of the Salii in the light of the material he has collected. He is
inclined to see two objects in their performances: (1) the routing out
of demons of all kinds in order to collect them for transference to the
human scapegoat, Mamurius Veturius (see below on March 14), who was
driven out a fortnight later; and (2) to make the corn grow, by a charm
consisting in leaping and dancing, which is known in many parts of the
world. It will perhaps be safer to keep to generalities in matters of
which we have but slender knowledge; and to conclude that the old Latins
believed that the Spirit which was beginning to make the crops grow must
at this time be protected from hostile demons, in order that he might be
free to perform his own friendly functions for the community. Though the
few words preserved of the Salian hymns are too obscure to be of much
use[89], we seem to see in them a trace of a deity of vegetation; and
the prayer to Mars, which is given in Cato’s agricultural treatise, is
most instructive on this point[90].
The Salii in these processions were clothed in a _trabea_ and _tunica
picta_[91], the ‘full dress’ of the warrior inspired by some special
religious zeal, wearing helmet, breastplate, and sword. They carried the
_ancile_ on the left arm, and a staff or club of some kind to strike it
with[92]. At certain sacred places they stopped and danced, their
praesul giving them the step and rhythm; and here we may suppose that
they also sang the song of which a few fragments have come down to us,
where the recurring word Mamurius seems beyond doubt to be a variant of
Mars[93]. Each evening they rested at a different place—_mansiones
Saliorum_, as they were called—and here the sacred arms were hung up
till the next day, and the Salii feasted. They were twenty-four in
number, twelve Palatini and twelve Collini (originally Agonales or
Agonenses), the former specially devoted to the worship of Mars
Gradivus, the latter to that of Quirinus[94]. The antiquity of the
priesthood is proved by the fact that the Salii must be of patrician
birth, and _patrimi_ and _matrimi_ (i. e. with both parents living)
according to the ancient rule which descended from the worship of the
household[95].
It has been suggested that the shields (_ancilia_) which the Salii
carried, being twelve in number for each of the two guilds, represented
the twelve months of the year, either as twelve suns[96] (the sun being
renewed each month), or as twelve moons, which is a little more
reasonable. This idea implies that the number of the Salii (which was
the same as that of the Fratres Arvales) was based on the number of
months in the year, which is very far from likely; it would seem also to
assume that the shape of the shields was round, like sun or moon, which
was almost certainly not the case. According to the legend, the original
shield fell on the first new moon of the year; but it is quite
unnecessary to jump to the conclusion that the others represent eleven
other new moons. It would rather seem probable to a cautious inquirer
that though an incrustation of late myth may have grown upon the Salii
and their carmen and their curious arms, no amount of ingenious
combination has as yet succeeded in proving that such myths had their
origin in any really ancient belief of the Romans. What we know for
certain is that there were twelve warrior-priests of the old Palatine
city, and that they carried twelve shields of an antique type, which
Varro compares to the Thracian peltae (_L. L._ 7. 43); shaped not unlike
the body of a violin, with a curved indentation on each side[97], which,
when the shield was slung on the back, would leave space for the arms to
move freely. In this respect, as in the rest of his equipment, the
Salius simply represented the old Italian warrior in his ‘war-paint.’ In
the examples of expulsion of evils referred to above as collected by Mr.
Frazer, it is interesting to notice how often the expellers use military
arms, or are dressed in military fashion. This may perhaps help us to
understand how attributes apparently so distinct as the military and the
agricultural should be found united in Mars and his cult.
NON. MART. (MARCH 7). F.
... [VEDI]OVI. ARTIS VEDIOVIS INTER DUOS LUCOS. (PRAEN.)
Various conjectures have been made for correcting this note. We may take
it that the first word is rightly completed: some letters seem to have
preceded it, and _feriae_ has been suggested[98], but not generally
accepted. The next word, _Artis_, must be a slip of the stone-cutter.
That it was not Martis we are sure, as Ovid says that there was no note
in the Fasti for this day except on the cult of Vediovis[99]. Even
Mommsen is in despair, but suggests _Aedis_ as a possibility, and that
_dedicata_ was accidentally omitted after it.
We do not know when the temple was dedicated[100]. The cult of Vediovis
seems to have no special connexion with other March rites: and it seems
as well to postpone consideration of it till May 21, the dedication-day
of the temple _in arce_. See also on Jan. 1.
VII ID. MART. (MARCH 9). C.
ARMA ANCILIA MOVENT. (PHILOC.)
As we have seen, the first ‘moving’ of the ancilia was on the 1st. This
is the second mentioned in the calendars; the third, according to Lydus
(4. 42), was on the 23rd (Tubilustrium, q.v.). As the Salii seem to have
danced with the shields all through the month up to the 24th[101], it
has been supposed that these were the three principal days of ‘moving’;
and Mr. Marindin suggests that they correspond to the three most
important _mansiones Saliorum_, of which two were probably the Curia
Saliorum on the Palatine and the Sacrarium Martis in the Regia[102].
PRID. ID. MART. (MARCH 14). NP.
EQUIRR[IA]. (MAFF. VAT. ESQ.)
FERIAE MARTI. (VAT.)
SACRUM MAMURIO. (RUSTIC CALENDARS[103].)
MAMURALIA. (PHILOC.)
These notes involve several difficulties. To begin with, this day is an
even number, and there is no other instance in the calendar of a
festival occurring on such a day. Wissowa[104], usually a very cautious
inquirer, here boldly cuts the knot by conjecturing that the Mars
festival of this day had originally been on the next, i.e. the Ides, but
was put back one day to enable the people to frequent both the
horse-races (Equirria) and the festival of Anna Perenna[105]. The
latter, he might have added, was obviously extremely popular with the
lower classes, as we shall see from Ovid’s description; and though the
scene of it was close to that of the Equirria, or certainly not far
away, it is not impossible that it may have diverted attention from the
nobler and more manly amusement. Wissowa strengthens his argument by
pointing out an apparent parallel between the festival dates of March
and October. Here, as elsewhere, in the calendar, we find an interval of
three days between two festivals, viz. between March 19 (Quinquatrus)
and March 23 (Tubilustrium), and between Oct. 15 (‘October horse’) and
Oct. 19 (Armilustrium). Now, as we shall see, the rites of March 19 and
Oct. 19 seem to correspond to each other[106]; and if there were a
chariot-race on March 15, it would also answer to the race on the day of
the ‘October horse,’ Oct. 15, with a three days’ interval as in October.
The argument is not a very strong one, but there is a good deal to be
said for it.
A much more serious difficulty lies in the discrepancy between the three
older calendars in which we have notes for this day and the almanacs of
the later Empire, viz. that of Philocalus (A.D. 354) and the rustic
calendars. The former tell us of a Mars-festival, with a horse-race; the
latter know nothing of these, but note a festival of Mamurius, a name
which, as we saw, occurred in the Saliare Carmen apparently as a variant
of Mars, and came to be affixed to the legendary smith who made the
eleven copies of the ancile. How are we to account for the change of
Mars into Mamurius, and of feriae Marti into Mamuralia? And are we to
suppose that the later calendars here indicate a late growth of legend,
based on the name Mamurius as occurring in the Carmen Saliare, or that
they have preserved the shadow of an earlier and popular side of the
March rites, which the State-calendars left out of account?
Apparently Mommsen holds the former opinion[107]. In his note on this
day he says that it is easy to understand how the second Equirria came
to be known to the _vulgus_ as Mamuralia (i.e. so distinguished from the
first Equirria on Feb. 27), seeing that Mamurius who made the ancilia
belongs wholly to the cult of Mars, and that this day was one of those
on which the Salii and the ancilia were familiar sights in the streets
of Rome. In other words, the Salian songs gave rise to the legend of
Mamurius, and this in its turn gave a new name to the second Equirria or
feriae Marti. And this I believe to be the most rational explanation of
our difficulty, seeing that we have no mention of a feast of Mamurius
earlier than the calendar of Philocalus in the fourth century A.D.,
which cannot be regarded as in any sense representing learning or
research[108].
But of recent years much has been written in favour of the other view,
that the late calendars have here preserved for us a trace of very
ancient Roman belief and ritual[109]. This view rests almost entirely on
a statement of a still later writer, Laurentius Lydus of Apamea, who
wrote a work, _de Mensibus_, in the first half of the sixth century
A.D., preserved in part in the form of two summaries or collections of
extracts. Lydus was no doubt a man of learning, as is shown by his other
work, _de Magistratibus_; but he does not give us his authority for
particular statements, and his second- or third-hand knowledge must
always be cautiously used.
Lydus tells us that on the Ides of March (a mistake, it is
supposed[110], for the 14th—which, however, he should not have made), a
man clothed in skins was led out and driven with long peeled wands (out
of the city, as we may guess from what follows) and shouted at as
‘Mamurius.’ Hence the saying, when any one is beaten, that they are
‘playing Mamurius with him.’ For the legend runs that Mamurius the smith
was beaten out of the city because misfortune fell on the Romans when
they substituted the new shields (made by Mamurius) for those that had
fallen from heaven[111].
This is clearly a late form of the Mamurius-myth: in all the earlier
accounts[112] only one ancile is said to have fallen from heaven. Lydus
seems rather to be thinking of twelve original ones[113], and twelve
copies—perhaps of the Palatine and Colline ancilia respectively. If the
form of the myth, then, is of late growth, suspicion may well be aroused
as to the antiquity of the rite it was meant to explain, for with the
older type of myth the rite does not seem to suit. And this suspicion is
strengthened by the fact that in the whole of Latin literature there is
no certain allusion to a rite so striking and peculiar, and only one
that can possibly, even by forcible treatment, be taken as such. In
Propertius v (iv.) 2. 61, we have the following lines, put into the
mouth of the god Vertumnus:
At tibi, Mamuri, formae caelator aenae,
Tellus artifices ne premat Osca manus,
Qui me tam docilis potuisti fundere in usus.
Unum opus est: operi non datur unus honos.
Usener took this to mean, or to imply, that Mamurius was driven out of
the city to its enemies the Oscans; but how we are to get this out of
the words, which will bear very different interpretations, obscure as
they are, it is not easy to see. And can we easily believe that, with
this exception, no allusion should be found to the rite in either Latin
or Greek writers—not in Ovid, Dionysius, Servius, Plutarch[114], or in
the fragments of Varro, Varrius, and others—if that curious rite had
really been enacted year by year before the eyes of the Roman people? It
certainly is not impossible that it may have slipped their notice, or
have been mentioned in works that are lost to us; but it is so
improbable as to justify us in hesitating to base conclusions as to the
antiquity of the rite on the statement of Lydus alone.
There are indeed one or two passages which seem to prove that _skins_
were used by the Salii, and that these skins were _beaten_. Servius[115]
says of Mamurius that they consecrated a day to him, on which ‘pellem
virgis caedunt ad artis similitudinem,’ i. e. on which they imitate the
smith’s art by beating a skin. So also Minucius Felix[116]: ‘alii (we
should probably read _Salii_) incedunt pileati, scuta vetera[117]
circumferunt, pelles caedunt.’ If we may judge by these passages of
writers of the second century, there was something done by the Salii
which involved the beating of skins; but if it was a skin-clad Mamurius
who was beaten, why is he not mentioned, and why did they, as Servius
says (and the context shows that he is speaking of him with all
respect), set apart a day in his honour?
Yet Lydus’ account is so interesting from the point of view of
folk-lore, that Usener was led by it into very far-reaching conclusions.
These have been so well condensed in English by Mr. Frazer that my
labour will be lightened if I may borrow his account[118]:
‘Every year on March 14 a man clad in skins was led in procession
through the streets of Rome, beaten with long white rods, and driven out
of the city. He was called Mamurius Veturius[119], that is, “the old
Mars,” and as the ceremony took place on the day preceding the first
full moon of the old Roman year[120] (which began on March 1), the
skin-clad man must have represented the Mars of the past year, who was
driven out at the beginning of a new one. Now Mars was originally not a
god of war, but of vegetation. For it was to Mars that the Roman
husbandman prayed for the prosperity of his corn and vines, his
fruit-trees and his copses; it was to Mars that the Arval Brothers,
whose business it was to sacrifice for the growth of the crops,
addressed their petitions almost exclusively.... Once more, the fact
that the vernal month of March was dedicated to Mars seems to point him
out as the deity of the sprouting vegetation. Thus the Roman custom of
expelling the old Mars at the beginning of the New Year in spring is
identical with the Slavonic custom of “carrying out Death[121],” if the
view here taken of the latter custom is correct. The similarity of the
Roman and Slavonic customs has been already remarked by scholars, who
appear, however, to have taken Mamurius Veturius and the corresponding
figures in the Slavonic ceremonies to be representatives of the old year
rather than of the old god of vegetation. It is possible that ceremonies
of this kind may have come to be thus interpreted in later times even by
the people who practised them. But the personification of a period of
time is too abstract an idea to be primitive. However, in the Roman, as
in the Slavonic ceremony, the representative of the god appears to have
been treated not only as a deity of vegetation, but also as a
scape-goat[122]. His expulsion implies this; for there is no reason why
the god of vegetation, as such, should be expelled the city. But it is
otherwise if he is also a scape-goat; it then becomes necessary to drive
him beyond the boundaries, that he may carry his sorrowful burden away
to other lands. And, in fact, Mamurius Veturius appears to have been
driven away to the lands of the Oscans, the enemies of Rome[123].’
My examination of the evidence will, I hope, have made it clear why I
hesitate to endorse these conclusions in their entirety (as I did for
many years), interesting as they are. I rather incline to believe that
the whole Mamurius-legend grew out of the Carmen Saliare, and that we
may either have here one of those comparatively rare examples of later
ritual growing itself out of myth, or a point of ancient ritual, such as
the use of skins—perhaps those of victims—misinterpreted and possibly
altered under the influence of the myth. As to Lydus’ statement, it is
better to suspend our judgement; he may, for all we know, have confused
some foreign custom, or that of some other Italian town where there were
Salii, with the ritual of a Roman priesthood[124]. In any case, his
account is too much open to question to bear the weight of conjecture
that has been piled upon it.
ID. MART. (MARCH 15). NP.
FERIAE[125] ANNAE PERENNAE VIA FLAM[INIA] AD LAPIDEM PRIM[UM]. (VAT.)
ANNAE PER. (FARN.)
This is a survival of an old popular festival, as is clearly seen from
Ovid’s account of it; but the absence of any mention of it in the rustic
calendars or in those of Philocalus and Silvius leads us to suppose that
it had died out in the early Empire. This may be accounted for by the
fact that the people came to be more and more attracted by spectacles
and games; and also by the ever-increasing cosmopolitanism of the city
populace, which would be continually losing interest in old Roman
customs which it could not understand.
On this day, Ovid tells us[126], the ‘plebs’ streamed out to the ‘festum
geniale’ of Anna Perenna, and taking up a position in the Campus
Martius, not far from the Tiber[127], and lying about on the grass in
pairs of men and women, passed the day in revelry and drinking[128].
Some lay in the open; some pitched tents and some constructed rude huts
of stakes and branches, stretching their togas over them for shelter. As
they drank they prayed for as many years of life as they can swallow
cups of wine; meanwhile singing snatches of song with much gesticulation
and dancing. The result of these performances was naturally that they
returned to the city in a state of intoxication. Ovid tells us that he
had seen this spectacle himself[129].
Whether there was any sacrificial rite in immediate connexion with these
revels we do not know. Macrobius indeed tells us[130] that sacrifice was
offered in the month of March to Anna Perenna ‘ut annare perannareque
commode liceat’[131]; and Lydus, that on the Ides there were εὐχαὶ
δημόσιαι ὑπὲρ τοῦ ὑγιεινὸν γενέσθαι τὸν ἐνιαυτόν; but we do not know
what was the relation between these and the scene described by Ovid.
Who was the Anna Perenna in whose honour these revels, sacrifices, and
prayers took place, whatever their relation to each other? Ovid and
Silius Italicus[132] tell legends about her which are hardly genuine
Italian, and in which Anna Perenna is confused with the other Anna whom
they knew, the sister of Dido. Hidden under such stories may sometimes
be found traces of a belief or a cult of which we have no other
knowledge; but in this poetical medley there seems to be only one
feature that calls on us to pause. After her wanderings Anna disappears
in the waters of the river Numicius:
Corniger hanc cupidis rapuisse Numicius undis
Creditur, et stagnis occuluisse suis.
Her companions traced her footsteps to the bank: she seemed to tell them
Placidi sum nympha Numici,
Amne perenne latens Anna Perenna vocor.
This tale led Klausen[133] into some very strange fancies about the
goddess, whom he regarded as a water-nymph, thinking that all her other
characteristics (e.g. the year) might be explained symbolically; the
running water representing the flow of time, &c. But it is probable that
she only came into connexion with the river Numicius because Aeneas was
there already. If Aeneas, as Jupiter Indiges, was buried on its
banks[134], what could be more natural than that another figure of the
Dido legend should be brought there too? There does not indeed seem to
be any reason for connecting the real Anna Perenna with water[135]. All
genuine Roman tradition seems to represent her, as we shall see
directly, as an old woman; and when she appears in another shape, she
must have become mixed up with other ideas and stories. It may perhaps
be just possible that on this day some kind of an image of her may have
been thrown into the Tiber, as was the case with the straw puppets
(Argei) on May 15, and that the ceremony dropped out of practice, but
just survived in the Numicius legend[136]. But this is simply
hypothesis.
The fact is that, whatever else Anna Perenna may have been, all that we
can confidently say of her is that she represented in some way the
circle or ring of the year. This is indicated not only by the name,
which can hardly be anything but a feminine form of _annus_, but by the
time at which her festival took place, the first full moon of the new
year. The one legend preserved about her which is of undoubted Italian
origin is thought to point in the same direction. Ovid, wishing to
explain ‘cur cantent obscena puellae’ in that revel of the ‘plebs’ on
the Tiber-bank, tells us[137] how Mars, once in love with Minerva[138],
came to Anna and asked her aid. It was at length granted, and Mars had
the nuptial couch prepared: thither a bride was led, but not the desired
one; it was old Anna with her face veiled like a bride who was playing
the passionate god such a trick as we may suppose not uncommon in the
rude country life of old Latium.
There is no need to be startled at the rude handling of the gods in this
story, which seems so unlike the stately and orderly ideas of Roman
theology. It must be borne in mind that folk-tales like this need not
originally have been applied to the gods at all. They are probably only
ancient country stories of human beings, based on some rude marriage
custom—stories such as delighted the lower farm folk and slaves on
holiday evenings; and they have survived simply because they became in
course of time attached to the persons of the gods, as the conception of
divinities grew to be more anthropomorphic. Granted that Anna or
Perenna[139] was the old woman of the _past_ year, that Mars was the god
of the first month, and that the story as applied to human beings was a
favourite one, we can easily understand how it came to attach itself to
the persons of the gods[140].
Yet another story is told by Ovid of an Anna[141], in writing of whom he
does not add the name Perenna. The Plebs had seceded to the Mons Sacer,
and were beginning to suffer from starvation, when an old woman from
Bovillae, named Anna, came to the rescue with a daily supply of _rustica
liba_. This myth seems to me to have grown out of the custom, to be
described directly, of old women[142] selling _liba_ on the 17th
(Liberalia), the custom having been transferred to that day through an
etymological confusion between _liba_ and _Liberalia_. Usener, however,
saw here a connexion between Anna and Annona[143]; and recently it has
been suggested that a certain Egyptian Anna, who is said by Plutarch to
have invented a mould for bread-baking, may have found her way to Rome
through Greek channels[144].
XVI KAL. APR. (MARCH 17). NP.
LIB[ERALIA]. (MAFF. FARN. RUST.)
LIB. AG[ONIA]. LIBERO LIB. (CAER.)
AG[ONIA]. (VAT.)
LIBERO IN CA[PITOLIO]. (FARN.)
This is one of the four days marked AG. or AGON. in the Fasti (Jan. 9,
May 21, Dec. 11)[145]. It is curious that on this day two of the old
calendars should mark the Liberalia only, and one the Agonia only, and
one both. The day was generally known as Liberalia[146]; the other name
seems to have been known to the priests only, and more especially to the
Salii Collini or Agonenses[147], who must have had charge of the
sacrifice. Wissowa seems to be right in thinking (_de Feriis_ xii) that
the conjunction of Liberalia and Agonia is purely accidental, and that
the day took its common name from the former simply because, as the
latter occurred four times in the year, confusion would be likely to
arise.