dissensio est. Nam Fulvius Nobilior in Fastis quos in aede Herculis
Musarum posuit[364] Romulum dicit postquam populum in maiores
iunioresque diuisit, ut altera pars consilio altera armis rem publicam
tueretur, in honorem utriusque partis hunc Maium, sequentem Iunium
mensem uocasse[365]. Sunt qui hunc mensem ad nostros fastos a Tusculanis
transisse commemorent, apud quos nunc quoque uocatur deus Maius, qui est
Iuppiter, a magnitudine scilicet ac maiestate dictus[366]. Cingius[367]
mensem nominatum putat a Maia quam Vulcani dicit uxorem, argumentoque
utitur quod flamen Vulcanalis Kalendis Maiis huic deae rem diuinam
facit. Sed Piso uxorem Vulcani Maiestam non Maiam dicit uocari.
Contendunt alii Maiam Mercurii matrem mensi nomen dedisse, hinc maxime
probantes quod hoc mense mercatores omnes Maiae pariter Mercurioque
sacrificant[368]. Adfirmant quidam, quibus Cornelius Labeo consentit,
hanc Maiam cui mense Maio res diuina celebratur terram esse hoc adeptam
nomen a magnitudine, sicut et Mater Magna in sacris uocatur
adsertionemque aestimationis suae etiam hinc colligunt quod sus
praegnans ei mactatur, quae hostia propria est terrae. Et Mercurium ideo
illi in sacris adiungi dicunt quia uox nascenti homini terrae contactu
datur, scimus autem Mercurium uocis et sermonis potentem. Auctor est
Cornelius Labeo huic Maiae id est terrae aedem Kalendis Maiis dedicatam
sub nomine Bonae Deae et eandem esse Bonam Deam et terram ex ipso ritu
occultiore sacrorum doceri posse confirmat. Hanc eandem Bonam deam
Faunamque et Opem et Fatuam pontificum libris indigitari, &c.’
It is clear from this passage that the Romans themselves were not
agreed, either in the case of May or June, that the name of the month
was derived from a deity. No Roman scholar doubted that Martius was
derived from Mars, the characteristic god of the Roman race; but Maia
was a deity known apparently only to the priests and the learned. Had
she been a popular one, what need could there have been to question so
obvious an etymology? And if she were an obscure one, how could she have
given her name to a month? As a matter of fact March is the only month
of which we can be sure that it was named after a god. Even January is
doubtful, June still more so. The natural assumption about this latter
word would be that it comes from Juno, more especially as we find in
Latium the words Junonius and Junonalis as names of months[369]. But if
Junius came from Juno, it must have come by the dropping out of a
syllable; and this, in the case of a long and accented _o_, would be at
least unlikely to happen[370]. Nor can we discover any sufficient reason
why the month of June should be called after Juno; none at any rate such
as accounts for the connexion of Mars with the initial month of the
year. This is enough to show that the derivation of June from Juno must
be left doubtful; and if so, certainly that of May from Maia. In the
case of this month, not only does the natural meaning of mensis Maius
suit well as following the mensis Aprilis, but there is no cult of a
deity Maia which is found throughout the month.
Any one who reads the passage of Macrobius with some knowledge of the
Roman theological system will hardly fail to conclude that Maia is only
a priestly _indigitation_ of another deity, and that the name thus
invented was simply taken from the name of the month as explained above.
This deity was more generally known, as Macrobius implies, by the name
Bona Dea, and her temple was dedicated on the Kalends of May.
It is difficult to characterize the position of the month of May in the
religious calendar. It was to some extent no doubt a month of
purification. At the _Lemuria_ the house was purified of hostile ghosts;
the curious ceremony of the Argei on the Ides is called by Plutarch the
greatest of the purifications; and at the end of the month took place
the _lustratio_ of the growing crops. We note too that it was considered
ill-omened to marry in May, as it still is in many parts of Europe. The
agricultural operations of the month were not of a marked character.
Much work had indeed to be done in oliveyards and vineyards; some crops
had to be hoed and cleaned, and the hay-harvest probably began in the
latter part of the month. In the main it was a time of somewhat anxious
expectation and preparation for the harvest to follow; and this falls in
fairly well with the general character of its religious rites.
KAL. MAI. (MAY 1.) F.
LAR[IBUS]. (VEN.) L——. (ESQ.)
This was the day on which, according to Ovid[371], an altar and ‘parva
signa’ had been erected to the Lares praestites. They were originally of
great antiquity, but had fallen into decay in Ovid’s time:
Bina gemellorum _quaerebam_ signa deorum,
Viribus annosae facta caduca morae[372].
Ovid himself had apparently not seen the _signa_, though he looked for
them; and no doubt he took from Varro the description he gives. They had
the figure of a dog at their feet[373], and, according to Plutarch, were
clothed in dogs’ skins. Both Ovid and Plutarch explained the dog as
symbolizing their watch over the city; though Plutarch, following, as he
says, certain Romans, preferred to think of them rather as evil demons
searching out and punishing guilt like dogs. The mention of the skins is
very curious, and we can hardly separate it from the numerous other
instances in which the images of deities are known to have been clothed
in the skins of victims sacrificed to them[374]. We may indeed fairly
conclude that the Lares were chthonic deities, and as such were
originally appeased, like Hekate in Greece[375], by the sacrifice of
dogs. We have already had one example of the dog used as a victim[376].
Two others are mentioned by Plutarch[377]; in one case the deity was the
obscure Genita Mana, and in the other the unknown god of the Lupercalia,
both of which belong in all probability to the same stratum of Italian
religious antiquity as the Lares. Whether we should go further, and
infer from the use of the skins that the Lares were originally
worshipped in the form of dogs[378], is a question I must leave
undecided; the evidence is very scanty. There is no trace of any
connexion with the dog in the cult of the Lares domestici[379], or
Compitales.
This is also the traditional day of the dedication of a temple to the
Bona Dea, on the slopes of the Aventine, under a big sacred rock. It is
thus described by Ovid[380]:
Est moles nativa loco. Res nomina fecit:
Appellant Saxum. Pars bona montis ea est.
Huic Remus institerat frustra, quo tempore fratri
Prima Palatinae signa dedistis aves.
Templa Patres illic oculos exosa viriles
Leniter acclivi constituere iugo.
Dedicat haec veteris Clausorum nominis heres,
Virgineo nullum corpore passa virum.
Livia restituit, ne non imitata maritum
Esset et ex omni parte secuta virum.
The allusion to Remus fixes the site on the Aventine. The date is
uncertain[381]; so too the alleged foundation by Claudia, which may be
only a reflection from the story of the part played by a Claudia in the
introduction of the _Magna Mater Idaea_ to Rome[382]. The temple, as
Ovid says, was restored by Livia, in accordance with the policy of her
husband, also at an unknown date.
Of the cult belonging to this temple we have certain traces, which also
help us to some vague conception of the nature of the deity. It should
be observed that though in one essential particular, viz. the exclusion
of men, this cult was similar to that of December, it must have been
quite distinct from it, as the latter took place, not in a temple, but
in the house of a magistrate _cum imperio_[383].
1. The temple was cared for, and the cult celebrated, by women
only[384]. There was an old story that Hercules, when driving the cattle
of Geryon, asked for water by the cave of Cacus of the women celebrating
the festival of the goddess, and was refused, because the women’s
festival was going on, and men were not allowed to use their
drinking-vessels; and that this led to the corresponding exclusion of
women from the worship of Hercules[385]. The myth obviously arose out of
the practice. The exclusion of men points to the earth-nature of the
Bona Dea; the same was the case in the worship of the Athenian Demeter
Thesmophoros. The earth seems always to be spiritualized as feminine
even among savage peoples[386], and the reason of the exclusion of men
is not difficult to conjecture, just as the exclusion of women from the
worship of Hercules is explained by the fact that Hercules represents
the male principle in the ancient Roman religion[387].
2. Macrobius[388] tells us that wine could not be brought into the
temple _suo nomine_, but only under the name of milk, and that the vase
in which it was carried was called _mellarium_, i. e. a vase for honey.
A legend grew up to account for the custom, to which we shall refer
again, that Faunus had beaten his daughter Fauna (i. e. Bona Dea) with a
rod of myrtle because she would not yield to his incestuous love or
drink the wine he pressed on her[389]. This may indicate a survival from
the time when the herdsman used no wine in sacred rites, but milk and
honey only; Pliny tells us of such a time[390], and his evidence is
confirmed by the poets. In any case milk would be the appropriate
offering to the Earth-mother, and it is hard to see why it should have
been changed to wine, unless it were that life in the city and Greek
influence altered the character both of the Bona Dea and her
worshippers. The really rustic deities had milk offered them, e. g.
