Footnote 608:
Above, p. 110.
Footnote 609:
As the beast that usually worked in mills? There is a Pompeian
painting of this scene (Gerhard, _Ant. Bild._ pl. 62).
Footnote 610:
Varro, _L. L._ 6. 32 ‘Dies qui vocatur Q. St. D. F. ab eo appellatur
quod eo die ex aede Vestae stercus everritur et per Capitolinum clivum
in locum defertur certum.’ It is Ovid who tells us it was thrown into
the Tiber (_Fasti_, 6. 713).
Footnote 611:
Jordan, _Tempel der Vesta_, p. 63.
Footnote 612:
The crushing of the grain no doubt comes down from a time when there
were no mills (Helbig, _Italiker in der Poebene_, 17 and 72). The
preparation of the cakes was also peculiar, and even that of the salt
which was used in them (Festus, 159; cp. Serv. _Ecl._ 8. 82). The
latter passage is the _locus classicus_ for all these duties:
‘Virgines Vestales tres maximae ex nonis Maiis ad pridie Idus Maias
alternis diebus (i. e. on 7th, 9th, 11th?) spicas adoreas in corbibus
messuariis ponunt, easque spicas ipsae virgines torrent, pinsunt,
molunt, atque ita molitum condunt. Ex eo farre virgines ter in anno
molam faciunt, Lupercalibus, Vestalibus, Idibus Septembribus, adiecto
sale cocto et sale duro.’ For examples of the primitive method of
cooking see Miss Kingsley’s _Travels in West Africa_, p. 208; and Sir
Joseph Banks’s _Journal_ (ed. Hooker), p. 137.
Footnote 613:
_Penus_ means, in the first instance, food. Cic. _Nat. Deorum_, 2. 68
‘Est omne quo vescuntur homines penus.’ Hence it came to mean the
store-closet in the centre of the house, of which the Penates were the
guardian spirits. Its sacred character is indicated in a passage of
Columella (_R. R._ 12. 4; and see my paper on the _toga praetexta_ of
Roman children, in _Classical Review_, Oct. 1896).
Footnote 614:
Varro, ap. S. Aug. _de Civ._ 7. 24; cp. 7. 16. Ovid, _Fasti_, 6. 267,
writes, ‘Vesta eadem quae terra,’ but more correctly in 291, ‘Nec tu
aliud Vestam quam vivam intellige flammam.’ Some moderns derive Vesta
from root _vas_ = ‘dwelling,’ and make her the earth in special
relation to the dwelling; e. g. O. Gilbert, i. 348 note.
Footnote 615:
Preuner, _Hestia-Vesta_, p. 221 ‘Gottheit des Feuers, sofern
religiöse, ethische Ideen sich in demselben abspiegeln, nicht des
Feuers als blossen Elements.’ This is surely turning the question
upside down.
Footnote 616:
Tylor, _Prim. Cult._ ii. 251; Grimm, _German Mythology_ (Eng. trans.),
p. 601 foll.
Footnote 617:
In July also the days were _nefasti_ from the Kalends to the 9th; but
to the meaning of this we have no clue whatever.
Footnote 618:
See above, p. 115.
Footnote 619:
_G. B._ ii. 75. In an appendix (p. 373 foll. and esp. 382) will be
found some other examples of the same type of ritual. Cp. also ii. 176
(from Punjaub), which example, however, does not seem in any way
connected with harvest. But the practice of the Creek Indians is so
unusually well attested that it deserves special attention. It is
described by no less than four independent authorities (see Mr.
Frazer’s note on p. 76).
Footnote 620:
Nissen, _Landeskunde_, 399.
Footnote 621:
The whole of Mr. Frazer’s section on the sacramental eating of new
crops should be read in connexion with the Vestalia.
Footnote 622:
Aust, _de Aedibus sacris_, p. 7; Liv. 5. 19 and 23. The temple was in
the Forum boarium, near the Circus maximus.
Footnote 623:
Wissowa in _Myth. Lex._ s. v. Mater Matuta, 2463.
Footnote 624:
Ovid, _Fasti_, 6. 473 foll.; Cic. _Nat. Deor._ 3. 48; _Tusc._ 1. 28.
Plutarch (_Quaest. Rom._ 16. 1) noted a likeness between her cult and
that of Leucothea in his own city of Chaeroneia; an interesting
passage, though quite inconclusive as to the Greek origin of Mater
Matuta. Plutarch, like Servius (_Aen._ 5. 241) and others, has adopted
Ovid’s legend of Ino by way of explanation of the identity of
Leucothea and Matuta. Merkel (_Fasti_, clxxxiv) believed the cult to
be wholly Greek; Bouché-Leclercq (_Hist. de Divination_, iv. 147)
follows Klausen in identifying Mater Matuta with Tethys (cf. Plut.
_Rom._ 2) and with the deity of the oracle at Pyrgi. But see Wesseling
on Diod. Sic. 15, p. 337; and Strabo, Bk. 5, p. 345.
Footnote 625:
_C. I. L._ i. 176, 177.
Footnote 626:
Liv. 6. 33. 4; Wissowa, _Lex._ 2462.
Footnote 627:
Diod. Sic. 15. 14, p. 337, and Wesseling’s note. The temple at Pyrgi
was an important one, and rich enough to be plundered by Dionysius I
of Syracuse. But it must be admitted that the identification of the
deity of Pyrgi with Mater Matuta is not absolutely certain. Strabo, l.
c., calls her Eileithyia, Aristotle (_Oecon._ 1349 b) Leucothea; and
it is thought that Mater Matuta alone combines the characteristics of
these two. If, however, the goddess of Pyrgi was the deity of the
oracle, she might almost as well have been a Fortuna, like those of
Antium and Praeneste.
Footnote 628:
Tertullian, _de Monogam_. 17.
Footnote 629:
Ovid, _Fasti_, 6. 481, with Plut. _Q. R._ 16; _Camill._ 5.
Footnote 630:
Varro, _L. L._ 5. 106. Ovid (482) writes of _liba tosta_, i. e. cakes
cooked in pans rather than baked, like the _mola salsa_. See above, p.
149; and cp. Ovid, 532 ‘in subito cocta foco.’
Footnote 631:
Plut. ll. cc.; Ovid, 559 foll.
Footnote 632:
See below on Jan. 11. I cannot explain the rule that a woman prayed
for nephews and nieces before her own children, which is peculiar to
this cult.
Footnote 633:
Preller, i. 322; Wissowa in _Lex_.
Footnote 634:
_R. H._ (Eng. trans.) i. 162.
Footnote 635:
Lucr. 5. 654.
Footnote 636:
Paulus, 122 ‘Matrem Matutam antiqui ob bonitatem appellabant, et
maturum idoneum usui,’ &c. See also Curtius, _Gk. Etym._ I. 408.
Footnote 637:
_Fasti_, 6. 569 foll.; 625 foll.: cp. Dionysius, 4. 40. Ovid has three
fanciful explanations of the draping.
Footnote 638:
Ovid, l.c.; Dionys. 4. 40.
Footnote 639:
Varro ap. Nonium, p. 189; Plin. _N. H._ 8. 194, 197. See Schwegler,
_R. G._ i. 712, note 3, and a full discussion in _Lex_. by R. Peter,
s.v. Fortuna, p. 1509.
Footnote 640:
Dio Cassius, 58. 7.
Footnote 641:
Seneca, _Q. N._ 2. 41; Müller-Deecke, _Etrusker_, ii. 83; Dennis,
_Etruria_, i, Introduction lvi. The passage of Seneca is a very
curious one about the Etruscan lightning-lore. O. Müller guesses that
the _di involuti_ were Fates (_Schicksalsgottheiten_), which would
suit Fortuna (cp. Hor. _Od._ 1. 35).
Footnote 642:
There is just a possibility that it was confused with a statue of
Pudicitia, also _in foro boario_, and also said to have been veiled
(Festus, 242). Varro, l. c., calls the goddess of the statue, Fortuna
Virgo, and Preller suggested that she was identical with Pudicitia.
The lines of Ovid seem to favour this view (_Fasti_, 6. 617 foll.):
Veste data tegitur. Vetat hanc Fortuna moveri
Et sic e templo est ipsa locuta suo;
‘Ore revelato qua primum luce patebit
Servius, haec positi prima pudoris erit.
Parcite, matronae, vetitas attingere vestes:
Sollemni satis est voce movere preces.’
Footnote 643:
Mommsen in _C. I. L._ i. 2, 298.
Footnote 644:
Livy, 9. 30; Val. Max. 2. 5. 4; Varro, _L. L._ 6. 17. Cp. _C. I. L._
vi. 3696 [Magistri] quinq(uennales) [collegi] teib(icinum) Rom(anorum)
qui s(acris) p(ublicis) p(raesto) s(unt) Iov(i) Epul(oni) s(acrum).
Footnote 645:
So Preller, i. 198.
Footnote 646:
Aust, in _Lex._ s. v. Iuppiter, 680. Both here and in his work _de
Aedibus sacris_, this scholar declines to distinguish between Iup.
Invictus and Iup. Victor.
Footnote 647:
For Minerva as the patron of all such guilds see Wissowa in _Lex._ s.
v. Minerva, 2984 foll.
Footnote 648:
Varro, _L. L._ 6. 17. There were three days of revelry, according to
Livy (9. 30): did they meet in this temple on each day? The 13th was
the day of the _epulum_; which the other days were we do not know.
Footnote 649:
_L. L._ 6. 17.
Footnote 650:
Festus, 149, s. v. minusculae. Cf. Ovid, _Fasti_, 6. 695.
Footnote 651:
Livy, l. c. Plutarch, _Quaest. Rom._ 55, who confuses two Appii
Claudii, and refers the story to the Decemvir instead of to the Censor
of 311 B.C. Livy omits the very Roman trait (Ov. 673 foll.) of the
_libertus_ feigning to be surprised by his _patronus_.
Footnote 652:
Cohen, _Méd. Pl._ 33; Borghesi, _Op._ i. 201 (quoted by Marq. 577).
Footnote 653:
Müller-Deecke, _Etrusker_, ii. 202.
Footnote 654:
_Journal of Philology_, vol. xi. p. 189. It was a short pipe played
with a reed, and no doubt almost the same thing as the short rough
oboes which are still favourites in Italy, and which are still
sometimes played two at a time in the mouth as of old. Their antiquity
is vouched for by the law of the Twelve Tables, which limited the
players at a funeral to ten. See Professor Anderson’s article ‘tibia’
in _Dict. of Ant._ (ed. 2).
Footnote 655:
_Fasti_, 6. 731.
Footnote 656:
Aust, _de Aedibus sacris_, p. 13.
Footnote 657:
Not to be confused, as in Livy, _Epit._ 14, with a statue of Summanus
himself on the same temple (in fastigio Iovis: Cicero, _Div._ 1. 10).
Footnote 658:
_de Civ. Dei_, 4. 23.
Footnote 659:
Festus, 229, s. v. Proversum fulgor: ‘Quod diurna Iovis, nocturna
Summani fulgura habentur.’ (Cp. Pliny, _N. H._ 2. 52.) An interesting
inscription (_C. I. L._ vi. 206) runs, ‘Summanium fulgus conditum,’ i.
e. ‘a bolt which fell before dawn was buried here.’
Footnote 660:
_L. L._ 5. 74.
Footnote 661:
Müller-Deecke, _Etrusker_, ii. 60.
Footnote 662:
_Études de Mythologie Gauloise_, i. p. 92. M. Gaidoz looks on these
wheel-cakes as ‘emblematic of Summanus’ as a god of sun and sky.
Footnote 663:
Festus, p. 348. The MS. has ‘finctae.’
Footnote 664:
_Journal of Hellenic Studies_, vol. vii, No. 1 (1886), p. 44 foll.
Footnote 665:
_Fasti_, 6. 775 foll.
Footnote 666:
p. 104.
Footnote 667:
_L. L._ 61. 7.
Footnote 668:
Livy, 10. 46. 17.
Footnote 669:
_Ann._ 2. 41.
Footnote 670:
See above, the heading of this section.
Footnote 671:
_C. I. L._ 320.
Footnote 672:
See above, p. 50.
Footnote 673:
ch. i.
Footnote 674:
Marquardt, p. 2.
Footnote 675:
Pliny, _N. H._ 34. 54.
Footnote 676:
Plut. _Marius_, 26; Pliny, l. c. I follow Aust, _de Aedibus sacris_,
p. 26.
Footnote 677:
Above, p. 156.
Footnote 678:
Ovid is the only authority for the worship of Fortuna on June 11
(_Fasti_, 6. 569); it is not mentioned in the calendars (Tusc. Ven.
Maff.) which have notes surviving for this day.
Footnote 679:
By H. Jordan, _Symbolae ad historiam religionum Italicarum alterae_
(Königsberg, 1885). See also R. Peter, in _Lex._ s. v. Fortuna, 1542,
and Aust, _Lex._ s. v. Iuppiter, 647.
Footnote 680:
_C. I. L._ xiv. 2863.
Footnote 681:
_de Div._ 2. 41. 85.
Footnote 682:
Jordan, op. cit. p. 12.
Footnote 683:
See below, p. 223 foll., under Sept. 13.
Footnote 684:
Fernique, _Étude sur Préneste_, pp. 8 and 139 foll.
Footnote 685:
See also his previous letter of March 3.
Footnote 686:
He held ‘birth’ and ‘fortune’ to be words etymologically related. Cp.
a communication from Prof. Kluge in the same number of the _Academy_.
Footnote 687:
_Journal of Philology_, vol. xi. 178; _Studies in Latin Literature_,
p. 60.
Footnote 688:
_de Civ. Dei_, 4. 11. Cp. Serv. _Aen._ 8. 336.
Footnote 689:
l. c. ‘Castissime colitur a matribus.’ One of the ancient inscriptions
from Praeneste (_C. I. L._ xi. 2863) is a dedication ‘nationu cratia’
= _nationis gratia_, which may surely mean ‘in gratitude for
childbirth,’ though Mommsen would refer it to cattle, on the ground of
a gloss of Festus (p. 167).
Footnote 690:
Jordan, op. cit. p. 12.
Footnote 691:
O. Gilbert, _Gesch. u. Topogr. der Stadt Rom_, ii. 260 foll.
Footnote 692:
St. John, iii. 30; St. Augustine, Sermo xii in Nativitate Domini: ‘In
nativitate Christi dies crescit, in Johannis nativitate decrescit.
Profectum plane facit dies, quum mundi Salvator oritur; defectum
patitur quum ultimus prophetarum nascitur.’
Footnote 693:
See many examples in _The Golden Bough_, ii. 258 foll., and Brand’s
_Popular Antiquities_, p. 306.
Footnote 694:
See R. Peter, in _Lex._, s. v. Fortuna, 1506.
Footnote 695:
_Études de Myth. Gaul._ i. 56 foll. On p. 58 we find, ‘La Fortune nous
paraît donc sortir, par l’intermédiaire d’une image, d’une divinité du
soleil.’
Footnote 696:
For the history of these symbols in Greek cults, and especially that
of Tyche, see a paper by Prof. Gardner in _Journal of Hellenic
Studies_, vol. ix. p. 78, on ‘Countries and Cities in ancient art.’
The rudder seems to connect Fortuna with sea-faring; it is often
accompanied by a ship’s prow (R. Peter, _Lex._ 1507); in connexion
with which we may notice that even in Italy her cult is rarely found
far from the sea. Cp. Horace, _Od._ 1. 35, 6 ‘dominam aequoris.’
Footnote 697:
10. 311 foll.; Marq. 578.
Footnote 698:
R. Peter, _Lex._ 1505. She is also often represented with a _modius_,
and with ears of corn. Cp. Horace, l. c. (of the Fortuna of Antium):
‘Te pauper ambit sollicita prece Ruris colonus.’
Footnote 699:
Ovid, _Fasti_, 6. 573 foll. Schwegler, _R. G._ i. 711 foll.; Preller,
ii. 180.
Footnote 700:
Dennis, _Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_, vol. ii. p. 506;
Gardthausen, ‘Mastarna,’ figures the painting (plate i).
Footnote 701:
Tac. _Ann._ II. 24; the fragments of the original speech are printed
from the inscription at Lyons in Mr. Furneaux’s _Annals of Tacitus_,
vol. ii. p. 210.
Footnote 702:
Juvenal, 10. 74, and note of the Scholiast.
Footnote 703:
Müller-Deecke, _Etrusker_, ii. 52; Dennis, _Cit. and Cem._ ii. 24.
Footnote 704:
Juvenal, l.c.
Footnote 705:
See below on Sept. 13, p. 234.
Footnote 706:
Müller-Deecke, ii. 308. Gaidoz, op. cit. p. 56, on the connexion
between Fortuna, Necessitas, and Nemesis.
Footnote 707:
Gerhard, _Agathodaemon_, p. 30, has other explanations.
MENSIS QUINCTILIS.
The festivals of this month are so exceedingly obscure that it seems
hopeless to try to connect them in any definite way with the operations
either of nature or of man. We know that this was the time when the
sun’s heat became oppressive and dangerous; statistics show at the
present day that the rate of mortality rises at Rome to its greatest
height in July and August, as indeed is the case in southern latitudes
generally. We know also that harvest of various kinds was going on in
this month: ‘Quarto intervallo inter solstitium et caniculam plerique
messem faciunt,’ writes Varro (_R. R._ 1. 32). We should have expected
that the unhealthy season and the harvest would have left their mark on
the calendar; but in the scantiness of our information we can find very
few traces of their influence. We here lose the company of Ovid, who
might, in spite of his inevitable ignorance, have incidentally thrown
some ray of light upon the darkness; but it is clear that even Varro and
Verrius knew hardly anything of the almost obsolete festivals of this
month. The Poplifugia, the Lucaria, the Neptunalia, and the Furrinalia,
had all at one time been great festivals, for they are marked in large
capitals in the ancient calendars; but they had no more meaning for the
Roman of Varro’s time than the lesser saints’-days of our calendar have
for the ordinary Englishman of to-day. The ludi Apollinares, of much
later date, which always maintained their interest, did not fall upon
the days of any of these festivals, or obliterate them in the minds of
the people; they must have decayed from pure inanition—want of practical
correlation with the life and interests of a great city.
III NON. QUINCT. (JULY 5). NP.
POPLIF[UGIA]. (MAFF. AMIT. ANT.)
FERIAE IOVI. (AMIT.)
The note ‘feriae Iovi’ in the calendar of Amiternum is confirmed in a
curious way, by a statement of Dio Cassius[708], who says that in B.C.
42 the Senate passed a decree that Caesar’s birthday should be
celebrated on this day[709], and that any one who refused to take part
in the celebration should be ‘sacer Iovi et Divo Iulio.’ But we know far
too little of the rites of this day to enable us to make even a guess at
the meaning of its connexion with Jupiter. It is just worth noting that
two days later we find a festival of Juno, the Nonae Caprotinae; the two
days may have had some connexion with each other, being separated by an
interval of one day, as is the case with the three days of the Lemuria,
the two days of the Lucaria in this month, and in other instances[710];
and their rites were explained by two parts of the same aetiological
story—viz. that the Romans fled before the Fidenates on the 5th, and in
turn defeated them on the 7th[711]. But we are quite in the dark as to
the meaning of such a connexion, if such there was. Nor can we explain
the singular fact that this is the only festival in the whole year,
marked in large capitals in the calendars, which falls _before the
Nones_[712].
There is hardly a word in the whole calendar the meaning of which is so
entirely unknown to us as this word Poplifugia. Of the parallel one, the
Regifugium in February, something can be made out, as we shall see[713];
and it is not unlikely that the ritualistic meaning concealed in both
may be much the same. But all attempts to find a definite explanation
for Poplifugia have so far been fruitless, with the single exception
perhaps of that of Schwegler[714], who himself made the serious blunder
of confounding this day with the Nonae Caprotinae. It is true that the
two days and their rites were confused even in antiquity, but only by
late writers[715]; the calendars, on the other hand, are perfectly plain
and so is Varro[716], who proceeds from the one to the other in a way
that can leave no doubt that he understood them as distinct.
The simple fact is that the meaning of the word Poplifugia had wholly
vanished when the calendar began to be studied. Ingenuity and fancy, as
usual, took the place of knowledge, and two legends were the result—the
one connecting the word with the flight of the Romans from an army of
their neighbours of Fidenae, after the retirement of the Gauls from the
city[717]; the other interpreting it as a memorial of the flight of the
people after the disappearance of Romulus in the darkness of an eclipse
or sudden tempest[718]. The first of these legends may be dismissed at
once; the large capitals in which the name Poplifugia appears in the
fragments of the three calendars which preserve it, are sufficient
evidence that it must have been far older than the Gallic invasion[719].
The second legend might suggest that the story itself of the death of
Romulus had grown out of some religious rite performed at this time of
year; and it was indeed traditionally connected with the Nones of this
month[720]. But that day is unluckily not the day of the Poplifugia,
which it is hardly possible to connect with the disappearance of
Romulus. There may, however, have been a connexion between the rites of
the two days, as has been pointed out above; and this being so, it is
worth while to notice a suggestion made by Schwegler, in spite of the
fact that he confused the two days together. He saw that the
disappearance of Romulus was said to have occurred while he was holding
a _lustratio_ of the citizens[721], and concluded that the Poplifugia
may have been an ancient rite of lustration—an idea which other writers
have been content to follow without always giving him the credit of
it[722].
Such a rite may very well be indicated by the following sentence of
Varro[723]—the only one which gives us any solid information on the
question: _Aliquot huius diei vestigia fugae in sacris apparent, de
quibus rebus antiquitatum libri plura referunt_. It seems not
unreasonable to guess that the rite was one of those in which the
priest, or in this case, as it would seem, the people also, fled from
the spot after the sacrifice had been concluded. As the slayer of the ox
at the Athenian Bouphonia (which curiously enough took place just at
this same time of year) fled as one guilty of blood, so it may possibly
have been that priest and people at Rome fled after some similar
sacrifice, and for the same reason[724]. Or it may have been that they
fled from the victim as a scapegoat which was destined to carry away
from the city some pollution or pestilence. It is interesting to find at
Iguvium in Umbria some ‘vestigia fugae,’ not of the people, indeed, but
of victims, at a _lustratio populi_ which seems to have had some object
of this kind[725]. Heifers were put to flight, then caught and killed,
apparently in order to carry off evils from the city[726], as well as to
represent and secure the defeat of its enemies. Such performances seem
especially apt to occur at sickly seasons[727]; and as the unhealthy
season began at Rome in July[728], it is just possible that the
Poplifugia was a ceremony of this class.
NON. QUINCT. (JULY 7). N.
This day does not appear as a festival in the old calendars; but the
late one of Silvius[729] notes it as _Ancillarum Feriae_, or Feast of
Handmaids, and adds the explanatory story which is found also in
Plutarch and Macrobius[730]. The victorious Fidenates having demanded
the surrender of the wives of the Romans, the latter made over to them
their _ancillae_, dressed in their mistresses’ robes, by the advice of a
certain Philotis, or Tutula[731], one of the handmaids. Ausonius alludes
to the custom that gave rise to the story:
Festa Caprotinis memorabo celebria Nonis
Cum stola matronis dempta teget famulas[732].
Plutarch also tells us that on this day the _ancillae_ not only wore the
matron’s dress, but had license for what may be described as a game of
romps; they beat each other, threw stones at each other, and scoffed at
the passers by[733].
This last point supplies us with a possible clue both to the origin of
the custom and the explanatory legend. One of the most frequent customs
at harvest-time used to be, and still is in some places, for the
harvesters to mock at, and even to use roughly, any stranger who appears
on the field; frequently he is tied up with straw, even by the women
binding the sheaves, and only released on promise of money, brandy, &c.;
or he is ducked in water, or half-buried, or in pretence beheaded[734].
The stranger in such cases is explained as representing the spirit of
the corn; the examples collected by Mannhardt and Mr. Frazer seem fairly
conclusive on this point[735]. The wearing of the matron’s dress also
seems to be a combination of the familiar practices of the winter
Saturnalia with harvest customs, which in various forms is by no means
uncommon[736], though I have not found a case of exchange of dress after
harvest.
Thus it would seem possible that we have here a relic of Italian
harvest-custom; and this is confirmed by the statement of Tertullian
that there was on this day a sacrifice to the harvest-god Consus[737],
at his underground altar in the Circus Maximus, of which we shall have
more to say under Aug. 21 (Consualia). It is worth noting here that just
as the legend of the Rape of the Sabines was connected with the
Consualia[738], so the analogous story of the demand of the Fidenates
for Roman women is associated with the _Ancillarum Feriae_, and the day
of the sacrifice to Consus. This not only serves to connect together the
two days of Consus-worship, but suggests that harvest was a favourable
opportunity for the practice of capturing wives in primitive Italy, when
the women were out in the fields, and might be carried off by a sudden
incursion.