August is with us the month when the corn-harvest is begun; in Italy it is usually completed in July, and the final harvest-festivals, when all the operations of housing, &c., have been brought to a close, would naturally have fallen for the primitive Roman farmer in the sixth month. The Kalends of Quinctilis would be too early a date for notice to be given of these; some farmers might be behindhand, and so cut off from participation. The Kalends of Sextilis would do well enough; for by the Nones, before which no festival could be held, there would be a general cessation from labour. No other agricultural operations would then for a time be specially incumbent on the farmer^[790].

Before the Ides we find no great festival in the old calendar, though the sacrifice on the 12th at the ara maxima was without doubt of great antiquity. The list begins with the Portunalia on the 17th; and then follow, with a day’s interval between each, the Vinalia Rustica, Consualia, Volcanalia, Opeconsivia, and Volturnalia. The Vinalia had of course nothing to do with harvest, and the character of the Portunalia and Volturnalia is almost unknown; but all the rest may probably have had some relation to the harvesting and safe-keeping of crops, and the one or two scraps of information we possess about the Portunalia bear in the same direction. Deities of fire and water seem to be propitiated at this time, in order to preserve the harvest from disaster by either element. The rites are secret and mysterious, the places of worship not familiar temples, but the ara maxima, the underground altar of Consus, or the Regia; which may perhaps account for the comparatively early neglect and decadence of some of these feasts. We may also note two other points: first, the rites gather for the most part in the vicinity of the Aventine, the Circus Maximus, and the bank of the Tiber; which in the earliest days must have been the part of the cultivated land nearest the city^[791], or at any rate that part of it where the crops were stored. Secondly, there is a faint trace of commerce and connexion between Rome and her neighbours—Latins and Sabines—both in the rites and legends of this month, which may perhaps point to an intercourse, whether friendly or hostile, brought about by the freedom and festivities of harvest time.

Non. Sext. (Aug. 5). F. (NP. ant.)

SALUTI IN COLLE QUIRINALE SACRIFICIUM PUBLICUM. (VALL.)

SALUTI IN COLLE. (AMIT. ANT.)

NATALIS SALUTIS. (PHILOC.)

The date of the foundation of the temple of Salus was 302 B.C., during the Samnite wars^[792]. The cult was probably not wholly new. The Augurium Salutis, which we know through its revival by Augustus, was an ancient religious performance at the beginning of each year, or at the accession of new consuls, which involved, first the ascertaining whether prayers would be acceptable to the gods, and secondly the offering of such prayers on an auspicious day^[793]. Two very old inscriptions also suggest that the cult was well distributed in Italy at an early period^[794]. Such impersonations of abstract ideas as Salus, Concordia, Pax, Spes, &c., do not belong to the oldest stage of religion, but were no doubt of pontifical origin, i. e. belonged to the later monarchy or early republic^[795]. We need not suppose that they were due to the importation of Greek cults and ideas, though in some cases they became eventually overlaid with these. They were generated by the same process as the gods of the Indigitamenta^[796]—being in fact an application to the life of the state of that peculiarly Roman type of religious thought which conceived a distinct numen as presiding over every act and suffering of the individual. This again, as I believe, in its product the Indigitamenta, was an artificial priestly exaggeration of a very primitive tendency to see a world of nameless spirits surrounding and influencing all human life.

The history of the temple is interesting^[797]. Not long after its dedication its walls were painted by Gaius Fabius, consul in 269 B.C., whose descendants, among them the historian, bore the name of Pictor, in commemoration of a feat so singular for a Roman of that age^[798]. It was struck by lightning no less than four times, and burnt down in the reign of Claudius. Livy^[799] tells us that in 180 B.C., by order of the decemviri a supplicatio was held, in consequence of a severe pestilence, in honour of Apollo, Aesculapius, and Salus; which shows plainly that the goddess was already being transformed into the likeness of the Greek ????e?a, and associated rather with public health than with public wealth in the most general sense of the word.

vi Id. Sext. (Aug. 9). F. (allip.) NP. (amit. maff. etc.)

SOLI INDIGITI IN COLLE QUIRINALE. (AMIT. ALLIF.)

SOL[IS] INDIGITIS IN COLLE QUIRINALE SACRIFICIUM PUBLICUM. (VALL.)

There was an ancient worship of Sol on the Quirinal, which was believed to be of Sabine origin. A Solis pulvinar close to the temple of Quirinus is mentioned, and the Gens Aurelia was said to have had charge of the cult^[800].

But the Sol of August 9 is called in the calendars Sol Indiges. What are we to understand by this word, which appears in the names Di Indigetes, Jupiter Indiges, or Indigetes simply? The Roman scholars themselves were not agreed on the point; the general opinion was that it meant ‘of or belonging to a certain place,’ i. e. fixed there by origin and protecting it^[801]. This view has also been generally adopted, on etymological or other grounds, by modern writers, including Preller^[802]. Recently a somewhat different explanation has been put forward in the Mythological Lexicon, suggested by Reifferscheid in his lectures at Breslau. According to this view, Indiges (from indu and root ag in agere) was a deity working in a particular act, business, place, &c., of men’s activity, and in no other; it is of pontifical origin, like its cognate indigitamenta, and is therefore not a survival from the oldest religious forms^[803].

The second of these explanations does not seem to help us to understand what was meant by Sol Indiges; and its exponent in the Lexicon, in order to explain this, falls back on an ingenious suggestion made long ago by Preller. In dealing with Sol Indiges, Preller explained Indiges as = index, and conjectured that the name was not given to Sol until after the eclipse which foretold the death of Caesar, comparing the lines of Virgil (Georg. 1. 463 foll.):

Preller may be right; and if he were, we should have no further trouble in this case. In the pre-Julian calendar, on this hypothesis, the word Indiges was absent. This is also the opinion of the last scholar who, so far as I know, has touched the question; but Wissowa^[804], with reason as I think, reverts to the first explanation given above of the word Indiges (‘of or belonging to a certain place’), and believes that the word, when added to Sol in the Julian calendar, was simply meant to distinguish the real indigenous Sun-god from foreign solar deities.

Prid. Id. Sext. (Aug. 12). C.

HERCULI INVICTO AD CIRCUM MAXIM[UM]. (ALLIF. AMIT.)

[HERCULI MAGNO CUSTODI IN CIRCO FLAMIN[IO] (VALL.) is generally taken as a confusion with June 4^[805].]

This is the only day to which we can ascribe, on the evidence of the calendars, the yearly rites of the ara maxima, and of the aedes Herculis in the Forum boarium. These two shrines were close together; the former just at the entrance of the Circus maximus, the latter, as has been made clear by a long series of researches, a little to the north-east of it^[806]. We are led to suppose that the two must have been closely connected in the cult, though we are not explicitly informed on the point.

The round temple indicates a very ancient worship, as in the case of the aedes Vestae, and the legends confirm this. The story of Hercules and Cacus, the foundation-legend of the cult, whatever be its origin, shows a priesthood of two ancient patrician families, the Potitii and Pinarii^[807]. Appius Claudius, the censor of 312 B.C., is said to have bribed the Potitii, the chief celebrants, to hand over their duties to public slaves^[808]; but in the yearly rites, consisting chiefly in the sacrifice of a heifer, these were presided over by the praetor urbanus, whose connexion with the cult is attested by inscriptions^[809]. That there was at one time a reconstruction of the cult, especially in the direction of Greek usage, seems indeed probable; for the praetor wore a laurel wreath and sacrificed with his head uncovered after the Greek fashion^[810]. But there is enough about it that was genuine Roman to prove that the foundation-legend had some of its roots in an ancient cult; e. g. at the sacred meal which followed the previous sacrifice in the evening, the worshippers did not lie down but sat, as was the most ancient practice both in Greece and Italy^[811]. Women were excluded, which is in keeping with the Italian conception of Hercules as Genius, or the deity of masculine activity^[812]. The sacrifice was followed by a meal on the remainder, which was perhaps an old practice in Italy, as in Greece. In this feature, as in two others, we have a very interesting parallel with this cult, which does not seem to have been noticed, in the prescription given by Cato for the invocation of Mars on behalf of the farmer’s cattle^[813]. After prescribing the material of the offering to Mars Silvanus, he goes on as follows: ‘Eam rem divinam vel servus, vel liber licebit faciat. Ubi res divina facta erit, statim ibidem consumito. Mulier ad eam rem divinam ne adsit, neve videat quomodo fiat. Hoc votum in annos singulos, si voles, licebit vovere.’ Here we have the eating of the remainder^[814], the exclusion of women, and the participation in the cult by slaves; the exclusion of women is very curious in this case, and seems to show that such a practice was not confined to worships of a sexual character. It is also worth noting that just as Cato’s formula invokes Mars Silvanus, so in Virgil’s description of the cult of the ara maxima^[815], we find one special feature of Mars-worship, namely the presence of the Salii^[816]. It is hardly possible to suppose that Virgil here was guilty of a wilful confusion: is it possible, then, that in this cult some form of Mars is hidden behind Hercules, and that the Hercules of the ara maxima is not the Genius after all, as modern scholars have persuaded themselves?

But what marks out this curious cult more especially from all others is the practice of offering on the ara maxima ‘decumae’ or tithes, of booty, commercial gains, sudden windfalls, and so on^[817]. The custom seems to be peculiar to this cult, though it is proved by inscriptions of Hercules-cults elsewhere in Italy—e. g. at Sora near Arpinum, at Reate, Tibur, Capua and elsewhere^[818]. But these inscriptions, old as some of them are, cannot prove that the practice they attest was not ultimately derived from Rome. At Rome, indeed, there is no question about it; it is abundantly proved by literary allusions, as well as by fragments of divine law^[819]. Was it an urban survival from an old Italian rural custom, or was it an importation from elsewhere?

In favour of the first of these explanations is the fact that the offering of first-fruits was common, if not universal, in rural Italy^[820]. They are not, indeed, known to have been offered specially to Hercules; but the date, Aug. 12, of the sacrifice at Rome might suggest an original offering of the first-fruits of the Roman ager, before the growth of the city had pushed agriculture to some distance away. Now first-fruits are the oldest form of tribute to a god as ‘the lord of the land,’ developing in due time into fixed tithes as temple-ritual becomes more elaborate and expensive^[821]. In their primitive form they are found in all parts of the world, as Mr. Frazer has shown us in an appendix to the second volume of his Golden Bough^[822]. It is certainly possible that in this way the August cult of the ara maxima may be connected with the general character of the August festivals; that the offering of the first-fruits of harvest gave way to a regulated system of tithes^[823], of which we find a survival in the offerings of the tenth part of their booty by great generals like Sulla and Crassus. As the city grew, and agriculture became less prominent than military and mercantile pursuits, the practice passed into a form adapted to these—i. e. the decumae of military booty or mercantile gain^[824].

But there is another possibility which must at least be suggested. The myth attached to the ara maxima and the Aventine, that of Hercules and Cacus, stands alone among Italian stories, as the system of tithe-giving does among Italian practices. We may be certain that the practice did not spring from the myth; rather that an addition was made to the myth, when Hercules was described as giving the tenth of his booty, in order to explain an unusual practice. Yet myth and practice stand in the closest relation to each other, and the strange thing about each is that it is unlike its Italian kindred.

Of late years it has become the fashion to claim the myth as genuine Italian, in spite of its Graeco-Oriental character, on the evidence of comparative mythology^[825]: but no explanation is forthcoming of its unique character among Italian myths, all of which have a marked practical tendency, and a relation to some human institution such as the foundation of a city. They are legends of human beings and practices: this is an elemental myth familiar in different forms to the Eastern mind. Again, the Hercules of the myth has nothing in common with the genuine Italian Hercules, whom we may now accept as = genius, or the masculine principle—as may be seen from the sorry lameness of the attempt to harmonize the two^[826]. Beyond doubt there was an Italian spirit or deity to whom the name Hercules was attached: but there is no need to force all the forms of Hercules that meet us into exact connexion with the genuine one. We have seen above that the Hercules of the ara maxima may possibly have concealed Mars himself, in his original form of a deity of cattle, pasture, and clearings. But there is yet another possible explanation of this tangled problem.

The Roman form of the Cacus-myth, in which Cacus steals the cattle from Hercules, and tries to conceal his theft by dragging them backwards into his cave by their tails, has recently been found in Sicily depicted on a painted vase, whither, as Professor Gardner has suggested, it may have been brought by way of Cyprus by Phoenician traders^[827]; and the inference of so cautious an archaeologist is, apparently, that the myth may have found its way from Sicily to the Tiber. Nothing can be more probable; for it is certain that even before the eighth century B.C. the whole western coast of Italy was open first to Phoenician trade and then to Greek. And we are interested to find that the only other traces of the myth to be found in Italy are located in places which would be open to the same influence. From Capua we have a bronze vase on which is depicted what seems to be the punishment of Cacus by Hercules^[828]; and a fragment of the annalist Gellius gives a story connecting Cacus with Campania, Etruria, and the East^[829]. At Tibur also, which claimed a Greek origin, there is a faint trace of the myth in an inscription^[830].

Now assuming for a moment that the myth was thus imported, is it impossible that the anomalies of the cult should be foreign also? That one of them at least which stands out most prominently is a peculiarly Semitic institution; tithe-giving in its systematized form is found in the service of that Melcarth who so often appears in Hellas as Herakles^[831]. The coincidence at the Aventine of the name, the myth, and the practice, is too striking to be entirely passed over—especially if we cannot find certain evidence of a pure Italian origin, and if we do find traces of all three where Phoenicians and Greeks are known to have been. We may take it as not impossible that the ara maxima was older than the traditional foundation of Rome, and that its cult was originally not that of the characteristic Italian Hercules, but of an adventitious deity established there by foreign adventurers.

FER[IAE] IOVI. (AMIT. ALLIF.)

DIANAE IN AVENTINO. (AMIT. VALL. ANT. ALLIF.)

SACRUM DEANAE. (RUST.) NATALIS DIANES. (PHILOC.)

VORTUMNO IN AVENTINO. (AMIT. ALLIF.)

HERC[ULI] INVICTO AD PORTAM TRIGEMINAM. (ALLIF.)

CASTORI POLLUCI IN CIRCO FLAMINIO. (AMIT. ALLIF.)

FLORAE AD C[IRCUM] MAXIMUM. (ALLIF.)

All Ides, as we have seen, were sacred to Jupiter; and it does not seem that there is here any further significance in the note ‘feriae Iovi.’ Though there was a conjunction here of many cults, this day was best known as that of the dedication of the temple of Diana on the Aventine, which was traditionally ascribed to Servius Tullius. There are interesting features in this cult, and indeed in the worship of this goddess throughout Latium and Italy. For the most famous of all her cults, that of Aricia^[832], I need only refer to Mr. Frazer’s Golden Bough—the most elaborate and convincing examination of any ancient worship that has yet appeared. Of the goddess in general it will be sufficient to say here that whatever be the etymology of her name or the earliest conception of her nature—and both are very far from certain—she was for the old Latins second only to Jupiter Latiaris in the power she exercised of uniting communities together and so working in the cause of civilization. This was the ease with the cult on the Aventine, as it was also with that at Aricia^[833].

About the political origin of the temple on the Aventine tradition was explicit^[834]. Livy says that Servius Tullius persuaded the chiefs of the Latins to build a temple of Diana in conjunction with the Romans; and Varro calls it ‘commune Latinorum Dianae templum.’ The ‘lex templi,’ or ordinance for the common worship of Romans and Latins, was seen by Dionysius—so he declares—written in Greek characters and preserved in the temple^[835]. The horns of a cow^[836], hung up in front of this temple, gave rise to legends, one of which is preserved by Livy, and seems to bring the Sabines also into the connexion. This temple was, then, from the beginning in some sense extra-Roman, i. e. did not belong to the purely Roman gentile worship. And it had other characteristics of the same kind; it was specially connected with the Plebs and with slaves, and as, in the case of the neighbouring temple at Ceres, there was a Greek character in the cult from the beginning.

I. The Connexion with the Plebs. The position on the Aventine would of itself be some evidence of a non-patrician origin; so also the traditional ascription to Servius Tullius as the founder. More direct evidence seems wanting^[837], but it is not impossible that the temple marks a settlement of Latins in this part of the city.

II. The Connexion with Slaves. The day was a holiday for slaves^[838], perhaps after the work of harvest. There was one other Latin goddess, Feronia, who was especially beloved by emancipated slaves^[839]; and as Feronia was a deity both of markets and harvests, there is something to be said for the suggestion^[840] that both slave holidays and slave emancipation would find a natural place on occasions of this kind. It would seem also that this temple was an asylum for runaway or criminal slaves—a fact which slips out in Festus’ curious reproduction of a gloss of Verrius Flaccus^[841]: ‘Servorum dies festus vulgo existimatur Idus Aug., quod eo die Servius Tullius, natus servus, aedem Dianae dedicaverit in Aventino, cuius tutelae sint cervi, a quo celeritate fugitivos vocent servos.’ The stag, as the favourite beast of Diana, may perhaps have a Greek origin; but the inference from the false etymology remains the same.

III. The Greek Character in the Cult. As in the case of Ceres, the temple-foundations of this age might naturally have a Greek character, owing to the foreign relations of the Etruscan dynasty in Rome^[842]. We have already noticed the lex templi, said to have been written in Greek characters. It is a still more striking fact that there was in this temple a ??a???, or wooden statue of Diana, closely resembling that of Artemis at Massilia, which was itself derived from the famous temple at Ephesus^[843]. The transference to Diana of the characteristics of Artemis was no doubt quite natural and easy; for, hard as it is to distinguish the Greek and Italian elements in the cult, we know enough of some at least of the latter to be sure that they would easily lend themselves to a Greek transformation. This transformation must have begun at a very early period, for in B.C. 398 we find Diana already associated with Apollo and Latona, in the first lectisternium celebrated at Rome, where she certainly represented Artemis^[844].

On the whole this temple and its cult seem a kind of anticipation of the great temple on the Capitol, in marking an advance in the progress of Rome from the narrow life of a small city-state to a position of influence in Western Italy. The advance of the Plebs, the emancipation of slaves, the new relations with Latin cities, and the introduction of Greek religious ideas are all reflected here. New threads are being woven into the tissue of Roman social and political life.

The close relation of Diana to human life is not very difficult to explain. Like Fortuna, Juno Lucina, Bona Dea, and others, she was a special object of the worship of women; she assisted the married woman at childbirth^[845]; and on this day the Roman women made a special point of washing their heads^[846]—an unusual performance, perhaps, which has been explained by reference to the sanctity of the head among primitive peoples^[847]. But Diana, like Silvanus, with whom she is found in connexion^[848], was no doubt originally a spirit of holy trees and woods, i. e. of wild life generally, who became gradually reclaimed and brought into friendly and useful relations with the Italian farmer, his wife, and his cattle^[849].

This was also the dies natalis of another temple on the Aventine, that of Vortumnus, which was dedicated in B.C. 264 by the consul M. Fulvius Flaccus^[850]. About the character of this god there is fortunately no doubt. Literature here comes to our aid, as it too rarely does: Propertius^[851] describes him elaborately as presiding over gardens and fruit, and Ovid^[852] tells a picturesque story of his love for Pomona the fruit-goddess, whose antiquity at Rome is proved by the fact that she had a flamen of her own^[853]. The date, August 13, when the fruit would be ripe, suits well enough with all we know of Vortumnus.

The god had a bronze statue in the Vicus Tuscus, and perhaps for that reason was believed to have come to Rome from Etruria^[854]. But his name, like Picumnus, is beyond doubt Latin, and may be supposed to indicate the turn or change in the year at the fruit-season^[855]; and if he really was an immigrant, which is possible, his original cult in Etruria was not Etruscan proper, but old Italian.

Three other dedications are mentioned in the calendars as occurring on Aug. 13: to Hercules invictus ad portam trigeminam; to Castor and Pollax in circo Flaminio; and to Flora ad circum maximum. Of these cults nothing of special interest is known, and the deities are treated of in other parts of this work.

xvi Kal. Sept. (Aug. 17). NP.

PORT[UNALIA]. (MAFF. AMIT. VALL.)
TIBERINALIA. (PHILOC.)
FERIAE PORTUNO. (AMIT. ANT.)
PORTUNO AD PONTEM AEMILIUM. (AMIT. VALL. ALLIF.)
IANO AD THEATRUM MARCELLI. (VALL. ALLIF.)

Who was Portunus, and why was his festival in August? Why was it at the Pons Aemilius, and where was that bridge? Can any connexion be found between this and the other August rites? These questions cannot be answered satisfactorily; the scraps of evidence are too few and too doubtful. We have here to do with another ancient deity, who survives in the calendars only, and in the solitary record that he had a special flamen. This flamen might be a plebeian^[856], which seems to suit with the character of other cults in the district by the Tiber, and may perhaps point to a somewhat later origin than that of the most ancient city worships.

There are but two or three texts which help us to make an uncertain guess at the nature of Portunus. Varro^[857] wrote ‘Portunalia et Portuno, quoi eo die aedes in portu Tiberino facta et feriae institutae.’ Mommsen takes the portus here as meaning Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber, and imagines a yearly procession thither from Rome on this day^[858]. This of course is pure hypothesis; but if, as he insists, portus is rarely or never used for a city wharf on a river such as that at Rome, we may perhaps accept it provisionally; but in doing so we have to yield another point to Mommsen, viz. the identity of Portunus and Tiberinus. In the very late calendar of Philocalus this day is called Tiberinalia, and from this Mommsen infers the identity of the two deities^[859].

But it may be that the original Portunus had no immediate connexion either with river or harbour. We find a curious but mutilated note in the Veronese commentary on Virgil^[860]: ‘Portunus, ut Varro ait, deus port[uum porta]rumque praeses. Quare huius dies festus Portunalia, qua apud veteres claves in focum add ... mare institutum.’ Huschke^[861] here conjectured ‘addere et infumare,’ and inferred that we should see in Portunus the god of the gates and keys which secured the stock of corn, &c., in storehouses. Wild as this writer’s conjectures usually are, in this case it seems to me possible that he has hit the mark. If the words ‘claves in focum’ are genuine, as they seem to be, we can hardly avoid the conclusion that something was done to keys on this day; perhaps the old keys of very hard wood were held in the fire to harden them afresh^[862]. It is worth noting that according to Verrius^[863] Portunus was supposed ‘clavim manu tenere et deus esse portarum.’ This would suit very well with harvest-time, when barns and storehouses would be repaired and their gates and fastenings looked to—more especially as it is not unlikely that the word portus originally meant a safe place of any kind, and only as civilization advanced became specially appropriated to harbours^[864]. This appropriation may have come about through the medium of storehouses near the Tiber; and it was long ago suggested by Jordan that these were under the particular care of Portunus^[865].

If Portunus were really a god of keys and doors and storehouses, it would be natural to look for some close relation between him and Janus. But what can be adduced in favour of such a relation does not amount to much^[866]; and it may have been merely by accident that this was the dedication-day of a temple of Janus ‘ad theatrum Marcelli’^[867].

xiv Kal. Sept. (Aug. 19). FP. (MAFF. AMIT.) F.

(ANT. ALLIF.) NP. (VALL.^[868])

VIN[ALIA]. (MAFF. VALL. AMIT. ETC.)

FERIAE IOVI. (ALLIF.)

VENERI AD CIRCUM MAXIMUM. (VALL.)

The ‘Aedes Veneris ad Circum Maximum’ alluded to in the Fasti Vallenses was dedicated in 295 B.C., and the building was begun at the expense of certain matrons who were fined for adultery^[869]. As has been already explained, no early connexion can be proved between Venus and wine or the vintage^[870]; though both August 19 and April 23, the days of the two Vinalia, were dedication-days of temples of the goddess.

The difficult question of the two festivals called Vinalia has been touched upon under April 23. The one in August was known as Vinalia Rustica^[871], and might naturally be supposed to be concerned with the ripening grapes. It has been conjectured^[872] that it was on this day, which one calendar marks as a festival of Jupiter, that the Flamen Dialis performed the auspicatio vindemiae, i. e. plucked the first grapes, and prayed and sacrificed for the safety of the whole crop^[873]. If it be argued that August 23 was too early a date for such a rite, since the vintage was never earlier than the middle of September, we may remember that the Vestal Virgins plucked the first ears of corn as early as the first half of May for the purpose of making sacred cakes, some weeks before the actual harvest^[874].

But it is certainly possible that both Vinalia have to do with wine, and not with the vintage. Festus says that this day was a festival because the new wine was then first brought into the city^[875]; and this does not conflict with Varro^[876], who tells us that on this day fiunt feriati olitores—for it would naturally be a day of rejoicing for the growers. Mommsen, with some reason, refers these passages to the later custom of not opening the wine of the last vintage for a year^[877], in which case the year must be understood roughly as from October to August. He would, in fact, explain this second Vinalia as instituted when this later and more luxurious custom arose, the old rule of a six months’ period surviving in the April ceremony. If we ask why the August Vinalia are called Rustica, Mommsen answers that the country growers were now at liberty to bring in their wine.

It is difficult to decide between these conflicting views. When an authority like Mommsen bids us beware of connecting the Vinalia Rustica with the auspicatio vindemiae, we feel that it is at our peril that we differ from him. He is evidently quite unable to look upon such a date as August 19 as in any way associated with the vintage which followed some weeks later. Yet I cannot help thinking, that this association is by no means impossible; for the grapes would by this time be fully formed on the vines, and the next few weeks would be an anxious time for the growers^[878]. Ceremonies like that of the Auspicatio, intended to avert from crops the perils of storm or disease, are known sometimes to take place when the crops are still unripe. I have already alluded to the proceedings of the Vestals in May. Mr. Frazer, in an Appendix to his Golden Bough^[879], gives a curious instance of this kind from Tonga in the Pacific Ocean, where what we may call the auspicatio of the Yam-crop took place before the whole crop was fit for gathering. It was celebrated ‘just before the yams in general are arrived at a state of maturity; those which are used in this ceremony being planted sooner than others, and consequently they are the firstfruits of the yam season. The object of this offering is to ensure the protection of the gods, that their favour may be extended to the welfare of the nation generally and in particular to the productions of the earth, of which yams are the most important.’

xii Kal. Sept. (Aug. 21). NP.

CONS[UALIA]. (PINC. MAFF. VALL. ETC.)

CONSO IN AVENTINO SACRIFICIUM. (VALL.)

There was a second festival of Consus on Dec. 15; but the note ‘Conso in Aventino’ there appears three days earlier, Dec. 12. The temple on the Aventine was a comparatively late foundation^[880]; but as the cult of this old god became gradually obscured, it seems to have been confused with the most ancient centre of Consus-worship, the underground altar in the Circus maximus, ‘ad primas metas’^[881]. It is with this latter that we must connect the two Consualia. What the altar was like we do not exactly know; it was only uncovered on the festival days. Dionysius calls it a t?e???, Servius a ‘templum sub tecto’; and Tertullian, who explicitly says that it was ‘sub terra,’ asserts that there was engraved on it the following inscription: ‘Consus consilio, Mars duello, Lares coillo^[882] potentes.’ Wissowa remarks that this statement ‘is not free from suspicion’; and we may take it as pretty certain that if it was really there it was not very ancient. The false etymology of Consus, and the connexion of Mars with war, both show the hand of some comparatively late interpreter of religion; and the form of the inscription, nominative and descriptive, is most suspiciously abnormal.

For the true etymology of Consus we are, strange to say, hardly in doubt; and it helps us to conjecture the real origin of this curious altar. Consus is connected with ‘condere’^[883], and may be interpreted as the god of the stored-up harvest; the buried altar will thus be a reminiscence of the very ancient practice—sometimes of late suggested as worth reviving for hay—of storing the corn underground^[884]. Or if this practice cannot be proved of ancient Italy, we may aptly remember that sacrifices to chthonic deities were sometimes buried; a practice which may in earliest times have given rise to the connexion of such gods with wealth—when agricultural produce rather than the precious metals was the common form of wealth^[885]. Or again we may combine the two interpretations, and guess that the corn stored up underground was conceived as in some sense sacrificed to the chthonic deities.

If these views of the altar are correct, we might naturally infer that the Consualia in August was a harvest festival of some kind. Plutarch^[886] asks why at the Consualia horses and asses have a holiday and are decked out with flowers; and such a custom would suit excellently with harvest-home. Unluckily in the only trace of this custom preserved in the calendars, it is attributed to the December festival, and is so mutilated as to be useless for detail^[887].

The amplifications here are Mommsen’s, the first two based on Plutarch’s statement. It is a difficulty, as regards the first, that the middle of December would be a bad time for flowers: perhaps this did not occur to the great scholar. I would suggest that either Verrius’ note is here accidentally misplaced, or that the lacunae must be filled up differently. In any case I do not think we need fear to refer Plutarch’s passage to the Consualia of August, and therefore to harvest rejoicings on that day.

The connexion of the Consus-cult with horses was so obvious as to give rise eventually to the identification of the god with Poseidon Hippios. It is certain that there were horse-races in the Circus maximus at one of the two Consualia, and as Dionysius^[888] connects them with the day of the Rape of the Sabines, which Plutarch puts in August, we may be fairly sure that they took place at the August festival. Mules also raced—according to Festus^[889], because they were said to be the most ancient beasts of burden. This looks like a harvest festival, and may carry us back to the most primitive agricultural society and explain the origin of the Circus maximus; for the only other horse-races known to us from the old calendar were those of Mars in the Campus Martius on Feb. 27 and March 13^[890]. We may suppose that when the work of harvest was done, the farmers and labourers enjoyed themselves in this way and laid the foundation for a great Roman social institution^[891].

Once more, it is not impossible that in the legendary connexion of the Rape of the Sabine women with the Consualia^[892] we may see a reflection of the jollity and license which accompanies the completion of harvest among so many peoples. Romulus was said to have attracted the Sabines by the first celebration of the Consualia. Is it not possible that the meeting of neighbouring communities on a festive occasion of this kind may have been a favourable opportunity for capturing new wives^[893]? The sexual license common on such occasions has been abundantly illustrated by Mr. Frazer in his Golden Bough^[894].

Before leaving the Consualia we may just remark that Consus had no flamen of his own, in spite of his undoubted antiquity; doubtless because his altar was underground, and only opened once or perhaps twice a year. On August 21 his sacrifice was performed, says Tertullian^[895], by the Flamen Quirinalis in the presence of the Vestals. This flamen seems to have had a special relation to the corn-crops, for it was he who also sacrificed a dog to Robigus on April 25^[896], to avert the mildew from them; and thus we get one more confirmation from the cult of the view taken as to the agricultural origin of the Consualia.

x Kal. Sept. (Aug. 23). NP.

VOLCANALIA. (PINC. MAFF. VALL. ETC.)
VOLCANO IN CIRCO FLAMINIO. (VALL.)
VOLCANO. (PINC.)

(A mutilated fragment of the calendar of the Fratres Arvales gives QUIR[INO] IN COLLE, VOLK[ANO] IN COMIT[IO]. OPI OPIFERÆ IN ..., [NYMP]HIS(?) IN CAMPO).

Of the cult of this day, apart from the extracts from the calendars, we know nothing, except that the heads of Roman families threw into the fire certain small fish with scales, which were to be had from the Tiber fishermen at the ‘area Volcani’^[897]. We cannot explain this; but it reminds us of the fish called maena, with magical properties, which the old woman offered to Tacita and the ghost-world at the Parentalia^[898]. Fish-sacrifices were rare; and if in one rite fish are used to propitiate the inhabitants of the underworld, they seem not inappropriate in another of which the object is apparently to propitiate the fire-god, who in a volcanic country like that of Rome must surely be a chthonic deity.

The antiquity of the cult of Volcanus is shown by the fact that there was a Flamen Volcanalis^[899], who on May 1 sacrificed to Maia, the equivalent, as we saw, of Bona Dea, Terra, &c. With Volcanus we may remember that Maia was coupled in the old prayer formula preserved by Gellius (13.23)—Maia Volcani. From these faint indications Preller^[900] conjectured that the original notion of Volcanus was that of a favouring nature-spirit, perhaps of the warmth and fertilizing power of the earth. However this may be, in later times, under influences which can only be guessed at, he became a hostile fire-god, hard to keep under control. Of this aspect of him Wissowa has written concisely at the conclusion of his little treatise de Feriis. He suggests that the appearance of the nymphs^[901] in the rites of this day indicates the use of water in conflagrations, and that Ops Opifera was perhaps invoked to protect her own storehouses. The name Volcanus became a poetical word for devouring fire as early as the time of Ennius, and is familiar to us in this sense in Virgil^[902]. After the great fire at Rome in Nero’s time a new altar was erected to Volcanus by Domitian, at which (and at all Volcanalia) on this day a red calf and a boar were offered for sacrifice^[903]. At Ostia the cult became celebrated; there was an ‘aedes’ and a ‘pontifex Volcani’ and a ‘praetor sacris Volcani faciundis.’ In August the storehouses at Ostia would be full of new grain arrived from Sicily, Africa, and Egypt, and in that hot month would be especially in danger from fire; an elaborate cult of Volcanus the fire-god was therefore at this place particularly desirable.

The aedes Volcani in circo Flaminio was dedicated before 215 B.C.; the exact date is not known^[904]. Its position was explained by Vitruvius^[905] as having the object of keeping conflagrations away from the city. Mr. Jevons, in his Introduction to a translation of Plutarch’s Quaestiones Romanae^[906], has argued from this position, outside the pomoerium, and from a doubtful etymology, that the cult of Volcanus was a foreign introduction; but the position of the temple is no argument, as has been well shown by Aust^[907], and the chief area Volcani, or Volcanal, was in the Comitium, in the heart of the city^[908].

ix Kal. Sept. (Aug. 24). Mundus Patet.

This does not appear in the calendars. We learn from Festus^[909] that on this day, on Oct. 5, and Nov. 8, the ‘mundus’ was open. This mundus was a round pit on the Palatine, the centre of Roma quadrata^[910]—the concave hollow being perhaps supposed to correspond to the concave sky above^[911]. It was closed, so it was popularly believed, by a ‘lapis manalis’ (Festus s. v.). When this was removed, on the three days there was supposed to be free egress for the denizens of the underworld^[912].

I am much inclined to see in this last idea a later Graeco-Etruscan accretion upon a very simple original fact. O. MÜller long ago suggested this—pointing out that in Plutarch’s description of the foundation of Roma quadrata the casting into the trench of first-fruits of all necessaries of life gives us a clue to the original meaning of the mundus. If we suppose that it was the penus of the new city—a sacred place, of course—used for storing grain, we can see why it should be open on Aug. 24^[913]. Nor is it difficult to understand why, when the original use and meaning had vanished, the Graeco-Etruscan doctrine of the underworld should be engrafted on this simple Roman stem. Dis and Proserpina claim the mundus: it is ‘ianua Orci,’ ‘faux Plutonis’^[914]—ideas familiar to Romans who had come under the spell of Etruscan religious beliefs.

viii Kal. Sept. (Aug. 25). NP.

OPIC[ONSIVIA]. (ALLIF. MAFF. VALL.)

OPICID. (PINC.) The last two letters must be a cutter’s error.

Feriae Opi; Opi Consiv. in Regia. (Arv.) The last four words seem to belong to Aug. 26 (see Mommsen ad loc.).

This festival follows that of Consus after an interval of three days; and Wissowa^[915] has pointed out that in December the same interval occurs between the Consualia (15th) and the Opalia (19th). This and the epithet or cognomen Consiva, which is fully attested^[916], led him to fancy that Ops was the wife of Consus, and not the wife of Saturnus, as has been generally supposed both in ancient and modern times^[917]. We may agree with him that there is no real evidence for any primitive connexion of Saturnus and Ops of this kind; as far as we can tell the idea was adopted from the relation of Cronos and Rhea. But there was no need to find any husband for Ops; the name Consiva need imply no such relation, any more than Lua Saturni, Moles Martis, Maia Volcani, and the rest^[918], or the Tursa Iovia of the Iguvian inscription so often quoted. Both adjectival and genitive forms are in my view no more than examples of the old Italian instinct for covering as much ground as possible in invoking supernatural powers^[919]; and this is again a result of the indistinctness with which those powers were conceived, in regard both to their nature and function. A distinct specialization of function was, I am convinced, the later work of the pontifices. Ops and Consus are obviously closely related; and Wissowa is probably right in treating the one as a deity ‘messis condendae,’ and the other as representing the ‘opima frugum copia quae horreis conditur.’ But when he goes further than this, his arguments ring hollow^[920].

Of the ritual of the Opiconsivia we know only what Varro tells us^[921]: ‘Opeconsiva dies ab dea Ope Consiva, quoius in Regia sacrarium, quod ideo actum (so MSS.) ut eo praeter Virgines Vestales et sacerdotem publicum introeat nemo.’ Many conjectures have been made for the correction of ‘quod ideo actum’^[922]; but the real value of the passage does not depend on these words. The Regia is the king’s house, and represents that of the ancient head of the family: the sacrarium Opis was surely then the sacred penus of that house—the treasury of the fruits of the earth on which the family subsisted. It suits admirably with this view that, as Varro says, only the Vestals and a ‘publicus sacerdos’ were allowed to enter it—i. e. the form was retained from remote antiquity that the daughters of the house were in charge of it^[923]—the master of the house being here represented by the sacerdos—the rex sacrorum or a pontifex. In this connexion it is worth while to quote a passage of Columella^[924] which seems to be derived from some ancient practice of the rural household: ‘Ne contractentur pocula vel cibi nisi aut ab impube aut certe abstinentissimo rebus venereis, quibus si fuerit operatus vel vir vel femina debere eos flumine aut perenni aqua priusquam penora contingant ablui. Propter quod his necessarium esse pueri vel virginis ministerium, per quos promantur quae usus postulaverit.’

vi Kal. Sept. (Aug. 27). NP.

VOLT[URNALIA]. (ALLIF. MAFF. VALL.)

FERIAE VOLTURNO. (ARV. INTER ADDITA POSTERIORA.)

VOLTURNO FLUMINI SACRIFICIUM. (VALL.)

Of this very ancient and perhaps obsolete rite nothing seems to have been known to the later Latin scholars, or they did not think it worth comment. Varro mentions a Flamen Volturnalis, but tells us nothing about him. From the occurrence of the name for a river in Campania it may be guessed that the god in this case was a river also; and if so, it must be the Tiber. This is Mommsen’s conclusion, and the only difficulty he finds in it is that (in his view) Portunus is also the Tiber^[925]. Why did he not see that the same river-god, even if bearing different names, could hardly have two flamines? I am content to see in Volturnus an old name for the Tiber, signifying the winding snake-like river^[926], and in Portunus a god of storehouses, as I have explained above.

Here, then, we perhaps have a trace of the lost cult of the Tiber, which assuredly must have existed in the earliest times—and the flamen is the proof of its permanent importance. When the name was changed to Tiber we do not know, nor whether ‘Albula’ marks an intermediate stage between the two; but that this was the work of the pontifices seems likely from Servius^[927], who writes ‘Tiberinus ... a pontificibus indigitari solet.’ Of a god Tiberinus there is no single early record.

It should just be mentioned that Jordan^[928], relying on Lucretius, 5. 745, thought it probable that Volturnus might be a god of whirlwinds; and Huschke^[929] has an even wilder suggestion, which need not here be mentioned.