B.C.,
when the consuls began to enter on office on January 1, that this
official change took place; and the date was then adopted, not so much
for religious reasons as because it was convenient, when the business of
administration was increasing, to have the consuls in Rome for some time
before they left for their provinces at the opening of the war season in
March.
No rational account can in my opinion be given of the Roman religious
calendar of the Republic unless it be taken as beginning with March; and
in this work I have therefore restored the old order of months. With the
Julian calendar I am not concerned; though it is unfortunate that all
the Roman calendars we possess, including the _Fasti_ of Ovid, date from
after the Julian era, and therefore present us with a distorted view of
the true course of the old Roman worship.
Next after March came Aprilis, the month of opening or unfolding
vegetation; then Maius, the month of growing, and Junius, that of
ripening and perfecting. After this the names cease to be descriptive of
the operations of nature; the six months that follow were called, as
four of them still are, only by their positions relative to March, on
which the whole system of the year thus turned as on a pivot.
The last two months of the twelve were January and February. They stand
alone among the later months in bearing names instead of mere numbers,
and this is sufficient to suggest their religious importance. That they
were not mere appendages to a year of ten months is almost certain from
the antique character of the rites and festivals which occur in
them—Agonia, Carmentalia, Lupercalia, &c.; and it is safer to consider
them as marking an ancient period of religious importance preparatory to
the beginning of the year, and itself coinciding with the opening of the
natural year after the winter solstice. This latter point seems to be
indicated in the name Januarius, which, whether derived from janua, ‘a
gate,’ or Janus, ‘the god of entrances,’ is appropriate to the first
lengthening of the days, or the entrance of the sun on a new course;
while February, the month of purifying or regenerative agencies
(februa), was, like the Lent of the Christian calendar, the period in
which the living were made ready for the civil and religious work of the
coming year, and in which also the yearly duties to the dead were paid.
It is as well here to refer to a passage of Ovid (_Fasti_, ii. 47
foll.), itself probably based on a statement of Varro, which has led to
a controversy about the relative position of these two months:
Sed tamen antiqui ne nescius ordinis erres,
Primus, ut est, Iani mensis et ante fuit.
Qui sequitur Ianum, veteris fuit ultimus anni,
Tu quoque sacrorum, Termine, finis eras.
Primus enim Iani mensis, quia ianua prima est;
Qui sacer est imis manibus, imus erat.
Postmodo creduntur spatio distantia longo
Tempora bis quini continuasse viri.
This plainly means that from the time when March ceased to be the first
month, the year always began with January and ended with February; in
other words the order was January, March, April, and so on, ending with
February; until the time of the Decemvirate, when February became the
second month, and December the last, as at present, January still
retaining its place. A little consideration of Ovid’s lines will,
however, suggest the conclusion that he, and his authority, whoever that
may have been, were arguing aetiologically rather than on definite
knowledge. January, they thought, must always have been the first month,
because janua, ‘a door,’ is the first thing, the entrance, through which
you pass into a new year as into a house or a temple. How, they would
argue, could a month thus named have ever been the eleventh month? This
once supposed impossible, it was necessary to infer that the place of
January was the first, from the time of its introduction, and that it
was followed by March, April, &c., February coming last of all,
immediately after December; and finally that at the time of the
Decemvirs, who are known to have made some alterations in the calendar,
the positions of January and February were reversed, January remaining
the first month, but February becoming the second.
III. The Divisions of the Month.
The Romans, with their usual conservatism, preserved the shell of the
lunar system of reckoning long after the reality had disappeared. The
month was at all times divided by the real or imaginary phases of the
moon, though a week of eight days was introduced at an early period, and
though the month was no longer a lunar one.
The two certain points in a lunar month are the first appearance of the
crescent[15] and the full moon; between these is the point when the moon
reaches the first quarter, which is a less certain one. Owing to this
uncertainty of the reckoning of the first days of the month there were
no festivals in the calendars on the days before the first quarter
(Nones), with a single exception of the obscure _Poplifugia_ on July 5.
The day of the new moon was called Kalendae, as Varro tells us, ‘quod
his diebus calantur eius mensis nonae a pontificibus, quintanae an
septimanae sint futurae, in Capitolio in curia Calabra sic: Dies te
quinque calo, Iuno Covella. Septem dies te calo Iuno Covella’[16]. All
the Kalends were sacred to Juno, whose connexion with the moon is
certain though not easy to explain.
With the Nones, which were sacred to no deity, all uncertainty ceased.
The Ides, or day of the full moon, was always the eighth after the first
quarter. This day was sacred to Jupiter; a fact which is now generally
explained as a recognition of the continuous light of the two great
heavenly bodies during the whole twenty-four hours[17]. On the Nones the
_Rex sacrorum_ (and therefore before him the king himself) announced the
dates of the festivals for the month.
There was another internal division of the month, with which we are not
here specially concerned, that of the Roman week or nundinal period of
eight days, which is indicated in all the calendars by the letters A to
H. The _nundinae_ were market days, on which the rustic population came
into Rome; whether they were also feast days (_feriae_) was a disputed
question even in antiquity.
IV. The Days.
Every day in the Roman calendar has a certain mark attached to it, viz.
the letters F, C, N, NP, EN, Q.R.C.F., Q.St.D.F., or FP. All of these
have a religious significance, positive or negative.
F, i. e. _fas_ or _fastus_, means that on the day so marked civil and
especially judicial business might be transacted without fear of divine
displeasure[18]. Correctness in the time as well as place of all human
actions was in the mind of the early Roman of the most vital importance;
and the floating traditional ideas which governed his life before the
formation of the State were systematized and kept secret by kings and
priests, as a part, so to speak, of the science of government. Not till
B.C. 304 was the calendar published, with its permissive and prohibitive
regulations[19].
C (_comitialis_) means that the day so marked was one on which the
_comitia_ might meet[20], and on which also legal business might be
transacted, as on the days marked F, if there were no other hindrance.
The total number of days thus available for secular business, i.e. days
marked F and C, was in the Julian calendar 239 out of 365.
N, i. e. _nefastus_, meant that the day so marked was _religiosus_,
_vitiosus_, or _ater_; as Gellius has it[21], ‘tristi omine et infames
impeditique, in quibus et res divinas facere et rem quampiam novam
exordiri temperandum est.’ Some of these days received the mark in
historical times for a special reason, e. g. a disaster to the State;
among these were the _postriduani_ or days following the Kalends, Nones
and Ides, because two terrible defeats had occurred on such days[22].
But most of them (in all they are 57) were probably so marked as being
devoted to lustrations, or worship of the dead or of the powers of the
earth, and therefore unsuitable for worldly business. One long series of
such _dies nefasti_ occurs Feb. 1-14, the time of purification; another,
April 5-22, in the month occupied by the rites of deities of growing
vegetation; a third, June 5-14, when the rites of the Vestals
preparatory to harvest were taking place; and a fourth, July 1-9, for
reasons which are unfortunately by no means clear to us.
NP was not a mark in the pre-Julian calendars, for it was apparently
unknown to Varro and Ovid. Verrius Flaccus seems to have distinguished
it from N, but his explanation is mutilated, even as it survives in
Festus[23]. No one has yet determined for certain the origin of the
sign, and discussion of the various conjectures would be here
superfluous[24]. It appears to distinguish, in the Julian calendars,
those days on which fell the festivals of deities who were not of an
earthly and therefore doubtful character from those marked N. Thus in
the series of _dies nefasti_ in February and April the Ides in each case
have the mark NP as being sacred to Jupiter.
EN. We have a mutilated note in the calendar of Praeneste which
indicates what this abbreviation meant, viz. _endotercisus =
intercisus_, i. e. ‘cut into parts’[25]. In morning and evening, as
Varro tells us, the day was _nefastus_, but in the middle, between the
slaying of the victim and the placing of the entrails upon the altar, it
was _fastus_. But why eight days in the calendar were thus marked we do
not know, and have no data for conjecturing. All the eight were days
coming before some festival, or before the Ides. Of the eight two occur
in January and two in February, the others in March, August, October and
December. But on such facts no conjectures can be built.
Q.R.C.F. (_Quando Rex Comitiavit Fas_) will be explained under March 24;
the only other day on which it occurs is May 24. Q.St.D.F. (_Quando
stercus delatum fas_) only occurs on June 15, and will there be fully
dealt with.
FP occurs thrice, but only in three calendars. Feb. 21 (_Feralia_) is
thus marked in Caer.[26], but is F in Maff. April 23 (_Vinalia_) is FP
in Caer. but NP in Maff. and F in Praen. Aug. 19 (_Vinalia rustica_) is
FP in Maff. and Amit, F in Antiat. and Allif., NP in Vall. Mommsen
explains FP as _fastus principio_, i. e. the early part of the day was
_fastus_, and suggests that in the case of the _Feralia_, as the rites
of the dead were performed at night, there was no reason why the earlier
part of the day should be _nefastus_. But in the case of the two Vinalia
we can hardly even guess at the meaning of the mark, and it does not
seem to have been known to the Romans themselves.
V. The Calendars still surviving.
The basis of our knowledge of the old Roman religious year is to be
found in the fragments of calendars which still survive. None of these
indeed is older than the Julian era; and all but one are mere fragments.
But from the fragments and the one almost perfect calendar we can infer
the character of the earlier calendar with tolerable certainty.
The calendar, as the Romans generally believed, was first published by
Cnaeus Flavius, curule aedile, in 304 B.C., who placed the _fasti_
conspicuously in the Forum, in order that every one might know on what
days legal business might be transacted[27]; in other words, a calendar
was published with the marks of the days and the indications of the
festivals. After this we hear nothing until 189 B.C., when a consul, M.
Fulvius Nobilior, adorned his temple of Hercules and the Muses with a
calendar which contained explanations or notes as well as dates[28].
These are the only indications we have of the way in which the
pre-Julian calendar was made known to the people.
But the rectification of the calendar by Julius, and the changes then
introduced, brought about a multiplication of copies of the original one
issued under the dictator’s edict[29]. Not only in Rome, but in the
municipalities round about her, where the ancient religious usage of
each city had since the enfranchisement of Italy been superseded,
officially at least, by that of Rome, both public and private copies
were made and set up either on stone, or painted on the walls or ceiling
of a building.
Of such calendars we have in all fragments of some thirty, and one which
is all but complete. Fourteen of these fragments were found in or near
Rome, eleven in municipalities such as Praeneste, Caere, Amiternum, and
others as far away as Allifae and Venusia; four are of uncertain
origin[30]; and one is a curious fragment from Cisalpine Gaul[31]. Most
of them are still extant on stone, but for a few we have to depend on
written copies of an original now lost[32]. No day in the Roman year is
without its annotation in one or more of these; the year is almost
complete, as I have said, in the Fasti Maffeiani; and several others
contain three or four months nearly perfect[33]. Two, though in a
fragmentary condition, are of special interest. One of these, that of
the ancient brotherhood of the Fratres Arvales, discovered in 1867 and
following years in the grove of the brethren near Rome, contains some
valuable additional notes in the fragments which survive of the months
from August to November. The other, that of Praeneste, containing
January, March, April and parts of February and December, is still more
valuable from the comments it contains, most of which we can believe
with confidence to have come from the hand of the great Augustan scholar
Verrius Flaccus. We are told by Suetonius that Verrius put up a calendar
in the forum at Praeneste[34], drawn up by his own hand; and the
date[35] and matter of these fragments found at Praeneste agree with
what we know of the life and writings of Verrius. It is unlucky that
recent attempts to find additional fragments should have been entirely
without result; for the whole annotated calendar, if we possessed it,
would probably throw light on many dark corners of our subject.
To these fragments of Julian calendars, all drawn up between B.C. 31 and
A.D. 46, there remain to be added two in MSS.: (i) that of Philocalus,
A.D. 354, (ii) that of Polemius Silvius, A.D. 448; neither of which are
of much value for our present purpose, though they will be occasionally
referred to. Lastly, we have two farmer’s almanacs on cubes of bronze,
which omit the individual days, but are of use as showing the course of
agricultural operations under the later Empire[36].
All these calendars, some of which had been printed wholly or in part
long ago, while a few have only been discovered of late, have been
brought together for the first time in the first volume of the _Corpus
Inscriptionum Latinarum_, edited by Mommsen with all his incomparable
skill and learning, and furnished with ample elucidations and
commentaries. And we now have the benefit of a second edition of this by
the same editor, to whose labours in this as in every other department
of Roman history it is almost impossible to express our debt in adequate
words. All references to the calendars in the following pages will be
made to this second edition.
A word remains to be said about the _Fasti_ of Ovid[37], which is a
poetical and often fanciful commentary on the calendar of the first half
of the Julian year, i.e. January to June inclusive; each month being
contained in one book. Ovid tells us himself[38] that he completed the
year in twelve books; but the last six were probably never published,
for they are never quoted by later writers. The first six were written
but not published before the poet’s exile, and taken in hand again after
the death of Augustus, but only the first book had been revised when the
work was cut short by Ovid’s death.
Ovid’s work merits all praise as a literary performance, for the
neatness and felicity of its versification and diction; but as a source
of knowledge it is too much of a medley to be used without careful
criticism. There is, however, a great deal in it that helps us to
understand the views about the gods and their worship, not only of the
scholars who pleased themselves and Augustus by investigating these
subjects, but also of the common people both in Rome and in the country.
But the value varies greatly throughout the work. Where the poet
describes some bit of ritual which he has himself seen, or tells some
Italian story he has himself heard, he is invaluable; but as a
substitute for the work of Varro on which he drew, he only increases our
thirst for the original. No great scholar himself, he aimed at producing
a popular account of the results of the work of scholars, picking and
choosing here and there as suited his purpose, and not troubling himself
to write with scientific accuracy. Moreover, he probably made free use
of Alexandrine poets, and especially of Callimachus, whose _Aetia_ is in
some degree his model for the whole poem; and thus it is that the work
contains a large proportion of Greek myth, which is often hard to
distinguish from the fragments of genuine Italian legend which are here
and there imbedded in it. Still, when all is said, a student of the
Roman religion should be grateful to Ovid; and when after the month of
June we lose him as a companion, we may well feel that the subject not
only loses with him what little literary interest it can boast of, but
becomes for the most part a mere investigation of fossil rites, from
which all life and meaning have departed for ever.
VI. The Calendar of the Republic and its Religious Festivals.
All the calendars still surviving belong, as we saw, to the early
Empire, and represent the Fasti as revised by Julius. But what we have
to do with is the calendar of the Republic. Can it be recovered from
those we still possess? Fortunately this is quite an easy task, as
Mommsen himself has pointed out[39]; we can reconstruct for certain the
so-called calendar of Numa as it existed throughout the Republican era.
The following considerations must be borne in mind:
1. It is certain that Caesar and his advisers would alter the familiar
calendar as little as possible, acting in the spirit of persistent
conservatism from which no true Roman was ever free. They added 10 days
to the old normal year of 355 days, i. e. two at the end of January,
August, and December, and one at the end of April, June, September, and
November; but they retained the names of the months, and their division
by Kalends, Nones, and Ides, and also the signs of the days, and the
names of all festivals throughout the year. Later on further additions
were made, chiefly in the way of glorification of the Emperors and their
families; but the skeleton remained as it had been under the Republic.
2. It is almost certain that the Republican calendar itself had never
been changed from its first publication down to the time of Caesar.
There is no historical record of any alteration, either by the
introduction of new festivals or in any other way. The origin of no
festival is recorded in the history of the Republic, except the second
Carmentalia, the Saturnalia, and the Cerealia[40]; and in these three
cases we can be morally certain that the record, if such it can be
called, is erroneous.
3. If Julius and his successors altered only by slight additions, and if
the calendar which they had to work on was of great antiquity and
unchanged during the Republic, how, in the next place, are we to
distinguish the skeleton of that ancient calendar from the Julian and
post-Julian additions? Nothing is easier; in Mommsen’s words, it is not
a matter of calculation; a glance at the Fasti is sufficient. In all
these it will be seen that the numbers, names, and signs of the days
were cut or painted in _large_ capital letters; while ludi, sacrifices,
and all additional notes and comments appear in _small_ capital letters.
It cannot be _demonstrated_ that the large capital letters represent the
Republican calendar; but the circumstantial evidence, so to speak, is
convincing. For inscribed in these large capitals is all the information
which the Roman of the Republic would need; the _dies fasti_,
_comitiales_, _nefasti_, &c.; the number of the days in the month; the
position of the Nones and the Ides and the names of those days on which
fixed festivals took place; all this in an abbreviated but no doubt
familiar form. The minor sacrificial rites, which concerned the priests
and magistrates rather than the people, he did not find there; they
would only have confused him. The moveable festivals, too, he did not
find there, as they changed their date from year to year and were fixed
by the priesthood as the time for each came round. The _ludi_, or public
games, were also absent from the old calendar, for they were, originally
at least, only adjuncts to certain festivals out of which they had grown
in course of time. Lastly, all rites which did not technically concern
the State as a whole, but only its parts and divisions[41], i. e. of
gentes and curiae, of pagi (_paganalia_), montes (_Septimontium_) and
sacella (_Sacra Argeorum_), could not be included in the public calendar
of the Roman people.
But the Roman of the Republic, even if his calendar were confined to the
indications given by the large capital letters in the Julian calendar,
could find in these the essential outline of the yearly round of his
religious life. This outline we too can reconstruct, though the detail
is often wholly beyond our reach. For this detail we have to fall back
upon other sources of information, which are often most unsatisfactory
and difficult to interpret. What are these other sources, of what value
are they, and how can that value be tested?
Apart from the surviving Fasti, we have to depend, both for the
completion of the religious calendar, and for the study and
interpretation of all its details, chiefly on the fragmentary remains of
the works of the two great scholars of the age of Julius and Augustus,
viz. Varro and Verrius Flaccus, and on the later grammarians,
commentators, and other writers who drew upon their voluminous writings.
Varro’s book _de Lingua Latina_, though not complete, is in great part
preserved, and contains much information taken from the books of the
pontifices, which, did we but possess them, would doubtless constitute
our one other most valuable record besides the _Fasti_ themselves[42].
Such, too, is the value of the dictionary of Verrius Flaccus, which,
though itself lost, survives in the form of two series of condensed
excerpts, made by Festus probably in the second century, A.D., and by
Paulus Diaconus as late as the beginning of the ninth[43]. Much of the
work of Varro and Verrius is also imbedded in the grammatical writings
of Servius the commentator on Virgil, in Macrobius, Nonius, Gellius, and
many others, and also in Pliny’s _Natural History_, and in some of the
Christian Fathers, especially St. Augustine and Tertullian; but all
these need to be used with care and caution, except where they quote
directly from one or other of their two great predecessors. The same may
be said of Laurentius Lydus[44], who wrote in Greek a work _de Mensibus_
in the sixth century, which still survives. To these materials must be
added the great historical writers of the Augustine age; Livy, who,
uncritical as he was, and incapable of distinguishing the genuine
Italian elements in religious tradition from the accretions of Greek and
Graeco-Etruscan myth, yet supplies us with much material for criticism;
and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who as a foreigner resident for some
time in Rome, occasionally describes ritual of which he was himself a
witness. The Roman lives of Plutarch, and his curious collection
entitled _Roman Questions_, also contain much interesting matter, taken
from several sources, e.g. Juba, the learned king of Mauritania, but as
a rule ultimately referable to Varro. Beyond these there is no one
author of real importance; but the ‘plant’ of the investigator will
include of course the whole of Roman literature, and Greek literature so
far as it touches Roman life and history. Of epigraphical evidence there
is not much for the period of the Republic, beyond the fragments of the
Fasti; by far the most valuable Italian religious inscription is not
Roman but Umbrian; and the _Acta Fratrum Arvalium_ only begin with the
Empire. Yet from these[45], and from a few works of art, however hard of
interpretation, some light has occasionally been thrown upon the
difficulties of our subject; and the study of early Italian culture is
fast progressing under the admirable system of excavation now being
supervised by the Italian government.
All this material has been collected, sifted, and built upon by modern
scholars, and chiefly by Germans. The work of collecting was done to a
great extent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the rest of the
process mainly in the nineteenth. The chief writers will be quoted as
occasion demands; here can only be mentioned, _honoris causa_, the
writings of Ambrosch, Preller, Schwegler, Marquardt[46], and of some of
the writers in the _Mythological Lexicon_, edited by Roscher, especially
Professor Wissowa of Berlin, whose short but pithy articles, as well as
his treatises _de Feriis_ and _de Dis Indigetibus_ are models of
scholarly investigation[47]. Of late, too, anthropologists and
folk-lorists have had something to say about Roman religious
antiquities; of these, the most conspicuous is the late lamented Dr.
Mannhardt, who applied a new method to certain problems both of the
Greek and the Roman religion, and evolved a new theory for their
interpretation. Among other works of this kind, which incidentally throw
light on our difficulties, the most useful to me have been those of
Professor Tylor, Mr. Frazer, Mr. Andrew Lang, and the late Professor
Robertson Smith. In the _Religion of the Semites_, by the last named
scholar, I seem to see a deeper insight into the modes of religious
thought of ancient peoples than in any other work with which I am
acquainted.
Yet in spite of all this accumulation of learning and acumen, it must be
confessed that the study of the oldest Roman religion is still one of
insuperable difficulty, and apt to try the patience of the student all
the more as he slowly becomes aware of the conditions of the problem
before him. There are festivals in the calendar about which we really
know nothing at all, and must frankly confess our ignorance; there are
others about which we know just enough to be doubtful; others again, in
interpreting which the Romans themselves plainly went astray, leaving us
perhaps nothing but a baseless legend to aid us in guessing their
original nature. It must be borne in mind that the Roman religion was in
ruins when the Julian calendar was drawn up, and that the archaeological
research which was brought to bear upon it by Varro and Verrius was not
of a strictly scientific character. And during the last two centuries of
the Republic, as the once stately building crumbled away, it became
overlaid with growths of foreign and especially of Greek origin, under
which it now lies hopelessly buried. The ground-plan alone remains, in
the form of the calendar as it has been explained above; to this we must
hold fast if we would obtain any true conception of the religion of the
earliest Roman State[48]. Here and there some portion of the building of
which it was the basis can however still be conjecturally restored by
the aid of Varro and Verrius and a few other ancient writers, tested by
the criticism of modern scholars, and sometimes by the results of the
science of comparative religion. Such particular restoration is what has
been attempted in this work, not without much misgiving and constant
doubt.
The fall of the Republic is in any case a convenient point from which to
survey the religious ideas and practice of the conquerors of the
civilized world. It is not indeed a more significant epoch in the
history of the Roman religion than the era of the Punic wars, when Rome
ceased to be a peninsular, and began to be a cosmopolitan state; but it
is a turning-point in the history of the calendar and of religious
worship as well as of the constitution. Henceforward, in spite of the
strenuous efforts of Augustus to revive the old forms of worship, all
religious rites have a tendency to become transformed or overshadowed,
first by the cult of the Caesars[49]; secondly, by the steadily
increasing influence of foreign and especially of Oriental cults; and
lastly, by Christianity itself[50].
Taking our stand, then, in the year 46 B.C., the last year of the
pre-Julian calendar, we are able in a small volume, by carefully working
through that calendar, to lay a firm foundation of material for the
study of the religious life and thought of the Roman people while it was
still in some sense really Roman. The plan has indeed its disadvantages;
it excludes the introduction of a systematic account of certain
departments of the subject, such as the development of the priesthoods,
the sacrificial ritual, the auspicia, and the domestic practice of
religious rites[51]. But if it is true, as it undoubtedly is, that in
dealing with the Roman religion we must begin with the cult[52], and
that for the cult the one ‘sincerum documentum’ is to be found in the
surviving Fasti, these drawbacks may fairly be deemed to be
counterbalanced by distinct advantages. And in order to neutralize any
bewilderment that may be caused by the constant variety of the rites we
shall meet with, both in regard to their origin, history, and meaning,
some attempt will be made, when we have completed the round of the year,
to sum up our results, to sketch in outline the history of Roman
religious ideas, and to estimate the influence of all this elaborate
ceremonial on the life and character of the Roman people.
* * * * *
In order to fit the calendar of each month into a single page of this
work it has been necessary to print the names of the festivals, and the
indications of Kalends, Nones, &c. in _small_ capital letters instead of
the large capitals in which they appear in the originals (see above, p.
15). In the headings to the days as they occur throughout the book the
method of the originals will be reproduced exactly, i. e. large capitals
represent in every case the most ancient calendar of the Republic, and
small capitals the _additamenta ex fastis_.
Footnote 1:
The difficult questions connected with this subject cannot be
discussed here. Since Mommsen wrote his _Römische Chronologie_ it has
at least been possible to give an intelligible account of it, such as
that in the _Dict. of Antiquities_ (second edition), in Marquardt’s
_Staatsverwaltung_, iii. 281 foll., and in Bouché-Leclercq,
_Pontifes_, p. 230 foll. There is a useful summary in H. Peter’s
edition of Ovid’s _Fasti_ (p. 19). Mommsen’s views have been
criticized by Huschke, _Das Römische Jahr_, and Hartmann, _Der Röm.
Kalender_; the former a very unsafe guide, and the latter,
unfortunately, an unfinished and posthumous work. The chief ancient
authority is Censorinus, _De die natali_, a work written at the
beginning of the third century A.D., on the basis of a treatise of
Suetonius.
Footnote 2:
_Chron._ 48 foll.; Marq. 284 and notes.
Footnote 3:
Huschke, _op. cit._ 8 foll.; Hartmann, p. 13.
Footnote 4:
1 Censorinus, _De die natali_, 20. 4.
Footnote 5:
Mommsen (_Chron._ 13) believes it to have been a Pythagorean doctrine
which spread in Southern Italy. Hartmann, on the contrary, calls it an
old Italian one adopted by Pythagoras. See a valuable note in
Schwegler, _Röm. Gesch._ i. 561, inclining to the latter view.
Footnote 6:
Probably by the Decemvirs, B.C. 450, who are said to have made some
alteration in the calendar (Macrob. 1. 13. 21.)
Footnote 7:
See _Dict. Ant._ i. 337 and 342. It is highly probable that there was
a still older plan, which gave way to this at the time of the
Decemvirate: the evidence for this, which is conjectural only, is
stated by Mommsen in the first chapter of his _Chronologie_. The
number of days in this cycle (also of 4 years) is computed at 1475,
and the average in each year at 368-3/4.
Footnote 8:
Or, according to Mommsen, in alternate years after the 23rd and 24th,
i. e. in the year of 378 days 23 days were inserted after the
_Terminalia_; in the year of 377 days 22 days were inserted after the
24th (_Regifugium_). Thus February would in the one case have 23, and
in the other 24 days; the remaining 5 and 4 being added to the
intercalated period. The object of the Decemvirs (if it was they who
made this change) in this curious arrangement was, in part at least,
to keep the festival of the god Terminus on its original day (Mommsen,
_Chron._ 38). Terminus would budge neither from his seat on the
Capitol (Liv. 1. 55) nor from his place in the calendar.
Footnote 9:
Probably in order that the beginning of the year might coincide with a
new moon; which actually happened on Jan. 1, 45, and was doubtless
regarded as a good omen.
Footnote 10:
He added 10 days to the normal year of 355: January, Sextilis,
December, receiving two; April, June, September, November, one only.
These new days were placed at the end of the months, so that the days
on which religious festivals fell might remain as before.
Footnote 11:
Mommsen, _Chron._ 220. In no other Italian calendar of which we have
any knowledge is March the first month (ib. 218 foll.): but there
cannot be much doubt that these too had undergone changes. Festus
(150), representing Verrius Flaccus, says, ‘Martius mensis initium
fuit anni et in Latio et post Romam conditam,’ &c.
Footnote 12:
Huschke, _Röm. Jahr_, 11 foll.
Footnote 13:
See below, under March 1.
Footnote 14:
Mommsen, _Chron._ 103 foll.
Footnote 15:
Not the real new moon, which is invisible. The period between the new
moon and the first quarter varies.
Footnote 16:
Varro, _L. L._ 6. 27. This was the method before the publication of
the calendar by Flavius: Macr. 1. 15. 9. The meaning of Covella is
doubtful; it has generally been connected with _cavus_ and κοῖλος, and
explained of the ‘hollow’ crescent of the new moon. See Roscher,
_Lex._ s. v. Iuno 586.
Footnote 17:
Aust, s. v. Iuppiter, in Roscher’s _Lexicon_, p. 655.
Footnote 18: