April 4[208]. The day was made a festival; though no Roman festival
occurs between the Kalends and Nones of any month, the rule apparently
did not hold good in the case of a foreign worship[209]. Great care was
taken to keep up the foreign character of the cult. The name of the
festival was a Greek one (Megalesia), as Cicero remarked[210]; all
Romans were forbidden by a senatus consultum to take any part in the
service of the goddess[211]. The temple dedicated thirteen years later
on April 10[212] seems to have been frequented by the nobilitas only,
and the custom of giving dinner-parties on April 4, which is well
attested, was confined to the upper classes[213], while the plebs waited
for its festivities till the ensuing Cerealia. The later and more
extravagant developments of the cult did not come in until the
Empire[214].
The story told by Livy of the introduction of the goddess is an
interesting episode in Roman history. It illustrates the far-reaching
policy of the Senate in enlisting Eastern kings, religions, and oracles
in the service of the state at a critical time, and also the curious
readiness of the Roman people to believe in the efficacy of cults
utterly foreign to their own religious practices. At the same time it
shows how careful the government was then, as always, to keep such cults
under strict supervision. But the long stress of the Hannibalic War had
its natural effect on the Italian peoples; and less than twenty years
later the introduction of the Bacchic orgies forced the senate to strain
every nerve to counteract a serious danger to the national religion and
morality.
XVII KAL. MAI. (APRIL 15). NP.
FORD[ICIDIA][215]. (CAER. MAFF. VAT. PRAEN.)
This is beyond doubt one of the oldest sacrificial rites in the Roman
religion. It consisted in the slaughter of pregnant cows (_hordae_ or
_fordae_), one in the Capitol and one in each of the thirty
_curiae_[216]; i. e. one for the state and the rest for each of its
ancient divisions. This was the first festival of the _curiae_; the
other, the _Fornacalia_, will be treated of under February 17. The cows
were offered, as all authorities agree, to Tellus[217], who, as we shall
see, may be an indigitation of the same earth power represented by
Ceres, Bona Dea, Dea Dia, and other female deities. The unborn calves
were torn by attendants of the virgo vestalis maxima from the womb of
the mother and burnt[218], and their ashes were kept by the Vestals for
use at the Parilia a few days later[219]. This was the first ceremony in
the year in which the Vestals took an active part, and it was the first
of a series of acts all of which are connected with the fruits of the
earth, their growth, ripening and harvesting. The object of burning the
unborn calves seems to have been to procure the fertility of the corn
now growing in the womb of mother earth, to whom the sacrifice was
offered[220].
Many charms of this sacrificial kind have been noticed by various
writers; one may be mentioned here which was described by Sir John
Barrow, when British Ambassador in China in 1804. In a spring festival
in the temple of Earth, a huge porcelain image of a cow was carried
about and then broken in pieces, and a number of small cows taken from
inside it and distributed among the people as earnests of a good
season[221]. This must be regarded as a survival of a rite which was no
doubt originally one of the same kind as the Roman.
III ID. APR. (APRIL 11). N.
On this day[222] the oracle of the great temple of Fortuna Primigenia at
Praeneste was open to suppliants, as we learn from a fragment of the
Praenestine Fasti. Though not a Roman festival, the day deserves to be
noticed here, as this oracle was by far the most renowned in Italy. The
cult of Fortuna will be discussed under June 25 and Sept. 13. It does
not seem to be known whether the oracle was open on these days only; see
R. Peter in _Myth. Lex._ s. v. Fortuna, 1545.
XIII KAL. MAI. (APRIL 19). NP.
CER[IALIA]. (CAER. MAFF. PRAEN. ESQ.)
CERERI LIBERO (LIBERAE) ESQ.
Note: All the days from 12th to 19th are marked ludi, ludi Cer., or ludi
Ceriales, in Tusc. Maff. Praen. Vat., taken together: loid. Cereri in
Esq., where the 18th only is preserved: loedi C in Caer. Philocalus has
Cerealici c. m. (circenses missus) xxiv on 12th and 19th.
The origin of the ludi Cereales, properly so called, cannot be proved to
be earlier than the Second Punic War. The games first appear as fully
established in B.C. 202[223]. But from the fact that April 19 is marked
CER in large letters in the calendars we may infer, with Mommsen[224],
that there was a festival in honour of Ceres as far back as the period
of the monarchy. The question therefore arises whether this ancient
Ceres was a native Italian deity, or the Greek Demeter afterwards known
to the Romans as Ceres.
That there was such an Italian deity is placed almost beyond doubt by
the name itself, which all authorities agree in connecting with cerus =
genius, and with the _cerfus_ and _cerfia_ of the great inscription of
Iguvium[225]. The verbal form seems clearly to be _creare_[226]; and
thus, strange to say, we actually get some definite aid from etymology,
and can safely see in the earliest Ceres, if we recollect her
identification with the Greek goddess of the earth and its fruits, a
deity presiding over or representing the generative powers of nature. We
cannot, however, feel sure whether this deity was originally feminine
only, or masculine also, as Arnobius seems to suggest[227]. Judging from
the occurrence of forms such as those quoted above, it is quite likely,
as in the case of Pales, Liber, and others, that this numen was of both
sexes, or of undetermined sex. So anxious were the primitive Italians to
catch the ear of their deities by making no mistake in the ritual of
addressing them, that there was a distinct tendency to avoid marking
their sex too distinctly; and phrases such as ‘sive mas sive femina,’
‘si deus si dea,’ are familiar to all students of the Roman
religion[228].
We may be satisfied, then, that the oldest Ceres was not simply an
importation from Greece. It is curious however, that Ceres is not found
exactly where we should expect to find her, viz. in the ritual of the
Fratres Arvales[229]. Yet this very fact may throw further light on the
primitive nature of Ceres. The central figure of the Arval ritual was
the nameless Dea Dia; and in a ritual entirely relating to the fruits of
the earth we can fairly account for the absence of Ceres by supposing
that she is there represented by the Dea Dia—in fact, that the two are
identical[230]. No one at all acquainted with Italian ideas of the gods
will be surprised at this. It is surely a more reasonable hypothesis
than that of Birt, who thinks that an old name for seed and bread (i. e.
Ceres) was transferred to the Greek deity who dispensed seed and bread
when she was introduced in Rome[231]. It is, in fact, only the name
Ceres that is wanting in the Arval ritual, not the numen itself; and
this is less surprising if we assume that the names given by the
earliest Romans to supernatural powers were not fixed but variable,
representing no distinctly conceived personalities; in other words, that
their religion was pandaemonic rather than polytheistic, though with a
tendency to lend itself easily to the influence of polytheism. We may
agree, then, with Preller[232], that Ceres, with Tellus, and perhaps Ops
and Acca Larentia, are different names for, and aspects of, the numen
whom the Arval brothers called Dea Dia. At the same time we cannot
entirely explain why the name Ceres was picked out from among these to
represent the Greek Demeter. Some light may, however, be thrown on this
point by studying the early history of the Ceres-cult.
The first temple of Ceres was founded, according to tradition, in
consequence of a famine in the year 496 B.C., in obedience to a
Sibylline oracle[233]. It was at the foot of the Aventine, by the Circus
Maximus[234], and was dedicated on April 19, 493, to Ceres, Liber and
Libera, representing Demeter, Dionysus, and Persephone.[235] Thus from
the outset the systematized cult of Ceres in the city was not Roman but
Greek. The temple itself was adorned in Greek style instead of the
Etruscan usual at this period[236]. How is all this to be accounted for?
Let us notice in the first place that from the very foundation of the
temple it is in the closest way connected with the plebs. The year of
its dedication is that of the first secession of the plebs and of the
establishment of the tribuni and aediles plebis[237]. The two events are
connected by the fact, repeatedly stated, that any one violating the
_sacrosanctitas_ of the tribune was to be held _sacer Cereri_[238]; we
are also told that the fines imposed by tribunes were spent on this
temple[239]. It was under the care of the plebeian aediles, and was to
them what the temple of Saturnus was to the quaestors[240]. Its position
was in the plebeian quarter, and at the foot of the Aventine, which in
B.C. 456 is said to have become the property of the plebs[241].
Now it can hardly be doubted that the choice of Ceres (with her fellow
deities of the _trias_), as the goddess whose temple should serve as a
centre for the plebeian community, had some definite meaning. That
meaning must be found in the traditions of famine and distress which we
read of as immediately following the expulsion of Tarquinius. These
traditions have often been put aside as untrustworthy[242], and may
indeed be so in regard to details; but there is some reason for thinking
them to have had a foundation of fact, if we can but accept the other
tradition of the foundation of the temple and its connexion with the
plebs. It is likely enough that under Tarquinius the population was
increased by ‘outsiders’ employed on his great buildings. Under pressure
from the attack of enemies, and from a sudden aristocratic reaction,
this population, we may guess, was thrown out of work, deprived of a
_raison d’être_, and starved[243]; finally rescuing itself by a
secession, which resulted in the institution of its officers, tribunes
and aediles, the latter of whom some to have been charged with the duty
of looking after the corn-supply[244].
How the corn-supply was cared for we cannot tell for certain; but here
again is a tradition which fits in curiously with what we know of the
temple and its worship, though it has been rejected by the superfluous
ingenuity of modern German criticism. Livy tells us that in B.C. 492,
the year after the dedication of the temple, corn was brought from
Etruria, Cumae, and Sicily to relieve a famine[245]. We are not obliged
to believe in the purchase of corn at Syracuse at so early a date,
though it is not impossible; but if we remember that the decorations and
ritual of the temple were Greek beyond doubt, we get a singular
confirmation of the tradition _in outline_ which has not been
sufficiently noticed. If it was founded in 493, placed under plebeian
officers, and closely connected with the plebs; if its rites and
decorations were Greek from the beginning; we cannot afford to discard a
tradition telling us of a commercial connexion with Greek cities, the
object of which was to relieve a starving plebeian population.
And surely there is nothing strange in the supposition that Greek
influence gained ground, not so much with the patricians who had their
own outfit of religious armour, but with the plebs who had no share in
the sacra of their betters, and with the Etruscan dynasty which favoured
the plebs[246]. We may hesitate to assent to Mommsen’s curious assertion
that the merchants of that day were none other than the great patrician
landholders[247]; we may rather be disposed to conjecture that it was
the more powerful plebeians, incapable of holding large areas of public
land, who turned their attention to commerce, and came in contact with
the Greeks of Italy and Sicily. The position of the plebeian quarter
along the Tiber bank, and near the spot where the quays of Rome have
always been, may possibly point in the same direction[248].
To return to the Cerealia of April 19. We have still to notice a relic
of apparently genuine Italian antiquity which survived in it down to
Ovid’s time, and may be taken as evidence that there was a real Roman
substratum on which the later Greek ritual was superimposed.
Every one who reads Ovid’s account of the Cerealia will be struck by his
statement that on the 19th it was the practice to fasten burning brands
to the tails of foxes and set them loose to run in the Circus
Maximus[249]:
Cur igitur missae vinctis ardentia taedis
Terga ferant volpes, causa docenda mihi est.
He tells a charming story to explain the custom, learnt from an old man
of Carseoli, an Aequian town, where he was seeking information while
writing the _Fasti_. A boy of twelve years’ old caught a vixen fox which
had done damage to the farm, and tied it up in straw and hay. This he
set on fire, but the fox escaped and burnt the crops. Hence a law at
Carseoli forbidding—something about foxes, which the corruption of the
MSS. has obscured for us[250]. Then he concludes:
Utque luat poenas gens haec, Cerialibus ardet;
Quoque modo segetes perdidit, ipsa perit.
We are, of course, reminded of Samson burning the corn of the
Philistines[251]; and it is probable that the story in each case is a
myth explanatory of some old practice like the one Ovid describes at
Rome. But what the practice meant it is not very easy to see. Preller
has his explanation ready[252]; it was a ‘sinnbildliche Erinnerung’ of
the _robigo_ (i. e. ‘red fox’), which was to be feared and guarded
against at this time of year. Mannhardt thinks rather of the corn-foxes
or corn-spirits of France and Germany, of which he gives many
instances[253]. If the foxes were corn spirits, one does not quite see
why they should have brands fastened to their tails[254]. No exactly
parallel practice seems to be forthcoming, and the fox does not appear
elsewhere in ancient Italian or Greek folk-tales, as far as I can
discover. All that can be said is that the fox’s tail seems to have been
an object of interest, and possibly to have had some fertilizing
power[255], and some curious relation to ears of corn. Prof. Gubernatis
believes this tail to have been a phallic symbol[256]. We need not
accept his explanation, but we may be grateful to him for a modern
Italian folk-tale, from the region of Leghorn and the Maremma, in which
a fox is frightened away by chickens which carry each in its beak an ear
of millet; the fox is told that these ears are all foxes’ tails, and
runs for it.
Here we must leave this puzzle[257]; but whoever cares to read Ovid’s
lines about his journey towards his native Pelignian country, his
turning into the familiar lodging—
Hospitis antiqui solitas intravimus aedes,
and the tales he heard there—among them that of the fox—will find them
better worth reading than the greater part of the _Fasti_.
XI KAL. MAI. (APR. 21). NP.[258]
PAR[ILIA]. (CAER. MAFF. PRAEN.)
ROMA COND[ITA] FERIAE CORONATIS OM[NIBUS]. (CAER.)
N[ATALIS] URBIS. CIRCENSES MISSUS XXIV. (PHILOC.)
[A note in Praen. is hopelessly mutilated, with the exception of the
words IGNES and PRINCIPIO AN[NI PASTORICII[259]?]]
The Parilia[260], at once one of the oldest and best attested festivals
of the whole year, is at the same time the one whose features have been
most clearly explained by the investigations of parallels among other
races.
The first point to notice is that the festival was both public and
private, urban and rustic[261]. Ovid clearly distinguishes the two;
lines 721-734 deal with the urban festival, 735-782 with the rustic. The
explanations which follow deal with both. Pales, the deity (apparently
both masculine and feminine[262]) whose name the festival bears, was,
like Faunus, a common deity of Italian pasture land. A Palatium was said
by Varro to have been named after Pales at Reate, in the heart of the
Sabine hill-country[263]; and though this may not go for much, the
character of the Parilia, and the fact that Pales is called _rusticola_,
_pastoricia_, _silvicola_, &c., are sufficient to show the original
non-urban character of the deity. He (or she) was a shepherd’s deity of
the simplest kind, and survived in Rome as little more than a name[264]
from the oldest times, when the earliest invaders drove their cattle
through the Sabine mountains. Here, then, we seem to have a clear
example of a rite which was originally a rustic one, and survived as
such, while at the same time one local form of it was kept up in the
great city, and had become entangled with legend and probably altered in
some points of ritual. We will take the rustic form first.
Here we may distinguish in Ovid’s account[265] the following ritualistic
acts.
1. The sheep-fold[266] was decked with green boughs and a great wreath
was hung on the gate:
Frondibus et fixis decorentur ovilia ramis,
Et tegat ornatas longa corona fores.
With this Mannhardt[267] aptly compares the like concomitants of the
midsummer fires in North Germany, Scotland, and England. In Scotland,
for example, before the bonfires were kindled on midsummer eve, the
houses were decorated with foliage brought from the woods[268]. The
custom of decoration at special seasons, May-day, mid-summer, harvest,
and Christmas, is even now, with the exception of midsummer, universal,
and is probably descended from these primitive rites, by which our
ancestors sought in some mysterious way to influence the working of the
powers of vegetation.
2. At the earliest glimmer of daybreak the shepherd purified the sheep.
This was done by sprinkling and sweeping the fold; then a fire was made
of heaps of straw, olive-branches, and laurel, to give good omen by the
crackling, and through this apparently the shepherds leapt, and the
flocks were driven[269]. For this we have, of course, numerous parallels
from all parts of the world. Burning sulphur was also used:
Caerulei fiant vivo de sulfure fumi
Tactaque fumanti sulfure balet ovis[270].
3. After this the shepherd brought offerings to Pales, of whom there may
perhaps have been in the farmyard a rude image made of wood[271]; among
these were baskets of millet and cakes of the same, pails of milk, and
other food of appropriate kinds. The meal which followed the shepherd
himself appears to have shared with Pales[272]. Then he prays to the
deity to avert all evil from himself and his flocks; whether he or they
have unwittingly trespassed on sacred ground and caused the nymphs or
fauni to fly from human eyes; or have disturbed the sacred fountains,
and used branches of a sacred tree for secular ends. In these petitions
the genuine spirit of Italian religion—the awe of the unknown, the fear
of committing unwittingly some act that may bring down wrath upon you—is
most vividly brought out in spite of the Greek touches and names which
are introduced. He then goes on to his main object[273]:
Pelle procul morbos: valeant hominesque gregesque,
Et valeant vigiles, provida turba, canes.
Absit iniqua fames. Herbae frondesque supersint,
Quaeque lavent artus, quaeque bibantur, aquae.
Ubera plena premam: referat mihi caseus aera,
Dentque viam liquido vimina rara sero.
Sitque salax aries, conceptaque semina coniunx
Reddat, et in stabulo multa sit agna meo.
Lanaque proveniat nullas laesura puellas,
Mollis et ad teneras quamlibet apta manus.
Quae precor eveniant: et nos faciamus ad annum
Pastorum dominae grandia liba Pali.
This prayer must be said four times over[274], the shepherd looking to
the east and wetting his hands with the morning dew[275]. The position,
the holy water, and the prayer in its substance, though now addressed to
the Virgin, have all descended to the Catholic shepherd of the Campagna.
4. Then a bowl is to be brought, a wooden antique bowl apparently[276],
from which milk and purple _sapa_, i. e. heated wine, may be drunk,
until the drinker feels the influence of the fumes, and when he is well
set he may leap over the burning heaps:
Moxque per ardentes stipulae crepitantis acervos
Traiicias celeri strenua membra pede[277].
The Parilia of the urbs was celebrated in much the same way in its main
features; but the day was reckoned as the birthday of Rome, and
doubtless on this account it came under the influence of priestly
organization[278]. It is connected with two other very ancient
festivals: that of the Fordicidia and that of the ‘October horse.’ The
blood which streamed from the head of the horse sacrificed on the Ides
of October was kept by the Vestals in the Penus Vestae, and mixed with
the ashes of the unborn calves burnt at the Fordicidia; and the mixture
seems to have been thrown upon heaps of burning bean-straw to make it
smoke, while over the smoke and flames men and women leaped on the
Palatine Hill[279]. The object was of course purification; Ovid calls
the blood, ashes, and straw _februa casta_, i. e. holy agents of
purification, and adds in allusion to their having been kept by the
Vestals:
Vesta dabit: Vestae munere _purus_ eris.
Ovid had himself taken part in the rite; had fetched the _suffimen_, and
leaped three times through the flames, his hands sprinkled with dew from
a laurel branch. Whether the _februa_ were considered to have
individually any special significance or power, it is hard to say.
Mannhardt, who believed the ‘October horse’ to be a corn-demon, thought
that the burning of its blood symbolized the renewal of its life in the
spring, while the ashes thrown into the fire signified the safe passage
of the growing crops through the heat of the summer[280]; but about this
so judicious a writer is naturally not disposed to dogmatize. We can,
however, be pretty sure that the purification was supposed to carry with
it protection from evil influences both for man and beast, and also to
aid the growth of vegetation. The theory of Mannhardt, adopted by Mr.
Frazer, that the whole class of ceremonies to which the Parilia clearly
belongs, i. e. the Easter and Midsummer fires and Need-fires of central
and northern Europe, may best be explained as charms to procure
sunshine,[281] has much to be said for it, but does not seem to find any
special support in the Roman rite.
It may be noted in conclusion that a custom of the same kind, and one
perhaps connected with a cult of the sun,[282] took place not far from
Rome, at Mount Soracte; at what time of year we do not know. On this
hill there was a worship of Apollo Soranus,[283] a local deity, to which
was attached a kind of guild of worshippers called Hirpi Sorani, or
wolves of Soranus;[284] and of these we may guess, from the legend told
of their origin, that in order to avert pestilence, &c., they dressed or
behaved themselves like wolves.[285] Also on a particular day, perhaps
the summer solstice, these Hirpi ran through the flames, ‘super ambustam
ligni struem ambulantes non aduruntur,’[286] and on this account were
excused by a senatus consultum from all military or other service. A
striking parallel with this last feature is quoted by Mannhardt, from
Mysore, where the Harawara are degraded Brahmins who act as priests in
harvest-time, and make a living by running through the flames unhurt
with naked soles: but in this case there seems to be no animal
representation. Mannhardt tries to explain the Hirpi as dramatic
representations of the Corn-wolf or vegetation spirit.[287] On the other
hand, it is possible to consider them as survivals of an original clan
who worshipped the wolf as a totem[288]; a view adopted by Mr.
Lang[289], who compares the _bear_-maidens of Artemis at Brauron in
Attica. But the last word has yet to be said about these obscure
animalistic rites.
IX KAL. MAI. (APR. 23). FP (CAER.) NP (MAFF.) F (PRAEN.)[290]
VEIN[ALIA] (CAER.) VIN[ALIA] (MAFF. PRAEN. ESQ.)
Praen. has a mutilated note beginning IO[VI], and ending with [CUM
LATINI BELLO PREME]RENTUR A RUTULIS, QUIA MEZENTIUS REX ETRUS[CO]RUM
PACISCEBATUR, SI SUBSIDIO VENISSET, OMNIUM ANNORUM VINI FRUCTUM. (Cp.
Festus, 65 and 374, where it appears that libations of all new wine were
made to Jupiter.)
VENERI (CAER.)
[V]EBERI ERUC. [EXTR]A PORTAM COLLIN[AM]. (ARV.)