presumably those who had been helping at the harvest, both bond and
free[739], sacrificed to Juno Caprotina under a wild fig-tree
(caprificus) in the Campus Martius[740]. Juno Caprotina was a Latin
goddess, of great renown at Falerii[741], where the goat from which she
took her name appears in the legend of her cult. The character of Juno
as the representative of the female principle of human life[742] suits
well enough with the prominence of women both in the customs and legends
connected with the day; and the fig-tree with its milky juice, which was
used, according to Macrobius, in the sacrifice to Juno instead of milk,
has also its significance[743]. Varro adds that a rod (virga) was also
cut from this tree[744], without telling us for what purpose it was
used; and it has been ingeniously conjectured that it was with this that
the handmaids beat each other as Plutarch describes, to produce
fertility, just as at the Lupercalia the women were beaten with strips
cut from the skins of the victims (amiculum Junonis). But this is mere
conjecture, and Varro’s statement is too indefinite to be pressed[745].
VIII ID. QUINCT. (JULY 8). N.
‘Piso ait vitulam victoriam nominari, cuius rei hoc argumentum profert,
quod postridio nonas Iulias re bene gesta, cum pridie populus a Tuscis
in fugam versus sit (unde Populifugia vocantur), post victoriam certis
sacrificiis fiat _vitulatio_[746].’
I must be content with quoting this passage, and without comment; it
will suffice to show that the meaning of the word ‘vitulatio’ was
entirely unknown to Roman scholars. Why they should not have connected
it with _vitulus_ I know not: we may remember that in the Iguvian ritual
_vituli_ seem to have performed the function of scapegoats[747]. If the
vitulatio is in any way to be connected with the Poplifugia, as it was
indeed in the legend as given by Macrobius above, it may be worth while
to remember that that day is marked in one calendar as ‘feriae Iovi,’
and that the _vitulus_ (heifer) was the special victim of Jupiter[748].
PRID. NON. QUINCT.—III ID. QUINCT. (JULY 6-13).
LUDI APOLLINARES.
All these days are marked ‘ludi’ in Maff. Amit. Ant.; the 6th ‘ludi
Apoll[ini],’ and the 13th ‘ludi in circo.’
These games[749] were instituted in 212 B.C., for a single occasion
only, at the most dangerous period of the war with Hannibal, when he had
taken Tarentum and invaded Campania. Recourse was had to the Sibylline
books and to the Italian oracles of Marcius, and the latter answered as
follows[750]:
‘Hostes Romani si expellere voltis, vomicamque quae gentium venit longe,
Apollini vovendos censeo ludos, qui quotannis Apollini fiant,’ &c. The
games were held, as we may suppose, on the analogy of the ludi plebeii,
originally on the 13th day of the month[751], and were, in course of
time, extended backwards till in the Julian calendar we find them
lasting from the 6th to the 13th. They had a Greek character from the
first; they were superintended by the Decemviri sacris faciundis, who
consulted the Sibylline books and organized the ritual of foreign cults;
and they included scenic shows, after the Greek fashion, as well as
chariot races[752].
It was matter of dispute whether in this year, 212, Apollo was expected
to show his favour to Rome as a conqueror of her foe or as an averter of
pestilence in the summer heats; both functions were within his range.
But in 208 we are told that the ludi were renewed by a lex, made
permanent, and fixed for July 13 in consequence of a pestilence[753];
and we may fairly assume that this was, in part at least, the cause of
their institution four years earlier. What little we know of the
traditions of Apollo-worship at Rome points in the same direction. His
oldest temple in the Flaminian fields, where, according to Livy, a still
more ancient shrine once stood[754], was vowed in 432 B.C. in
consequence of a pestilence; and the god had also the cult-title
Medicus[755]. The next occasion on which we meet with the cult is that
of the first institution of a lectisternium in 397 B.C., Livy’s account
of which is worth condensing[756]. That year was remarkable for an
extremely cold winter, which was followed by an equally unhealthy
summer, destructive to all kinds of animals. As the cause of this
pestilence could not be discovered, the Sibylline books were consulted;
the result of which was the introduction of a _lectisternium_, at which
three couches were laid out with great magnificence, on which reposed
Apollo and Latona, Diana and Hercules, Mercurius and Neptunus, whose
favour the people besought for eight days.
The cult of Apollo, though thus introduced in its full magnificence at
Rome in historical times, was, ‘so old in Italy as almost to give the
impression of being indigenous[757].’ Tradition ascribed to Tarquinius
Superbus the introduction from Cumae of the Sibylline oracles, which
were intimately connected with Apollo-worship; and that Etruscan king
may well have been familiar with the Greek god, who was well known in
Etruria as _Aplu_[758], and who was worshipped at Caere, the home of the
Tarquinian family, which city had a ‘treasury’ at Delphi[759]. The
Romans themselves, according to a tradition which is by no means
improbable, had very early dealings with the Delphic oracle.
It does not seem certain that Apollo displaced any other deity when
transplanted to Rome. It has been thought that the obscure Veiovis
became clothed with some of Apollo’s characteristics, but this is
extremely doubtful[760]. The mysterious deity of Soracte, _Soranus_, is
called Apollo by Virgil[761]; this, however, is not a true displacement,
like that, e. g., of the ancient Ceres by the characteristics of
Demeter, but merely a poetical substitution of a familiar name for an
unfamiliar one which was unquestionably old Italian.
It does not seem probable that in the Republican period the cult of
Apollo had any special influence, either religious or ethical, for the
Roman people generally. It was a priestly experiment—a new physician was
called in at perilous times, according to the fashion of the Roman
oligarchy, either to give advice by his oracles, or to receive honours
for his benefits as ἀλεξίκακος. It is in the age of Augustus that the
cult begins to be important; the family of the Caesars was said to have
had an ancient connexion with it[762], and after the victory at Actium,
where a temple of Apollo stood on the promontory, Augustus not only
enlarged and adorned this one, but built another on the Palatine, near
his own house, to Apollo Palatinus. But for the ‘Apollinism’ of
Augustus, and for the important part played by the god in the _ludi
saeculares_ of B.C. 17, I must refer the reader to other works[763].
XIV KAL. SEXT. (JULY 19). NP.
LUCAR[IA]. (MAFF. AMIT.)
XII KAL. SEXT. (JULY 21). NP.
LUCAR[IA]. (MAFF. AMIT.)
Here, as in the next two festivals we have to consider, we are but
‘dipping buckets into empty wells.’ The ritual, and therefore the
original meaning of this festival, is wholly lost to us, as indeed it
was to the Romans of Varro’s time. Varro, in his list of festivals, does
not even mention this one; but it is possible that some words have here
dropped out of his text[764]. The only light we have comes at
second-hand from Verrius Flaccus[765]. ‘Lucaria festa in luco colebant
Romani, qui permagnus inter viam Salariam et Tiberim fuit, pro eo, quod
victi a Gallis fugientes[766] e praelio ibi se occultaverint.’ This
passage reminds us of the story explanatory of the Poplifugia, and might
suggest, as in that case, an expiatory sacrifice and flight of the
people from a scapegoat destined to carry away disease. But here we know
of no _vestigia fugae_ in the cult, such as Varro tells us were apparent
at the Poplifugia.
The only possible guess we can make must rest on the name itself, taken
together with what Festus tells us of the great wood once existing
between the Via Salaria and the Tiber, in which the festival was held—a
wood which no doubt occupied the Pincian hill, and the region afterwards
laid out in gardens by Lucullus, Pompeius, and Sallust the historian.
Lucaria is formed from _lucar_ as Lemuria from _lemur_; and _lucar_,
though in later times it meant ‘the sum disbursed from the _aerarium_
for the games[767],’ drawn probably from the receipts of the sacred
groves, may also at one time itself have meant a grove. An inscription
from the Latin colony of Luceria shows us _lucar_ in this sense[768]:
IN · HOCE · LUCARID · STIRCUS · NE · IS · FUNDATID, &c.
Now there can be no doubt about the great importance of woods, or rather
of clearings in them, in the ancient Italian religion. ‘_Nemus_ and
_lucus_,’ says Preller[769], ‘like so many other words, remind us of the
old Italian life of woodland and clearing. _Nemus_ is a pasturage,
_lucus_ a “light” or clearing[770], in the forest, where men settled and
immediately began to look to the interests of the spirits of the
woodland, and especially of Silvanus, who is at once the god of the wild
life of the woodland and of the settler in the forest—the backwoodsman.’
The woods left standing as civilization and agriculture advanced
continued to be the abodes of _numina_, not only of the great Jupiter,
who, as we shall see, was worshipped in groves all over Italy[771], and
of Diana, who at Aricia bore the title of Nemorensis, but of innumerable
spirits of the old worship, Fauni, Silvani, and other manifestations of
the idea most definitely conceived in the great god Mars[772]. But men
could not of course know for certain what spirits dwelt in a wood, whose
anger might be roused by intrusion or tree-felling; and old Cato, among
his many prescriptions, material and religious, gives one in the form of
an invocation to such unknown deities if an intrusion had to be made. It
is worth quoting, and runs as follows[773]: ‘Lucum conlucare Romano more
sic oportet. Porco piaculo facito. Sic verba concipito: Si Deus, si Dea
es, quoium illud sacrum est, uti tibi ius siet porco piaculo facere,
illiusce sacri coercendi ergo. Harumce rerum ergo, sive ego, sive quis
iussu meo fecerit, uti id recte factum siet. Eius rei ergo te hoc porco
piaculo immolando bonas preces precor, uti sies volens propitius mihi,
domo familiaeque meae, liberisque meis. Harumce rerum ergo macte hoc
porco piaculo immolando esto.’
Applying these facts to the problem of the Lucaria, though necessarily
with hesitation, and remembering the position of the wood and the date
of the festival, we may perhaps arrive at the following conclusion; that
this was a propitiatory worship offered to the deities inhabiting the
woods which bordered on the cultivated Roman ager. The time when the
corn was being gathered in, and the men and women were in the fields,
would be by no means unsuitable for such propitiation. It need not have
been addressed to any special deity, any more than that of Cato, or as I
believe, the ritual of the Lupercalia[774]; it belonged to the most
primitive of Roman rites, and partly for that reason, partly also from
the absorption of land by large private owners[775], it fell into
desuetude. The grove of the Fratres Arvales and the decay of their cult
(also addressed to a nameless deity) offers an analogy on the other side
of Rome, towards Ostia.
Such a hypothesis seems not unreasonable, though it is based rather on
general than particular evidence. It is at any rate better than the wild
guessing of one German inquirer, who is always at home when there is no
information. Huschke[776] believes that the words _Lucaria_ and
_Luceres_ (the ancient Roman tribe-name) are both derived from _lucus_
because the Lucaria take place in July, which is the auspication-month
of the Luceres. And there are two days of this festival, because the
Luceres owed protection both to the Romani and Quirites (Rhamnes and
Tities) and therefore worshipped both Janus and Quirinus.
X KAL. SEXT. (JULY 23). NP.
NEPT[UNALIA]. (PINC. MAFF.)
FERIAE NEPTUNO. (PINC. ALLIF.)
The early history of Neptunus is a mystery, and we learn hardly anything
about him from his festival. We know that it took place in the heat of
summer, and that booths or huts made of the foliage of trees were used
at it, to keep the sun off the worshippers—and that is all[777]. Neither
of these facts suggests a sea-god, such as we are accustomed to see in
Neptune; yet they are hardly strong enough to enable us to build on them
any other hypothesis as to his character or functions. Nor does his name
help us. Though it constantly appears in Etruscan art as the name of a
god who has the characteristics of the Greek Poseidon, it is said not to
be of genuine Etruscan origin[778]. If this be so, the Etruscans must
have borrowed it from some people who already used it of a sea-god when
the loan was made; but one does not see why this great seafaring people
should have gone outside the language of their own religion for a name
for their deity of the sea.
In the ancient cult-formulae preserved by Gellius[779], Neptunus is
coupled with a female name Salacia; and of this Varro writes ‘Salacia
Neptuni a salo’—an etymology no doubt suggested by the later
identification of Neptunus with Poseidon. Salacia is in my opinion
rather to be referred to _salax_ (‘lustful,’ &c.), and, like Nerio
Martis[780], to be taken as indicating the virile force of Neptunus as
the divine progenitor of a stock[781]. This seems to be confirmed by the
fact that this god was known as Neptunus pater, like Mars, Janus,
Saturnus, and Jupiter himself[782]; all of whom are associated in cult
or legend with the early history of Latin stocks.
When Neptunus first meets us in Roman history, he has already put on the
attributes of the Greek Poseidon; this was in B.C. 399, at the first
lectisternium, where he is in company with Apollo and Latona, Diana and
Hercules, and is specially coupled with Mercurius (= Hermes)[783]. What
characteristics of his suggested the identification, either here or in
Etruria, we cannot tell. We find no trace of any evidence connecting him
with the sea; and the coupling with Hermes need mean no more than that
both this god and Poseidon found their way to Rome through the medium of
Greek trade.
It has recently been conjectured[784] that the object of both the
Lucaria and Neptunalia was to avert the heat and drought of July, and to
propitiate the deities of water and springs, of whom Neptunus (judging
from his identification with Poseidon) may possibly have been one; but
this is no more than a vague guess, which its author only puts forward
‘with all reserve.’
VIII KAL. SEXT. (JULY 25). NP.
FURR[INALIA]. (PINC. ALLIF. MAFF.)
FERIAE FURRINAE (PINC. ALLIF.)
It seems to be the lesson of the festivals of July that there was an
early stage of the Roman religion which had lost all meaning for the
Romans themselves when they began to inquire into the history of their
own religion. Of this last festival of the month we know no single item
in the cult, and therefore have nothing substantial to guide us. It
seems almost certain that even Varro and Verrius Flaccus[785] knew
nothing of the festival but its name as it stood in the calendar. Nor
did they know anything of the goddess Furrina or Furina. Varro is
explicit; he says that she was celebrated ‘apud antiquos,’ for they gave
her an annual festival and a flamen, but that in his day there were
hardly a dozen Romans who knew either her name or anything about her.
Varro is no doubt right in arguing from the festival and the flamen to
the ancient honour in which she was held; and these facts also tend to
prove that she was a single deity, and quite distinct from the Furiae
with whom the later Romans as well as the Greeks naturally confounded
her—an inference which is confirmed by the long _u_ indicated by the
double _r_ in the calendars[786].
There is therefore nothing but the etymology to tell us anything about
the goddess, and from this source we cannot expect to learn anything
certain. Preller plausibly suggested a connexion with _fur_, _furvus_,
and _fuscus_, from a root meaning dark or secret; and if this were
correct she might be a deity of the under-world or of the darkness.
Bücheler in his _Umbrica_[787] suggested a comparison with the Umbrian
_furfare_ = februare (‘to purify’), which will at least serve to show
the difficulty of basing conclusions on etymological reasoning. Jordan
conjectured that the festival had to do with the averting of dangerous
summer heat[788]—a conclusion that is natural enough, but does not seem
to rest on any evidence but its date. Lastly, Huschke[789], again in his
element, boldly asserts that the Furrinalia served to appease the
deities of revenge who hailed from the black region of Vediovis—wrongly
confusing Furrina and the Furiae. It will be quite obvious from these
instances that it is as hopeless as it is useless to attempt to discover
the nature of either goddess or festival by means of etymological
reasoning.
Footnote 708:
Bk. 47. 18. We owe the reference to Merkel, _Praef. in Ovidii Fastos_,
clix.
Footnote 709:
His real birthday seems to have been the 12th, which, was already
occupied by the ludi Apollinares.
Footnote 710:
Mommsen in _C. I. L._ 321 (on July 7).
Footnote 711:
Varro, _L. L._6. 18; Marq. 325.
Footnote 712:
See Introduction, p. 7. This anomaly led Huschke to the inadmissible
supposition that this was the single addition made to the calendar of
Numa in the republican period. He accepts Varro’s explanatory story,
_Röm. Jahr_, p. 224.
Footnote 713:
See below, p. 327.
Footnote 714:
_R. G._ i. 532: see Mommsen’s criticism in _C. I. L_ 321 f.
Footnote 715:
Macrob. 6. 11. 36; Plut. _Rom._ 29, _Camill._ 33. See also O. Müller’s
note on Varro, _L. L._ 6. 18.
Footnote 716:
_L. L._ 6. 18.
Footnote 717:
This is Varro’s account; the Etruscans are a variant in Macrobius, l.
c.
Footnote 718:
Dionys. 2. 56; Plut. _Rom._ 29. See Lewis, _Credibility of Early Roman
History_, i. 430.
Footnote 719:
Introduction, p. 15.
Footnote 720:
Cic. _de Rep._ 1. 16; Plut. _Rom._ 27.
Footnote 721:
Liv. 1. 16 ‘Ad exercitum recensendum.’ Lustratio came to be the word
for a review of troops because this was preceded by a religious
_lustratio populi_.
Footnote 722:
e. g. Gilbert, i. 290; Marq. 325.
Footnote 723:
_L. L._ 6. 18. Details have vanished with the great work here quoted,
the _Antiquitates divinae_.
Footnote 724:
Schwegler suggested the parallel, i. 534, note 20. For the Bouphonia
see especially Mannhardt, _Myth. Forsch._ 68. For other such rites,
Lobeck, _Aglaophamus_, 679, 680.
Footnote 725:
Bücheler, _Umbrica_, 114.
Footnote 726:
The idea of the scapegoat was certainly not unknown in Italy; Bücheler
quotes Serv. (_Aen._ 2. 140) ‘Ludos Taureos a Sabinis propter
pestilentiam institutos dicunt, _ut lues publica in has hostias
verteretur_.’ See on the Regifugium, below, p. 328.
Footnote 727:
See examples in Frazer, _Golden Bough_, ii. 160 foll. The one from the
Key Islands is interesting as including a flight of the people.
Footnote 728:
Nissen, _Landeskunde_, 406.
Footnote 729:
_C. I. L._ p. 269.
Footnote 730:
Macrob. 1. 11. 36; Plut. _Camill._ 33.
Footnote 731:
Aug. _de Civ. Dei_, 4. 8.
Footnote 732:
_de Feriis_, 9.
Footnote 733:
The last point is in _Camill._ 33-6: cp. _Rom._ 29. 6.
Footnote 734:
The bearing of these customs on the Nonae Caprotinae, and on the Greek
story of Lityerses, was suggested by Mannhardt, _Myth. Forsch._ 32.
Mr. Frazer gives a useful collection of examples, _G. B._ ii. 363
foll. The custom survives in Derbyshire (so I am told by Mr. S. B.
Smith, Scholar of Lincoln College), but only in the form of making the
stranger ‘pay his footing.’
Footnote 735:
_G. B._ i. 381.
Footnote 736:
It was the custom, says Macrobius (i. 10) ‘ut patres familiarum,
frugibus et fructibus iam coactis, passim cum servis vescerentur, cum
quibus patientiam laboris in colendo rure toleraverant.’ The old
English harvest- or mell-supper, had all the characteristics of
Saturnalia (Brand, _Pop. Antiq._ 337 foll.).
Footnote 737:
Tertullian, _de Spect._ 5.
Footnote 738:
See below, p. 208.
Footnote 739:
This point—the union of free- and bond-women in the sacrifice—seems to
prove that Nonae Caprotinae and ancillarum feriae were only two names
for the same thing. Macrobius connects the legend of the latter with
the rite of the former (i. II. 36).
Footnote 740:
Plut. _Rom._ 29. Varro, _L. L._ 6. 18 writes ‘in Latio.’
Footnote 741:
Deecke, _Die Falisker_, 89; Roscher, in _Lex._ s. v. Juno, p. 599.
Footnote 742:
See above, p. 143.
Footnote 743:
One naturally compares the ficus Ruminalis and the foundation-legend
of Rome.
Footnote 744:
It is curious that the practice in husbandry called _caprificatio_, or
the introduction of branches of the wild tree among those of the
cultivated fig to make it ripen (Plin. _N. H._ 15. 79; Colum. II. 2)
took place in July; and it strikes me as just possible that there may
have been a connexion between it and the Nonae Caprotinae.
Footnote 745:
Mannhardt, _Myth. Forsch._ l. c.
Footnote 746:
Macrob. 3. 2. 11 and 14. Macrobius also quotes Varro in the 15th book
of his _Res Divinae_ ‘Quod pontifex in sacris quibusdam vitulari
soleat, quod Graeci παιανίζειν vocant.’ Perhaps we may compare
_visceratio_: Serv. Aen. 5. 215.
Footnote 747:
Above, p. 176.
Footnote 748:
Marq. 170.
Footnote 749:
See Marq. 384, and _Lex._ s. v. Apollo 447.
Footnote 750:
Liv. 25. 12.
Footnote 751:
The MSS. of Livy (27. 23) have a.d. iii _Nonas_, no doubt in error for
a.d iii Idus. Merkel, _Praef._ xxviii.; Mommsen, _C. I. L._ 321.
Footnote 752:
Liv. 25. 12; 26. 33; Festus, 326; Cie. _Brutus_, 20, 78, whence it
appears that Ennius produced his _Thyestes_ at these _ludi_. Cp. the
story in Macrob. 1. 17. 25.
Footnote 753:
Liv. 27. 23.
Footnote 754:
Liv. 3. 63. This older shrine Livy calls Apollinar. The temple that
followed it was the only Apollo-temple in Rome till Augustus built one
on the Palatine after Actium; this is clear from Asconius, p. 81 (ad
Cic. in toga candida), quoted by Aust, _de Aedibus sacris_, 7. It was
outside the Porta Carmentalis, near the Circus Flaminius. A still more
ancient Apollinar is assumed by some to have existed on the Quirinal;
but it rests on an uncertain emendation of O. Müller in Varro, _L. L._
5. 52.
Footnote 755:
Liv. 40. 51. The Romans seem originally to have called the god
_Apello_, and connected the name with _pellere_. Paulus, 22; Macrob.
1. 17. 15.
Footnote 756:
Liv. 5. 13.
Footnote 757:
_Lex._ s. v. Apollo, 446.
Footnote 758:
Müller-Deecke, _Etrusker_, ii. 69.
Footnote 759:
Strabo, p. 214; Herodotus, 1.167.
Footnote 760:
Jordan on Preller, i. 265.
Footnote 761:
_Aen._ 11. 785 ‘Summe deum, sancti custos Soractis Apollo,’ &c.
Footnote 762:
Serv. _Aen._ 10. 316 ‘Omnes qui secto matris ventre procreantur, ideo
sunt Apollini consecrati, quia deus medicinae est, per quam lucem
sortiuntur. Unde Aesculapius eius fingitur filius: ita enim eum [esse]
procreatum supra (7. 761) diximus. Caesarum etiam familia ideo sacra
retinebat Apollinis, quia qui primus de eorum familia fuit, exsecto
matris ventre natus est. Unde etiam Caesar dictus est.’
Footnote 763:
A concise account by Roscher, _Lex._ s. v. Apollo 448; Boissier,
_Religion Romaine_, i. 96 foll.; Gardthausen, _Augustus_, vol. ii, p.
873. For the _ludi saeculares_ see especially Mommsen’s edition of the
great but mutilated inscription recently discovered in the Campus
Martius (_Eph. Epigr._ viii. 1 foll.); Diels, _Sibyllin. Blätter_, p.
109 foll.; and the _Carmen Saeculare_ of Horace, with the commentaries
of Orelli and Wickham.
Footnote 764:
_L. L._ 6. 18 fin. and 19 init.
Footnote 765:
Festus, 119. s. v. Lucaria.
Footnote 766:
The battle of the Allia was fought on the 18th, the day before the
first Lucaria. This no doubt suggested the legend connecting the two,
especially as the Via Salaria, near which was the grove of the
festival, crossed the battle-field some ten miles north of Rome.
Footnote 767:
See Friedländer in Marq. 487; Plutarch, _Q. R._ 88.
Footnote 768:
Mommsen in _Ephemeris Epigraphica_, ii. 205.
Footnote 769:
i. III; Liv. 24. 3; Cato, ap. Priscian, 629. Much useful matter
bearing on _luci_ as used for boundaries, _asyla_, markets, &c., will
be found in Rudorff, _Gromatici Veteres_, ii. 260.
Footnote 770:
‘Light’ is not uncommon in England for a ‘ride’ or clearing in a wood.
Footnote 771:
Below, pp. 222, and 228.
Footnote 772:
On the whole subject of the religious ideas arising from the first
cultivation of land in a wild district I know nothing more instructive
than Robertson Smith’s remarks in _Religion of the Semites_, Lecture
iii.; I have often thought that they throw some light on the origin of
Mars and kindred numina. The most ancient settlements in central Italy
are now found to be on the tops of hills, probably once forest-clad
(see Von Duhn’s paper on recent excavations, _Journal of Hellenic
Studies_, 1896, p. 125). For a curious survival of the feeling about
woods and hill-tops in Bengal, see Crooke, _Religion, &c., in India_,
ii. 87.
Footnote 773: