Chapter VI: Part 6

We have to choose between the two explanations given above. I am, on the whole, disposed to agree with Dr. Mannhardt, and in the absence of convincing evidence as to the regular and periodical occurrence of human sacrifice in ancient Italy, to regard these strange survivals as semi-dramatic performances rather than sacrificial rites. This view, however, need not exclude the possibility of the union of both drama and sacrifice at a very remote period, probably before the Latins settled in the district.

The immersion in water, whether or no it involved the death of a victim, is reasonably explained, on the basis of comparative evidence, to have been a _rain-spell_[465]. In the cases already mentioned of Adonis, Nerthus, &c., this idea seems the prominent one. I am inclined to think, however, that the notion of purification was also present—the two uniting in the idea of regeneration. Plutarch calls the Argean rite ‘the greatest of the purifications,’ and he is here most probably reproducing the opinion of Varro[466]. This is indicated by the presence of the priests and the Vestals, by the processions, and by the mourning of the Flaminica Dialis, as we have already seen. We may regard the rite as in fact a casting out of old things, and in that sense a purification; and also at the same time as a spell or earnest of rain and fertility in the ensuing year. The puppets were perhaps hung in the sacella in the course of the procession in March, as a symbol of the fertility then beginning, and cast into the river as ‘the old ones’ when that fertility had reached its height[467].

In the last place, it might be asked in honour of what deity the rite was performed. It is hardly necessary, and certainly is not possible, to answer a question about which the Romans themselves were not agreed. Ovid and Dionysius[468] believed it was Saturnus, probably following an old Greek oracle which was known to Varro[469]. Verrius Flaccus thought it was Dis Pater[470]. Modern writers have concluded on the general evidence of the rite that it was the river-god Tiberinus; Jordan, however, regarded the question as irrelevant[471]. We may agree with him, and at least return a verdict of _non liquet_. If it was a sacrificial act, the ancient river-god is indeed likely enough; if it was a quasi-dramatic one, it does not follow that any deity was specially concerned in it. But we may go so far as to guess that it was connected with the worship of those vaguely-conceived deities of vegetation whose influence on the calendar we have been tracing since March 1.

This same day is marked in one calendar as Feriae Iovi, Mercurio, Maiae. The conjunction of these deities is to some extent accidental. In the first place the Ides of every month were sacred to Jupiter; and the addition of Mercurius is probably to be explained simply by the adaptation of a Greek myth which made Hermes the son of Jupiter, suggesting the selection of the Ides as an appropriate day for the cult of the Latin representative of Hermes[472]. Mercurius, again, was associated with Maia, perhaps simply because the dedication-day of his oldest temple in Rome (_ad circum maximum_) was the Ides of the Mensis Maius[473]. The Roman Mercurius was considered especially as the god of trade, and dated, like Ceres, from the time when an extensive corn trade first began in Rome[474]. It is highly probable that the Tarquinian dynasty had encouraged Roman trade, and that the increase of population which was the result, together with the wars which followed their expulsion, had occasioned a series of severe famines. To this we trace the Roman knowledge of the Greek or Graeco-Etruscan Hermes, through a trade in corn with Sicilian Greeks or Etruscans, and the appearance of the god at Rome as Mercurius, the god of trade. His first temple was dedicated in B.C. 495, and as in other cases, the dedication was celebrated each year by those specially interested in the worship, in this case the _mercatores_, who were already, at this early period, formed into an organized guild[475].

XII KAL. IUN. (MAY 21). NP.

AGON[IA][476]. (ESQ. CAER. VEN. MAFF.)

VEDIOVI. (VEN.)

The other days sacred to Vediovis were January 1 and the Nones of March, from which latter day we postponed the consideration of this mysterious deity, in hopes of future enlightenment. But Vediovis is wrapped still, and always will be, in at least as profound an obscurity for us as he was for Varro and Ovid.

We have but his name to go upon, and two or three indistinct traces of his cult. The name seems certainly to be Vediovis, i. e. apparently ‘the opposite of,’ or ‘separated from,’ Jupiter (= Diovis); or, as Preller has it[477], comparing, like Ovid, _vegrandia farra_ (‘corn that has grown badly’), _vescus_, &c., Jupiter in a sinister sense. But this last explanation must, on the whole, be rejected. It is true that each deity has a sinister or threatening aspect as well as a smiling one; but in no other case was this separately personified, and the name, if its origin be rightly given as above (which is not indeed certain), might be explained by the well-known Roman habit of calling deities by their qualities and their business rather than by substantival names. In this case the name would be negatively deduced from that of one of the few gods who really had a name.

What we know of the cult is only this. First, it was peculiar, so far as we know, to Rome and Bovillae[478]; secondly, the temples in Rome were in the space between the arx and Capitolium, ‘inter duos lucos’[479], and another in the Tiber island[480]—two places outside the Servian wall, and of importance for the security of the city; thirdly, the god was represented as young, holding arrows, and having a goat standing beside him, on account of which characteristics he was usually, according to Gellius, identified with Apollo[481]; fourthly, the usual victim was a goat which was sacrificed _humano ritu_[482].

On such faint traces it will be obvious that no sound conclusion can be based. The connexion with Bovillae and the gens Julia points to a genuine Latin origin. The sites on the Capitol and the island do not lead to any definite conclusion; in the former the god seems to have been connected with the so-called Asylum, in the latter with Aesculapius; but both these connexions may be accidental or later developments. Preller conjectured cleverly that Vediovis was a god of criminals who might take refuge in Rome and there find purification; but the idea of an Asylum, on which this is based, is Greek, and of much later date than any age which could have given a definite meaning to such a deity. We must here, as occasionally elsewhere, give up the attempt to discover the original nature of this god.

X KAL. IUN. (MAY 23). NP.

TUBIL[USTRIUM]. (ESQ. CAER. VEN. MAFF.)

FER[IAE] VOLCANO. (VEN. AMIT.)

I have already explained[483] the view taken by Mommsen of the two pairs of days, March 23 and 24 and May 23 and 24, accepting his theory that the 24th in each month was the day on which wills could be made and witnessed in the Comitia calata, and that the 23rd in each month was the day on which the _tubae_ were lustrated by which the assembly was summoned.

But May 23 is also marked in two calendars as _feriae Volcano_; and Ovid has noticed this in a single couplet:[484]

Proxima Volcani lux est: Tubilustria dicunt;
Lustrantur purae, quas facit ille, tubae.

The difficult question of the original character of Volcanus must be postponed until we come to his festival in August. We only need here to ask whether Ovid was right in regarding Volcanus as the smith who made the trumpets. This has been strenuously denied by Wissowa[485], who goes so far as to believe that the deity originally invoked on this day was not Volcanus but Mars—since the corresponding day in March was a festival of that deity—and that Volcanus was at an early period thrust into his place under the influence of Greek notions of Hephaestus as a smith who made armour and also trumpets. Wissowa has, however, to throw over the two calendars quoted above (Ven. Amit.) in order to support his argument—and so far we are hardly entitled to go.

It is safer to take Volcanus as an ancient Roman deity whose cult was closely connected with that of Maia, or the Bona Dea, and was prominent in this month as well as in August. The Flamen Volcanalis sacrificed to the Bona Dea on May 1; and Maia was addressed in invocations as Maia Volcani[486]. The coincidence of this festival of his with the Tubilustrium I take to have been accidental; but it led naturally, as the Romans became acquainted with Greek mythology, to the erroneous view represented by Ovid that Volcanus was himself a smith[487].

VIII KAL. IUN. (MAY 25). C.

FORTUNAE P[UBLICAE] P[OPULI] R[OMANI] Q[UIRITIUM] IN COLLE QUIRIN[ALI]. (CAER.)

FORTUN[AE] PUBLIC[AE] P[OPULI] R[OMANI] IN COLL[E]. (ESQ.)

FORTUN[AE] PRIM[IGENIAE] IN COL[LE]. (VEN.)

This was the dedication-day of one of three temples of Fortuna on the Quirinal; the place was known as ‘tres Fortunae[488].’ The goddess in this case was Fortuna Primigenia, imported from Praeneste—of whom something will be said later on[489]. The temple was vowed after the Second Punic War in B.C. 204, and dedicated ten years later[490]. Our consideration of Fortuna may be postponed till the festival of Fors Fortuna, an older Roman form of the cult, on June 24.

KAL. IUN. (MAY 29). C.

The Ambarvalia, originally a religious procession round the land of the early Roman community, the object of which was to purify the crops from evil influences, does not appear in the Julian calendars, not being _feriae stativae_; but it is indicated in the later rustic calendars by the words, _Segetes lustrantur_. Its date may be taken as May 29[491]: and this fixity will not appear incompatible with its character as a _sacrum conceptivum_, if we accept Mommsen’s explanation of the way in which some feasts might be fixed to a day according to the usage of the Italian farmer, but of varying date according to the civil calendar[492].

There has been much discussion whether the Ambarvalia was identical with the similar festival of the Fratres Arvales. On the ground that the _acta fratrum Arvalium_ seemed to prove a general similarity of the two in time and place, and at least in some points of ritual, Mommsen, Henzen, and Jordan answer in the affirmative[493]. On the other side there is no authority of any real weight. The judicious Marquardt[494] found a difficulty in the absence of any mention in the _acta fratrum Arvalium_ of a lustratio in the form of a procession; but it should be remembered (1) that we have not the whole of the _acta_; (2) that it is almost certain that, as the Roman territory continued to increase, the brethren must have dropped the duty of driving victims round it, for obvious reasons. A passage in Paulus[495] places the matter beyond doubt if we can be sure of the reading: ‘_Ambarvales hostiae dicebantur quae pro arvis a duodecim_ (MSS. duobus) _fratribus sacrificantur._’ As no _duo fratres_ are known, the old emendation _duodecim_ seems certain, but will of course not convince those who disbelieve in the identity of the Ambarvalia and the sacra fratrum Arvalium. The question is, however, for us of no great importance, as the _acta_ do not add to our knowledge of what was done at the Ambarvalia.

The best description we have of such lustrations as the Ambarvalia is that of Virgil; it is not indeed to be taken as an exact description of the Roman rite, but rather as referring to Italian customs generally:

In primis venerare deos, atque annua magnae
Sacra refer Cereri laetis operatus in herbis,
Extremae sub casum hiemis, iam vere sereno.
Tum pingues agni, et tum mollissima vina;
Tum somni dulces densaeque in montibus umbrae.
Cuncta tibi Cererem pubes agrestis adoret,
Cui tu lacte favos et miti dilue Baccho,
Terque novas circum felix eat hostia fruges,
Omnis quam chorus et socii comitentur ovantes,
Et Cererem clamore vocent in tecta; neque ante
Falcem maturis quisquam supponat aristis,
Quam Cereri torta redimitus tempora quercu
Det motus inconpositos et carmina dicat[496].

It is not clear to what festival or festivals Virgil is alluding in the first few of these lines[497]; probably to certain rustic rites which did not exactly correspond to those in the city of Rome. But from line 343 onwards the reference is certainly to Ambarvalia of some kind, perhaps to the private _lustratio_ of the farmer before harvest began, of which the Roman festival was a magnified copy. His description answers closely to the well-known directions of Cato[498]; and if it is Ceres who appears in Virgil’s lines, and not Mars, the deity most prominent in Cato’s account, this may be explained by the undoubted extension of the worship of Ceres, and the corresponding contraction of that of Mars, as the latter became more and more converted into a god of war[499].

The leading feature in the original rite was the procession of victims—bull, sheep, and pig—all round the fields, driven by a garlanded crowd, carrying olive branches and chanting. These victims represent all the farmer’s most valuable stock, thus devoted to the appeasing of the god. The time was that when the crops were ripening, and were in greatest peril from storms and diseases; before the harvest was begun, and before the Vestalia took place in the early part of June, which was, as we shall see, a festival preliminary to harvest. Three times the procession went round the land; at the end of the third round the victims were sacrificed, and a solemn prayer was offered in antique language, which ran, in Cato’s formula of the farmer’s lustration, as follows: ‘Father Mars, I pray and beseech thee to be willing and propitious to me, my household, and my slaves; for the which object I have caused this threefold sacrifice to be driven round my farm and land. I pray thee keep, avert, and turn from us all disease, seen or unseen, all desolation, ruin, damage, and unseasonable influence; I pray thee give increase to the fruits, the corn, the vines, and the plantations, and bring them to a prosperous issue. Keep also in safety the shepherds and their flocks, and give good health and vigour to me, my house, and household. To this end it is, as I have said—namely, for the purification and making due lustration of my farm, my land cultivated and uncultivated—that I pray thee to bless this threefold sacrifice of sucklings. O Father Mars, to this same end I pray thee bless this threefold sacrifice of sucklings[500].’

Not only in this prayer, but in the ritual that follows, as also in other religious directions given in the preceding chapters, we may no doubt see examples of the oldest agricultural type of the genuine Italian worship. They are simple rustic specimens of the same type as the elaborate urban ritual of Iguvium, fortunately preserved to us[501]; and we may fairly assume that they stood in much the same relation to the Roman ritual of the Ambarvalia.

Of all the Roman festivals this is the only one which can be said with any truth to be still surviving. When the Italian priest leads his flock round the fields with the ritual of the Litania major in Rogation week he is doing very much what the Fratres Arvales did in the infancy of Rome, and with the same object. In other countries, England among them, the same custom was taken up by the Church, which rightly appreciated its utility, both spiritual and material; the bounds of the parish were fixed in the memory of the young, and the wrath of God was averted by an act of duty from man, cattle, and crops. ‘It was a general custom formerly, and is still observed in some country parishes, to go round the bounds and limits of the parish on one of the three days before Ascension-day; when the Minister, accompanied by his Churchwardens and Parishioners, was wont to deprecate the vengeance of God, beg a blessing on the fruits of the earth, and preserve the rights and properties of the parish[502].’

At Oxford, and it is to be hoped in some other places, this laudable custom still survives. But the modern clergy, from want of interest in ritual, except such as is carried on within their churches, or from some strong distrust of any merry-making not initiated by their own zeal, are apt to drop the ceremonies; and there is some danger that even in Oxford the processions and peeled wands may soon be things of the past. To all such ministers I would recommend the practice of the judicious Hooker, as described by his biographer, Isaak Walton:

‘He would by no means omit the customary time of procession,
persuading all, both rich and poor, if they desired the preservation
of Love, and their Parish rights and liberties, to accompany him in
his Perambulation—and most did so; in which Perambulation he would
usually express more pleasant Discourse than at other times, and
would then always drop some loving and facetious Observations, to be
remembered against the next year, especially by the Boys and young
people; still inclining them, and all his present Parishioners, to
meekness and mutual Kindnesses and Love.’

At Charlton-on-Otmoor, near Oxford, there was a survival of the ‘agri lustratio’ until recent years. On the beautiful rood-screen of the parish church there is a cross, which was carried in procession through the parish[503], freshly decorated with flowers, on May-day; it was then restored to its place on the screen, and remained there until the May-day of the next year. It may still be seen there, but it is no longer carried round, and its decoration seems to have been transferred from May-day to the harvest-festival[504].

Footnote 363:

Sat. 1. 12. 16.

Footnote 364:

See above, Introduction, p. 11.

Footnote 365:

So Varro also (_L. L._ 6. 33). But Censorinus (_De die natali_, 20. 2)
expressly ascribes to Varro the derivation from Maia; the great
scholar apparently changed his view.

Footnote 366:

For Iup. Maius see Aust, in _Myth. Lex._ s. v. Iuppiter, p. 650.

Footnote 367:

This was probably not the early historian Cincius Alimentus, but a
contemporary of Augustus, Teuffel, _Hist. of Roman Literature_, sec.
106. For the flamen Volcanalis see on Aug 23.

Footnote 368:

i. e. on the Ides: see below, p. 120. The connexion between Mercurius
and Maia seems to arise simply from the fact that the dedication of
the temple of the former was on the Ides of this month.

Footnote 369:

Ovid, _Fasti_, 6. 59 foll.; Mommsen, _Chron._ 218.

Footnote 370:

The etymology was defended by Roscher in Fleckeisen’s _Jahrbuch_ for
1875, and in his _Iuno und Hera_, p. 105.

Footnote 371:

_Fasti_, 5. 129 foll. For the doubtful reading _Curibus_ in 131 see
Peter, ad loc.; Preller-Jordan, ii. 114.

Footnote 372:

_Fasti_, 5. 143; Plutarch, _Quaest. Rom._ 51.

Footnote 373:

This appears on coins of the gens Caesia: Cohen, _Méd. Cons._ pl.
viii. Wissowa, in _Myth. Lex._, s. v. Lares, gives a cut of the coin,
on which the Lares are represented sitting with a dog between them.
See note at the end of this work (Note B) on the further
interpretation of these coins.

Footnote 374:

See Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, 414 foll.

Footnote 375:

Farnell, _Cults_, ii. 515. Hekate was certainly a deity of the earth.
Cf. Plut. _Q. R._ 68.

Footnote 376:

See on Robigalia, April 25.

Footnote 377:

_Quaest. Rom._ 52 and 111; cf. _Romulus_ 21.

Footnote 378:

So Jevons, _Roman Questions_, Introduction, xli.

Footnote 379:

De-Marchi, _La Religione nella vita domestica_, 48. Wissowa (_Myth.
Lex._, s. v. Lares, p. 1872) prefers the old interpretation, much as
Plutarch gives it.

Footnote 380:

_Fasti_, 5. 149 foll.

Footnote 381:

Aust, _De Aedibus sacris_, p. 27. It was apparently before 123 B.C.,
when a Vestal Virgin, Licinia, added an _aedicula_, _pulvinar_, and
_ara_ to it (Cic. _de Domo_, 136).

Footnote 382:

Wissowa, in Pauly’s _Real-Encyclopädie_, s. v. Bona Dea, 690. See
above, p. 69.

Footnote 383:

See below, under Dec. 3. There can be hardly a doubt that this
December rite was the one famous for the _sacrilegium_ of Clodius in
62 B.C., though Prof. Beesly rashly assumed the contrary in his essay
on Clodius (_Catiline, Clodius, and Tiberius_, p. 45 note). Plutarch,
_Cic._ 19 and 20; Dio Cass. 37. 35.

Footnote 384:

Ovid, l. c. ‘oculos exosa viriles.’ Cp. _Ars Amat._ 3. 637. On this
and other points in the cult see R. Peter in _Myth. Lex._, and
Wissowa, l. c. The latter seems to refer most of them to the December
rite; but Ovid and Macrobius expressly connect them with the _temple_.
Macr. 1. 12. 25 foll.

Footnote 385:

Propert. 4. 9; Macr. 1. 12. 28.

Footnote 386:

Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, ii. 245 foll.

Footnote 387:

See below, p. 143. _Lex. Myth._ s. v. Hercules, 2258.

Footnote 388:

Macr. l. c. Plutarch also knew of this (_Quaest. Rom._ 20).

Footnote 389:

Otherwise in Lactantius, 1. 22. 11, and Arnob. 5. 18, where Fauna is
said to have been beaten because she drank wine; no doubt a later
version. Lactantius quotes Sext. Clodius, a contemporary of Cicero.

Footnote 390:

_H. N._ 14. 88. See above on feriae Latinae, p. 97. Virg. _Ecl._ 5.
66; _Georg._ 1. 344; _Aen._ 5. 77. In the last passage milk is offered
to the _inferiae_ of Anchises: we may note the similarity of the cult
of Earth-deities and of the dead.

Footnote 391:

Plut. _Q. R._ 20; Macrob. l. c.; Lactant. l. c. The myth has been
explained as Greek (Wissowa, in Pauly, 688), but its peculiar feature,
the whipping, could hardly have become attached to a Roman cult unless
there were something in the cult to attach it to, or unless the cult
itself were borrowed from the Greek. That the latter was the case it
is impossible to prove; and I prefer to believe that both cult and
myth were Roman.

Footnote 392:

_Mythologische Forschungen_, 115 foll. Cp. Frazer, _Golden Bough_, ii.
213 foll.

Footnote 393:

Below, p. 320. See also on July 7 (Nonae Caprotinae).

Footnote 394:

Macrob. l. c. ‘Quidam Medeam putant, quod in aede eius omne genus
herbarum sit ex quibus antistites dant plerumque medicinas.’

Footnote 395:

_C. I. L._ vi. 54 foll.

Footnote 396:

This no doubt gave rise to the myth that Faunus ‘coisse cum filia’ in
the form of a snake. Here again the myth may possibly be Greek, but we
have no right to deny that it may have had a Roman basis. Snakes were
kept in great numbers both in temples and houses in Italy
(Preller-Jordan, i. 87, 385).

Footnote 397:

Plin. _H. N._ 29 _passim_, especially 14, &c., where Cato is quoted as
detesting the new Greek art, and urging his son to stick to the old
simples; some of which, with their absurd charms, are given in Cato,
R. R. 156 foll.

Footnote 398:

Macrob. l. c.; Juv. _Sat._ 2. 86.

Footnote 399:

Marq. 173. Gilbert (_Gesch. und Topogr._ ii. 159, note) has some
impossible combinations on this subject, and concludes that the Bona
Dea was a moon-goddess.

Footnote 400:

See above, p. 72 foll.

Footnote 401:

Paulus, 68 ‘Damium sacrificium, quod fiebat in operto in honorem Bonae
deae, ... dea quoque ipsa Damia et sacerdos eius damiatrix
appellabatur.’

Footnote 402:

R. Peter in _Myth. Lex._, s. v. Damia; Wissowa, l. c.

Footnote 403:

Paulus, l. c.

Footnote 404:

Lactantius, 1. 22; Serv. _Aen._ 8. 314.

Footnote 405:

Preuner, _Hestia-Vesta_, 407 foll. For Lucina, Gilbert, l. c.

Footnote 406:

The combination of the idea of female fecundity with that of the earth
is of course common enough. Here is a good example from Abyssinia:
‘She (Atetie) is the goddess of fecundity, and women are her principal
votaries; but, as she can also make the earth prolific, offerings are
made to her for that purpose’ (Macdonald, _Religion and Myth_, p. 42).

Footnote 407:

_Fasti_, 5. 421 foll.

Footnote 408:

See Introduction, p. 15.

Footnote 409:

Huschke (_Röm. Jahr_, 17) tried to prove that the Lemuria was the
‘Todtenfest’ of the Sabine city, the Feralia that of the Latin; but
his arguments have convinced no one.

Footnote 410:

_Fasti_, 5. 423.

Footnote 411:

_G. B._ ii. 157 foll.; Macdonald, _Religion and Myth_, ch. vi.

Footnote 412:

Introduction, p. 10.

Footnote 413:

Tylor, _Prim. Cult._ ii. 24. The friendly attitude is well illustrated
in F. de Coulanges’ _La Cité antique_, ch. ii.

Footnote 414:

On Hor. _Ep._ 2. 2. 209.

Footnote 415:

Non. p. 135. Cp. Festus, s. v. faba: ‘Lemuralibus iacitur larvis,’ i.
e. ‘the bean is thrown to _larvae_ at the Lemuralia.’ Serv. _Aen._ 3.
63.

Footnote 416:

_de Genio Socratis_, 15. The passage is interesting, but historically
worthless, as is that of Martianus Capella, 2. 162.

Footnote 417:

_Fasti_, 5. 451 foll.; Porph. l. c. Remus, as one dead before his
time, would not lie quiet: ‘Umbra cruenta Remi visa est adsistere
lecto,’ &c.

Footnote 418:

See e. g. Von Duhn’s paper on Italian excavations, translated in the
_Journal of Hellenic Studies_ for 1897.

Footnote 419:

‘Habent vincula nulla pedes’ (_Fasti_, 5. 432). In performing sacred
rites a man must be free; e. g. the Flamen Dialis might not wear a
ring, or anything binding, and a fettered prisoner had to be loosed in
his house (Plut. _Q. R._ 111). Cp. Numa in his interview with Faunus
(Ov. _Fasti_, 4. 658), ‘Nec digitis annulus ullus inest.’ Serv. _Aen._
4. 518; Hor. _Sat._ 1. 8. 24.

Footnote 420:

_Manes_ must be here used, either loosely by the poet, or
euphemistically by the house-father.

Footnote 421:

It is curious to find them used for the very same purpose of
ghost-ridding as far away as Japan (Frazer, _Golden Bough_, ii. 176).
For their antiquity as food, Hehn, _Kulturpflanzen_, 459; Schrader,
_Sprachvergleichung_, 362.

Footnote 422:

A. Lang, _Myth_, &c., ii. 265; Jevons, _Roman Questions_, Introd. p.
lxxxvi; O. Crusius, _Rhein. Mus._ xxxix. 164 foll.; and especially
Lobeck, _Aglaoph._ 251 foll. For superstitions of a similar kind
attached to the mandrake and other plants see Sir T. Browne’s _Vulgar
Errors_, bk. ii. ch. 6; Rhys, _Celtic Mythology_, p. 356 (the berries
of the rowan).

Footnote 423:

There was a notion that beans sown in a manure-heap produced men. Cp.
Plin. _H. N._ 18. 118 ‘quoniam mortuorum animae sint in ea.’

Footnote 424:

Gell. 10. 15. 2 (from Fabius Pictor).

Footnote 425:

Serv. _Ecl._ 8. 82; Marq. 343 note. Mannhardt, _A. W. F._ 269,
attempts an explanation of the difficulty arising here from the fact
that in historical times the calendar was some weeks in advance of the
seasons, but without much success.

Footnote 426:

This note is wrongly entered in the Fasti Venusini, under May 16.

Footnote 427:

Festus, 245, s. v. Publica sacra. Cp. Mommsen, _Staatsrecht_, iii.
123. Festus distinguishes _pagi_, _montes_, _sacella_, of which the
festivals would seem to be the Paganalia, Septimontium, and sacra
Argeorum, respectively.

Footnote 428:

See under March 17. We arrive at the procession by comparing the
Varronian extracts from the sacra Argeorum (_L. L._ 545) with Gellius,
10. 15.30, and Ovid, _Fasti_, 3. 791. See a restoration of the
itinerary of the procession in Jordan, _Topogr._ ii. 603.

Footnote 429:

Sacella in Varro (_L. L._ 545); sacraria, ib. 548; Argea in Festus,
334, where the word seems to be an adjective; Argei in Liv. 1. 24
‘loca sacris faciendis, quae Argeos pontifices vocant.’ The number
depends on the reading of Varro, 7. 44, xxiv or xxvii; Jordan decided
for xxiv: but see Mommsen, _Staatsrecht_, iii. 123.

Footnote 430:

_Fasti_, 3. 791.

Footnote 431:

Jordan, _Topogr._ ii. 271 foll.

Footnote 432:

Dionysius, 1. 38; Ovid, _Fasti_, 5. 621 foll.; Festus, p. 334, s. v.
Sexagenarii; Plutarch, _Q. R._ 32 and 86.

Footnote 433:

Dionysius says there were thirty; he had probably seen the ceremony,
but may have only made a rough guess at the number or have thought of
the thirty Curiae. Ovid writes of two: ‘Falcifero libata seni duo
corpora gentis Mittite,’ &c. (Jordan proposed to read ‘senilia’ for
‘seni duo.’)

Footnote 434:

Festus, 334.

Footnote 435:

Festus, l. c.; Cicero, _pro Roscio Amerino_, 35. 100. _Sexagenarios de
ponte_ was apparently an old saying (cp. ‘depontani,’ Festus, 75); the
earliest notice we have of it, which comes from the poet Afranius,
seems to connect it with the pons sublicius.

Footnote 436:

‘The etymology will of course explain a word, but only if it happens
to be right; the history of the word is a surer guide’ (Skeat). In
this case we have not even the history.

Footnote 437:

See Schwegler, i 383. note; Marq. 183. Mommsen (_Staatsrecht_, iii.
123) reverts to the opinion that Argei is simply Ἀργεῖοι, and
preserves a reminiscence of Greek captives. Nettleship, in his _Notes
in Latin Lexicography_, p. 271, is inclined to connect the word with
‘arcere’, in the sense of confining prisoners. More fanciful
developments in a paper by O. Keller, in Fleckeisen’s _Jahrbuch_,
cxxxiii. 845 foll.

Footnote 438:

The puppets may have been made in March, and then hung in the sacella
till May: so Jordan, _Topogr._ l. c. The writer in _Myth. Lex._ thinks
that human victims were originally kept in these sacella, for whom the
puppets were surrogates.

Footnote 439:

There is an interesting modern parallel in Mannhardt, _A. W. F._ 178.

Footnote 440:

Varro, _L. L._ 5. 83, and Jordan, _Topogr._ i. 398. The general
opinion seems now to favour the view that there was an original
connexion between the _pontifices_ and the _pons sublicius_.

Footnote 441:

Varro, _L. L._ 5. 83; Dionys. 2. 73, 3. 45.

Footnote 442:

This was the suggestion of Mr. Frazer in a note in the _Journal of
Philology_, vol. xiv. p. 156. The late Prof. Nettleship once expressed
this view to me.

Footnote 443:

Paulus, p. 15 ‘per Virgines Vestales’; Ovid, _Fasti_, 5. 621.

Footnote 444:

See below, p. 149.

Footnote 445:

Plut. _Quaest. Rom._ 86; Gell. 10. 15; Marq. 318. Her usual head-dress
was the _flammeum_, or bride’s veil. No mention is made of the Flamen
her husband; the prominence of women in all these rites is noticeable.

Footnote 446:

_Baumkultus_, 155, 411, 416. The cult of Adonis has some features like
that of the Argei: e. g. the puppet, the immersion in water and the
mourning (see _Lex._ s. v. Adonis, p. 73; Mannhardt, _A. W. F._ 276).

Footnote 447:

i. e. ‘old men must go over the bridge.’ See Cic. _pro Roscio
Amerino_, 35, where the old edition of Osenbrüggen has a useful note.
Also Varro, apud Lactant. _Inst._ 1. 21. 6. Ovid alludes to the
proverb (5. 623 foll.) ‘Corpora post decies senos qui credidit annos
Missa neci, sceleris crimine damnat avos.’

Footnote 448:

Dionys. 1. 38. But he may have been deceived simply by the appearance
of the bindings of the sheaves or bundles, especially if he had been
told beforehand of the proverb.

Footnote 449:

The best known instances of human sacrifice at Rome are collected in a
note to Merivale’s _History_ (vol. iii. 35); and by Sachse, _Die
Argeer_, p. 17. O. Müller thought that it came to Rome from Etruria
(_Etrusker_, ii. 20). For Greece, see Hermann, _Griech. Alt._ ii. sec.
27; Strabo. 10. 8. See also some valuable remarks in Tylor, _Prim.
Cult._ ii. 362, on substitution in sacrifice.

Footnote 450:

Caesar, _B. G._ 6. 16; Tac. _Germ._ 9 and 39. Strabo, 10. 8, is
interesting, as giving an example of the dropping out of the actual
killing, while the form survived. See below on Lupercalia, p. 315.

Footnote 451:

A point suggested to me some years ago by Mr. A. J. Evans.

Footnote 452:

Sir A. Lyall (_Asiatic Studies_, p. 19) writes of human sacrifice as
having been common in India as a last resort for appeasing divine
wrath when manifested in some strange manner; i. e. it was never
regular. So Procopius, _Bell. Goth._ 3. 13. Tacitus, indeed, writes of
‘certis diebus’ (_Germ._ 9), but it is not clear that he meant fixed
recurring days. As a rule in human sacrifice and cannibalism the
victims are captives, who would not be always at hand.

Footnote 453:

Dionysius (1. 38) speaks of sacrifice _before_ the immersion of the
puppets: προθύσαντες ἱερὰ τὰ κατὰ τοὺς νόμους.

Footnote 454:

The βούλιμος and φαρμακός, Mannhardt, _Myth. Forsch._ 129 foll.

Footnote 455:

_Germania_, 40: Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, 567 foll. The evidence is
perhaps hardly adequate as to detail.

Footnote 456:

_Baumkultus_, chapters 3, 4, and 5, which should be used by all who
wish to form some idea of the amount of evidence collected on this one
head.

Footnote 457:

Our Jack-in-the-Green is probably a survival of this kind of rite.

Footnote 458:

Nearly all these customs occur either at Whitsuntide or harvest.
Mannhardt conjectured that the Argei-rite was originally a harvest
custom (_A. W. F._ 269); quite needlessly, I think.

Footnote 459:

_Baumkultus_, 331.

Footnote 460:

Mannhardt allows this, _Baumkultus_, 336 note.

Footnote 461:

_Baumkultus_, 358 foll. His theory is expressed in judicious and by no
means dogmatic language. It may be that he runs his Vegetation-spirit
somewhat too hard—and no mythologist is free from the error of seeing
his own discovery exemplified wherever he turns. But the spirit of
vegetation had been found at Rome long before Mannhardt’s time (see e.
g. Preller’s account of Mars and the deities related to him).

Footnote 462:

_Baumkultus_, 359, 420; _Korndämonen_, 24.

Footnote 463:

_Baumkultus_, 349 foll., 365, 414.

Footnote 464:

Cp. the root _cas-_, which (according to Corssen, _Aussprache_, i. 652
note), appears both in _canus_ and _cascus_, and also in the Oscan
_casnar_ = ‘an old man.’ The word _casnar_ is used by Varro (ap.
Nonium, 86) for _sexagenarius_, or possibly _argeus_: ‘Vix ecfatus
erat cum more maiorum carnales (= casnales) arripiunt et de ponte
deturbant.’ Cf. Varro, _L. L._ 7. 73; Mommsen, _Unteritalische
Dialekten_, p. 268. The root _arg_ may perhaps have meant _holy_ as
well as old or white, like the Welsh _gwen_ (Rhys, _Celtic Mythology_,
527 note).

Footnote 465:

_Baumkultus_, 214-16, 355, &c. On p. 356 is a valuable note giving
examples from America, India, &c. For a remarkable case from ancient
Egypt, of which the object is not rain, but inundation, see Tylor,
_Prim. Cult._ ii. 368. See also Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_ (E. T.),
p. 593 foll.

Footnote 466:

_Quaest. Rom._ 86. This work is undoubtedly drawn chiefly from Varro’s
writings, but largely through the medium of those of Juba the king of
Mauretania, who wrote in Greek (Barth de Jubae Ὁμοιότησιν in Plutarcho
expressis: Göttingen, 1876).

Footnote 467:

Parallels in _Baumkultus_, pp. 170, 178, 211, 409. These are examples
of May-trees and other objects, sometimes decked out as human beings,
which are hung up in the homestead for a certain time—e. g. in Austria
from May-day to St. John Baptist’s day, a period closely corresponding
both in length and season to that at Rome, from March 15 to May 15. In
the church of Charlton-on-Otmoor, near Oxford, it is hung on the
rood-screen from May 1 onwards.

Footnote 468:

Ovid, _Fasti_, 5. 627; Dionys. 1. 38.

Footnote 469:

See Macrob. 1. 7. 28. In Dionysius’ version, however, of the line it
is Ἅιδης to whom the sacrifice is offered.

Footnote 470:

Festus, 334.

Footnote 471:

_Topogr._ ii. 285.

Footnote 472:

_Lex._ s. v. Mercurius, p. 2804.

Footnote 473:

Aust, _de Aedibus sacris_, p. 5.

Footnote 474:

It seems to me probable that there was a Mercurius at Rome before the
introduction of Hermes; but this cannot be proved. It seems likely
that the temple-cult established in 495 B.C. was really that of Hermes
under an Italian name, as in the parallel case of Ceres. This was one
year later than the date of the Ceres-temple (above, p. 74).

Footnote 475:

Mercuriales, or Mercatores (Jordan, _Topogr._ i. 1. 278). They
belonged to the collegia of the pagi.

Footnote 476:

See on March 17 and January 9.

Footnote 477:

i. 262 foll.; Ovid, _Fasti_, 3. 445; Gell. _N. A._ 5. 12.

Footnote 478:

_C. I. L._ i. 807; the dedication of an altar (Vediovei Patrei
genteiles Iuliei) found at Bovillae.

Footnote 479:

Ovid, _Fasti_, 3. 429; Gell. 5. 12. It was this temple which had May
21 as its ‘dies natalis.’

Footnote 480:

Liv. 31. 21. 12 (reading Vediovi for deo Iovi, with Merkel and
Jordan).

Footnote 481:

Gell. l. c.; Preller, i. 264, and Jordan’s note.

Footnote 482:

Gell. 5. 12. The meaning of the expression is not clear. Paulus (165)
writes: ‘Humanum sacrificium dicebant quod mortui causa fiebat’—which
does not greatly help us. Preller reasonably suggested that the goat
might be a substitutory victim in place of a ‘homo sacer’ or criminal
(i. 265).

Footnote 483:

Above, p. 63.

Footnote 484:

_Fasti_, 5. 725.

Footnote 485:

_de Feriis_, xv.

Footnote 486:

Gell. 13. 23.

Footnote 487:

The Hephaestus-myth has been treated on the comparative method by F.
von Schröder (_Griech. Götter u. Heroen_, i. 79 foll.), and by Rapp in
_Myth. Lex._ It is of course possible that it may have been known to
the early Italians, but what we know of Volcanus does not favour this.

Footnote 488:

Vitruvius, 3. 2. 2; it was ‘proxime portam Collinam.’

Footnote 489:

See below, pp. 165, 223.

Footnote 490:

Liv. 34. 53; Aust, _de Aedibus_, p. 20.

Footnote 491:

This seems to have been the date among the Anauni of N. Italy as late
as 393 A.D.: see the _Acta Martyrum_, p. 536 (Verona, 1731). (For the
Anauni, Rushforth, _Latin Historical Inscriptions_, p. 99 foll.)

Footnote 492:

_Chron._ 70 foll.: a difficult bit of calculation.

Footnote 493:

Mommsen, l. c. Henzen, _Acta Fr. Arv._ xlvi-xlviii; Jordan on Preller,
i. 420, and _Topogr._ i. 289, ii. 236. The latter would also identify
Ambarvalia and Amburbium; but the two seem clearly distinguished by
Servius (_Ecl._ 3.77).

Footnote 494:

p. 200. Huschke, _Röm. Jahr_, 63.

Footnote 495:

p. 5. See Jordan on Preller, i. 420, note 2; Marq. 200, note 3.

Footnote 496:

_Georg._ 1. 338 foll.

Footnote 497:

‘Extremae sub casum hiemis’ might possibly suit the Italian April, but
certainly not the Italian May. May 1 is the earliest date we have for
an agri lustratio, i. e. in Campania (_C. I. L._ x. 3792). ‘Tunc
mollissima vina’ may contain a reference to the Vinalia of April 23,
when the new wine was first drunk; and if that were so, the general
reference might be to the Cerialia or its rustic equivalent.

Footnote 498:

_R. R._ 141. Cp. Siculus Flaccus in _Gromatici Veteres_, p. 164. The
lustratio should be celebrated before even the earliest crops (e. g.
beans) were cut.

Footnote 499:

Henzen, _Acta Fr. Arv._ xlviii.

Footnote 500:

Cato, _R. R._ 141. I have availed myself of the Italian translation
and commentary of Prof. De Marchi in his work on the domestic religion
of the Romans, p. 128 foll.

Footnote 501:

Bücheler, _Umbrica_; Bréal, _Les Tables Eugubines_.

Footnote 502:

Brand, _Popular Antiquities_, p. 292.

Footnote 503:

I am informed that it visited one hamlet, Horton, which is not at
present in the parish of Charlton; of this there should be some
topographical explanation.

Footnote 504:

The cross is very commonly carried about on the continent, and in
Holland the week is called cross-week for this reason. But at Charlton
there seems to have been a confusion between this cross and the
May-queen or May-doll; for on May-day, 1898, the old woman who decked
it called it ‘my lady,’ and spoke of ‘her waist,’ &c. I am indebted to
the Rev. C. E. Prior, the present incumbent, for information about
this interesting survival.

MENSIS IUNIUS.

KAL. IUN. (JUNE 1). N.

IUNONI MONETAE (VEN.)

FABARICI C[IRCENSES] M[ISSUS]. (PHILOC.)

On the name of the mensis Junius some remarks have already been made under May 1. There is no sure ground for connecting it with Juno[505]. The first day of June was sacred to her, but so were all Kalends; and if this was also the _dies natalis_ of the temple of Juno Moneta _in arce_, we have no reason to suppose the choice of day to be specially significant[506]. We know the date of this dedication; it was in 344 B.C. and in consequence of a vow made by L. Furius Camillus Dictator in a war against the Aurunci[507]. Of a Juno Moneta of earlier date we have no knowledge; and, in spite of much that has been said to the contrary, I imagine that the title was only given to a Juno of the _arx_ in consequence of the popular belief that the Capitol was saved from the attack of the Gauls (390 B.C.) by the warning voices of her sacred geese. What truth there was in that story may be a matter of doubt, but it seems easier to believe that it had a basis of fact than to account for it aetiologically[508]. There may well have been an altar or _sacellum_[509] of Juno on the _arx_, near which her noisy birds were kept[510]; and when a temple was eventually built here in 344 B.C., it was appropriately dedicated to Juno of the warning voice. From the fact that part of this temple was used as a mint[511], the word _Moneta_ gradually passed into another sense, which has found its way into our modern languages[512].

One tradition connected the name of the month with M. Junius Brutus, who is said to have performed a _sacrum_ on this day after the flight of Tarquinius, on the Caelian Hill[513]. This _sacrum_ had no connexion with Juno, and the tradition which thus absurdly brings Brutus into the question shows plainly that the derivation from Juno was not universally accepted[514]. The real deity of the Kalends of June was not Juno, but an antique goddess whose antiquity is attested both by the meagreness of our knowledge of her, and the strange confusion about her which Ovid displays. Had Carna been more successful in the struggle for existence of Roman deities, we might not have been so sure of her extreme antiquity; but no foreign cult grafted on her gave her a new lease of life, and by the end of the Republic she was all but dead.

What little we do know of her savours of the agricultural life and folk-lore of the old Latins. Her sacrifices were of bean-meal and lard[515]; and this day went by the name of Kalendae fabariae[516], ‘quia hoc mense adultae fabae divinis rebus adhibentur.’ The fact was that it was the time of bean-harvest[517]; and beans, as we have already seen, were much in request for sacred purposes. ‘Maximus honos fabae,’ says Pliny[518], alluding to the value of the bean as food, to its supposed narcotic power, and its use in religious ritual. We have already found beans used in the cult of the dead and the ejection of ghosts from the house[519]; and Prof. Wissowa has of late ingeniously conjectured that this day (June 1) was concerned with rites of the same kind[520]. He quotes an inscription, a will in which a legacy is left ‘ut rosas Carnar[iis] ducant’[521]. Undoubtedly the reference here is to rites of the dead (cf. Rosalia), and Mommsen may be right in suggesting that by Carnar[iis] is meant the Kalends of June. But it is going a little too far to argue on this slender evidence, even if we add to it the fact that the day was _nefastus_, that the festival of Carna was of the same kind as the Parentalia, Rosalia, &c.; a careful reading of Ovid’s comments seems to show that there were curious survivals of folk-lore connected with the day and with Carna which cannot all be explained by reference to rites of the dead.

Ovid does indeed at once mislead his readers by identifying Carna and Cardea, and thus making the former the deity of door-hinges, and bringing her into connexion with Janus[522]. But we may guess that he does this simply because he wants to squeeze in a pretty folk-tale of Janus and Cardea, for which his readers may be grateful, and which need not deceive them. When he writes of the ritual of Carna[523]—our only safe guide—he makes it quite plain that he is mixing up the attributes of two distinct deities. He brings the two together by contriving that Janus, as a reward to Cardea for yielding to his advances, should bestow on her not only the charge of _cardines_, but also that of protecting infants from the _striges_[524], creatures of the nature of vampires, but described by Ovid as owls, who were wont to suck their blood and devour their vitals. But this last duty surely belonged to Carna, of whom Macrobius says ‘Hanc deam vitalibus humanis praeesse credunt’: and thus Carna’s attribute is conjoined with Cardea’s. The lines are worth quoting in which Ovid describes the charms which are to keep off the _striges_, for as preserving a remnant of old Italian folk-lore they are more interesting than the doubtful nature of an obscure deity[525]:

Protinus arbutea[526] postes ter in ordine tangit
Fronde, ter arbutea limina fronde notat:
Spargit aquis aditus—et aquae medicamen habebant—
Extaque de porca cruda bimenstre tenet[527].
Atque ita ‘noctis aves, extis puerilibus’ inquit
‘Parcite: pro parvo victima parva cadit.
Cor pro corde, precor, pro fibris sumite fibras.
Hanc animam vobis pro meliore damus.’
Sic ubi libavit, prosecta sub aethere ponit,
Quique adsint sacris, respicere illa vetat[528].
Virgaque Ianalis de spina ponitur alba[529]
Qua lumen thalamis parva fenestra dabat.
Post illud nec aves cunas violasse feruntur,
Et rediit puero qui fuit ante color.

Having told his folk-tale and described his charms, Ovid returns to Carna, and asks why people eat bean-gruel on the Kalends of June, with the rich fat of pigs. The answer is that the cult of Carna is of ancient date, and that the healthy food of man in early times is retained in it[530].

Sus erat in pretio; caesa sue festa colebant.
Terra fabas tantum duraque farra dabat.
Quae duo mixta simul sextis quicunque Kalendis
Ederit, huic laedi viscera posse negant.

This was undoubtedly the real popular belief—that by eating this food on Carna’s day your digestion was secured for the year. Macrobius[531] makes the practice into a much more definite piece of ritual. ‘_Prayers_ are offered to this goddess,’ he says, ‘for the good preservation of liver, heart, and the other internal organs of our bodies. Her _sacrifices_ are bean-meal and lard, because this is the best food for the nourishment of the body.’ Ovid is here the genuine Italian, Macrobius the scholar and theologian: both may be right.

Whatever, then, may be the meaning or etymology of the name Carna, we may at least be sure that the cult belongs to the age of ancient Latin agriculture[532], since it was in connexion with her name that the popular belief survived in Ovid’s time of the virtue of bean-eating on the Kalends of June.

We learn from Ovid (line 191) that this same day was the _dies natalis_ of the temple of Mars _extra portam Capenam_, i. e. on the Via Appia—a favourite spot for the mustering of armies, and the starting-point for the yearly _transvectio equitum_[533]. I have already alluded to the baseless fabric of conjecture built on the conjunction of Mars and Juno on this day[534]; and need here only repeat that in no well-attested Roman myth is Mars the son of Juno, or Juno the wife of Jupiter. And it is even doubtful whether June 1 was the _original_ dedication-day of this temple of Mars: the Venusian calendar does not mention it, and Ovid may be referring to a re-dedication by Augustus[535]. There is absolutely no ground for the myth-making of Usener and Roscher about Mars and Juno: but it is to the credit of the latter that he has inserted in his article on Mars a valuable note by Aust, in which his own conclusions are cogently controverted.

III. NON. IUN. (JUNE 3). C.

BELLON[AE] IN CIRC[O] FLAM[INIO]. (VEN.)

This temple was vowed by the Consul Ap. Claudius in an Etruscan war[536] (296 B.C.): the date of dedication is unknown. In front of the temple was an area of which the truly Roman story is told[537], that being unable to declare war with Pyrrhus with the orthodox ritual of the _fetiales_, as he had no land in Italy into which they could throw the challenging spear[538], they caught a Pyrrhan soldier and made him buy this spot to suit their purpose. Here stood the ‘columella’ from which henceforward the spear was thrown[539].

The temple became well known as a suitable meeting-place for the Senate outside the _pomoerium_, when it was necessary to do business with generals and ambassadors who could not legally enter the city[540]. But of the goddess very little is known. There is no sufficient reason to identify her with that Nerio with whom we made acquaintance in March, as is done too confidently by the writer of the article in Roscher’s _Lexicon_[541].

PRID. NON. IUN. (JUNE 4). C.

HERC[ULI] MAGN[O] CUSTO[DI]. (VEN.)

SACRUM HERCULI. (RUST.)

This temple also was near the Circus Flaminius[542]. It was a foundation of Sulla’s, 82 B.C., and the cult was Greek, answering to that of Ἡρακλῆς ἀλεξίκακος[543].

NON. IUN. (JUNE 5). N.[544]

DIO FIDIO IN COLLE. (VEN.)

The temple on the Quirinal of which this was the _dies natalis_ is said by Dionysius[545] to have been vowed by Tarquinius Superbus, and dedicated by Sp. Postumius in B.C. 466. But that there was a _fanum_ or _sacellum_ of this deity on or near the same site at a much earlier time is almost certain; such a _sacellum_ ‘ad portam Sanqualem’ is mentioned, also by Dionysius[546], as ἱερὸν Διὸς Πιστίου, and we know that in many cases the final _aedes_ or _templum_ was a development from an uncovered altar or sacred place.

Dius Fidius, as the adjectival character of his name shows, was a genuine old Italian religious conception, but one that in historical times was buried almost out of sight. Among gods and heroes there has been a struggle for existence, as among animals and plants; with some peoples a struggle between indigenous and exotic deities, in which the latter usually win the day, and displace or modify the native species[547]. What laws, if any, govern this struggle for existence it is not possible to discern clearly; the result is doubtless the survival of the fittest, if by the fittest we understand those which flourish best under the existing conditions of society and thought; but it would hardly seem to be the survival of those which are most beneficial to the worshipping race. Among the Romans the fashionable exotic deities of the later Republic and Empire had no such ethical influence on the character of the people as those older ones of the type of Dius Fidius, who in historical times was known to the ordinary Roman only through the medium of an old-fashioned oath.

Ovid knows very little about Dius Fidius[548]:

Quaerebam Nonas Sanco Fidione referrem,
An tibi, Semo pater: cum mihi Sancus ait
‘Cuicunque ex illis dederis, ego munus habebo;
Nomina trina fero, sic voluere Cures.’

He finds three names for the deity, but two would have sufficed; the only individual Semo known to us is Sancus himself. The Semones, so far as we can guess, were spirits of the ‘pandaemonic’ age, nameless like the Lares with whom they are associated in the hymn of the Fratres Arvales[549]; but one only, Semo Sancus, seems to have taken a name and survived into a later age, and this one was identified with Dius Fidius. Aelius Stilo, the Varro of the seventh century A. U. C., seems to have started this identification[550]. Varro does not comment on it; but Verrius accepted it: he writes of an ‘aedes Sancus, qui deus Dius Fidius vocatur’[551]. The evidence of inscriptions is explicit for a later period; an altar, for example, found near the supposed site of his temple on the Quirinal, bears the inscription ‘Sanco Sancto Semon[i] deo fidio sacrum’[552]. And there is nothing in the words Sancus and Fidius to forbid the identification, for both point to the same class of ideas—that of the bond which religious feeling places on men in their duties to, and contracts with, each other. They are in fact two different names for the same religious conception. It is interesting to find them both occurring in the great processional inscription of Iguvium in Umbria: Fisus or Fisovius Sancius, who is there invoked next after Jupiter, seems to unite the two deities in a single name[553]. This conjunction would seem to save us from the necessity of discussing the question whether Sancus, as has often been insisted on by scholars both ancient and modern[554], was really the Sabine form of Dius Fidius; for if in Umbria the two are found together, as at Rome, there is no reason why the same should not have been the case throughout central Italy. The question would never have been asked had the fluid nature of the earliest Italian deities and the adjectival character of their names been duly taken account of. We are all of us too apt to speak of this primitive spirit-world in terms of a later polytheistic theology, and to suppose that the doubling of a name implies some distinction of origin or race.