Silvanus, Pales, and Ceres. The general inference from this survival is
that the Bona Dea was originally of the same nature with these deities,
but lost her rusticity when she became part of an organized city
worship.
3. Myrtle was not allowed in this temple; hence the myth that Faunus
beat his daughter with a myrtle rod[391]. But could the exclusion of
myrtle by itself have suggested the beating? Dr. Mannhardt answers in
the negative, and conjectures that there must have been some kind of
beating in the cult itself, which gave rise to the story[392]. Dr.
Mannhardt never made a conjecture without a large collection of facts on
which to base it; and here he depends upon a number of instances from
Greece and Northern Europe, in which man or woman, or some object such
as the image of a deity, is whipped with rods, nettles, strips of
leather, &c., in order, as it would seem, to produce fertility and drive
away hostile influences. We shall see the same peculiarity occurring at
the Lupercalia in February[393], where its object and meaning are almost
beyond doubt. Many of these practices occur, it is worth noting, on
May-day. If the Bona Dea was a representative in any sense of the
fertility of women, as well as of the fructifying powers of the
earth—and the two ideas seem naturally to have run together in the
primitive mind—we may provisionally accept Dr. Mannhardt’s ingenious
suggestion. If it be objected that as myrtle was excluded from the cult
it could not have been used therein for the purpose of whipping, the
answer is simply that as being invested with some mysterious power it
was tabooed from ordinary use, but, like certain kinds of victims, was
introduced on special and momentous occasions.
4. The temple was a kind of _herbarium_ in which herbs were kept with
healing properties[394]. A group of interesting inscriptions shows that
the Bona Dea did not confine her healing powers to cases of women, but
cured the ailments of both sexes[395]. This attribute of the goddess is
borne out by the presence of snakes in her temple, the usual symbol of
the medicinal art, and at the same time appropriate to the Bona Dea as
an Earth-goddess[396]. It is possible that this feature is a Greek
importation; but on the whole I see no reason why the female ministrants
of the temple should not have exercised such healing powers, or have
sold or given herbs at request, even at a very early period. No doubt
Greek medicinal learning became associated with it, but that the
knowledge of simples was indigenous in Italy we have abundant
proof[397]; and that it should have been connected with no cult of a
deity until Aesculapius was introduced from Greece, is most improbable.
5. The sacrifice mentioned is that of a _porca_[398]. The pig is also
the victim in the worship of Ceres, of Juno Lucina[399] (as alternative
for a lamb), and as a piacular sacrifice in the ritual of the deity of
the Fratres Arvales (Dea Dia); it seems in fact, as in Greece, to be
appropriate to deities of the earth and of women. There is no reason to
suppose that wherever it is found it had a Greek origin; even in the
cult of Ceres, which, as we saw, became early overlaid with Greek
practice[400], the pig may have been the victim before that change took
place. But it is a singular fact that in the worship of the Bona Dea,
either at the temple of the Aventine, or in the December rite—more
probably perhaps in the latter—the victim was called by a name which
looks suspiciously Greek, viz. _Damium_[401]. It seems that there was a
deity Damia who was worshipped here and there in Greece, and also in
Southern Italy, e. g. at Tarentum, where she had a festival called
Dameia[402]. It looks as if this Greek deity had at one time migrated
from Tarentum to Rome, and become engrafted upon the indigenous Bona
Dea; for we are expressly told that Damia was identical with the Bona
Dea, and that the priestess of the latter was called _Damiatrix_[403].
Much has been written about these very obscure names, without any very
definite result; but it seems to be generally agreed that the form of
the word _damiatrix_ indicates a high antiquity for the Graecized form
of the cult, and may indeed possibly suggest an Italian origin for the
whole group of names. In this uncertainty conjectures are almost
useless.
We have seen enough of the cult to gain some idea of the nature of this
mysterious deity, whose real name was not known, even if she had
one[404]. We need not identify her with Vesta, as some have done[405],
nor with Juno Lucina, nor with any other female deity of the class to
which she seems to have belonged. She must at one time have been,
whatever she afterwards became, a protective deity of the female sex,
the Earth-mother[406], a kindly and helpful, but shy and unknowable
deity of fertility. The name Bona Dea is probably to be regarded as one
indigitation of the Earth-spirit known by a variety of other names and
appearing in a number of different phases. There is indeed a remarkable
indefiniteness about the Italian female deities of this class; they
never gained what we may call complete specific distinctness, but are
rather half-formed species developed from a common type. They form, in
fact, an excellent illustration of the nature of that earliest stratum
of Roman religious belief which has been called pandaemonism—a belief in
a world of spiritual powers not yet grown into the forms of individual
deities, but ready at any moment, under influences either native or
foreign, to take a more definite shape.
VII. ID. MAI. (MAY 9). N.
LEM[VRIA]. (VEN. MAFF.)
V. ID. MAI. (MAY 11). N.
LEM[VRIA]. (TUSC. VEN. MAFF.)
III. ID. MAI. (MAY 13). N.
LEM[VRIA]. (TUSC. VEN. MAFF.)
The word Lemuria indicates clearly enough some kind of worship of the
dead; but we know of no such _public_ cult on these three days except
from the calendars. What Ovid describes as taking place at this time is
a private and domestic rite performed by the head of the household[407];
and Ovid is our only informant in regard to details. In historical times
the public festival of the dead was that of the _dies parentales_ in
February, ending with the Feralia on the 21st. How, then, is it that the
three days of the Lemuria appear in those large letters in the ancient
calendars, which, as we have seen[408], indicate the public festivals of
the religious system of the Republic? There is no certain answer to this
question. We can but guess that the Lemuria was at one time, like the
Feralia, a public festival, but descended from a more ancient deposit of
superstition which in historical times was buried deep beneath the
civilization of a developed city life[409]. Ovid himself implies that
the Lemuria was an older festival than the Feralia[410], and we may
suppose him to be following Varro as a guide. And if we compare his
account of the grotesque domestic rites of the Lemuria with those of
February, which were of a systematic, cheerful, and even beautiful
character, we may feel fairly sure that the latter represents the
organized life of a city state, the former the ideas of an age when life
was wilder and less secure, and the fear of the dead and of demons
generally was a powerful factor in the minds of the people. If we may
argue from Ovid’s account, to be described directly, it is not
impossible that the Lemuria may have been one of those periodical
expulsions of demons of which Mr. Frazer has told us so much in his
_Golden Bough_[411], and which are performed on behalf of the community
as well as in the domestic circle amongst savage peoples. It is
noticeable that the offering of food to the demons is a feature common
to these practices, and that it also appears in those described by Ovid.
The difference of character in the two Roman festivals of the dead is
perhaps also indicated by the fact that the days of the Lemuria are
marked in the calendars with the letter N, while the Feralia is marked F
or FP[412]. This may perhaps point to two different views of the
attitude of the dead to the living, affecting the character of the
festival days; they are friendly or hostile, as they have been buried
with due rites and carefully looked after, or as they have failed of
these dues and are consequently angry and jealous[413]. The latter of
these attitudes is more in keeping with the notions of uncivilized man,
and of a life not as yet wholly brought under the influence of the
civilization of the city-state. To be more certain, however, on this
point, we must try and discover the real meaning of the word _lemur_.
The definition given by Porphyrio is ‘Umbras vagantes hominum ante diem
mortuorum atque ideo metuendas[414].’ Nonius has the following: ‘Lemures
larvae nocturnae et terrificationes imaginum et bestiarum[415].’ From
these passages it would seem that _lemures_ and _larvae_ mean much the
same thing; on the other hand Appuleius[416] implies that _lemures_ is a
general word for spirits after they have left the body, while those that
haunt houses are especially called _larvae_. But on a question of this
kind, the philosophical and uncritical Appuleius is not to be weighed as
an authority against either Nonius or Porphyrio, who may quite possibly
be here representing the learning of the Augustan age; and a perusal of
the whole of his passage will show that he is simply trying to classify
ghosts by the light of his own imagination. Judging from the hints of
the two other scholars, we may perhaps conclude that _lemures_ and
_larvae_ are to be distinguished as hostile ghosts from _manes_, the
good people (as the word is generally explained), i. e. those duly
buried in the city of the dead, and whom their living descendants have
no need to fear so long as they pay them their due rites at the proper
seasons as members of the family. And this conclusion is confirmed by
the curious etymology of Ovid[417], reproduced by Porphyrio, deriving
Lemuria from Remus. whose violent death was supposed to have been
expiated by the institution of the festival. The difficulty is to see
why, if the _lemures_ were unburied, evil, or hostile spirits, a special
festival of three days should have been necessary to appease or quiet
them; and I can only account for this by supposing that such spirits
were especially numerous in an age of uncivilized life and constant war
and violence, and that they formed a large part of the whole world of
evil demons whose expulsion was periodically demanded. It may have been
the case that at this particular time in May, when the days were
_nefasti_ and marriages were ill-omened, these spirits became
particularly restless and needed to be laid.
Such an explanation as this of the Lemuria is on the whole preferable to
that which would regard it as the original Roman festival of _all_ the
dead; for there is now abundant evidence that even in the earliest ages
of Italian life the practice of orderly burial in necropoleis was
universal[418], and this is a practice that seems inconsistent with a
general belief in the dead as hostile and haunting spirits.
The following is Ovid’s description of the way in which the ghosts were
laid at the Lemuria by the father of a family. At midnight he rises, and
with bare feet[419] and washed hands, making a peculiar sign with his
fingers and thumbs to keep off the ghosts, he walks through the house.
He has black beans in his mouth, and these he spits out as he walks,
looking the other way, and saying, ‘With these I redeem me and mine.’
Nine times he says this without looking round; then come the ghosts
behind him, and gather up the beans unseen. He proceeds to wash again
and to make a noise with brass vessels; and after nine times repeating
the formula ‘manes[420] exite paterni,’ he at last looks round, and the
ceremony is over.
The only point in this quaint bit of ritual which need detain us is the
use of beans. We have had bean-straw used at the Parilia, and we shall
find that beans were also used at the festival of the dead in February.
Assuredly it is not easy to see what could have made them into such
valuable ‘medicine.’ Beans were not a newly discovered vegetable. Their
exclusion from the rites of Demeter must have been of great antiquity,
and the notions of the Pythagoreans about them were probably based on
very ancient popular superstitions[421]. No one, as far as I know, has
as yet successfully solved the problem why beans had so strange a
religious character about them[422]; they probably were an ancient
symbol of fertility, but it is impossible now to discover how or why the
ideas grouped themselves around them, which we so constantly find both
in Greece and Italy. If we ask why the ghosts picked them up, or were
supposed to do so, there is some reason for believing that by eating
them they might possibly hope to get a new lease of life[423]. Whatever
was the real basis of the superstition, it was a widely spread one, and
ramified in more than one direction; the Roman priest of Jupiter, for
example, might not touch beans nor even mention them[424]. In his case
the taboo was no doubt very old, but might have grown out of some such
practice as that just described, all things ill-omened and mysterious
being carefully kept out of his reach.
The days from May 7 to 14 were occupied by the Vestal Virgins in
preparing the _mola salsa_, or sacred salt-cake, for use at the Vestalia
in June, on the Ides of September, and at the Lupercalia[425]. This was
made from the first ears of standing corn in a primitive fashion by the
three senior Vestals, and is no doubt, like most of their ritual, a
relic of the domestic functions of the daughters of the family. But we
must postpone further consideration of the Vestals and their duties till
we come to the Vestalia in June.
ID. MAI. (MAY 15). NP.
FER[IAE] IOVI. MERCUR[IO] MAIAE. (VENUS[426].)
MAIAE AD CIRC[UM] M[AXIMUM]. (CAER.) MERC[URIO]. (TUSC.)
The very curious rite which took place on this day is not mentioned in
the calendars; it belonged to those which, like the Paganalia, were
_publica_ indeed and _pro populo_, but represented the people as divided
in certain groups rather than the State as a whole[427]. But its obvious
antiquity, and the interesting questions which arise out of it, tempt me
to treat it in detail, at the risk of becoming tedious.
I have already mentioned[428] that there was a procession in March, as
we infer from the _sacra Argeorum_ quoted by Varro, which went round the
_sacella Argeorum_, or twenty-four chapels situated in the four Servian
regions of the city[429]. What was done at these _sacella_ we do not
know; the procession and its doings had become so obscure in Ovid’s time
that he could dispose of it in two lines of his _Fasti_, and express a
doubt as to whether it took place on one day or two[430]. Nor do we know
what the _sacella_ really were. The best conjecture is that of Jordan,
who has brought some evidence together to show that they were small
chapels or sacred places where holy things were deposited until the time
came round for them to be used in some religious ceremony[431].