of so many others, came to be overgrown with Greek ideas and rites.
There is no sign of any connexion between this festival and the cult of
Dionysus; hence we infer that there was an old Latin Liber before the
arrival of the Greek god in Italy. What this god was, however, can
hardly be inferred from his cult, of which we only know a single
feature, recorded by Ovid[148]. He tells us that old women, _sacerdotes
Liberi_, sat crowned with ivy all about the streets on this day with
cakes of oil and honey (_liba_), and a small portable altar (_foculus_),
on which to sacrifice for the benefit of the buyer of these cakes. This
tells us nothing substantial, and we have to fall back on the
name—always an uncertain method. The best authorities seem now agreed in
regarding the word Liber (whatever be its etymology) as having something
of the same meaning as _genius_, forming an adjective _liberalis_ as
_genius_ forms _genialis_, and meaning a creative, productive spirit,
full of blessing, and so generous, free, &c.[149] If this were so it
would not be unnatural that the characteristics and rites of Dionysus
should find here a stem on which to engraft themselves, or that Liber
should become the object of obscene ceremonies which need not be
detailed here, and also the god of the Italian vine-growers.
It is possible that Liber may have been an ancient cult-title of
Jupiter; we do in fact find a Jupiter Liber in inscriptions, though the
combination is uncommon[150]. In that case Liber may have been an
emanation or off-shoot from Jupiter, as Silvanus probably was from
Mars[151]. But I am disposed to think that the characteristics of Liber,
so far as we know them, are not in keeping with those of Jupiter; and
that the process was rather of the opposite kind, that is, the cult of
Liber in its later form became attached to that of Jupiter, who was
always the presiding deity of vineyards and wine-making[152].
This was also the usual day on which boys assumed the toga virilis (toga
recta, pura, _libera_):
Restat ut inveniam quare toga libera detur
Lucifero pueris, candide Bacche, tuo.
Sive quod es Liber, vestis quoque libera per te
Sumitur et vitae liberioris iter[153].
We know indeed that in the late Republic and Empire other days were used
for this ceremony: Virgil took his toga on Oct. 15, Octavian on Oct. 18,
Tiberius on April 24, Nero on July 7[154]; but it is likely that this
day was in earlier times the regular one, in spite of the inconvenience
of a disparity of age thence resulting amongst the tirones. For whether
or no the _toga libera_ has any real connexion with the Liberalia, this
was the time when the army was called out for the year, and when the
tirones would be required to present themselves[155]. Ovid tells us that
on this day the rustic population flocked into the city for the
Liberalia, and the opportunity was doubtless taken to make known the
list of tirones, as the boys were called when the toga was assumed and
they were ready for military service.
They sacrificed, it appears, before leaving home and again on the
Capitol, either to Pubertas or Liber, or both[156].
On this day also, according to Ovid, and also on the previous one, some
kind of a procession ‘went to the Argei’[157]; by which word is meant,
we may be almost sure, the Argeorum sacella. There were in various parts
of the four regions of the Servian city a number of sacella or sacraria,
which were called Argei, Argea, or Argeorum sacella. What these were we
never shall know for certain; but we may be fairly sure that their
number was twenty-four, six for each region; the same number as that of
the rush puppets or simulacra also called Argei, which were thrown into
the Tiber by the Vestal Virgins on May 15. The identity of the name and
number leads to the belief that there was a connexion between these
sacella and the simulacra; but the very difficult questions which arose
about both must be postponed till we have before us the whole of the
ceremonial, i. e. that of May 15 as well as that of March 17. About this
last we know nothing and can at best attempt to infer its character from
the ceremony in May, of which we fortunately have some particulars on
which we can fully rely.
KAL. XIV APR. (MARCH 19). NP CAER. VAT. N. MAFF.
QUINQ[VATRUS]. (CAER. MAFF. PRAEN. VAT. FARN.)
QUINQUATRIA. (RUST. PHIL. SILV.)
A note is appended in Praen., which is thus completed by Mommsen with
the help of a Verrian gloss (Fest. 254).
[RECTIUS TAMEN ALII PUTARUNT DICTUM AB EO QUOD HIC DIES EST POST DIEM V
IDUS. QUO]D IN LATIO POST [IDUS DIES SIMILI FERE RATIONE DECLI]NARENTUR.
FERIAE MARTI (VAT.)
[SALI] FACIUNT IN COMITIO SALTUS [ADSTANTIBUS PO]NTIFICIBUS ET
TRIB[UNIS] CELER[UM]. Praen., in which we find yet another note:
ARTIFICUM DIES [QUOD MINERVAE] AEDIS IN AVENTINO EO DIE EST [DEDICATA].
The original significance of this day is indicated by the note Feriae
Marti in Vat., and also by that in Praen., which has been amplified with
tolerable certainty. The Salii were active this day in the worship of
Mars, and the scene of their activity was the _Comitium_. With this
agrees, as Mommsen has pointed out, the statement of Varro[158] that the
_Comitium_ was the scene of some of their performances, though he does
not mention which. More light is thrown on the matter by the grammarian
Charisius[159], who, in suggesting an explanation of the name
Quinquatrus by which this day was generally known, remarks that it was
derived from a verb _quinquare_, to purify, ‘quod eo die arma ancilia
lustrari sint solita.’ His etymology is undoubtedly wrong, but the
reason given for it is valuable[160]. The ancilia were purified on this
day (perhaps by the Salii dancing around them), and thus it exactly
answers to the Armilustrium on Oct. 19, just as the horse-races on the
Ides of March, if that indeed were the original day, correspond to the
ceremony of the ‘October horse’[161].
The object and meaning of the lustratio in each case is not, however,
quite clear. Since in March the season of war began, and ended, no
doubt, originally in October[162], and as the Salii seem to be a kind of
link between the religious and military sides of the state’s life, we
are tempted to guess that the lustration of the ancilia represented in
some way the lustration of the arms of the entire host, or perhaps that
the latter were all lustrated so as to be ready for use, on this day,
and once again on Oct. 19 before they were put away for the winter. In
this latter case the Salii would be the leaders of, as well as sharers
in, a general purifying process. And that this is the right view seems
to be indicated by Verrius’ note in the Praenestine calendar, from which
it is clear that the _tribuni celerum_ were present, and took some part
in the ceremony. These tribuni were almost certainly the three leaders
of the original cavalry force of the three ancient tribes, and they seem
to have united both priestly and military characteristics[163]; and from
their presence in the Comitium may perhaps also be inferred that of the
leaders of the infantry _tribuni militum_. In the earliest times,
therefore, the arms of the whole host may have been lustrated in the
presence of its leaders, the Salii, so to speak, performing the service;
but in later times the Salii alone were left, and their arms alone
lustrated, though possibly individuals representing the ancient _tribuni
celerum_ may have appeared as congregation.
But this day was generally known as Quinquatrus, simply because it was
the fifth day after the Ides[164]; i.e. there was a space of three days
between the Ides and the festival. Such intervals of three days, either
between the Ides and the festival or between one festival and another,
occur several times in the Roman calendar[165], though in this instance
alone the day following the interval appears in the calendars as
Quinquatrus. The term was no doubt a pontifical one, and the meaning was
unknown to the common people; in any case it came to be misunderstood,
and was in later times popularly applied to the four days following the
festival as well as the festival itself; its first syllable being taken
to indicate a five-day period instead of the fifth day after the Ides.
This popular mistake led to still further confusion owing to a curious
change in the religious character of these days, about the nature of
which there can be no serious doubt.
The 19th came to be considered as sacred to Minerva[166], because a
temple to that goddess was consecrated on this day, on the Caelian or
the Aventine, or possibly both[167]. There is no obvious connexion
between Mars and Minerva; and it is now thought probable that Minerva
has here simply taken the place of another goddess, Nerio—one almost
lost to sight in historical times, but of whose early connexion with
Mars some faint traces are to be found. Thus where we find Minerva
brought into close relation with Mars, as in the myth of Anna Perenna,
it is thought that we should read Nerio instead of Minerva[168]. This
conclusion is strengthened by a note of Porphyrion on Horace _Epist._
ii. 2. 209 ‘Maio mense religio est nubere, et etiam Martio, in quo de
nuptiis habito certamine a Minerva Mars victus est: obtenta virginitate
Neriene est appellata.’ As Neriene must = Nerio[169], this looks much
like an attempt to explain the occurrence of two female names, Minerva
and Nerio, in the same story; the original heroine, Nerio, having been
supplanted by the later Minerva[170].
Of this Nerio much, perhaps too much, has been made in recent years by
ingenious scholars. A complete love-story has been discovered, in which
Mars, at first defeated in his wooing, as Porphyrion tells us in the
passage just quoted, eventually becomes victorious; for Nerio is called
wife of Mars in a fragment of an old comedy by Licinius Imbrex, in a
passage of Plautus, and in a prayer put into the mouth of Hersilia by
Gellius the annalist, when she asked for peace at the hand of T.
Tatius[171]. And this story has been fitted on, without sufficient
warrant, to the Mars-festivals of this month. Mars is supposed to have
been born on the Kalends, to have grown wondrously between Kalends and
Ides, to have fallen then in love with Nerio, to have been fooled as we
saw by Anna Perenna, to have been rejected and defeated by his
sweetheart, and finally to have won her as his wife on the 19th[172].
Are we to find here a fragment of real Italian mythology, or an
elaborate example of the Graecizing anthropomorphic tendencies of the
third and second centuries B.C.?
The question is a difficult one, and lies rather outside the scope of
this work. Those who have read Usener’s brilliant paper will find it
hard to shake themselves free of the conviction that he has unearthed a
real myth, unless they carefully study the chapter of Aulus Gellius
which is its chief foundation. Such a study has brought me back to the
conviction that Plautus and the others were writing in terms of the
fashionable modes of thought of their day, and were not appealing to
popular ideas of the relations of Italian deities to each other[173].
Aulus Gellius begins by quoting a _comprecatio_ from the book of the
_Libri sacerdotum populi Romani_. ‘In his scriptum est: Luam Saturni,
Salaciam Neptuni, Horam Quirini, Virites Quirini, Maiam Volcani, Heriem
Iunonis, Moles Martis Nerienemque Martis.’ A glance at the names thus
coupled together is enough to show that Mars is not here thought of as
the husband of Neriene; the names Lua, Salacia, &c., seem rather to
express some characteristic of the deity with whose name they are joined
or some mode of his operation[174]; and Gellius himself, working on an
etymology of Nerio which has generally been accepted as correct,
explains the name thus: ‘Nerio igitur Martis vis et potentia et maiestas
quaedam esse Martis demonstratur.’ In the latter part of his chapter,
after quoting Plautus, he says that he has heard the poet blamed by an
eminent critic for the strange and false notion that Nerio was the wife
of Mars; but he is inclined to think that there was a real tradition to
that effect, and cites his namesake the annalist and Licinius Imbrex in
support of his view.
But neither annalist nor play-writer can stand against that passage from
the sacred books with which he began his chapter; and if we give the
latter its due weight, the value of the others is relatively diminished.
It appears to me that the one represents the true primitive Italian idea
of divine powers, which with its abundance of names offered excellent
opportunities to anthropomorphic tendencies of the Graecizing school,
while the others show those tendencies actually producing their results.
Any conclusion on the point must be of the nature of a guess; but I am
strongly disposed to think (1) that Nerio was not originally an
independent deity, but a name attached to Mars expressive of some aspect
of his power, (2) that the name gradually became endowed with
personality, and (3) that out of the combination of Mars and Nerio the
Graecizing school developed a myth of which the fragments have been
taken by Usener and his followers as pure Roman.
Having once been displaced by Minerva, Nerio vanished from the calendar,
and with her that special aspect of Mars—whatever it may have been—which
the name was intended to express. The five days, 18th to 23rd, became
permanently associated with Minerva. The 19th was the dedication-day of
at least one of her temples, and counted as her birthday[175]: the 23rd
was the Tubilustrium, with a sacrifice to ‘dea fortis,’ who seems to
have been taken for Minerva, owing to an incorrect idea that the latter
was specially the deity of trumpet-players[176]. She was no doubt an old
Italian deity of artificers and trade-guilds; but the Tubilustrium was
really a Mars-festival, and Minerva had no immediate connexion with it.
X KAL. APR. (MARCH 23). NP.
TUBILUST[RIUM]. (CAER. MAFF. VAT. FARN. MIN. III.)
TUBILUSTRIUM. (PHILOC.)
Note in Praen.: [FERIAE] MARTI[177]. HIC DIES APPELLATUR ITA, QUOD IN
ATRIO SUTORIO TUBI LUSTRANTUR, QUIBUS IN SACRIS UTUNTUR. LUTATIUS QUIDEM
CLAVAM EAM AIT ESSE IN RUINIS PALA[TI I]NCENSI A GALLIS REPERTAM, QUA
ROMULUS URBEM INAUGURAVERIT.
IX KAL. APR. (MARCH 24). NP.
Q. R. C. F. (VAT. CAER.)
Q. REX. C. F. (MAFF. PRAEN.)
Note in Praen.: HUNC DIEM PLERIQUE PERPERAM INTERPRETANTES PUTANT
APPELLAR[I] QUOD EO DIE EX COMITIO FUGERIT [REX: N]AM NEQUE TARQUINIUS
ABIIT EX COMITIO [URBIS], ET ALIO QUOQUE MENSE EADEM SUNT [IDEMQUE
S]IGNIFICANT. QU[ARE COMITIIS PERACTIS IUDICI]A FIERI INDICA[RI IIS
MAGIS PUTAMUS][178].
These two days must be taken in connexion with the 23rd and 24th of May,
which are marked in the calendars in exactly the same way. The
explanation suggested by Mommsen is simple and satisfactory[179]; the
24th of March and of May were the two fixed days on which the _comitia
curiata_ met for the sanctioning of wills[180] under the presidency of
the Rex. The 23rd in each month, called Tubilustrium, would be the day
of the lustration of the _tubae_ or _tubi_ used in summoning the
assembly. The letters Q. R. C. F. (quando rex comitiavit fas) mean that
on the days so marked proceedings in the courts might only begin when
the king had dissolved the Comitia.
The _tuba_, as distinguished from the _tibia_, which was the typical
Italian instrument, was a long straight tube of brass with a bell
mouth[181]. It was used chiefly in military[182] and religious
ceremonies; and as the _comitia curiata_ was an assembly both for
military and religious objects, this would suit well with Mommsen’s idea
of the object of the lustration. The Tubilustrium was the day on which
these instruments, which were to be used at the meeting of the comitia
on the following day, were purified by the sacrifice of a lamb. Of the
Atrium Sutorium, where the rite took place, we know nothing.
There are some words at the end of Verrius’ note in the Praenestine
Calendar, which, as Mommsen has pointed out[183], come in abruptly and
look as if something had dropped out: ‘Lutatius quidem clavam eam ait
esse in ruinis Pala[ti i]ncensi a Gallis repertam, qua Romulus urbem
inauguraverit.’ This _clava_ must be the _lituus_ of Romulus, mentioned
by Cicero[184], which was found on the Palatine and kept in the Curia
Saliorum. We cannot, however, see clearly what Verrius or his excerptor
meant to tell us about it; there would seem to have been a confusion
between _lituus_ in the sense of _baculum_ and _lituus_ in the sense of
a _tuba incurva_. The latter was in use as well as the ordinary straight
_tuba_[185]; in shape it closely resembled the _clava_ of the augur, and
perhaps the resemblance led to the notion that it was the _clava_ of
Romulus and not a _tuba_ which was this day purified with the other
_tubae_.
* * * * *
We can learn little or nothing from the calendar of this month about the
origin of Mars, and we have no other sufficient evidence on which to
base a satisfactory conjecture. But from the cults of the month, and
partly also from those of October, we can see pretty clearly what ideas
were prominent in his worship even in the early days of the Roman state.
They were chiefly two, and the two were closely connected. He was the
Power who must be specially invoked to procure the safety of crops and
cattle; and secondly, in his keeping were the safety and success of the
freshly-enrolled host with its armour and its trumpets. In short, he was
that deity to whom the most ancient Romans looked for aid at the season
when all living things, man included, broke into fresh activity. He
represents the characteristics of the early Roman more exactly than any
other god; for there are two things which we may believe with certainty
about the Roman people in the earliest times—(1) that their life and
habits of thought were those of an agricultural race; and (2) that they
continually increased their cultivable land by taking forcible
possession in war of that of their neighbours.
Footnote 61:
See Nissen, _Italienische Landeskunde_, i. 404; Ovid, _Fasti_, 3. 235—
Quid, quod hiems adoperta gelu tunc denique cedit,
Et pereunt victae sole tepente nives,
Arboribus redeunt detonsae frigore frondes,
Uvidaque in tenero palmite gemma tumet:
Quaeque diu latuit, nunc se qua tollat in auras,
Fertilis occultas invenit herba vias.
Nunc fecundus ager: pecoris nunc hora creandi,
Nunc avis in ramo tecta laremque parat.
Tempora iure colunt Latiae fecunda parentes
Quarum militiam votaque partus habet.
Here we have the fertility of man, beast, and crop, all brought
together: the poet is writing of March 1. The Romans reckoned spring
from Favonius (Feb. 7) to about May 10 (Varro, _R. R._ 1. 38); March 1
would therefore usually be a day on which its first effects would be
obvious to every one.
Footnote 62:
Sat. 1. 12. 6; Ovid, _Fasti_, 3. 135 foll.
Footnote 63:
Ovid only mentions one ‘curia’: in Macrobius the word is in the
plural. Ovid must, I think, refer to the curia Saliorum on the
Palatine (Marq. 431), as this was the day on which the Salii began
their rites. Macrobius may be including the curia of the Quirinal
Salii (Preller, i. 357).
Footnote 64:
See below, on the Vestalia in June, p. 147.
Footnote 65:
Julius Obsequens, 19.
Footnote 66:
Roscher, _Myth. Lex._ s. v. Mars, 2427. Roscher regards the use of
laurel in the Mars-cult as parallel with that in the Apollo-cult and
not derived from it. The point is not however certain. The laurel was
used as an ἀποτρόπαιον at the Robigalia, which seems closely connected
with the Mars-cult (Plin. _N. H._ 18, 161); here it could hardly have
been taken over from the worship of Apollo.
Footnote 67:
Mommsen, _C. I. L._ 254.
Footnote 68:
_Fasti_, 5. 253. There is a good parallel in Celtic mythology: the
wife of Llew the Sun-hero was born of flowers (Rhys, _Celt. Myth._
384). The myth is found in many parts of the world (_Lang_, ii. 22,
and note).
Footnote 69:
By Usener, in his remarkable paper in _Rhein. Museum_, xxx. 215 foll.,
on ‘Italische Mythen.’ He unluckily made the mistake of supposing that
Ovid told this story under June 1 (i. e. _nine months_ before the
supposed birthday of Mars). There is indeed a kind of conjunction of
June and Mars on June 1, as both had temples dedicated on that day;
but neither of these can well be earlier than the fourth century B.C.,
and no one would have thought of them as having any bearing on the
birth of Mars but for Usener’s blunder (Aust, _de Aedibus sacris Pop.
Rom._ pp. 8 and 10, and his valuable note in Roscher’s article on
Mars, p. 2390). Usener also adduces the derivation of Gradivus in
Fest. 97 ‘quia gramine sit ortus.’
Footnote 70:
The practical Roman mind applied the myth chiefly to the history of
its _state_, and in such a way that its true mythic character was
lost, or nearly so. What became in Greece mythic literature became
quasi-history at Rome. Thus it is that Romulus is so closely connected
with Mars in legend: the race-hero and the race-god have almost a
mythical identity. The story of the she-wolf may be at least as much a
myth of the birth of Mars as Ovid’s story of Juno, in spite of the
fatherhood of Mars in that legend.
Footnote 71:
Aust, as quoted above. The date was probably 379 B.C. (Plin. _N. H._
16. 235).
Footnote 72:
Roscher in _Lex._ s. v. Juno, p. 576.
Footnote 73:
Marq. 571, where is a list of passages referring to these gifts. Some
are familiar, e. g. Horace, _Od._ 3. 8, and Juvenal, 9. 53 (with the
scholiast in each case).
Footnote 74:
_Schol. Cruq._ on Horace, l. c., and the scholiast on Juvenal, l. c.
Footnote 75:
See e. g. the mysterious scene on a cista from Praeneste given in
Roscher, _Lex._ 2407, to which the clue seems entirely lost.
Footnote 76:
_Lex._ s. v. Mars, 2399; s. v. Juno, 584.
Footnote 77:
Ovid, 3. 351 foll.; Plut. _Numa_, 13.
Footnote 78:
Dion. Hal. 2. 71.
Footnote 79:
Ovid, l. c. 381 foll.
Footnote 80:
Marq. 430, and note.
Footnote 81:
Festus, p. 131; Usener in _Rhein. Mus._ xxx. 209 foll. Wordsworth,
_Fragments and Specimens of Early Latin_, p. 564 foll. Jordan
(Preller, i. 336) had however doubts about the identification of Mars
and Mamurius.
Footnote 82:
The place is not quite certain. Ambrosch (_Studien_, 7), who believed
them to be part of the armour of the god, placed them in his
_sacrarium_ in the king’s house, with Serv. Aen. 7. 603, and this
falls in with Dionysius’ version of the myth, that the shield was
found in Numa’s house. With this view Preller agreed. Marquardt, (431)
however, believed they were part of the armour of the priests, and as
such were kept in the Curia Saliorum, which might also be called
_sacrarium Martis_. The question is not of the first importance.
Footnote 83:
Dionysius (2. 70. 2) says that each was girt with a sword, and carried
in his right hand, λόγχην ἢ ῥάβδον ἤ τι τοιοῦθ ἕτερον. Apparently,
assuming that he had seen the procession, he did not see or remember
clearly what these objects were. A relief from Anagnia (_Annali del
Inst._ 1869, 70 foll.) shows them like a double drumstick, with a knob
at each end.
Footnote 84:
See also _Myth. Lex._ s. v. Mars, p. 2404 and Apollo, p. 425.
Footnote 85:
Virg. _Aen._ 4. 143.
Footnote 86:
Strabo, 639 foll. The same also appear in the cult of Zeus;
Preller-Robert, _Greek Myth._ i. 134.
Footnote 87:
_G. B._ ii. 157-182; Tylor, _Prim. Cult._ i. 298 foll. We have
survivals at Rome, not only in the periodic Salian rites, but on
particular occasions; Martial 12. 57. 15 (of an eclipse); Ovid,
_Fasti_, 5. 441; Tibull. 1. 8. 21; Tac. _Ann._ 1. 28 (this was in
Germany). I have known the church bells rung at Zermatt in order to
stop a continuous downpour of rain in hay-harvest.
Footnote 88:
_G. B._ ii. 210.
Footnote 89:
Jordan, _Krit. Beiträge_, p. 203 foll.
Footnote 90:
Cato, _R. R._ 143.
Footnote 91:
Liv. 1. 20. Cp. 9. 40, where the chosen Samnite warriors wore _tunicae
versicolores_. In each case the dress is a religious one, of the same
character as that of the _triumphator_, and would have its ultimate
origin in the war-paint of savages, which probably also has a
religious signification. The _trabea_ was the old short cavalry coat.
Footnote 92:
See Marq. 432, and _Dict. of Antiq._ s. v. Salii for details.
Footnote 93:
Fest. 131. The fragments may be seen in Wordsworth’s _Fragments and
Specimens of Early Latin_, pp. 564 foll. In the chief fragment the
name of Janus seems almost certainly to occur (cf. Lydus, 4. 2); and
in another Lucetius (= Iupiter?). Juno and Minerva are also mentioned.
See _Dict. of Antiq._ s. v. Salii. It is curious that Mars is more
prominent in the song of the Arval Brothers.
Footnote 94:
Liv. 5. 52. 7.
Footnote 95:
Dionysius, 2. 71.
Footnote 96: