from the Veientine War, 396 B.C., and was the result of a vow made by L.
Furius Camillus[622]. An earlier temple was attributed to Servius
Tullius; but it is extremely improbable that anything more than a
_sacellum_ or altar existed at such an early date[623]. The cult of
Mater Matuta was widely extended in Italy, and clearly of genuine and
ancient Italian origin; she can be separated with certainty from the
Greek goddess Leucothea with whom Ovid mixes her up, and from whom she
derived a connexion with harbours which did not originally belong to
her[624]. The evidence for the wide spread of her cult consists of (1)
two extremely old inscriptions from Pisaurum in Umbria, of which Mommsen
observes, ‘lingua meram vetustatem spirat’[625]; (2) certain
inscriptions and passages of Livy which prove that her worship existed
among the Volsci, in Campania, and at Praeneste[626]. At Satricum she
was apparently the chief deity of the place and probably also at Pyrgi,
the port of Caere in Etruria[627]. The cult seems to have had some
marked peculiarities, of which one or two fragments have come down to
us. Only the wife of a first marriage could deck the image of the
goddess[628]; no female slaves were allowed in the temple except one,
who was also driven out of it with a box on the ear, apparently as a
yearly recurring memorial of the rule[629]; the sacred cakes offered
were cooked in old-fashioned earthenware[630]; and, lastly, the women
are said to have prayed to this goddess for their nephews and nieces in
the first place, and for their own children only in the second[631]. All
that can be deduced from these fragments is that the Mater Matuta was an
ancient deity of matrons, and perhaps of the same type as other deities
of women such as Carmenta, Fortuna, and Bona Dea[632]. The best modern
authorities explain her as a goddess of the dawn’s light and of
child-birth, and see a parallel in Juno Lucina[633]; and Mommsen has
pointed out that the dawn was thought to be the lucky time for birth,
and that the Roman names Lucius and Manius have their origin in this
belief[634]. Lucretius shows us that in his day Mater Matuta was
certainly associated with the dawn[635]:
roseam Matuta per oras
Aetheris auroram differt et lumina pandit.
We should, however, be glad to be more certain that Matuta was
originally a substantive meaning dawn or morning. Verrius Flaccus[636]
seems to have believed that the words _mane_, _maturus_, _matuta_,
_manes_, and _mānus_, all had the meaning of ‘good’ contained in them;
so that Mater Matuta might after all be only another form of the Bona
Dea, who is also specially a woman’s deity. But this cult was not
preserved, like that of Vesta, by being taken up into the essential life
of the State, and we are no longer able to discern its meaning with any
approach to certainty.
It is noticeable that this day was, according to Ovid[637], the
dedication of a temple of Fortuna, also _in foro boario_: but no
immediate connexion can be discovered between this deity and Mater
Matuta. This temple was remarkable as containing a wooden statue, veiled
in drapery, which was popularly believed to represent Servius
Tullius[638], of whose connexion with Fortuna we shall have more to say
further on. No one, however, really knew what the statue was; Varro and
Pliny[639] write of one of Fortuna herself which was heavily draped, and
may have been the one in this temple. Pliny says that the statue of
Fortuna was covered with the _togae praetextae_ of Servius Tullius,
which lasted intact down to the death of Seianus; and it is singular
that Seianus himself is said to have possessed a statue of Fortuna which
dated from the time of Servius[640], and which turned its face away from
him just before his fall. Seianus was of Etruscan descent, we may
remember; Servius Tullius, or Mastarna, was certainly Etruscan; and
among Etruscan deities we find certain shrouded gods[641]. These facts
seem to suggest that the statue (or statues, if we cannot refer all the
passages above quoted to one statue) came from Etruria, and was on that
account a mystery both to the learned and the ignorant at Rome. To us it
must also remain unexplained[642].
ID. IUN. (JUNE 13). NP.
FERIAE IOVI. (VEN.)
IOVI. (TUSC.)
To these notes in the calendars we may add a few lines from Ovid:
Idibus Invicto sunt data templa Iovi.
Et iam Quinquatrus iubeor narrare minores:
Nunc ades o coeptis, flava Minerva, meis.
Cur vagus incedit tota tibicen in urbe?
Quid sibi personae, quid stola longa volunt?
All Ides, as we have seen, were sacred to Jupiter; they are so noted in
the surviving calendars in May, June, August, September, October and
November, and were probably originally so noted in all the months[643].
On this day the _collegium_ or guild of the tibicines feasted in the
temple of Jupiter Capitolinus[644]. The temple referred to by Ovid of
Jupiter Invictus as having been dedicated on this day may possibly have
been one of two mentioned by Livy as dedicated on the Capitol in B.C.
192[645]; but the coincidence of a dedication-day with the Ides may
perhaps suggest a higher antiquity[646].
For the right meaning and derivation of the word Quinquatrus the reader
is referred to what has been already said under March 19. June 13 was
usually called Quinquatrus minusculae, not because it was really
Quinquatrus (i. e. five days after the Ides), but because through the
feast of the tibicines it was associated with their patron Minerva[647],
in whose temple on the Aventine they met, apparently before they set out
on the revelling procession to which Ovid refers[648]. Varro makes this
clear when he writes ‘Quinquatrus minusculae dictae Iuniae Idus _ab
similitudine_ maiorum’[649], i. e. it was not really Quinquatrus, but
was popularly so called because the other festival of Minerva and her
followers bore that name. Verrius Flaccus was equally explicit on the
point: ‘Minusculae Quinquatrus appellantur quod is dies festus est
tibicinum, qui colunt Minervam cuius deae proprie festus dies est
Quinquatrus mense Martio’[650].
The revelry of the tibicines, during which they wore the masks and long
robes mentioned by Ovid, was explained by a story which the poet goes on
to tell, and which is told also by Livy and by Plutarch with some
variations[651]; how they fled to Tibur in anger at being deprived by
Appius Claudius the censor of their feast in the Capitol: how they were
badly missed at Rome, tricked and made drunk by a freedman at Tibur, and
sent home unconscious on a big waggon. The story is genuinely Roman in
its rudeness and in the rough humour which Ovid fully appreciates; the
favourite feature of a secession is seen in it, and also the peaceful
settlement of difficulties by compromise and contract. I see no reason
why it should not be the echo of an actual event, though in detail it is
obviously intended to explain the masks and the long robes. These are to
be seen represented on a coin of the gens Plautia[652], to which the
fierce censor’s milder colleague belonged, who negotiated the return of
the truants. Plutarch calls the ‘stolae longae’ women’s clothes; but it
is more natural to suppose that they were simply the dress of Etruscan
pipe-players of the olden time[653].
The story well shows the universal use of the _tibia_ in all sacred
rites; the tibicines were indispensable, and had to be got back from
Tibur by fair means or foul. As Ovid says:
Cantabat fanis, cantabat tibia ludis,
Cantabat maestis tibia funeribus.
The instrument was probably indigenous in Italy, and the only indigenous
one of which we know. ‘The word _tibia_,’ says Professor
Nettleship[654], ‘is purely Italian, and has, so far as I can find, no
parallel in the cognate languages.’ Müller, in his work on the
Etruscans, does indeed assume that the Roman tibicines were of Etruscan
origin, which would leave the Romans without any musical instrument of
their own. The probability may rather be that it was the general
instrument of old Italy, specially cultivated by the one Italian race
endowed with anything like an artistic temperament.
XII KAL. IUN. (JUNE 20). C.
SUMMAN[O] AD CIRC[UM] MAXIM[UM]. (VEN. ESQ. AMIT.)
To this note may be added that of Ovid[655]:
Reddita, quisquis is est, Summano templa feruntur,
Tum cum Romanis, Pyrrhe, timendus eras.
The date of the foundation of the temple of Summanus was probably
between 278 and 275 B.C.[656]; the foundation was the result of the
destruction by lightning, no doubt at night, of a figure of Jupiter on
the Capitol[657]. Who was this Summanus? Ovid’s language, _quisquis is
est_, shows that even in his time this god, like Semo Sancus, Soranus,
and others, had been fairly shouldered out of the course by more
important or pushing deities. In the fourth century A.D. S.
Augustine[658], well read in the works of Varro and the Roman
antiquarians, could write as follows: ‘Sicut enim apud ipsos legitur,
Romani veteres nescio quem Summanum, cui nocturna fulmina tribuebant,
coluerunt magis quam Iovem—sed postquam Iovi templum insigne ac sublime
constructum est, propter aedis dignitatem sic ad eum multitudo
confluxit, ut vix inveniatur, qui Summani nomen, quod audire iam non
potest, se saltem legisse meminerit.’ In spite of the decay and
disappearance of this god we may believe that the Christian Father has
preserved the correct tradition as to his nature when he tells us that
he was the wielder of the lightning _of the night_, or in other words a
nocturnal Jupiter. We do in fact find a much earlier statement to the
same effect traceable to Verrius Flaccus[659]. Varro also mentions him
and classes him with Veiovis, and with the Sabine deities whom he
believed to have been brought to Rome by Tatius[660]. There is, however,
no need to suppose with Varro that he was Sabine, or with Müller that he
was Etruscan[661]; the name is Latin and probably = Submanus, i. e. the
god who sends the lightning before the dawn.
It is interesting to find the wheel symbol here again, as is noticed by
Gaidoz in his _Studies of Gallic Mythology_[662]. We can hardly doubt
that the Summanalia which Festus explains as ‘liba farinacea in modum
rotae ficta[663]‘, were cakes offered or eaten on this day: it is hard
to see what other connexion they could have had. Mr. Arthur Evans has
some interesting remarks[664] on what seem to be moulds for making
religious cakes of this kind, found at Tarentum; they are decorated, not
only with the wheel or cross, but with many curious symbols. ‘It is
characteristic,’ he writes, ‘in a whole class of religious cakes that
they are impressed with a wheel or cross, and in other cases divided
into segments as if to facilitate distribution. This symbolical division
seems to connect itself _with the worship of the ancestral fire_ rather
than with any solar cult. In a modified form they are still familiar to
us as “hot-cross buns.”’ Summanus, however, does not seem to have had
anything to do with the ancestral fire.
VIII KAL. QUINCT. (JUNE 24). C.
FORTI FORTUNAE TRANS TIBER[IM] AD MILLIAR[IUM] PRIM[UM] ET SEXT[UM].
(AMIT.)
FORTIS FORTUNAE. (VEN. PHILOC.)
SACRUM FORTIS FORTUNAE. (RUST.)
Ovid writes of this day as follows[665]:
Ite, deam laeti Fortem celebrate, Quirites!
In Tiberis ripa munera regis habet.
Pars pede, pars etiam celeri decurrite cymba,
Nec pudeat potos inde redire domum.
Ferte coronatae iuvenum convivia lintres:
Multaque per medias vina bibantur aquas.
Plebs colit hanc, quia, qui posuit, de plebe fuisse
Fertur, et ex humili sceptra tulisse loco.
Convenit et servis; serva quia Tullius ortus
Constituit dubiae templa propinqua deae.
H. Peter, in his additional notes to Ovid’s _Fasti_[666], has one so
lucid on the subject of the temples of Fors Fortuna mentioned in this
passage that I cannot do better than reproduce it. ‘We find three
temples of the goddess mentioned, all of which lay on the further side
of the Tiber. The first was that of Servius Tullius mentioned by Varro
in the following passage[667]: “Dies Fortis Fortunae appellatus ab
Servio Tullio rege, quod is fanum Fortis Fortunae secundum Tiberim extra
urbem Romam dedicavit Iunio mense.” The second is one stated by
Livy[668] to have been built by the consul Spurius Carvilius in 460 B.C.
near the temple of Servius. The third is mentioned by Tacitus[669] as
having been dedicated at the end of the year 17 A.D. by Tiberius, also
on the further side of the Tiber in the gardens of Caesar. Of these
three temples the third does not concern us in dealing with Ovid’s
lines, because it was completed and dedicated long after the composition
of the sixth book of the _Fasti_, perhaps at a time when Ovid was
already dead; we have to do only with the first two. Now we find in the
_Fasti_ of Amiternum[670] the following note on the 24th of June: “Forti
Fortunae trans Tiberim ad milliarium primum et sextum”; and this taken
together with Ovid suggests that either besides the temple of Carvilius
there were two temples of Fors Fortuna attributed to Servius, or (and
this appears to me more probable) the temple of Carvilius itself was
taken for a foundation of Servius as it had the same dedication-day and
was in the same locality. In this way the difficulties may be solved.’ I
am disposed to accept the second suggestion of Peter’s; for, as Mommsen
has remarked[671], it is quite according to Roman usage that Carvilius
should have placed his temple close to a much more ancient _fanum_ of
the same deity; i. e. the principle of the locality of cults often held
good through many centuries.
Many cults of Fortuna were referred to Servius Tullius, but especially
this one, because, as Ovid says, it was particularly a festival of the
plebs of which he was the traditional hero; and also because it was open
to slaves, a fact which was naturally connected with the supposed
servile birth of this king. The jollity and perhaps looseness of the
occasion seemed to indicate a connexion between the lower stratum of
population and the worship of Fortuna: ‘On foot and in boats,’ says
Ovid, ‘the people enjoyed themselves even to the extent of getting
drunk.’ We are reminded in fact of the plebeian license of the festival
of Anna Perenna in March[672]. It is perhaps worth noting that on June
18 the calendar of Philocalus has the note _Annae Sacrum_, which
unluckily finds no corroboration from any other source. Whether it was
an early popular cult, whether it was connected in any way with that of
Fors Fortuna, and whether both or either of them had any immediate
relation to the summer solstice, are questions admitting apparently of
no solution.
It has rarely happened that any Roman cult has been discussed at length
in the English language, especially by scholars of unquestionable
learning and resource. But on the subject of Fortuna, and Fors Fortuna,
an interesting paper appeared some years ago by Prof. Max Müller in his
volume entitled _Biographies of Words_[673], which I have been at great
pains to weigh carefully. The skill and lucidity with which the
Professor’s arguments are, as usual, presented, make this an unusually
pleasant task.
He starts, we must note, with a method which in dealing with Italian
deities has been justly and emphatically condemned[674]; he begins with
an etymology in order to discover the nature of the deity, and goes on
to support this by selecting a few features from the various forms of
the cult. This method will not of course be dangerous, if the etymology
be absolutely certain; and absolute certainty, so far as our present
knowledge reaches, is indeed what the Professor claims for his. Though
we may doubt whether the science of Comparative Philology is as yet old
and sure enough to justify us in violating a useful principle in order
to pay our first attentions to its results, we may waive this scruple
for the present and take the etymology in this case at the outset.
The Professor alludes to the well-known and universally accepted
derivation of Fors and Fortuna from _ferre_, but rejects it: ‘I appeal
to those who have studied the biographies of similar Latin words,
whether they do not feel some misgiving about so vague and abstract a
goddess as “Dea quae fert,” the goddess who brings.’ But feeling the
difficulty that Fortuna may not indeed have been originally a deity at
all, but an abstract noun which became a deity, like Fides, Spes, &c.,
in which case his objection to the derivation from _ferre_ would not
apply, he hastens to remove it by trying to show from the early
credentials of Fortuna, that she did not belong to this latter class,
but has characteristics which were undoubtedly heaven-born. The process
therefore was this: the ordinary etymology, though quite possible, is
vague and does not seem to lead to anything; is there another to be
discovered, which will fulfil philological requirements and also tell us
something new about Fortuna? And are there any features to be found in
the cult which will bear out the new etymology when it is discovered?
He then goes on to derive the word from the Sanskrit root HAER, ‘to
glow,’ from which many names expressive of the light of day have come:
‘From this too comes the Greek Χάρις with the Χάριτες, the goddess of
morning; and from this we may safely derive _fors_, _fortis_, taking it
either as a mere contraction, or a new derivative, corresponding to what
in Sanskrit would be _Har-ti_, and would mean the brightness of the day,
the Fortuna _huiusce diei_.’
So much for the etymological argument; on which we need only remark, (1)
that while it may be perfectly possible in itself, it does not impugn
the possibility of the older derivation; (2) that it introduces an idea
‘bright,’ hardly less vague and unsubstantial than that conveyed by ‘the
thin and unmeaning name’ _she who brings or carries away_. When, indeed,
the Professor goes on, by means of this etymology, to trace Fortuna to a
concrete thing, viz. the dawn, he is really making a jump which the
etymology does not specifically justify. All he can say is that it would
be ‘a most natural name for the brightest of all goddesses, the dawn,
the morning, the day.’
He looks, however, for further justification of the etymology to the
cult and mythology of Fortuna. From among her many cult-names he selects
two or three which seem suitable. The first of these is Fortuna _huiusce
diei_. This Fortuna was, he tells us, like the Ushas of the Veda, ‘the
bright light of each day, very much like what we might call “Good
morning.”’ But as a matter of fact all we know of this Fortuna is that
Aemilius Paullus, the victor of Pydna, vowed a temple to her in which he
dedicated certain statues[675]; that Catulus, the hero of Vercellae, may
have repaired or rebuilt it, and that on July 30, the day of the latter
battle, there was a sacrifice at this temple[676]. Whatever therefore
was the origin of this cult (and it may date no further back than Pydna)
it seems to have been specially concerned, as its name implies, with the
events of particular famous days. It is pure guesswork to imagine that
its connexion with such days may have arisen from an older meaning, viz.
the _bright light of each day_. Nothing is more natural than the
_huiusce diei_, if we believe that this Fortuna simply represented
chance, that inexplicable power which appealed so strongly to the later
sceptical and Graecized Roman, and which we see in the majority of
cult-names by which Fortuna was known in the later Republic. The
advocate of the dawn-theory, on the other hand, has to account for the
total loss in the popular belief of the nature-meaning of the epithet
and cult—a loss which is indeed quite possible, but one which must
necessarily make the theory less obvious and acceptable than the
ordinary one.
Secondly, the Professor points out, that on June 11, the day of the
Matralia, Fortuna was worshipped coincidently with Mater Matuta—the
latter being, as he assumes beyond doubt, a dawn-goddess. But we have
already seen that this assumption is not a very certain one[677]; and we
may now add that the coincident worship must simply mean that two
temples had the same dedication-day, which may be merely
accidental[678].
But the chief argument is based on the cult of Fortuna Primigenia, ‘the
first-born of the gods,’ as he translates the word, in accordance with a
recent elaborate investigation of its meaning[679]. This cult does
indeed show very curious and interesting characters. It belonged
originally to Praeneste, where Fortuna was the presiding deity of an
ancient and famous oracle. Here have been found inscriptions to Fortuna,
‘DIOVO[S] FILEA[I] PRIMOGENIA[I],’ the first-born daughter of
Jupiter[680]. Here also, strange to say, Cicero describes[681] an
enclosure sacred to Jupiter Puer, who was represented there with Juno as
sitting in the lap of Fortuna ‘mammam appetens.’ This very naturally
attracted Prof. Max Müller’s keenest attention, and he had no difficulty
in finding his explanation: Fortuna is ‘the first-born of all the bright
powers of the sky, and the daughter of the sky; but likewise from
another point of view the mother of the daily sun who is the bright
child she carries in her arms.’ This is charming; but it is the language
and thought, not of ancient Italians, but of Vedic poets. The great
Latin scholar, who had for years been soaking his mind in Italian
antiquities, will hardly venture on an explanation at all: ‘haud ignarus
quid deceat eum qui Aboriginum regiones attingat[682].’
I shall have occasion later on[683] to say something of this very
interesting and mysterious cult at Praeneste. At present I must be
content with pointing out that it is altogether unsafe to regard it as
representative of any general ideas of ancient Italian religion. As
Italian archaeologists are aware, Praeneste was a city in which Etruscan
and Greek influences are most distinctly traceable, and in which foreign
deities and myths seem to have become mixed up with native ones, to the
extreme bewilderment of the careful inquirer[684]. We may accept the
Professor’s explanation of it with all respect as a most interesting
hypothesis, but as no more than a hypothesis which needs much more
information than we as yet possess to render it even a probable one.
By his own account the Professor would not have been led so far afield
for an explanation of Fortuna if he had not been struck by the apparent
difficulty involved in such a goddess as ‘she who brings.’ Towards the
removal of this difficulty, however, the late Mr. Vigfusson did
something in a letter to the _Academy_ of March 17, 1888[685]. He
equated Fors and Fortuna with the Icelandic _buror_, from a verb having
quite as wide and general a meaning as _fero_, and being its
etymological equivalent. ‘There is a department of its meanings,’ he
tells us, ‘through which runs the notion of an invisible, passive,
sudden, involuntary, chance agency’; and another, in which _bera_ means
to give birth, and produces a noun meaning birth, and so lucky birth,
honour, &c. The two ideas come together in the Norse notion of the Norns
who presided at the birth of each child, shaping at that hour the
child’s fortune[686].
It is rather to the ideas of peoples like the early Teutons and Celts
that we must look for mental conditions resembling those of the early
Italians, than to the highly developed poetical mythology of the Vedas;
and it is in the direction which Mr. Vigfusson pointed out that I think
we should search for the oldest Italian ideas of Fortuna and for the
causes which led to her popularity and development. In a valuable paper,
to which I shall have occasion to refer again, Prof. Nettleship[687]
suggested that Carmenta (or Carmentes) may be explained with S.
Augustine[688] as the goddess or prophetess who tells the fortunes of
the children, and that this was the reason why she was especially
worshipped by matrons, like Mater Matuta, Fortuna and others. The
Carmentes were in fact the Norns of Italy. Such a practical need as the
desire to know your child’s fortunes would be quite in harmony with what
we know of the old Italian character; and I think it far from impossible
that Fortuna, as an oracular deity in Italy, may have been originally a
conception of the same kind, perhaps not only a prophetess as regards
the children, but also of the good luck of the mother in childbirth.
Perhaps the most striking fact in her multifarious cults is the
predominance in them of women as worshippers. Of the very Fortuna
Primogenia of whom we have been speaking Cicero tells us that her
ancient home at Praeneste was the object of the special devotion of
mothers[689]. The same was the case with Fortuna Virilis, Muliebris,
Mammosa, and others.