the Vinalia Rustica of August 19. Both days were believed to be sacred
to Venus[291]; the earlier one, according to Ovid, was the
foundation-day of the temple of Venus Erycina, with which he connected
the legend of Aeneas and Mezentius. But as both Varro and Verrius are
agreed that the days were sacred, not to Venus but to Jupiter[292], we
may leave the legend alone and content ourselves with asking how Venus
came into the connexion.
The most probable supposition is that this day being, as Ovid implies,
the dies natalis of one of the temples of Venus[293], the Vinalia also
came to be considered as sacred to the goddess. The date of the
foundation was 181 B.C., exactly at a time when many new worships, and
especially Greek ones, were being introduced into Rome[294]. That of the
Sicilian Aphrodite, under the name of Venus, seems to have become at
once popular with its _Graecus ritus_ and _lascivia maior_[295]; and the
older connexion of the festival with Jupiter tended henceforward to
disappear. It must be noted, however, that the day of the Vinalia
Rustica in August was also the dies natalis of one if not two other
temples of Venus[296], and one of these was as old as the year B.C. 293.
Thus we can hardly avoid the conclusion that there was, even at an early
date, some connexion in the popular mind between the goddess and wine.
The explanation is perhaps to be found in the fact that Venus was
specially a deity of gardens, and therefore no doubt of vineyards[297].
An interesting inscription from Pompeii confirms this, and attests the
connexion of Venus with wine and gardens, as it is written on a
wine-jar[298]:
PRESTA MI SINCERU[M] ITA TE AMET QUE
CUSTODIT ORTU[M] VENUS.
The Vinalia, then, both in April and August, was really and originally
sacred to Jupiter. The legendary explanation is given by Ovid in 11.
877-900. Whatever the true explanation may have been, the fact can be
illustrated from the ritual employed; for it was the Flamen Dialis[299]
who ‘vindemiam auspicatus est,’ i. e. after sacrificing plucked the
first grapes. Whether this auspicatio took place on either of the
Vinalia has indeed been doubted, for even August 19 would hardly seem to
suit the ceremony Varro describes[300]; but the fact that it was
performed by the priest of Jupiter is sufficient for our purpose.
Of this day, April 23, we may guess that it was the one on which the
wine-skins were first opened, and libations from them made to Jupiter.
These are probably the libations about which Plutarch[301] asks ‘Why do
they pour much wine from the temple of Venus on the Veneralia’ (i. e.
Vinalia)? The same libations are attested by Verrius: ‘Vinalia diem
festum habebant quo die vinum novum Iovi libabant’[302]. After the
libation the wine was tasted, as we learn from Pliny[303]; and it seems
probable that it was brought from the country into Rome for this purpose
only a few days before. Varro has preserved an interesting notice which
he saw posted in vineyards at Tusculum: ‘In Tusculanis hortis (MSS.
sortis) est scriptum: ‘Vinum novum ne vehatur in urbem ante quam vinalia
kalentur’[304]; i. e. wine-growers were warned that the new wine was not
to be brought into the city until the Vinalia had been proclaimed on the
Nones. It must, however, be added that this notice may have had
reference to the Vinalia in August; for Verrius, if he is rightly
reported by Paulus[305], gives August 19 as the day on which the wine
might be brought into Rome. Paulus may be wrong, and have confused the
two Vinalia[306]; but in that case we remain in the dark as to what was
done at the Vinalia Rustica, unless indeed we explain it as a rite
intended to secure the vintage that was to follow against malignant
influences. This would seem to be indicated by Pliny (_H. N._ 18. 284),
where he classes this August festival with the Robigalia and
Floralia[307], and further on quotes Varro to prove that its object was
to appease the storms (i. e. to be expected in September).
As regards the connexion of the vine-culture with Jupiter, it should be
observed that the god is not spoken of as Jupiter Liber, but simply
Jupiter; and though the vine was certainly introduced into Italy from
Greece, we need not assume that Dionysus, coming with it, was from the
beginning attached to or identified with Jupiter. The gift of wine might
naturally be attributed to the great god of the air, light, and heat;
the Flamen Dialis who ‘vindemiam auspicatus est’ was not the priest of
Jupiter Liber; nor does the aetiological legend, in which the Latins
avoid the necessity of yielding their first-fruits to the Etruscan
tyrant Mezentius by dedicating them to Jupiter, point to any other than
the protecting deity of Latium.[308]
VII KAL. MAI. (APRIL 25). NP.
[ROB]IGALIA. (CAER. ESQ. MAFF. PRAEN.)
Note in Praen: FERIAE ROBIGO VIA CLAUDIA AD MILLIARIUM V NE ROBIGO
FRUMENTIS NOCEAT. SACRIFICIUM ET LUDI CURSORIBUS MAIORIBUS MINORIBUSQUE
FIUNT. FESTUS EST PUERORUM LENONIORUM, QUIA PROXIMUS SUPERIOR MERETRICUM
EST.
Robigo means red rust or mildew which attacks cereals when the ear is
beginning to be formed[309], and which is better known and more dreaded
on the continent than with us. This destructive disease is not caused by
the sun’s heat, as Pliny[310] tells us was the notion of some Italians,
but by damp acting in conjunction with a certain height of temperature,
as Pliny himself in fact explains it.
Robigus[311] is the spirit who works in the mildew; and it has been
conjectured that he was a form or indigitation of Mars[312], since
Tertullian tells us that ‘Marti et Robigini Numa ludos instituit’[313].
This is quite consistent with all we know of the Mars of the
farm-worship, who is invoked to avert evil simply because he can be the
creator of it[314]. The same feature is found in the worship of Apollo,
who had at Rhodes the cult-title ἐρυθίβιος[315], or Apollo of the
blight, as elsewhere he is Apollo Smintheus, i. e. the power that can
bring and also avert the pest of field-mice.
Robigus had a grove of his own at the fifth milestone on the Via
Claudia; and Ovid relates in pretty verses how, as he was returning from
Nomentum (doubtless by way of his own gardens, which were at the
junction of the Via Claudia with the Via Flaminia near the Milvian
bridge[316]), he met the Flamen Quirinalis with the _exta_ of a dog and
a sheep to offer to the god[317]. He joined the procession, which was
apparently something quite new to him, and witnessed the ceremony,
noting the _meri patera_, the _turis acerra_, and the rough linen
napkin[318], at the priest’s right hand. He versified the prayer which
he heard, and which is not unlike that which Cato directs the husbandman
to address to Mars in the lustration of the farm[319]:
Aspera Robigo, parcas Cerialibus herbis,
Et tremat in summa leve cacumen humo.
Tu sata sideribus caeli nutrita secundi
Crescere, dum fiant falcibus apta, sinas.
Parce, precor, scabrasque manus a messibus aufer,
Neve noce cultis: posse nocere sat est, &c.
Ovid then asked the flamen why a dog—_nova victima_—was sacrificed, and
was told that the dangerous Dog-star was in the ascendant[320]:
Est Canis, Icarium dicunt, quo sidere moto
Tosta sitit tellus, praecipiturque seges.
Pro cane sidereo canis hic imponitur arae,
Et quare pereat, nil nisi nomen habet.
In this, however, both he and the priest were certainly mistaken. Sirius
does not rise, but disappears on April 25, at sunset; and it is almost
certain that the sacrifice of the dog had nothing to do with the star.
The real meaning of the choice of victim was unknown both to priest and
poet: but modern research has made a reasonable attempt to recover
it[321].
We are told[322] of a sacrifice of reddish sucking whelps, and of augury
made from their _exta_, which must have been closely connected with the
Robigalia, if not (in later times at least) identified with it.
Originally it was not on a fixed day, as is proved by an extract from
the _commentarii pontificum_ quoted by Pliny[323]; but it is quite
possible that for convenience, as the religio of the urbs got more and
more dissociated from the agriculture in which it had its origin, the
date was fixed for April 25—the rites of the Robigalia being of the same
kind, and the date suitable. The whelps were red or reddish; and from
the language of Festus, quoting Ateius Capito, we gather that this
colour was supposed to resemble that of the corn when ripe: ‘Rufae canes
immolabantur, ut fruges _flavescentes_ ad maturitatem perducerentur’ (p.
285). We should indeed naturally have expected that the rufous colour
was thought to resemble the red mildew, as Mannhardt explains it[324];
but we do not know for certain that these puppies were offered to
Robigus. In any case, however, we may perhaps see in them an animal
representation of the corn, and in the rite a piece of ‘sympathetic
magic’[325], the object of which was to bring the corn to its golden
perfection, or to keep off the robigo, or both. If we knew more about
the dog-offering at the grove of Robigus, we might find that it too, if
not indeed identical with the _augurium_, had a similar intention.
The red mildew was at times so terrible a scourge that the Robigalia
must in early Rome, when the population lived on the corn grown near the
city, have been a festival of very real meaning. But later on it became
obscured, and gave way to the races mentioned in the note in the
Praenestine calendar[326], and under the later empire to the Christian
_litania maior_, the original object of which was also the safety of the
crops[327]. The 25th is at present St. Mark’s day.
IV KAL. MAI. (APR. 28). NP.
LOEDI FLOR[AE] (CAER.) LUDI FLOR[AE]. (MAFF. PRAEN.)
V NON. MAI. (MAY 3). C.
FLORAE (VEN.).
On the intervening days were also ludi (_C. I. L._ 317).
Note in Praen. (Apr. 28): EODEM DIE AEDIS FLORAE, QUAE REBUS
FLORESCENDIS PRAEEST, DEDICATA EST PROPTER STERILITATEM FRUGUM.
This was not a very ancient festival and is not marked in the Calendars
in those large letters which are believed to indicate extreme
antiquity[328]. Its history seems to be as follows: in 238 B.C. in
consequence of a dearth, the Sibylline Books were consulted, and games
in honour of Flora were held for the first time by plebeian
aediles[329]; also a temple was dedicated to her _ad circum maximum_ on
April 28 of that year[330]. There seems to be a certain connexion
between the accounts of the institution of the Floralia and the
Cerialia. Dearth was the alleged cause in each case; and the position of
the temple of Flora near that of Ceres: the foundation by plebeian
magistrates, in this case the two Publicii[331], who as aediles were
able to spend part of the fines exacted from defaulting holders of _ager
publicus_ on this object[332]: and the coarse character of the games as
Ovid describes them, all seem to show that the foundation was a plebeian
one, like that of the Cerialia[333].
There may, however, have been something in the nature of ludi before
this date and at the same time of year, but not of a regular or public
character. Flora was beyond doubt an old Italian deity[334], probably
closely related to Ceres and Venus. There was a Flamen Floralis of very
old standing[335]; and Flora is one of the deities to whom piacula were
offered by the Fratres Arvales[336]—a list beginning with Janus and
ending with Vesta. There is no doubt, then, that there was a Flora-cult
in Rome long before the foundation of the temple and the games in 238;
and though its character may have changed under the influence of the
Sibylline books, we may be able to glean some particulars as to its
original tendency.
In the account of Ovid and from other hints we gather—
1. That indecency was let loose[337] at any rate on the original day of
the ludi (April 28), which were in later times extended to May 3. The
numen of Flora, says Ovid, was not strict. Drunkenness was the order of
the day, and the usual results followed:
Ebrius ad durum formosae limen amicae
Cantat: habent unctae mollia serta comae.
The prostitutes of Rome hailed this as their feast-day, as well as the
Vinalia on the 23rd; and if we may trust a story told by Valerius
Maximus[338], Cato the younger withdrew from the theatre rather than
behold the mimae unclothe themselves, though he would not interfere with
the custom. Flora herself, like Acca Larentia, was said by late writers
to have been a harlot whose gains enabled her to leave money for the
ludi[339]. These characteristics of the festival were no doubt developed
under the influence of luxury in a large city, and grew still more
objectionable under the Empire[340]. But it is difficult to believe that
such practices would have grown up as they did at this particular time
of year, had there not been some previous customs of the kind existing
before the ludi were regularly instituted.
2. We find another curious custom belonging to the last days of the
ludi, which became common enough under the Empire[341], but may yet have
had an origin in the cult of Flora. Hares and goats were let loose in
the Circus Maximus on these days. Ovid asks Flora:
Cur tibi pro Libycis clauduntur rete[342] leaenis
Imbelles capreae sollicitusque lepus?
and gets the answer:
Non sibi, respondit, silvas cessisse, sed hortos
Arvaque pugnaci non adeunda ferae.
If we take this answer as at least appropriate, we may add to it the
reflection that hares and goats are prolific animals and also that they
are graminivorous. Flora as a goddess of fertility and bloom could have
nothing in common with fierce carnivora. But we are also reminded of the
foxes that were let loose in the Circus at the Cerialia[343], and may
see in these beasts as in the foxes animal representations of the spirit
of fertility.
3. Another custom is possibly significant in something the same way.
From a passage in Persius we learn that vetches, beans, and lupines were
scattered among the people in the circus[344]. The commentators explain
this as meaning that they were thrown simply to be scrambled for as
food; and we know that other objects besides eatables were thrown on
similar occasions, at any rate at a later time[345]. But it is
noticeable that among these objects were medals with obscene
representations on them; and putting two and two together it is not
unreasonable to guess that the original custom had a meaning connected
with fructification. Dr. Mannhardt[346] has collected a very large
number of examples of the practice of sprinkling and throwing all kinds
of grain, including rice, peas, beans, &c., from all parts of the world,
in the marriage rite and at the birth of children; amply sufficient to
prove that the custom is symbolic of fertility. Bearing in mind the time
of year, the nature of Flora, the character of the April rites
generally, and the occurrence of the women’s cult of the Bona Dea on May
1, viz. one of the days of the ludi, we may perhaps conjecture that the
custom in question was a very old one—far older than the organized
games—and had reference to the fertility both of the earth and of man
himself[347].
Feriae Latinae.
A brief account may be here given of the great Latin festival which
usually in historical times took place in April. Though it was not held
at Rome, but on the Alban Mount, it was under the direct supervision of
the Roman state, and was in reality a Roman festival. The consuls on
their entrance upon office on the Ides of March had to fix and announce
the date of it[348]; and when in 153 B.C. the day of entrance was
changed to January 1, the date of the festival does not seem to have
been changed to suit it. The consuls must be present themselves, leaving
a _praefectus urbi_ at Rome[349]; or in case of the compulsory absence
of both consuls a dictator might be appointed _Feriarum Latinarum
causa_. Only when the festival was over could they leave Rome for their
provinces.
It was therefore a festival of the highest importance to the Roman
state. But the ritual will show that it must in fact have been much
older than that state as we know it in historical times; it was a common
festival of the most ancient Latin communities[350], celebrated on the
lofty hill which arose in their midst, where dwelt the great protecting
deity of their race. At what date Rome became the presiding city at the
festival we do not know. The foundation of the temple on the hill was
ascribed to the Tarquinii, and this tradition seems to be borne out by
the character of the foundations discovered there, which resemble those
of the Capitoline temple[351]. No doubt the Tarquinii may have renovated
the cult or even given it an extended significance; but the Roman
presidency must conjecturally be placed still further back. Perhaps no
festival, Greek or Roman, carries us over such a vast period of time as
this; its features betray its origin in the pastoral age, and it
continued in almost uninterrupted grandeur till the end of the third
century A.D., or even later[352].
The ritual as known to us was as follows[353]. When the magistrates or
(their deputies) of all the Latin cities taking part had assembled at
the temple, the Roman consul offered a libation of milk, while the
deputies from the other cities brought sheep, cheeses, or other such
offerings. But the characteristic rite was the slaughter of a pure white
heifer that had never felt the yoke. This sacrifice was the duty of the
consul, who acted on behalf of the whole number of cities. When it was
concluded, the flesh of the victim was divided amongst all the deputies
and consumed by them. To be left out of this common meal, or sacrament,
would be equivalent to being excluded from communion with the god and
the Latin league, and the desire to obtain the allotted flesh is more
than once alluded to[354]. A general festivity followed the sacrifice,
while _oscilla_, or little puppets, were hung from the branches of trees
as at the Paganalia[355]. As usual in Italy, the least oversight in the
ceremony or evil omen made it necessary to begin it all over again; and
this occasionally happened[356]. Lastly, during the festival there was a
truce between all the cities, and it would seem that the alliance
between Rome and the Latins was yearly renewed on the day of the
Feriae[357].
Some of the leading characteristics of the Italian Jupiter will be
considered further on[358]. But this festival may teach us that we are
here in the presence of the oldest and finest religious conception of
the Latin race, which yearly acknowledges its common kinship of blood
and seals it by partaking in the common meal of a sacred victim, thus
entering into communion with the god, the victim, and each other[359].
The offerings are characteristic rather of a pastoral than an
agricultural age, and suggest an antiquity that is fully confirmed by
the ancient utensils dug up on the Alban Mount[360]. As Helbig has
pointed out, the absence of any mention of wine proves that the origin
of the festival must be dated earlier than the introduction of the grape
into Italy. The white victim may be a reminiscence of some primitive
white breed of cattle. The common meal of the victim’s flesh is a
survival from the age when cattle were sacred animals, and were never
slain except on the solemn annual occasions when the clan renewed its
kinship and its mutual obligations by a solemn sacrament[361].
As Rome absorbed Latium, so Jupiter Latiaris gave way before the great
god of the Capitol, who is the symbol of the later victorious and
imperial Rome; but the god of the Alban hill and his yearly festival
continued to recall the early share of the Latins in the rise of their
leading city, long after the population of their towns had been so
terribly thinned that some of them could hardly find a surviving member
to represent them at the festival and take their portion of the
victim[362].
Footnote 186:
Varro, _L. L._ 6. 33; Censorinus, 2. 20. Verrius Flaccus in the
heading to April in Fasti Praen.: ... ‘quia fruges flores animaliaque
et maria et terrae aperiuntur.’ Mommsen, _Chron._ 222. Ovid quaintly
forsakes the scholars to claim the month for Venus (Aphrodite),
_Fasti_, 4. 61 foll. I do not know why Mr. Granger should call it the
boar-month (from _aper_), in his _Worship of the Romans_, p. 294.
Footnote 187:
_Segetes runcuri_, Varro, _R. R._ I. 30. Columella’s instructions are
of the same kind (II. 2).
Footnote 188:
_C. I. L._ 280.
Footnote 189:
_Röm. Jahr_, 216.
Footnote 190:
February has thirteen, all but two between Kal. and Ides. The Nones
and Ides are NP. April has thirteen between Nones and 22nd; or
fourteen if we include the 19th, which is NP in Caer. The Ides are NP,
Nones N.
Footnote 191:
See the fragmentary heading to the month in Fasti Praen.; Ovid, l. c.;
Lydus, 4. 45; Tutela Veneris, in rustic calendars; Veneralia (April
1), Philocalus.
Footnote 192:
Varro, _R. R._ 1. 1. 6: ‘Item adveneror Minervam et Venerem, quarum
unius procuratio oliveti, alterius _hortorum_.’ Cp. _L. L._ 6. 20
‘Quod tum (Aug. 19) dedicata aedes et horti ei deae dicantur ac tum
fiant feriati _holitores_.’ Cf. Preller, _Myth._ i. 434 foll. The
oldest Venus-temple was in the low ground of the Circus Maximus (B.C.
295). “Venus, like Ceres, may have been an old Roman deity of the
plebs, but she never entered into the State-worship in early times.”
Macrob. 1. 12. 12 quotes Cincius (_de Fastis_) and Varro to prove that
she had originally nothing to do with April, and that there was no
_dies festus_ or _insigne sacrificium_ in her honour during the month.
Footnote 193:
4. 45 Ταῖς τοίνυν καλάνδαις ἀπριλλίαις αἱ σεμναὶ γυναικῶν ὑπὲρ
ὁμονοίας καὶ βίου σώφρονος ἐτίμων τὴν Ἀφροδίτην· αἱ δὲ τοῦ πλήθους
γυναῖκες ἐν τοῖς τῶν ἀνδρῶν βαλανείοις ἐλούοντο, πρὸς θεραπείαν αὐτῆς
μυρσίνη ἐστεμμέναι, κ.τ.λ. Cp. Macrob. 1. 12. 15.
Footnote 194:
_C. I. L._ 315.
Footnote 195:
We shall find some reason for believing that in the early Republican
period new cults came in rather through plebeian than patrician agency
(see below, on Cerealia). But in the period of the new nobilitas the
lower classes seem rather to have held to their own cults, while the
upper social stratum was more ready to accept new ones. See below, on
April 4, for the conditions of such acceptance. The tendency is to be
explained by the wide and increasing sphere of the foreign relations
of the Senatorial government.
Footnote 196:
_Fasti_, 4. 133-164.
Footnote 197:
Ovid, l. c. 149 foll.
Footnote 198:
Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, p. 456.
Footnote 199:
_Quaest. Rom._ 74.
Footnote 200:
Ovid, l. c., 4. 160 ‘Inde Venus verso nomina corde tenet.’
Footnote 201:
Aust, _de Aedibus sacris_, p. 28. About a century earlier a statue of
this Venus was said to have been erected (Val. Max. 8. 15. 12; Plin.
_H. N._ 7. 120), as Wissowa pointed out in his Essay, ‘de Veneris
Simulacris,’ p. 12.
Footnote 202:
See above, p. 67, note 2.
Footnote 203:
_Religion of the Semites_, p. 450 foll.
Footnote 204:
Preller, i. 446.
Footnote 205:
Livy, 29. 10 and 14; Ovid (_Fasti_, 4. 259 foll.) has a fanciful
edition of the story which well illustrates the character of his work,
and that of the legend-mongers; cp. Preller, ii. 57.
Footnote 206:
Preller, ii. 55.
Footnote 207:
Plin. _H. N._ 18. 16; Arnobius, 7. 49.
Footnote 208:
Livy, 29. 10, 14.
Footnote 209:
See above, Introduction, p. 7.
Footnote 210:
_de Harusp. Resp._ 12. 24 ‘Qui uni ludi ne verbo quidem appellantur
Latino, ut vocabulo ipso et appetita religio externa et Matris Magnae
nomine suscepta declaretur.’
Footnote 211:
Dion. Hal. 2. 19. A very interesting passage, in which, among other
comments, the historian points out that in receiving the goddess the
Romans eliminated ἅπασαν τερθρείαν μυθικήν.
Footnote 212:
Aust, _de Aedibus sacris_, pp. 22 and 49.
Footnote 213:
Gell. 18. 2. 11 (patricii); cp. 2. 24. 2 (principes civitatis). Cp.
Lydus, 4. 45; Verrius’ note in Praen., ‘_Nobilium mutitationes
cenarum_ solitae sunt frequenter fieri,’ &c.
Footnote 214:
See Marq. 370 foll. The Ludi eventually extended from the 4th to the
10th inclusive (_C. I. L._ 314).
Footnote 215:
Or Hordicidia, Fest. 102; Hordicalia, Varro, _R. R._ 2. 5. 6;
Fordicalia, Lydus, 4. 49. ‘Forda ferens bos est fecundaque, dicta
ferendo,’ Ovid, _Fasti_, 4. 631.
Footnote 216:
Ovid, l. c. 635 ‘Pars cadit arce Iovis. Ter denas curia vaccas
Accipit, et largo sparsa cruore madet.’ Cp. Varro, _L. L._ 6. 15.
Preller, ii. 6, understands Ovid’s ‘pars’ as meaning more than one
cow.
Footnote 217: