Chapter XI: Part 11

The Etruscan Tina, or Tinia, is now generally identified, even etymologically, with Jupiter[966]. The attributes of the two are essentially the same, though one particular side of the Etruscan god’s activity, that of the lightning-wielder, is specially developed. But Tina is also the protector of cities, along with Juno and Minerva (Cupra and Menvra); and it is in connexion with this function of his that we first meet with a decided tendency towards an anthropomorphic conception. Even here, however, the stimulus can hardly be said to have come from Italy. ‘The one fact,’ says Aust[967], ‘which is at present quite clear is that the oldest Etruscan representations of gods can be traced back to Greek models. Tinia was completely identified in costume and attributes with the Greek Zeus by Etruscan artists.’ The insignia of Etruscan magistrates were again copied from these, and have survived for us in the costume of the Roman triumphator[968], and in part in the insignia of the curule magistrate, i. e. in sceptrum, sella, toga palmata, &c., and in the smearing of the face of the triumphator with _minium_.

Coming nearer to Rome we find at Falerii, a town subject to Roman and Sabellian as well as Graeco-Etruscan influence, the curious rite of the ἱερὸς γάμος described by Ovid (_Amores_, 3. 13), and found also in many parts of Greece[969]. In this elaborate procession Juno is apparently the bride, but the bridegroom is not mentioned. At Argos, Zeus was the bridegroom, and the inference is an obvious one that Jupiter was the bridegroom at Falerii. But this cannot be proved, and is in fact supported by no real evidence as to the old-Italian relation of the god and goddess. The rite is extremely interesting as pointing to what seems to be an early penetration of Greek religious ideas and practices into the towns of Western Italy; but it has no other bearing on the Jupiter-question, nor are we enlightened by the little else we know of the Falerian Jupiter[970].

But at Praeneste, that remarkable town perched high upon the hills which enclose the Latin Campagna to the north, we find a very remarkable form of the Jupiter-cult, and one which must be mentioned here, puzzling and even inexplicable as it certainly is. The great goddess of Praeneste was Fortuna Primigenia—a cult-title which cannot well mean anything but _first-born_[971]; and that she was, or came to be thought of as, the first-born daughter of Jupiter is placed beyond a doubt by an inscription of great antiquity first published in 1882[972]. But this is not the only anomaly in the Jupiter-worship of Praeneste. There was another cult of Fortuna, distinct, apparently, from that of Fortuna Primigenia, in which she took the form not of a daughter but of a mother, and, strange as it may seem, of the mother both of Jupiter and Juno. On this point we have the explicit evidence of Cicero (_de Divinatione_, 2. 85), who says, when speaking of the place where the famous ‘sortes’ of Praeneste were first found by a certain Numerius Suffustius: ‘Is est hodie locus saeptus religiose propter Iovis pueri (sacellum?) qui lactens cum Iunone Fortunae in gremio sedens, castissime colitur a matribus.’ Thus we have Fortuna worshipped in the same place as the daughter and as the mother of Jupiter; and nowhere else in Italy can we find a trace of a similar conception of the relations either of these or any other deities. We cannot well reject the evidence of Cicero, utterly unsupported though it be: we must face the difficulty that we have here to account for the occurrence of a Jupiter who is the child of Fortuna and also apparently the brother of Juno, as well as of a Jupiter who is the father of Fortuna.

As regards this last feature, the fatherhood of Jupiter, Jordan says emphatically[973]—and no scholar was more careful in his judgements—that in the whole range of Italian religions ‘liberorum procreatio nulla est unquam’: and he would understand ‘filia’ in the inscription quoted above in a metaphorical rather than a physical sense. Yet however we choose to think of it, Mommsen is justified in remarking[974] on the peculiarly anthropomorphic idea of Fortuna (and we may add of Jupiter) at which the Latins of Praeneste must have arrived, in comparison with the character of Italian religion generally.

Even more singular than this is the sonship of Jupiter and the fact that he appeared together with Juno in the lap of Fortuna ‘mammae appetens.’ Cicero’s language leaves no doubt that there was some work of art at Praeneste in which the three were so represented, or believed to be represented. Yet there are considerations which may suggest that we should hesitate before hastily concluding that all this is a genuine Italian development of genuine Italian ideas.

1. Italy presents us with no real parallel to this child-Jupiter though in Greece we find many. Jordan has mentioned three possible Italian parallels, but rejected them all: Caeculus Volcani, the legendary founder of Praeneste, Hercules bullatus, and the beardless Veiovis. The attributes of the last-named are explained by a late identification with Apollo[975]; Hercules bullatus is undoubtedly Greek: the story of the birth of Caeculus is a foundation-legend, truly Italian in character, but belonging to a different class of religious ideas from that we are discussing. To these we may add that the _boy-Mars_ found on a Praenestine cista is clearly of Etruscan origin, as is shown by Deecke in the _Lexicon_, s. v. Maris.

2. Cicero’s statement is not confirmed by any inscription from Praeneste. Those which were formerly thought to refer to _Iupiter Puer_[976] are now proved to belong to Fortuna as _Iovis puer_ (= _filia_). It is most singular that Fortuna should be thus styled _Iovis puer_ in the same place where Jupiter himself was worshipped as _puer_; still more so that in one inscription (2868) the cutter should have dropped out the ‘s’ in Iovis, so that we actually read _Iovi puero_. It may seem tempting to guess that the name Jupiter Puer arose from a misunderstanding of the word _puer_ as applied to Fortuna: but the evidence as it stands supplies no safe ground for this.

3. The fact that Cicero describes a statue is itself suspicious, in the absence of corroborative evidence of any other kind[977]: for it suggests that the cult may have arisen, and have taken its peculiar form, as a result of the introduction of Greek or Graeco-Etruscan works of art. In Praeneste itself, and in other parts of Latium and of Campania, innumerable terra-cottas have been found[978], of the type of the Greek κουροτρόφος, i. e. a mother, sitting or standing, with a child, and occasionally two children[979] in her lap. These may, indeed, be simply votive offerings, to Fortuna and other deities of childbirth: but such objects may quite well have served as the foundation from which the idea of Fortuna and her infants arose. There is a passage in Servius which seems to me to show a trace of a similar confusion elsewhere in this region of Italy. ‘Circa hunc tractum Campaniae colebatur _puer Iuppiter_ qui Anxyrus dicebatur quasi ἄνευ ξυροῦ, id est sine novacula: quia barbam nunquam rasisset: et _Iuno virgo_ quae Feronia dicebatur[980].’ True, the Jupiter of Anxur is a boy or youth[981], not an infant: but the passage serves well to show the fluidity of Italian deities, at any rate in regard to the names attached to them. That this _puer Iuppiter_ was originally some other deity, and very possibly a Greek one, I have little doubt: while Juno Virgo, Feronia, Fortuna, Proserpina, all seem to slide into each other in a way which is very bewildering to the investigator[982]. This is no doubt owing to two chief causes—the daemonistic character of the early Italian religion, in which many of the spiritual conceptions were even _unnamed_; and, secondly, the confusion which arose when Greek artistic types were first introduced into Italy. Two currents of religious thought met at this point, perhaps in the eighth and following centuries B.C.; and the result was a whirlpool, in which the deities were tossed about, lost such shape as they possessed, or got inextricably entangled with each other. The French student of Praenestine antiquities writes with reason of ‘the negligence with which the Praenestine artists placed the names of divinities and heroes on designs borrowed from Greek models, and often representing a subject which they did not understand[983].’

4. And lastly, there is no doubt that Praeneste, in spite of its lofty position on the hills, was at an early stage of its existence subject to foreign influences, like so many other towns on or near the western coast of central Italy. This has been made certain by works of art found in its oldest tombs[984]. Whether these objects came from Greece, Phoenicia, Carthage, or Etruria, the story they tell is for us the same, and may well make us careful in accepting a statement like that of Cicero’s without some hesitation. There was even a Greek foundation-legend of Praeneste, as well as the pure Italian one of Caeculus[985]. Evidence is slowly gathering which points to a certain basis of fact in these foundation-stories—of fact, at least, in so far as they seem to indicate that the transformation of the early Italian community into a city and a centre of civilization was coincident with the era of the introduction of foreign trade.

While, then, we cannot hope as yet to account for the singular anomaly in the Jupiter-cult, which is presented to us at Praeneste, we may at least hesitate to make use of it in answering the main question with which we set out—viz. how far we can find in the cult of the genuine Italian Jupiter any tendency towards an anthropomorphic conception of the god. Before we return to Rome a word is needed about the Latin Jupiter. The Latin festival has already been described[986]: it will be sufficient here to point out that none of its features show any advance towards an anthropomorphic conception of Jupiter Latiaris. The god here is of the same type as at Iguvium, one whose sanctuary—whatever it may originally have been—is in a grove on a hill-top[987], the conspicuous religious centre of the whole Latin stock inhabiting the plain below. Of this stock he is the uniting and protecting deity; and when once a year his sacred victim is slain, after offerings have been made to him by the representatives of each member of the league, it is essential that each should also receive (and probably consume through its deputies) a portion of the sacrificial flesh (_carnem petere_). This, the main feature, and other details of the ritual, point to a survival from a very early stage of religious culture, and one that we may fairly call aniconic. The victim, a white heifer, the absence of wine in the libations, and the mention of milk and cheese among the offerings, all suggest an origin in the pastoral age; and it would seem that foreign ideas never really penetrated into this worship of a pastoral race. The objects that have been found during excavations near the site of the ancient temple[988] show that, as in the worship of the Fratres Arvales and in that of the curiae, so here, the most antique type of sacred vessels remained in use. Undoubtedly there was in later times a temple, and also a statue of the god[989]: and it is just possible that, as Niebuhr supposed[990], these were the goal of an ancient Alban triumphal procession, older than the later magnificent rite of the Capitol. But we know _for certain_ that the ancient cult here suggests neither gorgeous ritual nor iconic usage. We see nothing but the unadorned practices of a simple cattle-breeding people.

Coming now once more to Rome itself, where of course we have fuller information, fragmentary though it be, we find sufficiently clear indications of an ancient cult of Jupiter showing characteristics of much the same kind as those we have already noticed as being genuine Italian.

In the first place the cult is associated with hills and also with trees. It is found on that part of the Esquiline which was known as lucus Fagutalis or Fagutal: here there was a sacellum Iovis ‘in quo fuit fagus arbor quae Iovis (so MSS.) sacra habebatur[991]‘: and the god himself was called Fagutalis. Not far off on the Viminal, or hill of the osiers, there was also an altar of Jupiter Viminius, which we may suppose to have been ancient[992]. The mysterious Capitolium vetus on the Quirinal may be assumed as telling the same tale, though in historical times the memory of the cult there included Minerva and Juno with Jupiter, i. e. the Etruscan ‘Trias.’ Lastly, on the Capitol itself was the temple of Jupiter Feretrius, reputed to be the oldest in Rome[993]. It was attributed to Romulus, who, after slaying the king of the Caeninenses, dedicated the first spolia opima on an ancient oak ‘pastoribus sacram,’ and at the same time ‘designavit templo Iovis fines cognomenque addidit deo.’ The oak, we may assume, was the original dwelling of the god, and upon it were fixed the arms taken from the conquered enemy as a thank-offering for his aid[994]. In this case we seem to be able to guess the development of the cult from this beginning in the tree-worship of primitive ‘pastores.’ The next step would be the erection of an altar below the tree, in a small enclosure, i. e. a sacellum of the same kind as those of the Argei or the Sacellum Larum[995]. The third stage would be the building of the aedes known to us in history, which Cornelius Nepos says had fallen into decay in his time, and was rebuilt by Augustus on the suggestion of Atticus. Even this was a very small building, for Dionysius saw the foundations of it and found them only fifteen feet wide. This oldest cult of Jupiter was completely overshadowed by the later one of the Etruscan Trias—the aniconic by the iconic, the pure Italian by the mongrel ritual from Etruria.

That this Jupiter Feretrius[996] was the great Jupiter of pre-Etruscan Rome seems to be proved by his connexion with oaths and treaties, in which he resembles the god of the Latin festival. To him apparently belonged the priestly college of the Fetiales, who played so important a part in the declaring of war and the making of treaties: at any rate it was from his temple that the _lapis silex_ and the _sceptrum_ were taken which accompanied them on their official journeys[997]. It has been supposed that this _lapis silex_ was a symbol of the god himself, like the spear of Mars in the Regia, and other such objects of cult[998]. ‘We recognize here the primitive forms of a nature-worship, in which the simple flint was sufficient to bring up in men’s minds the idea of the heavenly power of lightning and thunder,’ i. e. the flint if struck would emit sparks and remind the beholder of lightning. Unluckily the existence of a stone in this temple as an object of worship is not clearly attested. Servius (_Aen._ 8. 641) says that the Fetials took to using a stone instead of a sword to slay their victims with, ‘quod antiquum Iovis signum lapidem silicem _putaverunt_ esse.’ The learned commentator makes a mistake here which will be obvious to all archaeologists, in putting the age of iron before that of stone; but it has not been equally clear to scholars that he by no means implies his belief that Jupiter was ever worshipped under the form of a stone. He only says that the Fetials _fancied_ that this was so: and the whole passage has an aetiological colouring which should put us on our guard[999]. It is not supported by any other statement or tradition, except an allusion in S. Augustine[1000] to a ‘lapis Capitolinus,’ which is surely the stone of Terminus (see below): and by the oath ‘per Iovem lapidem,’ which has been interpreted by some as meaning ‘Jupiter in the form of a stone.’ But this interpretation is at least open to grave doubt; and in the absence of clearer evidence for the ‘Iuppiter lapis’ of the temple it is better to understand the oath as being sworn by the god and also by the stone, ‘two distinct aspects of the transaction being run together,’ in a way not uncommon in Latin formulae[1001].

It only remains to conjecture what the ‘silex’ or ‘lapis’ was which the Fetials took from the temple together with the sceptrum. Helbig has attempted to prove that it was not a survival of the stone age, e. g. an axe of stone. Had that been so, he argues, the Roman antiquaries, who were acquainted with such implements[1002], would have noticed it: and those who describe the rites of the Fetials would have stated that the stone was artificially sharpened. But this negative argument is not a strong one; and I am rather inclined to agree with the suggestion of Dr. Tylor[1003], that it was a stone celt believed to have been a thunder-bolt. There may indeed have been more than one of these kept in the temple, for in B.C. 201 the Fetials who went to Africa took with them _each a stone_[1004] (privos lapides silices) along with their ‘sagmina,’ &c. This fact seems to me to prove that the silices, like the sagmina and sceptrum, were only part of the ritualistic apparatus of the Fetials[1005], and not objects in which the god was supposed to be manifested. The idea that he was originally worshipped in the form of a stone may well have arisen from this use of stones in the ritual, especially if those stones were believed to be in some way his handiwork[1006]. We may think then of the cult of Jupiter Feretrius as an example of primitive tree-worship, but we are not justified in going further and finding him also in the form of a stone.

There is yet another stone that may have belonged to the earliest Roman cult of Jupiter, but the connexion is not very certain. ‘The (rite of) Aquaelicium,’ says Festus[1007], ‘is when rain is procured (elicitur) by certain methods, as for example when the lapis manalis is carried into the city.’ This stone lay by the temple of Mars, outside the Porta Capena; we learn from other passages that it was carried by the pontifices[1008], but we are not told what they did with it within the walls. It has been ingeniously suggested that this rain-spell, as we may call it, was a part of the cult of Jupiter Elicius, to whom there was an altar close by under the Aventine[1009], the cult-title being identical with the latter part of the word ‘aquaelicium[1010].’ We may agree that the stone had nothing to do with the temple of Mars, which happened to be near it, and also that any such rain-spell as this would be more likely to belong to the cult of Jupiter than of any other deity. The heaven-god, who launches the thunder-bolt, is naturally and almost everywhere also the rain-giver[1011]: and that this was one of the functions of Jupiter is fully attested, for later times at least[1012].

But it must be confessed that the evidence is very slight[1013]: and it is as well here to remember that the further we probe back into old Italian rites, the less distinctly can we expect to be able to connect them with particular deities. The formula ‘si deus, si dea es’ should always be borne in mind in attempting to connect gods and ceremonies. And this ceremony, like that of the Argei[1014] (which also wants a clearly-conceived deity as its object), is obviously a survival from a very primitive class of performances which Mr. Frazer has called acts of ‘sympathetic magic[1015].’ I am indebted to the _Golden Bough_ for a striking parallel to the rite of the lapis manalis, among many others which more or less resemble it. ‘In a Samoan village a certain stone was carefully housed as the representative of the rain-making god: and in time of drought his priests carried the stone in procession and dipped it in a stream[1016].’ What was done with the lapis manalis we are not told, but it is pretty plain from the word ‘manalis,’ and from the fragments of explanation which have come down to us from Roman scholars, that it was either the object of some splashing or pouring, or was itself hollow and was filled with water which was to be poured out in imitation of the desired rain[1017]. Such rites need not necessarily be connected by us with the name of a god: and the Jupiter Elicius, with whom it is sought to connect this one, was always associated by the Romans not with this obsolete rite, but with the elaborated science of augury which was in the main Etruscan[1018].

But this discussion has already been carried on as far as the scope of this work permits. It may be completed by any one who has the patience to work through Aust’s exhaustive article, examining his conclusions with the aid of his abundant references; but I doubt if anything will be found, beyond what I have mentioned, which bears closely on the question with which we set out. That question was, whether the distinctly anthropomorphic treatment of Jupiter in the ‘epulum Iovis’ could be explained by any native Italian practice in his cult (as Marquardt tried to explain it), or must be referred with Aust to foreign, i. e. Graeco-Etruscan, influence. I am driven to the conclusion that Aust is probably right. There is no real trace in Italy of an indigenous iconic representation of Jupiter. Trees and hills are apparently sacred to him, and possibly stones, though this last is doubtful: we find a sacrificial meal at the Latin festival, but no sign that he takes part in it as an image or statue. Elsewhere, as at Praeneste, peculiar representations of him arouse strong suspicions of foreign iconic influence. I think, on the whole, that the Italian peoples owed the sacred image to foreign works of art: and that the ‘epulum Iovis’ was introduced from Etruria by the Etruscan dynasty which built the Capitoline temple. It may, indeed, have been engrafted upon an earlier sacrificial meal like that of the feriae Latinae, or that of the curiae, or the rustic one of Jupiter dapalis: but, if so, the meal was one at which the ancient Romans were content to _believe_, as Ovid says, that the gods were present, and did not need, like the Greeks, the evidence of their eyes to help out their belief. Their gods were still aniconic when the wave of foreign ideas broke over them. We may say of the earliest Roman cult of Jupiter what Tacitus asserts of the Germans of his day[1019]: ‘nec cohibere parietibus deos neque in ullam humani oris speciem adsimulare ex magnitudine caelestium arbitrantur: lucos ac nemora consecrant, deorumque nominibus appellant secretum illud quod sola reverentia vident.’

* * * * *

September 13 was also the day on which, according to Livy[1020] and Verrius Flaccus[1021], a nail (_clavus_) was driven _annually_ by the ‘Praetor maximus’ into the wall of the cella of Minerva in the Capitoline temple, in obedience to an old lex which was fixed up on the wall of the temple adjoining this same cella. But Mommsen’s trenchant criticism[1022] of the _locus classicus_ for this subject in Livy has made it almost certain that the Roman scholars were here in error: that the ceremony was not an annual one, but took place once in a century, in commemoration of a vow made in 463 B.C., to commemorate the great pestilence of that year, which carried off both the consuls and several other magistrates[1023]: that it had no special connexion with the cult of Jupiter, and was not intended, as is generally supposed, to mark the years as they passed. The nail is really the symbol of Fortuna or Necessitas; the rite was Etruscan, and was also celebrated at Volsinii in the temple of the Etruscan deity of Fate; when brought to Rome it was very naturally located in the great temple of the Etruscan Trias, the religious centre of the Roman state. Originally a dictator was chosen (i. e. Praetor maximus) _clavi figendi causa_; and when the dictatorship was dropped after the Second Punic War, the ceremony was allowed to fall into oblivion. Later on the Roman antiquarians unearthed and misinterpreted it, believing it to have been a yearly rite of which the object was to mark the succession of years. This brief account of Mommsen’s view may suffice for the purpose of this work: but the subject is one that might with advantage be reinvestigated.

Footnote 930:

This represents the length which the ludi had attained in Cicero’s
time (_Verr._ i. 10. 31). September 4 was probably added after
Caesar’s death (Mommsen in _C. I. L._ 328).

Footnote 931:

_C. I. L._ 281.

Footnote 932:

_R. R._ I. 33.

Footnote 933:

See Mommsen’s masterly essay in his _Römische Forschungen_, vol. ii.
p. 42 foll. Aust, in _Myth. Lex._ s. v. Iuppiter, 732.

Footnote 934:

Mommsen, _Röm. Chronol._ 86 foll.

Footnote 935:

The ‘equorum probatio,’ preliminary to the races in the circus, took
place on the day after the Ides: see above, p. 27.

Footnote 936:

Mommsen (_C. I. L._ 328, and _Röm. Forsch._ ii. 43 foll.) points out
that the real centre-point and original day of the ludi proper was the
day of the great procession (pompa) from the Capitol to the Circus
maximus; and that this was probably the 15th, two days after the
epulum, because the 14th, being _postriduanus_, was unlucky, and that
day was also occupied by the ‘equorum probatio.’ (See Fasti Sab.,
Maff., Vall., Amit. and Antiat.)

Footnote 937:

See below, p. 234. For the _dies natalis_, see Aust, in _Lex._ s.v.
Iuppiter, p. 707; Plutarch, _Poplic._ 14.

Footnote 938:

Mommsen, _Röm. Forsch._ l. c.

Footnote 939:

Livy, 36. 2. 3. The passage refers to _ludi magni_, i. e. _special_
votive games, vowed after the fixed organization of the ludi Romani;
but it is none the less illustrative of the latter, as they originated
in votive games.

Footnote 940:

So Marq. 349 and note; Mommsen in _C. I. L._ 329, 335. I follow Aust,
_Lex._ s. v. Iuppiter, 732. The ‘epulum Minervae’ of the rustic
calendars is but slender evidence for an ancient and special connexion
of the goddess with this day; but Mommsen thinks that the epulum
‘magis Minervae quam Iovis fuisse.’

Footnote 941:

Aust, l. c.

Footnote 942:

Aust, _Lex._ s. v. Iuppiter, 670, 735.

Footnote 943:

In Capitolio (Gellius, 12. 8. 2; Liv. 38. 57. 5). For the collegium of
_epulones_, which from 196 B.C. had charge of this and other public
feasts, see Marq. 347 foll.

Footnote 944:

Val. Max. 2. 1. 2; Plin. _N. H._ 33. 111; Aust, l. c.; Preller, i.
120.

Footnote 945:

Marq. 348.

Footnote 946:

_R. R._ 132. Festus (68) explains daps as ‘res divina quae fiebat aut
hiberna semente aut verna,’ and Cato directs the farmer to begin to
sow after the ceremony he describes. I do not clearly understand
whether Marquardt intended also to connect the epulum Jovis of Nov. 13
with the autumn sowing.

Footnote 947:

I am unable to offer any explanation of these words, though half
inclined to suspect that Vesta was the original deity of this rite of
the farm, and that Jupiter and the wine-offering are later intrusions.

Footnote 948:

_Fasti_, 6. 307. For Vacuna see Preller, i. 408.

Footnote 949:

Bk. 2. 23 (cp. 2. 50); Marq. 195 foll. For a comparison of Greek and
Roman usage of this kind see de Coulanges, _La Cité antique_, p. 132
foll.

Footnote 950:

He compares this common meal with those of the πρυτανεῖα of Greek
cities, and also with the φιδίτια at Sparta. But it is most unlikely
that the practice of the curiae should have had any but a native
origin.

Footnote 951:

See cap. 7 of Ambrosch’s _Studien_; and cp. cap. 1 on the Regia as the
older centre.

Footnote 952:

I may relegate to a footnote the further conjecture that the original
deity of the epulum was Vesta. We know that this Sept. 13 was one of
the three days on which the Vestals prepared the _mola salsa_ (Serv.
_Ecl._ 8. 32). We cannot connect this _mola salsa_ with the cult of
Jupiter on this day, for the Vestals have no direct connexion with
that cult at any period of the year; but it is possible that it was a
survival from the time when the common meal took place in the Regia.

Footnote 953:

See Aust’s admirable and exhaustive article on Jupiter in Roscher’s
_Lexicon_.

Footnote 954:

Robertson Smith (_Religion of the Semites_, 42 foll.) seems to trace
the idea back to an actual physical fatherhood. Mr. Farnell, on the
other hand (_Cults of the Greek States_, i. 49), believes that in the
case of Zeus it expresses ‘rather a moral or spiritual idea than any
real theological belief concerning physical or human origins.’ In
Italy, I think, the suffix pater indicates a special connexion with a
particular stock, and one rather of guardianship than of actual
fatherhood. See above on Neptunalia.

Footnote 955:

See Jordan’s note on Preller, i. 56.

Footnote 956:

See my paper in _Classical Review_, vol. ix. 474 foll.

Footnote 957:

Wissowa, _de Feriis_, p. 6, in the true spirit of Italian worship,
concludes that it was ‘non per iustum matrimonium, sed ex officiorum
affinitate.’

Footnote 958:

Bücheler, _Umbrica_; Bréal, _Les Tables Eugubines_.

Footnote 959:

_Tab._ 1 B. (Bücheler, p. 2, takes it as a temple or sacellum of
_Juno_).

Footnote 960:

Grabovius is an epithet of Mars; Sancius of Fisius; Jovius or Juvius
of more than one deity.

Footnote 961:

Farnell, op. cit. i. 50 and notes.

Footnote 962:

Mommsen, _Unteritalische Dialekten_, 341; _Lex._ 637. The Jupiter
_Cacunus_ of _C. I. L._ 6. 371 and 9. 4876 also points to _high
places_, and there are other examples.

Footnote 963:

_Aen._ 9. 567.

Footnote 964:

Wordsworth, _Fragments and Specimens_, p. 564.

Footnote 965:

_Sat._ 1. 15. 14.

Footnote 966:

Deecke, _Etruskische Forschungen_, iv. 79 foll.

Footnote 967:

_Lex._ s. v. Iuppiter, p. 634.

Footnote 968:

Servius _Ecl._ 10. 27; _Dict. of Antiquities_ (ed. 2), s. v.
Triumphus.

Footnote 969:

Farnell, i. 184 foll. See also Dion. Hal. 1. 21. 2; Deecke, _Die
Falisker_, p. 88; _Lex._ s. v. Juno, 591; Roscher, _Juno und Hera_,
76.

Footnote 970:

_Lex._ 643.

Footnote 971:

H. Jordan, _Symbolae ad historiam religionum Italicarum alterae_.
Königsberg, 1885.

Footnote 972:

‘Orceria·Numeri·nationu·cratia·Fortuna·Diovo·filei·primocenia·donom
dedi’ (_C. I. L._ xiv. 2863). There are later inscriptions in which
she appears as ‘Iovis (or Iovi) puero,’ in the sense of female child
(_C. I. L._ xiv. 2862, 2868). The subject is discussed by Mommsen in
_Hermes_ for 1884, p. 455, and by Jordan op. cit. See also _Lex._ s.
v. Fortuna, 1542 foll., and s. v. Iuppiter, 648.

Footnote 973:

_Symbolae_, i. p. 8, and cp. 12. For the apparent parallel in the myth
of the birth of Mars see on March 1.

Footnote 974:

_Hermes_, 1884, p. 455 foll.

Footnote 975:

Gellius, _N. A._ 5. 12; Ovid, _Fasti_, 3. 429 foll.; and see above on
May 21. For Hercules, Jordan l. c. and his note on Preller, ii. 298.
For Caeculus, Wissowa, in _Lex._ s. v.

Footnote 976:

_C. I. L._ xiv. 2862 and 2868.

Footnote 977:

The _tria signa_ of Liv. 23. 19, placed ‘in aede Fortunae’ by M.
Anicius after his escape from Hannibal, with a dedication, may
possibly have been those of Fortuna and the two babes (Preller, ii.
192. note 1): but this is very doubtful.

Footnote 978:

Jordan, _Symbolae_, 10; _Lex._ s. v. Fortunae, 1543; Fernique, _Étude
sur Préneste_, 78.

Footnote 979:

Gerhard, _Antike Bildwerke_, Tab. iv. no. 1, gives an example: the
children here, however, are not babes, and the mother has her arms
round their necks. It seems more to resemble the types of Leto with
Apollo and Artemis as infants (_Lex._ s. v. Leto, 1973), as Prof.
Gardner suggests to me.

Footnote 980:

Ad _Aen._ 7. 799.

Footnote 981:

_Lex._ s. v. Iuppiter, 640.

Footnote 982:

See Fernique, _Étude sur Préneste_, pp. 79-81.

Footnote 983:

Fernique, op. cit. p. 79.

Footnote 984:

Fernique, 139 foll. Wissowa writes of Praeneste as ‘a special point of
connexion between Latin and Etruscan culture’ (_Lex._ s. v. Mercurius,
2813).

Footnote 985:

Plutarch, _Parallela_, 41.

Footnote 986:

See at end of April, p. 95.

Footnote 987:

Liv. 1. 31. 3 ‘visi etiam audire vocem ingentem ex summi cacuminis
luco, ut patrio ritu sacra Albani facerent.’

Footnote 988:

e. g. the vases of very primitive make (Henzen, _Acta Fratr. Arv._
30).

Footnote 989:

Liv. 27. 11 (B.C. 209).

Footnote 990:

Niebuhr, _Hist. of Rome_, ii. 37. Strong arguments are urged against
this view by Aust, _Lex._ 696.

Footnote 991:

Paul. Diac. 87. The lucus is mentioned in the corrupt fragments of the
Argean itinerary (see on May 15) in Varro, _L. L._ 5. 50 (see Jordan,
_Topogr._ ii, 242): where I am inclined to think the real reading is
‘Esquiliis cis Iovis lucum fagutalem’; ‘Iuppiter Fagutalis’ in Plin.
_N. H._ 16. 37; a ‘vicus Iovis Fagutalis,’ _C. I. L._ vi. 452 (110
A.D.).

Footnote 992:

For Iuppiter Viminius and his ara, Fest. 376.

Footnote 993:

Liv. 1. 10; Dionys. 2. 34; Propert. 5. (4.) 10.

Footnote 994:

For other examples of this practice see Bötticher, _Baumkultus_, pp.
73 and 134; Virgil, _Aen._ 10. 423, and Servius, ad loc.; Statius,
_Theb._ 2. 707.

Footnote 995:

Corn. Nep. _Atticus_, 20; cf. Mommsen, _Res Gestae Divi Augusti_, p.
53; Dion. Hal. 2. 34. 4. This is apparently what Livy alludes to in 1.
10, attributing it, after Roman fashion, to Romulus: ‘Templum his
regionibus, quas modo animo metatus sum, dedico sedem opimis spoliis.’
For a discussion of the shape of this temple see Aust, in _Lex._ s. v.
Iuppiter, 673. He is inclined to attribute it (679) to the A.
Cornelius Cossus who dedicated the second _spolia opima_ in B.C. 428
(Liv. 4. 20).

Footnote 996:

The meaning of the cult-title is obscure; _Lex._ s. v. Iuppiter, 673.

Footnote 997:

Paul. Diac. 92; Serv. _Aen._ 12. 206.

Footnote 998:

Aust, in _Lex._ 676. The idea is that of Helbig in his _Italiker in
der Poebene_, 91 foll. Cp. Schwegler, _Röm. Gesch._ i. 681, and
Preller, i. 248 foll. H. Nettleship, _Essays in Latin Literature_, p.
35, and Strachan-Davidson (Polybius, _Prolegomena_, viii) discuss the
oath _per Iovem lapidem_ usefully. Nettleship saw that the passage of
Servius is the only one which ‘gives any real support’ to the notion
that the god was represented by a stone; and Strachan-Davidson notes
the aetiological method of Servius.

Footnote 999:

Cp. his note on the ‘sceptrum’ (_Aen._ 12. 206), which he explains as
being the substitute for a ‘simulacrum’ of Jupiter. Was this
‘simulacrum’ a stone? If so he would have said so. Obviously he knew
little or nothing about these cult-objects.

Footnote 1000:

_de Civ. Dei_ 2. 29. S. Augustine couples it with the focus Vestae, as
something well known: and this could not be said at that time of any
object in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius. The epithet Capitolinus
would suit the stone of Terminus far better; and this is, in fact,
made almost certain by Servius’ language when speaking of Virgil’s
‘Capitoli immobile saxum’ (_Aen._ 9. 448), which he identifies with
the ‘lapidem ipsum Termini.’ Doubtless if we could be sure that such a
stone existed, we might guess that it was an aerolite
(Strachan-Davidson, p. 76, who quotes examples).

Footnote 1001:

So Nettleship, l. c.: and Strachan-Davidson, l. c.

Footnote 1002:

He quotes Plin. _N. H._ 37. 135 ‘cerauniae nigrae rubentesque et
similes securibus.’

Footnote 1003:

Communicated to Mr. Strachan-Davidson, and mentioned by him in a note
(op. cit. p. 77). An instance in Retzel, _History of Mankind_, vol. i.
p. 175. The other suggestion, that it was a meteoric stone, is also
quite possible: for Greek examples, see Schömann, _Griech.
Alterthümer_, ii. 171 foll.

Footnote 1004:

Liv. 30. 43.

Footnote 1005:

We may compare the ‘orbita’ of the cult of Jupiter Sancius at Iguvium:
Bücheler, _Umbrica_, 141. See above, p. 139.

Footnote 1006:

It may be as well to say, before leaving the subject, that I certainly
agree with Mr. Strachan-Davidson that the ordinary oath, ‘per Iovem
lapidem,’ where the swearer throws the stone away from him (described
by Polybius, 3. 25), has nothing to do with the ritual of the Fetials.

Footnote 1007:

Festus, p. 2. Cp. 128, where this stone is distinguished from the
other, which was the ‘ostium Orci.’ Serv. _Aen._ 3. 175.

Footnote 1008:

Serv. l. c. Marquardt, and Aust following him, add the matrons with
bare feet and the magistrates without their praetexta: but this rests
on the authority of Petronius (_Sat._ 44), who surely is not writing
of Rome, where the ceremony was only a tradition, to judge by Fest. p.
2.

Footnote 1009:

Varro, _L. L._ 6. 94.

Footnote 1010:

O. Gilbert, ii. 154: adopted by Aust, 658, who adds some slight
additional evidence: e. g. the ‘Iovem aquam exorabant’ of the passage
from Petronius.

Footnote 1011:

Tylor, _Prim. Cult._ ii. 235-7: for the Greek Zeus, Farnell, _Cults_,
i. 44 foll.

Footnote 1012:

Preller, i. 190. I cannot say that I find evidence earlier than the
passage of Tibullus, 1. 7. 26 (Jupiter Pluvius).

Footnote 1013:

Note that the Flamen Dialis is not mentioned along with the Pontifices
by Servius, l.c.

Footnote 1014:

See on May 15.

Footnote 1015:

_Golden Bough_, i. 11 foll.; Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_, 595 foll.;
abundant examples in the works of Mannhardt, see indices.

Footnote 1016:

From _Samoa_, by G. Turner, p. 145.

Footnote 1017:

Compare together Nonius, 547. 10; 559. 19 (s. v. trulleum), from
Varro; Festus, 128, s. v. ‘manalis lapis,’ from Verrius Flaccus. The
suggestion that the stone was hollow is O. Gilbert’s.

Footnote 1018:

Aust, _Lex._ 657, who believes the Romans to have been mistaken. The
_locus classicus_ is Ovid, _Fasti_, 3. 285 foll.; a more rational
account in Liv. 1. 20; Plin. _N. H._ 2. 140. Note the position of the
altar of this Jupiter, i. e. the Aventine.

Footnote 1019:

_Germania_, 9.

Footnote 1020:

7. 3.

Footnote 1021:

Festus, 55.

Footnote 1022:

In _Röm. Chronologie_, p. 175 foll. Preller (i. 258) had already seen
that the ceremony was a religious one, but believed it to be annual,
and used for the reckoning of time.

Footnote 1023:

‘An sich hat der Nagel gewiss mit dem Jahre nichts zu thun, sondern
steht in seiner natürlichen und wohlbekannten Bedeutung der
Schicksalsfestung, in welcher er als Attribut der grausen
Nothwendigkeit (saeva Necessitas), der Fortuna, der Atropos bei
römischen Schriftstellern und auf italischen Bildwerken begegnet.’
Mommsen, op. cit. 179. He alludes, of course, to Horace, _Od._ 1. 35,
and 3. 24, and to the Etruscan mirror mentioned by Preller (p. 259):
see Gerhard, _Etr. Spiegel_, i. 176. But the interpretation of this
mirror, as given by Preller, seems to me very doubtful.

MENSIS OCTOBER.

In the Italy of historical times, the one agricultural feature of this month was the vintage. The rustic calendars mark this with the single word _vindemiae_[1024]. The vintage might begin during the last few days of September, but October was its natural time, though it is now somewhat earlier: this point is clear both from Varro and Pliny[1025]. But the old calendars have preserved hardly a trace of this; and in fact the only feast which we can in any way connect with wine making (the Meditrinalia on the 11th) is obscure in name and its ritual unknown to us. We may infer that the practice of viticulture was a comparatively late introduction; and this is borne out by such facts as the absence of wine in the ritual of the Latin festival[1026], and the words of a _lex regia_ (ascribed to Numa) which forbade wine to be sprinkled on a funeral pile[1027]. Pliny also expressed a decided opinion that viticulture was _multo serior_: and lately Hehn[1028] has traced it to the Italian Greeks on etymological grounds. It can hardly have become a common occupation in Latium before the seventh or possibly even the eighth century B.C.

Probably if Ovid had continued his _Fasti_ to the end of the year we might have learnt much of interest about this month: as it is, we have only scraps of information about a very few primitive rites, only one of which can be said to be known to us in any detail; and the interpretation of that one is extremely doubtful.

KAL. OCT. (OCTOBER 1). N.

[FIDEI] IN CAPITOLIO. TIGILL[O] SOROR[IO] AD COMPITUM ACILI. (ARV.)

The sacrifice here indicated to Fides in the Capitol is clearly the one which Livy ascribes to Numa[1029]: ‘Et soli Fidei sollemne instituit. Ad id sacrarium flamines bigis, curru arcuato (i. e. ‘covered’) vehi iussit, manuque ad digitos usque involuta rem divinam facere: significantes fidem tutandam, sedemque eius etiam in dextris sacratam esse.’ Dionysius also mentions the foundation, without alluding to the peculiar ritual, but dwelling on the moral influence of the cult both in public and private life[1030].

The personification of a moral idea would hardly seem likely to be as old as Numa; yet there are points in the ritual which suggest a high antiquity, apart from tradition. It was the three chief flamines who thus drove to the Capitol—i. e. those of Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus; these at least were the three who had been just instituted by Numa (Liv. 1. 20), and to them Livy must be referring. As has been often pointed out, the presence of flamines at a rite is always evidence of its antiquity; and in this case they may have represented the union of the two communities of Septimontium and Quirinal in a common worship on the Capitol, this central point being represented by the Flamen Dialis. The curious fact that the right hands of these flamens were wrapped up to the fingers in white cloth is another obvious sign of antiquity, and is explained as meaning that the right hand, which was given to another in pledging one’s word, then as now[1031], was pure and clean, as was the mind of the pledger[1032]. A sacred object, statue or victim, was often thus wrapped or tied with fillets (_vittae_); and the μύσται in the Eleusinian mysteries seem to have worn a crocus-coloured band on the right hand and right foot[1033]. The statue of the goddess in her temple had probably the right hand so covered, if at least we are at liberty so to interpret the words of Horace, ‘albo Fides velata panno’[1034].

A word about the _tigillum sororium_[1035]. What this was, and where it was, can be made out with some certainty; beyond that all is obscure. It was a beam, renewed from time to time, let into the opposite walls of a street which led down from the Carinae to the Vicus Cyprius, now the via del Colosseo[1036]. It remained till at least the fourth century A.D. It is now generally explained as a primitive Janus-arch, apparently on the ground that one of the altars below it was to Janus Curiatius[1037]. As it seems, however, to have been a single beam, without supports except the street walls[1038], I am unable to understand this conclusion; and as the Roman antiquaries never supposed it to be such, we can hardly do so safely. They believed it to be a memorial of the expiation undergone by the legendary Horatius for the murder of his sister. Acquitted by the people on appeal, he had to make religious expiation, and this he did by the erection of an altar to Janus Curiatius, and another to Juno Sororia[1039], and by passing under a yoke, which was afterwards represented by the _tigillum_.

We may leave the _tigillum_ as really inexplicable, unless we are to accept the suggestion of Roscher[1040], that the germ of the legend is to be found in the practice of creeping through a split tree to get rid of spell or disease. The two altars demand a word.

Livy’s language seems to suggest that these were in the care of the gens Horatia[1041]: ‘Quibusdam piacularibus sacrificiis factis, quae deinde genti Horatiae tradita sunt.’ If so, perhaps the whole legend of Horatius, or at any rate its connexion with this spot, arose out of this gentile worship of two deities, of whom the cult-titles were respectively Curiatius and Sororia. The coincidence of Janus and Juno is natural enough; both were associated with the Kalends[1042]. But the original meaning of their cult-titles at the Tigillum remains unknown. All we can say is that the Janus of the _curiae_ and the Juno of a sister may certainly have given point to a legend of which the hero was acquitted by the Comitia Curiata for the murder of a sister[1043].

3 NON. OCT. (OCTOBER 5). C.

This was one of the three days on which the _mundus_ was open: see on August 24.

NON. OCT. (OCTOBER 7). F.

IOVI FULGURI, IUNONI CURRITI[1044] IN CAMPO. (ARV. PAUL.)

Of these worships in Rome nothing else is known. Iuno Curitis is the goddess of Falerii, whose supposed ἱερὸς γάμος was referred to above[1045].

V ID. OCT. (OCTOBER 11). NP.

MEDITR[INALIA]. (SAB. MAFF. AMIT.)

FERIAE IOVI. (AMIT.)

This was the day on which the new wine was tasted. There is no real evidence of a goddess Meditrina. The account in Paulus is as follows: ‘Mos erat Latinis populis, quo die quis primum gustaret mustum, dicere ominis gratia “Vetus novum vinum bibo, veteri novo morbo medeor.” A quibus verbis etiam Meditrinae deae nomen conceptum, eiusque sacra Meditrinalia dicta sunt[1046].’ Varro had already given the same account: ‘Octobri mense Meditrinalia dies, dictus a medendo, quod Flaccus flamen Martialis dicebat hoc die solitum vinum novum et vetus libari et gustari medicamenti causa: quod facere solent etiam nunc multi quom dicunt: Novum vetus vinum bibo, novo veteri vino morbo medeor.’

Note _a_. A parallel practice of tasting both old and new crops is to be found in the ritual of the Fratres Arvales, who in May ‘fruges aridas et virides contigerunt,’ i. e. the old grain and the new[1047].

Note _b_. The belief that the new wine (_mustum_) was wholesome and non-inebriating is discussed charmingly by Plutarch (_Quaest. Conv._ vii. 1).

Note _c_. Mommsen, _C. I. L._ 1. 2. 332, points out that the real deity here concerned was doubtless Jupiter: see under Vinalia, p. 86.

III ID. OCT. (OCTOBER 13). NP.

FONT[INALIA]. (SAB. MAFF. AMIT. MIN. IX.)

FERIAE FONTI. (AMIT.)

All we know of this very ancient festival is contained in a few words of Varro[1048]: ‘Fontinalia a Fonte, quod is dies feriae eius; ab eo tum et in fontes coronas iaciunt et puteos coronant.’

The holiness of wells and springs is too familiar to need illustration here. The original object of the garlanding was probably to secure abundant water.

It is generally assumed that there was a god Fons or Fontus, to whom this day was sacred. There was a delubrum Fontis[1049]; an ara Fonti on the Janiculum[1050]; and a porta Fontinalis in the Campus Martius. Fons also appears with Flora, Mater Larum, Summanus, &c., in the ritual of the Fratres Arvales[1051]. The case seems to be one of those in which multiplicity passes into a quasi-unity: but Fons did not survive long in the latter stage.

ID. OCT. (OCT. 15). NP.

EQUUS AD NIXAS FIT. (PHILOC.)

No calendar but the late one of Philocalus mentions the undoubtedly primitive rite of horse-sacrifice which took place on this day. Wissowa has tried to explain this difficulty, which meets us elsewhere in the Calendar, e. g. on the Ides of May (Argei), June 1 (festival of Carna)[1052]. Where two festivals fell on the same day, _both_ would not be found in calendars which were meant for the use, not of the pontifices themselves, but of the unlearned vulgar; for the latter would not be able to distinguish, or to get one clear name for the day, and confusion would result. Now all Kalends and Ides were sacred to Juno and Jupiter respectively; all other rites falling on these days would stand a chance of being omitted, unless indeed they were noticed in later annotations such as we find cut in smaller letters in the Fasti Praenestini and others.

Luckily the entry in Philocalus’ calendar is supplemented sufficiently from other sources. The earliest hint we get comes from the Greek historian Timaeus, and is preserved in a fragment of the twelfth book of Polybius[1053]. Timaeus after the Greek fashion connects the horse-sacrifice with the legend of Troy and the wooden horse: but he also tells us the important detail that on a certain day _a war-horse was killed with a spear in the Campus Martius_[1054]. The passage is no doubt characteristic of Timaeus, both in regard to the detail, and the mythology which Polybius despised. But though we do not know that Timaeus was ever at Rome, we may hope that he was correct in the one particular which we do not learn from other sources, viz. the slaughter of the horse with the sacred weapon of Mars.

Fuller information comes from Verrius Flaccus, as represented in the epitomes of Festus and Paulus Diaconus[1055]. On this day there was a two-horse chariot race in the Campus Martius; and the near horse of the winning pair was sacrificed to Mars—killed with a spear, if we may believe Timaeus. The place is indicated in Philocalus’ calendar as ‘ad nixas,’ i. e. the _ciconiae nixae_, which seem to have been three storks carved in stone with bills crossing each other[1056]: this however was non-existent under the Republic. The real scene of the sacrifice must have been an old ‘ara Martis,’ and that there was such an altar in the Campus we know for certain, though we cannot definitely fix its position[1057]. The tail of the horse was cut off and carried with speed to the Regia so that the warm blood might drip upon the focus or sacred hearth there. The head also was cut off and decked with cakes; and at one time there was a hard fight for its possession between the men of the two neighbouring quarters of the Via Sacra and the Subura. If the former carried off the prize, they fixed it on the wall of the Regia; if the latter, on the turris Mamilia[1058].

It is probable[1059], though not quite certain, that the congealed blood from the tail was used, together with the ashes of the unborn calves sacrificed on the Fordicidia, as ‘medicine’ to be distributed to the people at the Parilia on April 21.

The rite of the ‘October-horse’ had been adequately described and in some degree explained by Preller, Marquardt, Schwegler, and others[1060], before the late Dr. Mannhardt took it in hand not long before his death[1061]. Mannhardt studied it in the light of his far-reaching researches in folk-lore, and succeeded in treating it as all such survivals should be treated, i.e. in bringing it into relation with the practices of other peoples—not so much by way of explaining its original meaning precisely, as in order to make some progress by its help towards an understanding of the attitude of primitive man to the supernatural. His conclusions have been generally accepted, and, with very slight modifications, are to be found in Mr. Frazer’s _Golden Bough_ (ii. 64), and in Roscher’s article ‘Mars’ in the _Mythological Lexicon_ (2416). Recently, however, they have been called in question by no less a person than Prof. Wissowa[1062] of Berlin, who seems to take a different view of the Mars-cult from that at which we thought we had at last safely arrived: it may be as well therefore to give yet another account of Mannhardt’s treatment of the question, and to follow his track somewhat more elaborately than Mr. Frazer. It does not of course follow that he has said the last word; but it is as well to begin by making clear what he _has_ said.

1. This is _the last of the series of harvest festivals_, as we may call them generically. We have had the Ambarvalia and the plucking of the first ears by the Vestals in May: the Vestalia in June[1063]; the festivals of Consus and Ops Consiva in August; and lastly we find this one coming after all the fruits of the land have been gathered in. In this respect it is parallel to the Pyanepsia and Oschophoria of the Greeks, to the Jewish feast of Tabernacles[1064], and to the true Michaelmas harvest-festivals of modern Europe, which follow at an interval the great variety of quaint harvest customs which occur at the actual in-gathering. Even now in the Roman Campagna there is a lively festival of this kind in October.