There can hardly be a doubt that this month takes its name, not from a deity, but from the verb aperio; the etymology is as old as Varro and Verrius, and seems perfectly natural^[186]. The year was opening and the young corn and the young cattle were growing. It was therefore a critical time for crops and herds; but there was not much to be done by man to secure their safety. The crops might be hoed and cleaned^[187], but must for the most part be left to the protection of the gods. The oldest festivals of the month, the Robigalia and Fordicidia, clearly had this object. So also with the cattle; oves lustrantur, say the rustic calendars^[188]; and such a lustratio of the cattle of the ancient Romans survived in the ceremonies of the Parilia.

Thus, if we keep clear of fanciful notions, such as those of Huschke^[189], about these early months of the year, which he seems to imagine was thought of as growing like an organic creature, we need find no great difficulty in April. We need not conclude too hastily that this was a month of purification preliminary to May, as February was to March. Like February, indeed, it has a large number of dies nefasti^[190], and its festivals are of a cathartic character, while March and May have some points in common; but beyond this we cannot safely venture. The later Romans would hardly have connected April with Venus^[191], had it been a sinister month; it was not in April, but in March and May, that weddings were ill-omened.

We may note the prevalence in this month of female deities, or of those which fluctuate between male and female—a sure sign of antiquity. These are deities of the earth, or vegetation, or generation, such as Tellus, Pales, Ceres, Flora, and perhaps also Fortuna. Hence the month became easily associated in later times with Venus, who was originally, perhaps, a garden deity^[192], but was overlaid in course of time with ideas brought from Sicily and Greece, and possibly even from Cyprus and the East. Lastly, we may note that the Magna Mater Idaea found a suitable position for her worship in this month towards the end of the third century B.C.

Kal. Apr. (April 1). F.

VENERALIA: LUDI. (PHILOC.)

Note in Praen.: ‘FREQUENTER MULIERES SUPPLICANT FORTUNAE VIRILI, HUMILIORES ETIAM IN BALINEIS, QUOD IN IIS EA PARTE CORPOR[IS] UTIQUE VIRI NUDANTUR, QUA FEMINARUM GRATIA DESIDERATUR.’

Lydus^[193] seems to have been acquainted with this note of Verrius in the Fasti of Praeneste; if so, we may guess that some words have been omitted by the man who cut the inscription, and we should insert with Mommsen^[194], after ‘supplicant,’ the words ‘honestiores Veneri Verticordiae.’ If we compare the passage of Lydus with the name Veneralia given to this day in the calendar of Philocalus, we may guess that the cult of Venus on April 1 came into fashion in late times among ladies of rank, while an old and gross custom was kept up by the humiliores in honour of Fortuna Virilis^[195]. This seems to be the most obvious explanation of the concurrence of the two goddesses on the same day; they were probably identified or amalgamated under the Empire, for example by Lydus, who does not mention Fortuna by name, and seems to confuse her worship on this day with that of Venus. But the two are still distinct in Ovid, though he seems to show some tendency to amalgamation^[196].

Fortuna Virilis, thus worshipped by the women when bathing, would seem from Ovid to have been that Fortuna who gave women good luck in their relations with men^[197]. The custom of bathing in the men’s baths may probably be taken as some kind of lustration, more especially as the women were adorned with myrtle, which had purifying virtues^[198]. How old this curious custom was we cannot guess. Plutarch^[199] mentions a temple of this Fortuna dedicated by Servius Tullius; but there was a strong tendency, as we shall see later on, to attribute all Fortuna-cults to this king.

The Venus who eventually supplanted Fortuna is clearly Venus Verticordia^[200], whose earliest temple was founded in 114 B.C., in obedience to an injunction of the Sibylline books, after the discovery of incest on the part of three vestal virgins, ‘quo facilius virginum mulierumque mens a libidine ad pudicitiam converteretur^[201].’ Macrobius insists that Venus had originally no share in the worship of this day or month^[202]; she must therefore have been introduced into it as a foreigner. Robertson Smith^[203] has shown some ground for the conjecture that she was the Cyprian Aphrodite (herself identical with the Semitic Astarte), who came to Rome by way of Sicily and Latium. For if Lydus can be trusted, the Roman ceremony of April 1 was found also in Cyprus, on the same day, with variations in detail. If that be so, the addition of the name Verticordia is a curious example of the accretion of a Roman cult-title expressive of domestic morality on a foreign deity of questionable reputation^[204].

Prid. Non. Apr. (April 4). C.

MATR[I] MAG[NAE]. (MAFF.)
LUDI MEGALESIACI. (PHILOC.)

Note in Praen.: LUDI M[ATRI] D[EUM] M[AGNAE] I[DAEAE]. MEGALESIA VOCANTUR QUOD EA DEA MEGALE APPELLATUR. NOBILIUM MUTITATIONES CENARUM SOLITAE SUNT FREQUENTER FIERI, QUOD MATER MAGNA EX LIBRIS SIBULLINIS ARCESSITA LOCUM MUTAVIT EX PHRYGIA ROMAM.

The introduction of the Magna Mater Idaea into Rome can only be briefly mentioned here, as being more important for the history of religion at Rome than for that of the Roman religion. In B.C. 204, in accordance with a Sibylline oracle which had previously prophesied that the presence of this deity alone could drive the enemy out of Italy, the sacred stone representing the goddess arrived at Rome from Pessinus in Phrygia^[205]. Attalus, King of Pergamus, had acquired this territory, and now, as a faithful friend to Rome, consented to the transportation of the stone, which was received at Rome with enthusiasm by an excited and now hopeful people^[206]. Scipio was about to leave with his army for Africa; a fine harvest followed; Hannibal was forced to evacuate Italy the next year; and the goddess did everything that was expected of her^[207].

The stone was deposited in the temple of Victory on the Palatine on April 4^[208]. The day was made a festival; though no Roman festival occurs between the Kalends and Nones of any month, the rule apparently did not hold good in the case of a foreign worship^[209]. Great care was taken to keep up the foreign character of the cult. The name of the festival was a Greek one (Megalesia), as Cicero remarked^[210]; all Romans were forbidden by a senatus consultum to take any part in the service of the goddess^[211]. The temple dedicated thirteen years later on April 10^[212] seems to have been frequented by the nobilitas only, and the custom of giving dinner-parties on April 4, which is well attested, was confined to the upper classes^[213], while the plebs waited for its festivities till the ensuing Cerealia. The later and more extravagant developments of the cult did not come in until the Empire^[214].

The story told by Livy of the introduction of the goddess is an interesting episode in Roman history. It illustrates the far-reaching policy of the Senate in enlisting Eastern kings, religions, and oracles in the service of the state at a critical time, and also the curious readiness of the Roman people to believe in the efficacy of cults utterly foreign to their own religious practices. At the same time it shows how careful the government was then, as always, to keep such cults under strict supervision. But the long stress of the Hannibalic War had its natural effect on the Italian peoples; and less than twenty years later the introduction of the Bacchic orgies forced the senate to strain every nerve to counteract a serious danger to the national religion and morality.

XVII Kal. Mai. (April 15). NP.

FORD[ICIDIA]^[215]. (CAER. MAFF. VAT. PRAEN.)

This is beyond doubt one of the oldest sacrificial rites in the Roman religion. It consisted in the slaughter of pregnant cows (hordae or fordae), one in the Capitol and one in each of the thirty curiae^[216]; i. e. one for the state and the rest for each of its ancient divisions. This was the first festival of the curiae; the other, the Fornacalia, will be treated of under February 17. The cows were offered, as all authorities agree, to Tellus^[217], who, as we shall see, may be an indigitation of the same earth power represented by Ceres, Bona Dea, Dea Dia, and other female deities. The unborn calves were torn by attendants of the virgo vestalis maxima from the womb of the mother and burnt^[218], and their ashes were kept by the Vestals for use at the Parilia a few days later^[219]. This was the first ceremony in the year in which the Vestals took an active part, and it was the first of a series of acts all of which are connected with the fruits of the earth, their growth, ripening and harvesting. The object of burning the unborn calves seems to have been to procure the fertility of the corn now growing in the womb of mother earth, to whom the sacrifice was offered^[220].

Many charms of this sacrificial kind have been noticed by various writers; one may be mentioned here which was described by Sir John Barrow, when British Ambassador in China in 1804. In a spring festival in the temple of Earth, a huge porcelain image of a cow was carried about and then broken in pieces, and a number of small cows taken from inside it and distributed among the people as earnests of a good season^[221]. This must be regarded as a survival of a rite which was no doubt originally one of the same kind as the Roman.

iii Id. Apr. (April 11). N.

On this day^[222] the oracle of the great temple of Fortuna Primigenia at Praeneste was open to suppliants, as we learn from a fragment of the Praenestine Fasti. Though not a Roman festival, the day deserves to be noticed here, as this oracle was by far the most renowned in Italy. The cult of Fortuna will be discussed under June 25 and Sept. 13. It does not seem to be known whether the oracle was open on these days only; see R. Peter in Myth. Lex. s. v. Fortuna, 1545.

xiii Kal. Mai. (April 19). NP.

CER[IALIA]. (CAER. MAFF. PRAEN. ESQ.)

CERERI LIBERO (LIBERAE) ESQ.

Note: All the days from 12th to 19th are marked ludi, ludi Cer., or ludi Ceriales, in Tusc. Maff. Praen. Vat., taken together: loid. Cereri in Esq., where the 18th only is preserved: loedi C in Caer. Philocalus has Cerealici c. m. (circenses missus) xxiv on 12th and 19th.

The origin of the ludi Cereales, properly so called, cannot be proved to be earlier than the Second Punic War. The games first appear as fully established in B.C. 202^[223]. But from the fact that April 19 is marked CER in large letters in the calendars we may infer, with Mommsen^[224], that there was a festival in honour of Ceres as far back as the period of the monarchy. The question therefore arises whether this ancient Ceres was a native Italian deity, or the Greek Demeter afterwards known to the Romans as Ceres.

That there was such an Italian deity is placed almost beyond doubt by the name itself, which all authorities agree in connecting with cerus = genius, and with the cerfus and cerfia of the great inscription of Iguvium^[225]. The verbal form seems clearly to be creare^[226]; and thus, strange to say, we actually get some definite aid from etymology, and can safely see in the earliest Ceres, if we recollect her identification with the Greek goddess of the earth and its fruits, a deity presiding over or representing the generative powers of nature. We cannot, however, feel sure whether this deity was originally feminine only, or masculine also, as Arnobius seems to suggest^[227]. Judging from the occurrence of forms such as those quoted above, it is quite likely, as in the case of Pales, Liber, and others, that this numen was of both sexes, or of undetermined sex. So anxious were the primitive Italians to catch the ear of their deities by making no mistake in the ritual of addressing them, that there was a distinct tendency to avoid marking their sex too distinctly; and phrases such as ‘sive mas sive femina,’ ‘si deus si dea,’ are familiar to all students of the Roman religion^[228].

We may be satisfied, then, that the oldest Ceres was not simply an importation from Greece. It is curious however, that Ceres is not found exactly where we should expect to find her, viz. in the ritual of the Fratres Arvales^[229]. Yet this very fact may throw further light on the primitive nature of Ceres. The central figure of the Arval ritual was the nameless Dea Dia; and in a ritual entirely relating to the fruits of the earth we can fairly account for the absence of Ceres by supposing that she is there represented by the Dea Dia—in fact, that the two are identical^[230]. No one at all acquainted with Italian ideas of the gods will be surprised at this. It is surely a more reasonable hypothesis than that of Birt, who thinks that an old name for seed and bread (i. e. Ceres) was transferred to the Greek deity who dispensed seed and bread when she was introduced in Rome^[231]. It is, in fact, only the name Ceres that is wanting in the Arval ritual, not the numen itself; and this is less surprising if we assume that the names given by the earliest Romans to supernatural powers were not fixed but variable, representing no distinctly conceived personalities; in other words, that their religion was pandaemonic rather than polytheistic, though with a tendency to lend itself easily to the influence of polytheism. We may agree, then, with Preller^[232], that Ceres, with Tellus, and perhaps Ops and Acca Larentia, are different names for, and aspects of, the numen whom the Arval brothers called Dea Dia. At the same time we cannot entirely explain why the name Ceres was picked out from among these to represent the Greek Demeter. Some light may, however, be thrown on this point by studying the early history of the Ceres-cult.

The first temple of Ceres was founded, according to tradition, in consequence of a famine in the year 496 B.C., in obedience to a Sibylline oracle^[233]. It was at the foot of the Aventine, by the Circus Maximus^[234], and was dedicated on April 19, 493, to Ceres, Liber and Libera, representing Demeter, Dionysus, and Persephone.^[235] Thus from the outset the systematized cult of Ceres in the city was not Roman but Greek. The temple itself was adorned in Greek style instead of the Etruscan usual at this period^[236]. How is all this to be accounted for?

Let us notice in the first place that from the very foundation of the temple it is in the closest way connected with the plebs. The year of its dedication is that of the first secession of the plebs and of the establishment of the tribuni and aediles plebis^[237]. The two events are connected by the fact, repeatedly stated, that any one violating the sacrosanctitas of the tribune was to be held sacer Cereri^[238]; we are also told that the fines imposed by tribunes were spent on this temple^[239]. It was under the care of the plebeian aediles, and was to them what the temple of Saturnus was to the quaestors^[240]. Its position was in the plebeian quarter, and at the foot of the Aventine, which in B.C. 456 is said to have become the property of the plebs^[241].

Now it can hardly be doubted that the choice of Ceres (with her fellow deities of the trias), as the goddess whose temple should serve as a centre for the plebeian community, had some definite meaning. That meaning must be found in the traditions of famine and distress which we read of as immediately following the expulsion of Tarquinius. These traditions have often been put aside as untrustworthy^[242], and may indeed be so in regard to details; but there is some reason for thinking them to have had a foundation of fact, if we can but accept the other tradition of the foundation of the temple and its connexion with the plebs. It is likely enough that under Tarquinius the population was increased by ‘outsiders’ employed on his great buildings. Under pressure from the attack of enemies, and from a sudden aristocratic reaction, this population, we may guess, was thrown out of work, deprived of a raison d’Être, and starved^[243]; finally rescuing itself by a secession, which resulted in the institution of its officers, tribunes and aediles, the latter of whom some to have been charged with the duty of looking after the corn-supply^[244].

How the corn-supply was cared for we cannot tell for certain; but here again is a tradition which fits in curiously with what we know of the temple and its worship, though it has been rejected by the superfluous ingenuity of modern German criticism. Livy tells us that in B.C. 492, the year after the dedication of the temple, corn was brought from Etruria, Cumae, and Sicily to relieve a famine^[245]. We are not obliged to believe in the purchase of corn at Syracuse at so early a date, though it is not impossible; but if we remember that the decorations and ritual of the temple were Greek beyond doubt, we get a singular confirmation of the tradition in outline which has not been sufficiently noticed. If it was founded in 493, placed under plebeian officers, and closely connected with the plebs; if its rites and decorations were Greek from the beginning; we cannot afford to discard a tradition telling us of a commercial connexion with Greek cities, the object of which was to relieve a starving plebeian population.

And surely there is nothing strange in the supposition that Greek influence gained ground, not so much with the patricians who had their own outfit of religious armour, but with the plebs who had no share in the sacra of their betters, and with the Etruscan dynasty which favoured the plebs^[246]. We may hesitate to assent to Mommsen’s curious assertion that the merchants of that day were none other than the great patrician landholders^[247]; we may rather be disposed to conjecture that it was the more powerful plebeians, incapable of holding large areas of public land, who turned their attention to commerce, and came in contact with the Greeks of Italy and Sicily. The position of the plebeian quarter along the Tiber bank, and near the spot where the quays of Rome have always been, may possibly point in the same direction^[248].

To return to the Cerealia of April 19. We have still to notice a relic of apparently genuine Italian antiquity which survived in it down to Ovid’s time, and may be taken as evidence that there was a real Roman substratum on which the later Greek ritual was superimposed.

Every one who reads Ovid’s account of the Cerealia will be struck by his statement that on the 19th it was the practice to fasten burning brands to the tails of foxes and set them loose to run in the Circus Maximus^[249]:

He tells a charming story to explain the custom, learnt from an old man of Carseoli, an Aequian town, where he was seeking information while writing the Fasti. A boy of twelve years’ old caught a vixen fox which had done damage to the farm, and tied it up in straw and hay. This he set on fire, but the fox escaped and burnt the crops. Hence a law at Carseoli forbidding—something about foxes, which the corruption of the MSS. has obscured for us^[250]. Then he concludes:

We are, of course, reminded of Samson burning the corn of the Philistines^[251]; and it is probable that the story in each case is a myth explanatory of some old practice like the one Ovid describes at Rome. But what the practice meant it is not very easy to see. Preller has his explanation ready^[252]; it was a ‘sinnbildliche Erinnerung’ of the robigo (i. e. ‘red fox’), which was to be feared and guarded against at this time of year. Mannhardt thinks rather of the corn-foxes or corn-spirits of France and Germany, of which he gives many instances^[253]. If the foxes were corn spirits, one does not quite see why they should have brands fastened to their tails^[254]. No exactly parallel practice seems to be forthcoming, and the fox does not appear elsewhere in ancient Italian or Greek folk-tales, as far as I can discover. All that can be said is that the fox’s tail seems to have been an object of interest, and possibly to have had some fertilizing power^[255], and some curious relation to ears of corn. Prof. Gubernatis believes this tail to have been a phallic symbol^[256]. We need not accept his explanation, but we may be grateful to him for a modern Italian folk-tale, from the region of Leghorn and the Maremma, in which a fox is frightened away by chickens which carry each in its beak an ear of millet; the fox is told that these ears are all foxes’ tails, and runs for it.

Here we must leave this puzzle^[257]; but whoever cares to read Ovid’s lines about his journey towards his native Pelignian country, his turning into the familiar lodging—

and the tales he heard there—among them that of the fox—will find them better worth reading than the greater part of the Fasti.

xi Kal. Mai. (Apr. 21). NP.^[258]

PAR[ILIA]. (CAER. MAFF. PRAEN.)

ROMA COND[ITA] FERIAE CORONATIS OM[NIBUS]. (CAER.)

N[ATALIS] URBIS. CIRCENSES MISSUS XXIV. (PHILOC.)

[A note in Praen. is hopelessly mutilated, with the exception of the words IGNES and PRINCIPIO AN[NI PASTORICII^[259]?]]

The Parilia^[260], at once one of the oldest and best attested festivals of the whole year, is at the same time the one whose features have been most clearly explained by the investigations of parallels among other races.

The first point to notice is that the festival was both public and private, urban and rustic^[261]. Ovid clearly distinguishes the two; lines 721-734 deal with the urban festival, 735-782 with the rustic. The explanations which follow deal with both. Pales, the deity (apparently both masculine and feminine^[262]) whose name the festival bears, was, like Faunus, a common deity of Italian pasture land. A Palatium was said by Varro to have been named after Pales at Reate, in the heart of the Sabine hill-country^[263]; and though this may not go for much, the character of the Parilia, and the fact that Pales is called rusticola, pastoricia, silvicola, &c., are sufficient to show the original non-urban character of the deity. He (or she) was a shepherd’s deity of the simplest kind, and survived in Rome as little more than a name^[264] from the oldest times, when the earliest invaders drove their cattle through the Sabine mountains. Here, then, we seem to have a clear example of a rite which was originally a rustic one, and survived as such, while at the same time one local form of it was kept up in the great city, and had become entangled with legend and probably altered in some points of ritual. We will take the rustic form first.

Here we may distinguish in Ovid’s account^[265] the following ritualistic acts.

1. The sheep-fold^[266] was decked with green boughs and a great wreath was hung on the gate:

With this Mannhardt^[267] aptly compares the like concomitants of the midsummer fires in North Germany, Scotland, and England. In Scotland, for example, before the bonfires were kindled on midsummer eve, the houses were decorated with foliage brought from the woods^[268]. The custom of decoration at special seasons, May-day, mid-summer, harvest, and Christmas, is even now, with the exception of midsummer, universal, and is probably descended from these primitive rites, by which our ancestors sought in some mysterious way to influence the working of the powers of vegetation.

2. At the earliest glimmer of daybreak the shepherd purified the sheep. This was done by sprinkling and sweeping the fold; then a fire was made of heaps of straw, olive-branches, and laurel, to give good omen by the crackling, and through this apparently the shepherds leapt, and the flocks were driven^[269]. For this we have, of course, numerous parallels from all parts of the world. Burning sulphur was also used:

3. After this the shepherd brought offerings to Pales, of whom there may perhaps have been in the farmyard a rude image made of wood^[271]; among these were baskets of millet and cakes of the same, pails of milk, and other food of appropriate kinds. The meal which followed the shepherd himself appears to have shared with Pales^[272]. Then he prays to the deity to avert all evil from himself and his flocks; whether he or they have unwittingly trespassed on sacred ground and caused the nymphs or fauni to fly from human eyes; or have disturbed the sacred fountains, and used branches of a sacred tree for secular ends. In these petitions the genuine spirit of Italian religion—the awe of the unknown, the fear of committing unwittingly some act that may bring down wrath upon you—is most vividly brought out in spite of the Greek touches and names which are introduced. He then goes on to his main object^[273]:

This prayer must be said four times over^[274], the shepherd looking to the east and wetting his hands with the morning dew^[275]. The position, the holy water, and the prayer in its substance, though now addressed to the Virgin, have all descended to the Catholic shepherd of the Campagna.

4. Then a bowl is to be brought, a wooden antique bowl apparently^[276], from which milk and purple sapa, i. e. heated wine, may be drunk, until the drinker feels the influence of the fumes, and when he is well set he may leap over the burning heaps:

The Parilia of the urbs was celebrated in much the same way in its main features; but the day was reckoned as the birthday of Rome, and doubtless on this account it came under the influence of priestly organization^[278]. It is connected with two other very ancient festivals: that of the Fordicidia and that of the ‘October horse.’ The blood which streamed from the head of the horse sacrificed on the Ides of October was kept by the Vestals in the Penus Vestae, and mixed with the ashes of the unborn calves burnt at the Fordicidia; and the mixture seems to have been thrown upon heaps of burning bean-straw to make it smoke, while over the smoke and flames men and women leaped on the Palatine Hill^[279]. The object was of course purification; Ovid calls the blood, ashes, and straw februa casta, i. e. holy agents of purification, and adds in allusion to their having been kept by the Vestals:

Ovid had himself taken part in the rite; had fetched the suffimen, and leaped three times through the flames, his hands sprinkled with dew from a laurel branch. Whether the februa were considered to have individually any special significance or power, it is hard to say. Mannhardt, who believed the ‘October horse’ to be a corn-demon, thought that the burning of its blood symbolized the renewal of its life in the spring, while the ashes thrown into the fire signified the safe passage of the growing crops through the heat of the summer^[280]; but about this so judicious a writer is naturally not disposed to dogmatize. We can, however, be pretty sure that the purification was supposed to carry with it protection from evil influences both for man and beast, and also to aid the growth of vegetation. The theory of Mannhardt, adopted by Mr. Frazer, that the whole class of ceremonies to which the Parilia clearly belongs, i. e. the Easter and Midsummer fires and Need-fires of central and northern Europe, may best be explained as charms to procure sunshine,^[281] has much to be said for it, but does not seem to find any special support in the Roman rite.

It may be noted in conclusion that a custom of the same kind, and one perhaps connected with a cult of the sun,^[282] took place not far from Rome, at Mount Soracte; at what time of year we do not know. On this hill there was a worship of Apollo Soranus,^[283] a local deity, to which was attached a kind of guild of worshippers called Hirpi Sorani, or wolves of Soranus;^[284] and of these we may guess, from the legend told of their origin, that in order to avert pestilence, &c., they dressed or behaved themselves like wolves.^[285] Also on a particular day, perhaps the summer solstice, these Hirpi ran through the flames, ‘super ambustam ligni struem ambulantes non aduruntur,’^[286] and on this account were excused by a senatus consultum from all military or other service. A striking parallel with this last feature is quoted by Mannhardt, from Mysore, where the Harawara are degraded Brahmins who act as priests in harvest-time, and make a living by running through the flames unhurt with naked soles: but in this case there seems to be no animal representation. Mannhardt tries to explain the Hirpi as dramatic representations of the Corn-wolf or vegetation spirit.^[287] On the other hand, it is possible to consider them as survivals of an original clan who worshipped the wolf as a totem^[288]; a view adopted by Mr. Lang^[289], who compares the bear-maidens of Artemis at Brauron in Attica. But the last word has yet to be said about these obscure animalistic rites.

ix Kal. Mai. (Apr. 23). FP (CAER.) NP (MAFF.) F (PRAEN.)^[290]

VEIN[ALIA] (CAER.) VIN[ALIA] (MAFF. PRAEN. ESQ.)

Praen. has a mutilated note beginning IO[VI], and ending with [CUM LATINI BELLO PREME]RENTUR A RUTULIS, QUIA MEZENTIUS REX ETRUS[CO]RUM PACISCEBATUR, SI SUBSIDIO VENISSET, OMNIUM ANNORUM VINI FRUCTUM. (Cp. Festus, 65 and 374, where it appears that libations of all new wine were made to Jupiter.)

VENERI (CAER.)

[V]EBERI ERUC. [EXTR]A PORTAM COLLIN[AM]. (ARV.)

This day was generally known as Vinalia Priora, as distinguished from the Vinalia Rustica of August 19. Both days were believed to be sacred to Venus^[291]; the earlier one, according to Ovid, was the foundation-day of the temple of Venus Erycina, with which he connected the legend of Aeneas and Mezentius. But as both Varro and Verrius are agreed that the days were sacred, not to Venus but to Jupiter^[292], we may leave the legend alone and content ourselves with asking how Venus came into the connexion.

The most probable supposition is that this day being, as Ovid implies, the dies natalis of one of the temples of Venus^[293], the Vinalia also came to be considered as sacred to the goddess. The date of the foundation was 181 B.C., exactly at a time when many new worships, and especially Greek ones, were being introduced into Rome^[294]. That of the Sicilian Aphrodite, under the name of Venus, seems to have become at once popular with its Graecus ritus and lascivia maior^[295]; and the older connexion of the festival with Jupiter tended henceforward to disappear. It must be noted, however, that the day of the Vinalia Rustica in August was also the dies natalis of one if not two other temples of Venus^[296], and one of these was as old as the year B.C. 293. Thus we can hardly avoid the conclusion that there was, even at an early date, some connexion in the popular mind between the goddess and wine. The explanation is perhaps to be found in the fact that Venus was specially a deity of gardens, and therefore no doubt of vineyards^[297]. An interesting inscription from Pompeii confirms this, and attests the connexion of Venus with wine and gardens, as it is written on a wine-jar^[298]:

The Vinalia, then, both in April and August, was really and originally sacred to Jupiter. The legendary explanation is given by Ovid in 11. 877-900. Whatever the true explanation may have been, the fact can be illustrated from the ritual employed; for it was the Flamen Dialis^[299] who ‘vindemiam auspicatus est,’ i. e. after sacrificing plucked the first grapes. Whether this auspicatio took place on either of the Vinalia has indeed been doubted, for even August 19 would hardly seem to suit the ceremony Varro describes^[300]; but the fact that it was performed by the priest of Jupiter is sufficient for our purpose.

Of this day, April 23, we may guess that it was the one on which the wine-skins were first opened, and libations from them made to Jupiter. These are probably the libations about which Plutarch^[301] asks ‘Why do they pour much wine from the temple of Venus on the Veneralia’ (i. e. Vinalia)? The same libations are attested by Verrius: ‘Vinalia diem festum habebant quo die vinum novum Iovi libabant’^[302]. After the libation the wine was tasted, as we learn from Pliny^[303]; and it seems probable that it was brought from the country into Rome for this purpose only a few days before. Varro has preserved an interesting notice which he saw posted in vineyards at Tusculum: ‘In Tusculanis hortis (MSS. sortis) est scriptum: ‘Vinum novum ne vehatur in urbem ante quam vinalia kalentur’^[304]; i. e. wine-growers were warned that the new wine was not to be brought into the city until the Vinalia had been proclaimed on the Nones. It must, however, be added that this notice may have had reference to the Vinalia in August; for Verrius, if he is rightly reported by Paulus^[305], gives August 19 as the day on which the wine might be brought into Rome. Paulus may be wrong, and have confused the two Vinalia^[306]; but in that case we remain in the dark as to what was done at the Vinalia Rustica, unless indeed we explain it as a rite intended to secure the vintage that was to follow against malignant influences. This would seem to be indicated by Pliny (H. N. 18. 284), where he classes this August festival with the Robigalia and Floralia^[307], and further on quotes Varro to prove that its object was to appease the storms (i. e. to be expected in September).

As regards the connexion of the vine-culture with Jupiter, it should be observed that the god is not spoken of as Jupiter Liber, but simply Jupiter; and though the vine was certainly introduced into Italy from Greece, we need not assume that Dionysus, coming with it, was from the beginning attached to or identified with Jupiter. The gift of wine might naturally be attributed to the great god of the air, light, and heat; the Flamen Dialis who ‘vindemiam auspicatus est’ was not the priest of Jupiter Liber; nor does the aetiological legend, in which the Latins avoid the necessity of yielding their first-fruits to the Etruscan tyrant Mezentius by dedicating them to Jupiter, point to any other than the protecting deity of Latium.^[308]

VII Kal. Mai. (April 25). NP.

[ROB]IGALIA. (CAER. ESQ. MAFF. PRAEN.)

Note in Praen: FERIAE ROBIGO VIA CLAUDIA AD MILLIARIUM V NE ROBIGO FRUMENTIS NOCEAT. SACRIFICIUM ET LUDI CURSORIBUS MAIORIBUS MINORIBUSQUE FIUNT. FESTUS EST PUERORUM LENONIORUM, QUIA PROXIMUS SUPERIOR MERETRICUM EST.

Robigo means red rust or mildew which attacks cereals when the ear is beginning to be formed^[309], and which is better known and more dreaded on the continent than with us. This destructive disease is not caused by the sun’s heat, as Pliny^[310] tells us was the notion of some Italians, but by damp acting in conjunction with a certain height of temperature, as Pliny himself in fact explains it.

Robigus^[311] is the spirit who works in the mildew; and it has been conjectured that he was a form or indigitation of Mars^[312], since Tertullian tells us that ‘Marti et Robigini Numa ludos instituit’^[313]. This is quite consistent with all we know of the Mars of the farm-worship, who is invoked to avert evil simply because he can be the creator of it^[314]. The same feature is found in the worship of Apollo, who had at Rhodes the cult-title ????????^[315], or Apollo of the blight, as elsewhere he is Apollo Smintheus, i. e. the power that can bring and also avert the pest of field-mice.

Robigus had a grove of his own at the fifth milestone on the Via Claudia; and Ovid relates in pretty verses how, as he was returning from Nomentum (doubtless by way of his own gardens, which were at the junction of the Via Claudia with the Via Flaminia near the Milvian bridge^[316]), he met the Flamen Quirinalis with the exta of a dog and a sheep to offer to the god^[317]. He joined the procession, which was apparently something quite new to him, and witnessed the ceremony, noting the meri patera, the turis acerra, and the rough linen napkin^[318], at the priest’s right hand. He versified the prayer which he heard, and which is not unlike that which Cato directs the husbandman to address to Mars in the lustration of the farm^[319]:

Ovid then asked the flamen why a dog—nova victima—was sacrificed, and was told that the dangerous Dog-star was in the ascendant^[320]:

In this, however, both he and the priest were certainly mistaken. Sirius does not rise, but disappears on April 25, at sunset; and it is almost certain that the sacrifice of the dog had nothing to do with the star. The real meaning of the choice of victim was unknown both to priest and poet: but modern research has made a reasonable attempt to recover it^[321].

We are told^[322] of a sacrifice of reddish sucking whelps, and of augury made from their exta, which must have been closely connected with the Robigalia, if not (in later times at least) identified with it. Originally it was not on a fixed day, as is proved by an extract from the commentarii pontificum quoted by Pliny^[323]; but it is quite possible that for convenience, as the religio of the urbs got more and more dissociated from the agriculture in which it had its origin, the date was fixed for April 25—the rites of the Robigalia being of the same kind, and the date suitable. The whelps were red or reddish; and from the language of Festus, quoting Ateius Capito, we gather that this colour was supposed to resemble that of the corn when ripe: ‘Rufae canes immolabantur, ut fruges flavescentes ad maturitatem perducerentur’ (p. 285). We should indeed naturally have expected that the rufous colour was thought to resemble the red mildew, as Mannhardt explains it^[324]; but we do not know for certain that these puppies were offered to Robigus. In any case, however, we may perhaps see in them an animal representation of the corn, and in the rite a piece of ‘sympathetic magic’^[325], the object of which was to bring the corn to its golden perfection, or to keep off the robigo, or both. If we knew more about the dog-offering at the grove of Robigus, we might find that it too, if not indeed identical with the augurium, had a similar intention.

The red mildew was at times so terrible a scourge that the Robigalia must in early Rome, when the population lived on the corn grown near the city, have been a festival of very real meaning. But later on it became obscured, and gave way to the races mentioned in the note in the Praenestine calendar^[326], and under the later empire to the Christian litania maior, the original object of which was also the safety of the crops^[327]. The 25th is at present St. Mark’s day.

iv Kal. Mai. (apr. 28). NP.

LOEDI FLORÆ (CAER.) LUDI FLORÆ. (MAFF. PRAEN.)

v Non. Mai. (May 3). C.

FLORAE (VEN.).

On the intervening days were also ludi (C. I. L. 317).

Note in Praen. (Apr. 28): EODEM DIE AEDIS FLORAE, QUAE REBUS FLORESCENDIS PRAEEST, DEDICATA EST PROPTER STERILITATEM FRUGUM.

This was not a very ancient festival and is not marked in the Calendars in those large letters which are believed to indicate extreme antiquity^[328]. Its history seems to be as follows: in 238 B.C. in consequence of a dearth, the Sibylline Books were consulted, and games in honour of Flora were held for the first time by plebeian aediles^[329]; also a temple was dedicated to her ad circum maximum on April 28 of that year^[330]. There seems to be a certain connexion between the accounts of the institution of the Floralia and the Cerialia. Dearth was the alleged cause in each case; and the position of the temple of Flora near that of Ceres: the foundation by plebeian magistrates, in this case the two Publicii^[331], who as aediles were able to spend part of the fines exacted from defaulting holders of ager publicus on this object^[332]: and the coarse character of the games as Ovid describes them, all seem to show that the foundation was a plebeian one, like that of the Cerialia^[333].

There may, however, have been something in the nature of ludi before this date and at the same time of year, but not of a regular or public character. Flora was beyond doubt an old Italian deity^[334], probably closely related to Ceres and Venus. There was a Flamen Floralis of very old standing^[335]; and Flora is one of the deities to whom piacula were offered by the Fratres Arvales^[336]—a list beginning with Janus and ending with Vesta. There is no doubt, then, that there was a Flora-cult in Rome long before the foundation of the temple and the games in 238; and though its character may have changed under the influence of the Sibylline books, we may be able to glean some particulars as to its original tendency.

In the account of Ovid and from other hints we gather—

1. That indecency was let loose^[337] at any rate on the original day of the ludi (April 28), which were in later times extended to May 3. The numen of Flora, says Ovid, was not strict. Drunkenness was the order of the day, and the usual results followed:

The prostitutes of Rome hailed this as their feast-day, as well as the Vinalia on the 23rd; and if we may trust a story told by Valerius Maximus^[338], Cato the younger withdrew from the theatre rather than behold the mimae unclothe themselves, though he would not interfere with the custom. Flora herself, like Acca Larentia, was said by late writers to have been a harlot whose gains enabled her to leave money for the ludi^[339]. These characteristics of the festival were no doubt developed under the influence of luxury in a large city, and grew still more objectionable under the Empire^[340]. But it is difficult to believe that such practices would have grown up as they did at this particular time of year, had there not been some previous customs of the kind existing before the ludi were regularly instituted.

2. We find another curious custom belonging to the last days of the ludi, which became common enough under the Empire^[341], but may yet have had an origin in the cult of Flora. Hares and goats were let loose in the Circus Maximus on these days. Ovid asks Flora:

and gets the answer:

If we take this answer as at least appropriate, we may add to it the reflection that hares and goats are prolific animals and also that they are graminivorous. Flora as a goddess of fertility and bloom could have nothing in common with fierce carnivora. But we are also reminded of the foxes that were let loose in the Circus at the Cerialia^[343], and may see in these beasts as in the foxes animal representations of the spirit of fertility.

3. Another custom is possibly significant in something the same way. From a passage in Persius we learn that vetches, beans, and lupines were scattered among the people in the circus^[344]. The commentators explain this as meaning that they were thrown simply to be scrambled for as food; and we know that other objects besides eatables were thrown on similar occasions, at any rate at a later time^[345]. But it is noticeable that among these objects were medals with obscene representations on them; and putting two and two together it is not unreasonable to guess that the original custom had a meaning connected with fructification. Dr. Mannhardt^[346] has collected a very large number of examples of the practice of sprinkling and throwing all kinds of grain, including rice, peas, beans, &c., from all parts of the world, in the marriage rite and at the birth of children; amply sufficient to prove that the custom is symbolic of fertility. Bearing in mind the time of year, the nature of Flora, the character of the April rites generally, and the occurrence of the women’s cult of the Bona Dea on May 1, viz. one of the days of the ludi, we may perhaps conjecture that the custom in question was a very old one—far older than the organized games—and had reference to the fertility both of the earth and of man himself^[347].

Feriae Latinae.

A brief account may be here given of the great Latin festival which usually in historical times took place in April. Though it was not held at Rome, but on the Alban Mount, it was under the direct supervision of the Roman state, and was in reality a Roman festival. The consuls on their entrance upon office on the Ides of March had to fix and announce the date of it^[348]; and when in 153 B.C. the day of entrance was changed to January 1, the date of the festival does not seem to have been changed to suit it. The consuls must be present themselves, leaving a praefectus urbi at Rome^[349]; or in case of the compulsory absence of both consuls a dictator might be appointed Feriarum Latinarum causa. Only when the festival was over could they leave Rome for their provinces.

It was therefore a festival of the highest importance to the Roman state. But the ritual will show that it must in fact have been much older than that state as we know it in historical times; it was a common festival of the most ancient Latin communities^[350], celebrated on the lofty hill which arose in their midst, where dwelt the great protecting deity of their race. At what date Rome became the presiding city at the festival we do not know. The foundation of the temple on the hill was ascribed to the Tarquinii, and this tradition seems to be borne out by the character of the foundations discovered there, which resemble those of the Capitoline temple^[351]. No doubt the Tarquinii may have renovated the cult or even given it an extended significance; but the Roman presidency must conjecturally be placed still further back. Perhaps no festival, Greek or Roman, carries us over such a vast period of time as this; its features betray its origin in the pastoral age, and it continued in almost uninterrupted grandeur till the end of the third century A.D., or even later^[352].

The ritual as known to us was as follows^[353]. When the magistrates or (their deputies) of all the Latin cities taking part had assembled at the temple, the Roman consul offered a libation of milk, while the deputies from the other cities brought sheep, cheeses, or other such offerings. But the characteristic rite was the slaughter of a pure white heifer that had never felt the yoke. This sacrifice was the duty of the consul, who acted on behalf of the whole number of cities. When it was concluded, the flesh of the victim was divided amongst all the deputies and consumed by them. To be left out of this common meal, or sacrament, would be equivalent to being excluded from communion with the god and the Latin league, and the desire to obtain the allotted flesh is more than once alluded to^[354]. A general festivity followed the sacrifice, while oscilla, or little puppets, were hung from the branches of trees as at the Paganalia^[355]. As usual in Italy, the least oversight in the ceremony or evil omen made it necessary to begin it all over again; and this occasionally happened^[356]. Lastly, during the festival there was a truce between all the cities, and it would seem that the alliance between Rome and the Latins was yearly renewed on the day of the Feriae^[357].

Some of the leading characteristics of the Italian Jupiter will be considered further on^[358]. But this festival may teach us that we are here in the presence of the oldest and finest religious conception of the Latin race, which yearly acknowledges its common kinship of blood and seals it by partaking in the common meal of a sacred victim, thus entering into communion with the god, the victim, and each other^[359]. The offerings are characteristic rather of a pastoral than an agricultural age, and suggest an antiquity that is fully confirmed by the ancient utensils dug up on the Alban Mount^[360]. As Helbig has pointed out, the absence of any mention of wine proves that the origin of the festival must be dated earlier than the introduction of the grape into Italy. The white victim may be a reminiscence of some primitive white breed of cattle. The common meal of the victim’s flesh is a survival from the age when cattle were sacred animals, and were never slain except on the solemn annual occasions when the clan renewed its kinship and its mutual obligations by a solemn sacrament^[361].

As Rome absorbed Latium, so Jupiter Latiaris gave way before the great god of the Capitol, who is the symbol of the later victorious and imperial Rome; but the god of the Alban hill and his yearly festival continued to recall the early share of the Latins in the rise of their leading city, long after the population of their towns had been so terribly thinned that some of them could hardly find a surviving member to represent them at the festival and take their portion of the victim^[362].