The period of winter leisure which began for the agriculturist in December continued into January. From the solstice to Favonius (i. e. Feb. 7) is Varro’s eighth and last division of the agricultural year, in which there is no hard work to be done out of doors (R. R. i. 36: cf. Virg. Georg. 1. 312; Colum. xi. 2). So too the rustic calendars; ‘palus aquitur, salix harundo caedetur.’ Columella tells us, however, that if the weather be favourable, it may be possible from the Ides of January ‘auspicari culturarum officia.’ We have seen that in December this easy time was occupied with a series of religious rites of such extreme antiquity that their meaning was almost entirely lost for the Roman of later ages. After the solstice this series cannot be said to continue: the calendars have only three festivals in January marked with large letters, the Agonia on the 9th, and the two Carmentalia on the 11th and 15th. On the other hand, there were two feriae conceptivae in this month which do not appear in the calendars; the Compitalia (which might, however, fall before the beginning of the month), and the Paganalia towards the end of it. Both these were originally festive meetings in which rural folk took part together, and seem to indicate that agricultural labours had not yet really begun.

Kal. Ian. (Jan. 1). F.

[AESCU]LAPIO, VEDIOVI IN INSULA. (PRAEN.)

This temple of Vediovis was vowed by the praetor L. Furius Purpureo in 200 B.C., and dedicated six years later^[1223]. For this obscure deity see on May 21. The connexion between him and Aesculapius (if there were any) is unexplained. The latter was a much older inhabitant of the Tiber island (291 B.C.), and became in time the special deity of that spot^[1224], which is called by Dionys. (5. 13) ??s?? e?e????? ?s???p??? ?e??. Is it possible that an identification of Vediovis with Apollo^[1225]—so often a god of pestilence—brought the former to the island seat of the healing deity? The connexion between Apollo and Aesculapius is well known.

Another invasion of the island took place almost at the same time. In 194 B.C. a temple of Faunus was dedicated there which had been vowed two years earlier^[1226]; and it may be worth noting that Faunus also had power to avert pestilence and unfruitfulness, as is seen in the story of Numa and the Faunus-oracle. (Ovid, Fasti, 4. 641 foll.)

On Jan. 1, under the later Republic, i. e. after the year 153 B.C., in and after which the consuls began their year of office on this day, it was the custom to give New Year presents by way of good omen, called strenae^[1227]; a word which survives in the French Étrennes. It is likely enough that the custom was much older than 153 B.C.: the word was said to be derived from a Sabine goddess Strenia, whose sacellum at the head of the Via Sacra is mentioned by Varro (L. L. v. 47^[1228]), and from whose grove certain sacred twigs were carried to the arx (in procession along the Sacred Way?) at the beginning of each year^[1229]. But we are not told whether this latter rite always took place on Jan. 1, or was transferred to that day from some other in 153 B.C.

3 LUDI } LUDI }
4 LUDI }(PHILOC.) LUDI COMPITALES } (SILV.)
5 LUDI } (COMITALIS, MS.)

The Compitalia were not feriae stativae until late in the Empire, and then perhaps only so by tradition^[1230]. They took place at some date between the Saturnalia (Dec. 17) and Jan. 5; and we may infer from Philocalus and Silvius as quoted above that the tendency was to put them late in that period. Not being a great state-festival, they could be put between Kalends and Nones.

The original meaning of compitum is explained by the Scholiast on Persius, 4. 28^[1231] ‘Compita sunt loca in quadriviis, quasi turres, ubi sacrificia, finita agricultura, rustici celebrabant.... Compita sunt non solum in urbe loca, sed etiam viae publicae ac diverticulae aliquorum confinium, ubi aediculae consecrantur patentes. In his fracta iuga ab agricolis ponuntur, velut emeriti et elaborati operis indicium^[1232].’ From this we gather that where country cross-roads met, or where in the parcelling out of agricultural allotments one semita crossed another^[1233], some kind of altar was erected and the spot held sacred. This is quite in keeping with the usage of other peoples: the ‘holiness’ of cross-roads is a well-known fact in folk-lore^[1234]. It may be doubted, however, whether the Scholiast is right in his explanation of the ‘fracta iuga,’ which may rather have been used as a spell of some kind, than as ‘emeriti operis indicium.’ Thus Crooke^[1235] mentions an Indian practice of fixing up a harrow perpendicularly where four roads met, apparently with the object of appeasing the rain-god.

In the city of Rome the compita were the meeting-places of vici (streets with houses), where sacella were erected to the Lares compitales^[1236]—two in each case. For the inhabitants of the vici which thus crossed each other, the compitum was the religious centre; and thus arose a quasi-religious organization, which, as including the lowest of the population and even slaves^[1237], became of much importance in the revolutionary period in connexion with the machinery of electioneering. The ‘collegia compitalicia’ were abolished by the Senate in B.C. 64, and reconstituted in B.C. 58 by a bill of Clodius de collegiis. Caesar again prohibited them, and the ludi compitalicii with them; but the latter were once more revived by Augustus and made part of his general reorganization of the city and its worship^[1238].

The Compitalia, which the Romans ascribed to Servius Tullius or Tarquinius Superbus^[1239], was probably first organized as part of the religious system of the united city in the Etruscan period, though it doubtless had its origin in the rustic ideas and practice of which we get a glimpse in the passage quoted from the Scholiast on Persius. Two features of it seem to fit in conveniently with this conjecture: (1) that already mentioned, that even the slaves had a part in it, as well as the plebs; (2) the fact that the magistri vicorum, who were responsible for the festival, wore the toga praetexta on the day of its celebration^[1240]—which looks like a Tarquinian innovation in an anti-aristocratic sense.

v Id. Ian. (Jan. 9). NP?

AGON. (MAFF. PRAEN.) A mutilated note in Praen. gives the word Agonium.

It may be doubted whether the Roman scholars themselves knew for certain what was meant by AGON, and whether the explanations they give are anything better than guesses based on analogy^[1241]. Ovid calls the day ‘dies agonalis’:

and gives a number of amusing derivations which prove his entire ignorance. Festus^[1242] gives Agonium as the name of the day (which agrees with Verrius in Fast. Praen.), and says that agonia was an old word for hostia. Varro calls the day ‘agonalis’^[1243]; Ovid in another place Agonalia^[1244]. A god Agonius mentioned by St. Augustine^[1245] is probably only an invention of the pontifices. The fact is that the Romans knew neither what the real form of the word was, nor what it meant. The attempt to explain it by the apparitor’s word at a sacrifice, agone? (shall I slay?) is still approved by some, but is quite uncertain^[1246].

The original meaning of the word, if it ever were in common use, must have vanished long before Latin was a written language. The only traces of it, besides its appearance in the calendars, are in the traditional name for the Quirinal hill, Collis Agonus, in its gate, ‘porta agonensis,’ and its college of Salii agonenses^[1247]. It would seem thus to have had some special connexion with the Colline city.

The same word appears in the calendars for three other days, March 17 (Liberalia), May 21 (Agon. Vediovi), Dec. 11 (Septimontium); but it is impossible to make out any connexion between these and Jan. 9. Nor can we be sure that the sacrifice (if such it was), indicated by Agon, had any relation to the other ceremonies of the days thus marked^[1248]. On Jan. 9 Ovid does indeed say that Janus was ‘agonali luce piandus,’ and on May 21 the Fasti Venusini add a note ‘Vediovi’ to the letters AGON; but there is no distinct proof that the agonium was a sacrifice to Janus or to Vediovis. We are utterly in the dark^[1249].

On this day the Rex sacrorum offered a ram (to Janus?) in the Regia. Ovid says^[1250] that though the meaning of Agon is doubtful,

It is provokingly uncertain whether this ram was actually sacrificed to Janus: Varro does not say so, and Ovid only implies it^[1251]. But we may perhaps assume it on the ground that once at least in the ritual of the Fratres Arvales^[1252] the ram is mentioned as Janus’ victim.

If this be so, we are carried back by this sacrifice to the very beginnings of Rome, and get a useful clue to the nature of the god Janus. The Rex sacrorum was the special representative in later times of the king; the king, living in the Regia, was the equivalent in the State of the head of the household. The two most important and sacred parts of the house are the door (ianua, ianus), and the hearth (vesta)^[1253], and the numina inhabiting and guarding these are Janus and Vesta, who, as is well known, were respectively the first and the last deities to be invoked at all times in Roman religious custom. The whole house certainly had a religious importance, like everything else in intimate relation to man; and Macrobius is not romancing when he says (quoting mythici) ‘Regnante Iano omnium domos religione et sanctitate fuisse munitas^[1254].’ But the door and the hearth were of special importance, as the folk-lore of every people fully attests; and it is hardly possible to avoid the conclusion that we must look for the origin of Janus in the ideas connected with the house-door, just as we have always found Vesta in the fire on the hearth. Whatever be the true etymology of Janus, and however wild the interpretations of his nature and cult both in ancient and modern times, we shall always have firm ground to stand on if we view him in relation to the primitive worship of the house^[1255]. There is hardly an attribute or a cult-title of Janus that cannot be deduced with reason from this root-idea.

The old Roman scholars, who knew as little about Janus as we do, started several explanations of a cosmical kind, which must have been quite strange to the average Roman worshipper. He was a sun-god^[1256], and his name is the masculine form of Diana (= moon); he was the mundus, i. e. the heaven, or the atmosphere^[1257]. These were, of course, mere guesses characteristic of a pedantic age which knew nothing of the old Roman religious mind. If Janus ever had been a nature-deity, his attributes as such were completely worn away in historical times, or had lost their essential character in the process of constant application to practical matters by a prosaic people. How far the Roman of the Augustan age understood his great deorum deus may be gathered from Ovid’s treatment of the subject, itself no doubt a poetical version of the learned speculation of Varro and others. The poet ‘interviews’ the deity with the object of finding out the lost and hidden meaning of his most obvious peculiarities, and the old god condescends to answer with a promptness and good temper that would do credit to the victims of the modern journalist. The curious thing is that the real origin, humble, simple, and truly Latin, escaped the observation both of the interviewer and the deity.

Before I state more definitely the grounds on which this simple explanation of Janus is based, it will be as well to deal shortly with the more ambitious ones.

1. The theory that Janus was a sun-god has the support of Roman antiquarians^[1258], and was probably suggested by them to the moderns. Nigidius Figulus, the Pythagorean mystic, seems to have been the first to broach the idea: we have no evidence that Varro gave his sanction to it. It was Nigidius who first suggested the idea of the relation of Janus to Diana (Dianus, Diana = Janus, Jana), which found much favour with Preller and Schwegler^[1259] at a time when neither comparative philology nor comparative mythology were as well understood as now. But the common argument, both in ancient and modern times, has been that which Macrobius quotes from certain speculators whom he does not name: ‘Ianum quidam solem demonstrari volunt, et ideo geminum quasi utriusque ianuae coelestis potentem, qui exoriens aperiat diem, occidens claudat,’ &c. It is obvious that this is pure speculation by a Roman of the cosmopolitan age: it is an attempt to explain the Janus geminus as the representation of one of the great forces of nature. But it has nothing to do with the ideas of the early Italian farmer.

2. The theory that Janus was a god of the ‘vault of heaven’ was also started by the ancients, as may be seen from the chapter of Macrobius quoted above. Recently it has been adopted by Professor Deecke in his Etruscan researches^[1260]. He seems to hold that Janus in Etruria, as a god of the arch of heaven, was represented on arches and gates in that country, and came to Rome when the Romans learnt the secret of the arch from the Etruscans. That the Romans were the pupils of the Etruscans in this particular seems to be true; but if Janus only came to Rome with the arch (Deecke says in Numa’s time) it is hard to see how he could have so quickly gained his peculiar place in Roman worship and legend. I cannot think that Deecke has here improved on the conclusions of his predecessor.

Speculations about Janus as a heaven-god have been pushed still further. Here is a passage from a book which is almost a work of genius^[1261], yet embodies many theories of which its author may by this time have repented: ‘He who prayed (in ancient Italy) began his prayer looking to the East, but ended it looking to the West. Herein we find expressed the conception of the unity and indivisibility of Nature; whose symbol is the most characteristic figure of the Italian religion, the double-headed Janus, the highest god, and the god of all things, all times, and all gods. He unites the dualistic opposites which complete the world—beginning and end, morning and evening, outgoing and ingoing. He is the god of the year, which finds its completion in its own orbit, and as he is the god of time, so he is the god of the Kosmos, which like a circle displays both beginning and end at once.’ He then quotes a passage from Messalla, which Macrobius has preserved, in support of this astonishing product of the rude mind of the primitive Roman^[1262]. Of this Messalla we only know that he was consul in 53 B.C., and that (as Macrobius tells us) he was augur for fifty-five years, in the course of which period, after the fashion of his day, he wrote works of which the object was to find a philosophic basis for the quaint phenomena of the Roman religion. His speculations on the double head of Janus cannot help us to discover the primitive nature of our deity; Janus may have been the ancient heaven-god of the Latins, but these guesses are the product of a spurious and eclectic Greek philosophy.

3. There is another possible explanation of Janus, which is not mentioned in Roscher’s article, but is perhaps worth as much consideration as the two last. Professor Rhys, in his Hibbert Lectures on Celtic Mythology^[1263], somewhat casually identified Janus with the Celtic god Cernunnos, whom he considers to be the Gallic deity called by Caesar Dis Pater. The one striking fact in favour of this equation is that Cernunnos was represented as having three faces, and like Janus, as a head without a body—the lower portion of the block being utilized for other purposes^[1264]. He seems to have been a chthonic deity, and is compared to and even identified by Rhys with Heimdal of the Norsemen and Teutons, who was the warder or porter of the gods, and of the underworld^[1265], who sits as the ‘wind-listening’ god, whose ears are of miraculous sharpness, who is the father of man, and the sire of kings. Both Cernunnos and Heimdal are thought further to have been like Janus, the fons et origo of all things. According to Caesar the Gauls believed themselves to be descended from their deity; and both the Celtic and Scandinavian gods seem to have had, like the Roman, some connexion with the divisions of time.

It must be allowed that these two gods taken together supply parallels to Janus’ most salient characteristics; and even to one or two of the less prominent and more puzzling ones, such as the connexion with springs^[1266]. It is not impossible that all three may have grown out of a common root; but in the cases of Cernunnos and Heimdal it does not seem any longer possible to trace this, owing to heavy incrustations of poetical mythology. In the case of the Roman, the chance is a better one, in spite of philosophical speculation, ancient and modern.

We return from philosophers and mythologists to early Rome. The one fact on which we must fix our attention is that on the north-east of the forum Romanum was the famous Janus geminus, which from representations on coins^[1267] we can see was not a temple, but a gateway, with entrance and exit connected by walls, within which was, we may suppose, the double-headed figure of Janus which is familiar on Roman coins. The same word janus is applied to the gate and to the numen who guarded it, lived in it, and was as inseparable from it as Vesta from the fire on the hearth^[1268]. The word does not seem to have been used for the gate of a city, but for the point of passage into a space within a city, such as a market, or a street. At Rome there were several such jani^[1269]; probably two or more leading into the forum, as well as the more famous one, which alone appears to have had a strictly religious signification^[1270]. The connexion of the god with entrances is thus a certainty, though we are puzzled by his apparent absence from the gates of the city^[1271]. The double head would signify nothing transcendental, but simply that the numen of the entrance to house or market was concerned both with entrance and exit. It is not peculiar to Italy, or to Janus, but is found on coins in every part of the Mediterranean (Roscher, Lex. 53 foll.): in no case, it is worth noting, does the double head represent any of the great gods of heaven, such as Zeus, Apollo, &c., but Dionysus, Boreas, Argos, unknown female heads^[1272], &c. Its history does not seem to have been worked out; but we can be almost sure that it does not represent the sun, and has no relation to the arch of heaven.

Now keeping in mind the fact that Janus is the guardian spirit of entrances, let us recall again the fact that he was the first deity in all invocations both public and private^[1273], and that Vesta was the last^[1274]. Vesta in the house was, as Cicero expresses it, ‘rerum custos intimarum’; she presided over the penetralia—the last part of the house to which any stranger could be admitted; exactly the opposite position to that of Janus at the entrance^[1275]. Both deities retained at all times the essential mark of primitive ideas of the supernatural: they resided in and in a sense were, the doorway and the hearth respectively. What we know of the priests who served them tells the same tale of an origin in the house, and the family—the foundation of all Italian civilization. Vesta was served by her sacred virgins, and these, we can no longer doubt, were the later representatives of the daughters of the head of the family, or the headman of the community^[1276]; the innermost part of the house was theirs, the care of the fire, the stores (penus), and the cooking. To the father, the defender of the family, belonged naturally the care of the entrance, the dangerous point, where both evil men and evil spirits might find a way in. And surely this must be the explanation of the fact that no priest is to be found for Janus in the Roman system but the Rex sacrorum^[1277], the lineal representative of the ancient religious duties of the king, and therefore, we may infer with certainty, of those of the primitive chief, and of the head of the household^[1278]. In the most ancient order of the priesthoods, the Rex sacrorum came first, just as Janus was the first of all the gods^[1279]: then came the three great Flamines, and then the Pontifex maximus, in whose care and power were the Vestals. Translating the order into terms of the primitive family, we have first the head of the house, next the sons, and lastly (as women do not appear in these lists), the daughters represented by the later priesthood, to which they were legally subordinated. The order of the gods, the order of the priests, and the natural position of the entrance to the house, all seem to lead us to the same conclusion, that the beginning of Janus and his cult are to be sought, and may be found, in the early Italian family dwelling.

We may agree with Roscher, who has worked out this part of the subject with skill, that this position of Janus in the worship of the family and the state is the origin of all the practices in which he appears as a god of beginnings. For these the reader must be referred to Roscher’s article^[1280], or to Preller, or to Mommsen, who sees in this aspect of the god, and rightly no doubt, that which chiefly reflects the notion of him held by the ordinary Roman. He was himself the oldest god, the beginner of all things, and of all acts^[1281]; to him in legend is ascribed the introduction of the arts, of agriculture, ship-building, &c.^[1282]. He is an object of worship at the beginning of the year, the month, and the day^[1283]. All this sprang, not from an abstract idea of beginning—an idea which has no Roman parallel in being sanctified by a presiding deity, but from the concrete fact that the entrance of the house was the initium, or beginning of the house, and at the same time the point from which you started on all undertakings.

Such developments of the original Janus were no doubt as old as the State itself. In the Salian hymn he is already ‘deorum deus’^[1284], and ‘duonus cerus’^[1285], which Festus tells us meant creator bonus. But even in the State there are, as we have seen, sufficiently clear traces of his original nature to forbid us to attribute these titles to any lofty and abstract philosophical ideas of religion.

The known cult-titles of Janus are for the most part explicable in the same way. Geminus, Patulcius, Clusius, and Matutinus, speak for themselves. Junonius probably arose from the concurrence of the cults of Janus and Juno on the Kalends of each month, as Macrobius tells us^[1286]. Consivius^[1287] is explained by Roscher as connected with serere, and used of Janus as creator (beginner of life: cf. duonus cerus). Curiatius, Patricius, and Quirinus^[1288] are titles arising from the worship of the god in gentes, curiae, and the completed state, and have no significance in regard to his nature.

iii Id. Ian. (Jan. 11). NP.

KARM[ENTALIA]. (PRAEN. MAFF.)

xviii Kal. Feb. (Jan. 15). NP.

KAR[MENTALIA]. (PRAEN. MAFF. PHIL. CAER.)

The full name of the festival is supplied by Philoc. and Silv. There is a much mutilated note in Praen. on Jan. 11 which is completed by Mommsen thus^[1289]: ‘[Feriae Carmenti ... quae partus curat omniaque] futura; ob quam ca[usam in aede eius cavetur ab scorteis tanquam] omine morticino.’

The first point to be noticed here is that the same deity has two festival days, with an interval of three days between them. There is no exact parallel to this in the calendar, though there are several instances of something analogous^[1290]. The Lemuria are on May 9, 11, 13; but here are three days, and no special deity. Kindred deities have their festivals separated by three days, as Consus and Ops (Aug. 21, 25); and we may compare the Fordicidia and Cerealia on April 15 and 19, and the Quinquatrus and Tubilustrium, both apparently sacred to Mars, on March 19 and 23. All festivals occur on days of uneven number; and if there was an extension to two or more days, the even numbers were passed over^[1291]. But the Romans did not apparently consider the two Carmentalia to be two parts of the same festival, but two different festivals, or they would not have tried to account as they did for the origin of the second day. It was said to have been added by a victorious general who left Rome by the Porta Carmentalis to attack Fidenae^[1292], or by the matrons who had refused to perform the function of women, in anger at being deprived by the Senate of the right of riding in carpenta; and who, when the decree was withdrawn, testified their satisfaction in this curious way.

It does not seem possible to discover the real meaning of the double festival. It has been suggested^[1293] that the two days represent the so-called Roman and Sabine cities, like the two bodies of Salii and Luperci. This guess is hardly an impossible one, but it is only a guess, and has nothing to support it but a casual statement by Plutarch that the Carmentalia were instituted at the time of the synoikismos of Latin and Sabine cities^[1294].

There is fortunately little doubt about the nature of Carmenta and the general meaning of the cult. In all the legends into which she was woven^[1295] her most prominent characteristic is the gift of prophecy; she is the ‘vates fatidica,’ &c.,

So Ovid, at the end of his account of her:

The power is expressed in her very name, for carmen signifies a spell, a charm, a prophecy, as well as a poem. Now there is clear evidence that either women alone had access to the temple at the Porta Carmentalis, or that they were the chief frequenters of it; and they are even said to have built a temple themselves^[1296]. Where we find women worshipping a deity of prophecy we may be fairly sure that that deity also has some influence on childbirth. ‘The reason,’ writes the late Prof. Nettleship^[1297], ‘why the Carmentes are worshipped by matrons is because they tell the fortunes of the children’—and also, surely, because they tell the fortunes of the women in childbirth^[1298].

I am inclined to agree with my old tutor that the Carmentes may originally have been wise women whose skill and spells assisted the operation of birth. I do not think we can look for an explanation of the titles Porrima and Postverta elsewhere than in the two positions in which the child may issue from the womb, over each of which a Carmentis watched^[1299]; and there is in fact no doubt that Carmenta was a birth-goddess^[1300]. The argument then would be that the spiritual origin attributed to superior knowledge transforms the owner of the knowledge into a divine person. As Sir A. Lyall says^[1301] (of the genesis of local deities in Berar), ‘The immediate motive (of deification) is nothing but a vague inference from great natural gifts or from strange fortunes to supernatural visitation, or from power during life to power prolonged beyond it.’

Of the cult of Carmenta we know hardly anything. She had a flamen of her own^[1302], like other ancient goddesses, Palatua, Furrina, Flora. His sacrificial duties must have been confined to the preparing of cereal offerings, for there was a taboo in this cult excluding all skins of animals—all leather—from the temple.

Varro writes ‘In aliquot sacris et sacellis scriptum habemus: Ne quid scorteum adhibeatur ideo ne morticinum quid adsit.’ We could wish that he had told us what these sacra and sacella were^[1304]; as it is we must be content to suppose that a goddess of birth could have nothing to do with the slaughter of animals.

The position of the temple was at the foot of the southern end of the Capitol, near the Porta Carmentalis^[1305], where, according to Servius, she was said to have been buried (cp. Acca Larentia, Dec. 23). It is noticeable that the festivals of this winter period are connected with sites near the Capitol and Forum; we have already had Saturnus, Ops, and Janus.

If the reader should ask why a goddess of birth should be specially worshipped in the depth of winter, he may perhaps find a reason for it after reading the third chapter of Westermarck’s History of Human Marriage. As far as we can judge from the calendar, April was the month at Rome when marriages and less legal unions were especially frequent^[1306]; during May and the first days of June marriages were not desirable^[1307]. In January therefore births might naturally be expected.

Ovid tells us (1. 463) that Juturna was also worshipped on Jan. 11^[1308]; but whether in any close connexion with Carmenta we do not know. They are both called Nymphs; but from this we can hardly make any inference. Juturna was certainly a fountain-deity: I can find no good evidence that this was one of Carmenta’s attributes. The fount of Juturna was near the Vesta-temple^[1309], and therefore close to the Forum: its water was used, says Servius, for all kinds of sacrifices, and itself was the object of sacrifice in a drought. All took part in the festival who used water in their daily work (‘qui artificium aqua exercent’). But the Juturnalia appears in no calendar, and Aust is no doubt right in explaining it only as the dedication-festival of the temple built by Augustus in B.C. 2^[1310].

Under date of Jan. 24-26, Ovid^[1312] writes in charming verse of the feriae conceptivae called Sementivae (or -tinae), which from his account would seem to be identical with the so-called Paganalia^[1313]. Just as the Compitalia of the city probably had its origin in the country (see on Jan. 3-5), though the rustic compita were almost unknown to the later Romans, so the festival of sowing was kept up in the city (‘a pontificibus dictus,’ Varro, L. L. 6. 26) as Sementinae, long after the Roman population had ceased to sow. In the country it was known—so we may guess—by the less technical name of Paganalia^[1314], as being celebrated by the rural group of homesteads known as the pagus.

As to the object and nature of the festival, let Ovid speak for himself:

Ceres and Tellus, ‘consortes operis,’ are to be invoked to bring to maturity the seed sown in the autumn, by preserving it from all pests and hurtful things; and also to assist the sower in his work in the spring that is at hand. This at least is how I understand the lines (681, 682):

Or if it be argued that both these lines may very well refer to the spring, it is at least certain that the poet understood the festival to cover the past autumn sowing:

Varro tells us^[1317] that the time of the autumn sowing extended from the equinox to the winter solstice; after which, as we have seen, the husbandmen rested from their labours in the fields, and enjoyed the festivals we have been discussing since Dec. 17 (Consualia). The last of these is the Paganalia, i. e. the one nearest in date, if we may go by Ovid, to the time for setting to work at the spring sowing, which began on or about Feb. 7 (Favonius).^[1318] It would thus be quite natural that this festival should have reference not only to the seed already in the ground, but also to that which was still to be sown. If Ovid lays stress on the former, Varro and Lydus seem to be thinking chiefly of the latter^[1319].

Ovid has told us what was the nature of the rites. According to him, Ceres and Tellus were the deities concerned, and with this Lydus agrees. We need not be too certain about the names^[1320], considering the ‘fluidity’ and impersonality of early Roman numina of this type; but the type itself is obvious. There were offerings of cake, and a sacrifice of a pregnant sow; the oxen which had served in the ploughing were decorated with garlands; prayers were offered for the protection of the seed from bird and beast and disease. If we may believe a note of Probus’^[1321], oscilla were hung from the trees, as at the Latin festival, &c., doubtless as a charm against evil influences.

VI Kal. Feb. (Jan. 27). C.

AEDIS [CASTORIS ET PO]LLUCIS DEDICA[TA EST ...]. (PRAEN.)

Mommsen’s restoration of this note in the Fasti of Praeneste is based on Ov. Fast. 1. 705-8:

But Livy^[1322] gives the Ides of July as the day of dedication, and a difference of learned opinion has arisen^[1323]. July 15, B.C. 496, is the traditional date of the battle of Lake Regillus, and the temple was dedicated B.C. 484—the result of the Consul’s vow in that battle^[1324]. Mommsen infers that Livy confused the date of the dedication with that of the battle, and that Jan. 27 is right. Aust and others differ, and refer the latter date to a restoration by Tiberius, probably in A.D. 6^[1325]. The mistake in Livy is easy to explain, and Mommsen’s explanation seems sufficient^[1326]. Three beautiful columns of Tiberius’ temple are still to be seen at the south-eastern end of the Forum, near the temple of Vesta, and close to the Iacus Juturnae, where the Twins watered their steeds after the battle^[1327].

The very early introduction of the Dioscuri into the Roman worship is interesting as being capable of unusually distinct proof. They must have been known long before the battle of the Regillus; and they took a peculiarly firm hold on the Roman mind, as we see from the common oaths Edepol, Mecastor, from their representation on the earliest denarii^[1328], from their connexion with the equites throughout Roman history, and from the great popularity of their legend, which was reproduced in connexion with later battles^[1329]. The spread of the cult through Southern Italy to Latium and Etruria (where it was also a favourite) is the subject of a French monograph^[1330].