MENSIS APRILIS.

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

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

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

VENERALIA: LUDI. (PHILOC.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CERERI LIBERO (LIBERAE) ESQ.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cur igitur missae vinctis ardentia taedisTerga ferant volpes, causa docenda mihi est.

Cur igitur missae vinctis ardentia taedis

Terga ferant volpes, causa docenda mihi est.

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

Utque luat poenas gens haec, Cerialibus ardet;Quoque modo segetes perdidit, ipsa perit.

Utque luat poenas gens haec, Cerialibus ardet;

Quoque modo segetes perdidit, ipsa perit.

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

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

Hospitis antiqui solitas intravimus aedes,

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

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

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

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

[A note in Praen. is hopelessly mutilated, with the exception of the wordsIGNESandPRINCIPIO AN[NI PASTORICII[259]?]]

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

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

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

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

Frondibus et fixis decorentur ovilia ramis,Et tegat ornatas longa corona fores.

Frondibus et fixis decorentur ovilia ramis,

Et tegat ornatas longa corona fores.

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

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

Caerulei fiant vivo de sulfure fumiTactaque fumanti sulfure balet ovis[270].

Caerulei fiant vivo de sulfure fumi

Tactaque fumanti sulfure balet ovis[270].

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

Pelle procul morbos: valeant hominesque gregesque,Et valeant vigiles, provida turba, canes.Absit iniqua fames. Herbae frondesque supersint,Quaeque lavent artus, quaeque bibantur, aquae.Ubera plena premam: referat mihi caseus aera,Dentque viam liquido vimina rara sero.Sitque salax aries, conceptaque semina coniunxReddat, et in stabulo multa sit agna meo.Lanaque proveniat nullas laesura puellas,Mollis et ad teneras quamlibet apta manus.Quae precor eveniant: et nos faciamus ad annumPastorum dominae grandia liba Pali.

Pelle procul morbos: valeant hominesque gregesque,Et valeant vigiles, provida turba, canes.

Pelle procul morbos: valeant hominesque gregesque,

Et valeant vigiles, provida turba, canes.

Absit iniqua fames. Herbae frondesque supersint,Quaeque lavent artus, quaeque bibantur, aquae.Ubera plena premam: referat mihi caseus aera,Dentque viam liquido vimina rara sero.Sitque salax aries, conceptaque semina coniunxReddat, et in stabulo multa sit agna meo.Lanaque proveniat nullas laesura puellas,Mollis et ad teneras quamlibet apta manus.Quae precor eveniant: et nos faciamus ad annumPastorum dominae grandia liba Pali.

Absit iniqua fames. Herbae frondesque supersint,

Quaeque lavent artus, quaeque bibantur, aquae.

Ubera plena premam: referat mihi caseus aera,

Dentque viam liquido vimina rara sero.

Sitque salax aries, conceptaque semina coniunx

Reddat, et in stabulo multa sit agna meo.

Lanaque proveniat nullas laesura puellas,

Mollis et ad teneras quamlibet apta manus.

Quae precor eveniant: et nos faciamus ad annum

Pastorum dominae grandia liba Pali.

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

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

Moxque per ardentes stipulae crepitantis acervosTraiicias celeri strenua membra pede[277].

Moxque per ardentes stipulae crepitantis acervos

Traiicias celeri strenua membra pede[277].

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

Vesta dabit: Vestae munerepuruseris.

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

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

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

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

VENERI (CAER.)

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

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

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

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