Women’s Sacrifice to the Bona Dea.
This fell, in the year 63 B.C., on the night between Dec. 3 and 4, if we may trust Plutarch and Dio[1113]; but the date does not seem to have been a fixed one[1114]. The rite does not appear in the calendars, and, though attended by the Vestals, did not take place in the temple of the goddess, but in the house of a consul or praetor, ‘in ea domo quae est in imperio[1115].’ It seems to have been in some sense a State sacrifice, i. e. it was ‘pro populo Romano’ (according to Cicero); but it was not ‘publico sumptu’[1116], and it was never woven into the calendar by the pontifices, or it could hardly have occurred between the Kalends and the Nones. Its very nature would exclude the interference of the pontifical college, and there would be no need to give public notice of it.
The character of the goddess and her rites have already been discussed under May 1. All that need be said of the December sacrifice is that it was clearly a survival from the time when the wife of the chief of the community—himself its priest—together with her daughters (represented in later times by the Vestals), and the other matrons, made sacrifice of a young pig or pigs[1117] to the deity of fertility, from all share in which men were rigorously excluded. It must have been originally a perfectly decorous rite, and so have continued to the famous sacrilege of Clodius; it was only under the empire that it became the scene of such orgies as Juvenal describes in his second and sixth satires[1118].
Non. Dec. (Dec. 5). F.
Here we have another festival unknown to the calendars, the Faunalia rustica, as it has been called. Our knowledge of it comes from the familiar ode of Horace (iii. 18), and from the comments of the scholiasts thereon:
No picture could be choicer or neater than this; for once it is a treat to have our best evidence in the form of a perfect work of art. We are for a moment let into the heart and mind of ancient Italy, as they showed themselves on a winter holiday. There is an ancient altar—not a temple—to a supernatural being who is not yet fully god, who can play pranks like the ‘Brownies’ and do harm, but is capable of doing good if duly propitiated. On the Nones of December, possibly of other months too[1119], he is coaxed with tender kid, libations of wine, and incense[1120]; the little rural community of farmers (pagus), with their labourers, take part in the rite, and bring their cattle into the common pasture, plough-oxen and all. Then, after the sacrifice, they dance in triple measure, like the Salii in March.
Horace is of course describing a rite which was entirely rural, as the word pagus would indicate sufficiently, apart from other features. Unless he were the god of the Lupercalia, which is open to much doubt[1121], Faunus was not introduced into the city of Rome till 196 B.C., when the aediles very appropriately built him a temple in the Tiber-island with money taken as fines from defaulting pecuarii[1122], or holders of public land used for cattle-runs. We may assume that his settlement in the city was suggested by the pontifices, and that we have here a case of the transformation of a purely rustic cult into an urban one by priestly manipulation. It is not impossible that the idea that Faunus was the deity of the Lupercalia came in about the same time[1123]. Both priests and annalists got hold of him, and did their best to rob him of his true character as an intelligible and useful god of woodland and pasture. He became a Rex Aboriginum[1124], and the third on the list of mythical kings of Latium[1125]. He became identified with the Greek Pan. But, in spite of all their efforts, Faunus would not tamely accept his new position. We hear no more of the aedes in the island: the Roman vulgus do not seem to have recognized him at the Lupercalia, and his insertion in the legends had no political effect. The fact that not a single inscription from Rome or its vicinity records his name shows plainly that he never took the popular fancy as a deity with city functions: and the absence of inscriptions in the country districts also, in most singular contrast to the ubiquitous stone records of Silvanus-worship, seems to show that he remained always much as wild as he was before the age of inscriptions began, while the kindred deity was adopted into the organized life and culture of the Italian and provincial farmer[1126].
It may be as well, before leaving the subject of this singular being, to sum up under a very few heads what is really known about him. But so little is known about the cult of Faunus—and indeed it can hardly be said that any elaborate cult ever grew up around him—that it may be legitimate for once first to glance at the etymological explanations of his name which have been suggested by scholars.
(1) Faunus is connected with favere, and means ‘the kind or propitious one,’ like Faustus and Faustulus, and as some think, Favonius[1127] and Fons. This derivation was known to Servius[1128]: ‘quidam Faunos putant dictos ab eo quod frugibus faveant.’ It is not in itself inconsistent with what we know of the rural Faunus, or with analogous supernatural beings, like the ‘good people.’ It was accepted by Preller and Schwegler, and has affected their conclusions about Faunus; e. g. Schwegler based on it the view, now generally held, that Evander is a Greek translation of Faunus[1129].
(2) Faunus is from fari, i. e. the speaker, or foreteller. This too was known to Latin scholars: thus Isidorus (perhaps from Varro[1130]), ‘fauni a fando, ἀπὸ τὴς φωνῆς dicti, quod voce non signis ostendere viderentur futura.’ It was revived not long ago by the late Prof. Nettleship: ‘Once imagine Faunus as a “speaker,” and all becomes clear. He is not only the composer and reciter of verses[1131], but generally the seer or wise man, whose superior knowledge entitles him to the admiration and dread of the country folk who consult him. But as his real nature and functions are superseded, his character is misconceived: he becomes a divinity, the earliest king of Latium, the god of prophecy, the god of agriculture.’ We may compare with this Scaliger’s note on Varro, L. L. 7. 36: ‘The Fauni were a class of men who exercised, at a very remote period, the same functions which belonged to the Magi in Persia, and to the Bards in Gaul.’
(3) Faunus may = Favonius, which itself may come from the same root as Pan (i. e. pu = purify). Thus Faunus, like Pan, might be taken as a mythological expression of the ‘purifying breeze,’ the god of the gentler winds[1132]. The characteristics of Faunus are of course very like those of Pan; but as it is no easy matter to determine how far those of the Italian were taken over by the Roman litterati from the Greek deity, and as the etymology itself is confessedly a questionable one, this conjecture must be left to take its chance.
But the first two are worth attending to, and each finds some support in what we know of Faunus from other sources. Let us see in the next place what this amounts to.
(1) There is fairly strong evidence that Faunus was not originally conceived as a single deity, but as multiplex. Varro quotes the line of Ennius:
and comments thus[1133]: ‘Fauni dii Latinorum, ita ut Faunus et Fauna sit.’ The evidence of Virgil, always valuable for rural antiquities, is equally clear:
Servius has an interesting note on these lines: why, he asks, does the poet put Faunus in the plural, when there is but one? We might be tempted to think Virgil wrong and his commentator right, the poet representing Greek ideas and the scholar Italian, but for a still more curious note of Probus on the same passage: ‘Plures (Fauni) existimantur esse etiam praesentes: idcirco rusticis persuasum est incolentibus eam partem Italiae quae suburbana est, saepe eos in agris conspici.’ My belief is that these words give us the genuine idea of Faunus in the rustic mind, surviving in central Italy long after he had been appropriated as a conventional Roman deity. We seem in the case of Faunus to be able to catch a deity in the process of manufacture—of elevation from a lower, multiplex, daemonistic form, to a higher and more uniform and more rigid one. Yet so excellent a scholar as Wissowa holds exactly the opposite view, that there was but one Faunus, and that his multiplication is simply the result of Roman acquaintance with Pan and the Satyrs[1135]. It would have been more satisfactory if he had given us an explanation from his point of view of the passage of Probus just quoted, or had shown us how these Greek notions could have penetrated into the rural parts of Italy.
(2) Another point which comes out distinctly—unless our Roman authorities were wholly misled—is the woodland character of the Fauni. A passage of Varro, of which I quoted the first words just now, goes on thus: ‘hos versibus quos vocant Saturnios in silvestribus locis traditum est solitos fari futura, a quo fando Faunos dictos.’ This seems to be a genuine Italian tradition. Virgil was not talking Greek when he wrote[1136]
The poet imagines an ancient race, sprung from the trees themselves: a ‘genus indocile et dispersum montibus altis,’ living on the forest-clad hills[1137], to whom foreign invaders brought the means of civilization. Why should not this tradition be a native one? It is singularly in accord with the most recent results of Italian excavation; for it is now absolutely certain that the oldest inhabitants of central Italy dwelt on the hill-tops, and that the first traces of foreign influence only occur in lower and later settlements[1138]. The valleys were still undrained and malarious. These earliest inhabitants who have left their traces for the excavator, or a still older race scattered on the hills after their invasion, may have been the traditional representatives of what Preller has called ‘the period of Faunus[1139],’ regarded by the later civilization, from their wild and woodland habits, as half demons and half men. The name of the kindred Silvanus tells its own tale; and his actual connexion with trees was even closer than that of Faunus[1140].
(3) A third well-attested point is the attribution to Faunus or the Fauni of power for good or evil over the crops and herds, as we have seen it already implied in Horace’s ode. Porphyrion[1141] in his commentary on this ode tells us that Faunus, on the Nones of December, wishes the cattle, which are under his protection, to be free from danger. Just before this passage he had spoken of him as ‘deum inferum et pestilentem,’ thus giving us the dark and hurtful side of his power as well as the bright and gracious. The same combination of the powers of doing and averting harm is seen in Mars, as we have already learnt from the hymn of the Arval Brethren and the formula of prayers preserved by Cato[1142].
Under this head may be mentioned the belief that both Faunus and Silvanus were dangerous for women, an idea which finds expression in the significant word incubus, so often applied to them[1143]. We may perhaps find a reason for the identification of Faunus as god of the Lupercalia in the most striking feature of the festival—the pursuit of the women by the creppi, who struck them with thongs in order to render them productive[1144].
(4) The last characteristic of the Fauni to be noticed is that they had the power of foretelling the future. The verse of Ennius already quoted is the earliest literary evidence we have of this; but the quaint story of the capture of Picus and Faunus by Numa[1145], who caught them by making them drunk with wine at the fountain where they came to drink, and compelled them as the price of their liberty to reveal the art of staying a disaster, has an unmistakeable old-Italian ring. The idea seems to have been, not that Faunus was a ‘god of prophecy,’ as Preller seems to fancy, but that there was an ancient race of Fauni, who might be coaxed or compelled to reveal secrets. Sometimes indeed they ‘spoke’ of their own accord; when a Roman army needed to be warned or encouraged on its march, their voice was heard by all as it issued from thicket or forest. Cicero and Livy[1146] write of these voices with a distinctness which (as it seems to me) admits of no suspicion that they are inserting Greek ideas into Roman annals.
There are also traces to be found of a belief in the existence of local woodland oracles of Faunus and his kind. It was in a grove sacred to Faunus that Numa, in Ovid’s vivid description[1147], slew two sheep, the one to Faunus, the other to Sleep, and after twice sprinkling water on his head, and twice wreathing it with beech-leaves, stretched himself on the fleeces to receive the prophetic inspiration as he slumbered. Almost every touch in this story seems to me to be genuine; and especially the conditions necessary to success—the continence of the devotee, and the removal of the metal ring from the finger. Virgil, with something more of foreign adornment, tells in exquisite verse what is really the same story as Ovid’s[1148]. And a later poet writes of a sacred beech-grove, where under like conditions of temperance, &c., the shepherds might find the oracles of Faunus inscribed on the bark of a beech-tree[1149]. All this reminds us of Dodona and the oldest Greek oracles: we have here the quaint methods of primitive shepherds, appealing to prophetic powers localized in particular woodland spots. Roman exigencies of state drew by degrees the whole of the secrets of fore-knowledge into the hands of a priestly aristocracy, with its fixed doctrine and methods of divination; but the country folk long retained their faith in the existence of an ancient race, possessed of prophetic power, which haunted forest and mountain.
These four points, taken together, i. e. the multiplicity of the Fauni, their woodland character, and their supposed powers of productivity and prophecy, seem by no means to exclude the possibility of the human origin suggested long ago by Scaliger, and recently by Prof. Nettleship, though I would shape the explanation somewhat differently. Wild men from the hills and woods, for example, might well be supposed to be possessed of supernatural powers, like the gipsies of modern times[1150]. And the striking absence of any epigraphical survivals of a definite cult may possibly be explained by a persistence of the belief in the Italian mind that Faunus was never really and truly a god, but one of a race with some superhuman attributes—a link in the chain that always in antiquity connected together the human and the divine. Horace’s ode shows the divine element predominating; some local Faunus has, so to speak, been caught and half deified; and yet, even then, the process is hardly complete.
There is, however, another explanation of conceptions of this kind to which I must briefly allude, which was based by Dr. Mannhardt on an exhaustive examination of the attributes of creatures like the Fauni, as they occur in various parts of Europe and elsewhere[1151]. The general result of his investigation may be stated thus. Spirits which seem to have their origin in woods and mountains find outward expression for their being in the wind; so also do those which seem to have their origin in corn and vegetation generally. We thus find three ingredients in their composition: (1) trees, (2) corn, (3) wind. We have only to think how the invisible wind moves the branches of the trees, or bows the corn before it, to see how closely, in the eyes of men used to attribute life to inanimate things, the idea of the wind might run together with that of objects to which it seems to give motion and life. The result of its mysterious agency is the growth of a variety of creatures of the imagination, often half bestial, like Pan and the Russian Ljeschi, sometimes entirely animal, like the Rye-wolf and many another animal corn-spirit now familiar to readers of Frazer’s Golden Bough; sometimes entirely human, like Silvanus, perhaps Faunus himself[1152], or the Teutonic ‘wild man of the woods.’ Mannhardt endeavours, not wholly without success, to bring the attributes of Faunus into harmony with this theory. His prophetic vox comes from the forest in which the wind raises strange noises; his relation to crops and flocks is parallel to that of many other spirits who can be traced to a woodland origin; and the word Favonius, used for the western moist and fertilizing breeze, is kindred, if not identical, with Faunus; and so on.
This theory, resting as it does on a very wide induction from unquestionable facts, beyond doubt explains many of the conceptions of primitive agricultural man; whether it can be applied satisfactorily to the Italian Faunus is perhaps less evident. At present I rather prefer to think of the Fauni as arising from the contact of the first clearers and cultivators of Italian soil with a wild aboriginal race of the hills and woods. But on such questions certainty is impossible, and dogmatism entirely out of place.
iii Id. Dec. (Dec. 11). NP.
AG. IN.... (AMIT.). AG[ONIA] (MAFF. PRAEN. ANT.)
SEPTIMONTIA (PHILOC.). SEPTIMONTIUM, GUID. SILV.[1153]
For Agonia see on Jan. 9. This (Dec. 11) is the third day on which this mysterious word appears in the calendars. The AG. IN. of the Amiternian calendar was conjectured by Mommsen in the first edition of C. I. L., vol. i, to indicate ‘Agonium Inui’[1154]; but in the new edition he withdraws this; ‘ab incertis coniecturis abstinebimus.’ This is done in deference to Wissowa, who has pointed out that there is no other case in the calendars of a festival-name inscribed in large letters being followed immediately by the name of a deity[1155]. We must fall back on the supposition that AG. IN. ... is simply a cutter’s error for the AGON. of three other calendars.
It is impossible to determine what was the relation between this agonium, or solemn sacrifice, and the Septimontium or Septimontiale sacrum, which appears only in very late calendars, or whether indeed there was any relation at all. It is not absolutely certain that the so-called Septimontium took place on this day. It was only a conjecture of Scaliger’s (though a clever one) that completed the gloss in Festus on the word ‘Septimontium’[1156] [Septimontium dies ap]pellatur mense [Decembri qui dicitur in f]astis agonalia. The word Septimontium suggested itself, as the gloss occurred under letter S. Other support for the conjecture is found in the two late calendars, and in a fragment of Lydus[1157], who connects the two ceremonies.
But even if Scaliger’s conjecture be right, it does not follow that the Agonium was identical with or was part of the Septimontiale sacrum. The latter does not appear in the old calendars, as it was not ‘pro populo,’ but only ‘pro montibus’ (see below); and if it was there represented by the word Agonium, it is not easy to see how the latter should have found its way into the calendar. It seems better to conclude that the two were distinct.
About the Septimontium itself we have just enough information to divine its nature, but without details. The word is used by Varro both in a topographical and a religious sense: ‘Ubi nunc est Roma, erat olim Septimontium; nominatum ab tot montibus, quos postea urbs muris comprehendit[1158].’ Here he implies that the old name for Rome was Septimontium; but this is only a guess based on the name of the festival: ‘Dies Septimontium nominatur ab his septem montibus, in quis sita urbs est; feriae non populi sed montanorum modo, ut Paganalia, quae sunt aliquoius pagi[1159].’
The montes here meant are the three divisions of the Palatine, viz. Palatium, Cermalus, Velia; the three of the Esquiline, viz. Mons Oppius, Mons Cispius, and the Fagutal, together with the lower ground of the Subura[1160]. I believe that Mommsen is right in thinking that these were never political divisions—in other words, that they were not originally distinct communities[1161], but probably religious divisions of a city which began on the Palatine, and gradually took in new ground on the Esquiline. The same process can be traced at Falerii, and at Narce a few miles above it; what we seem to see is not the accretion of villages—not συνοικισμός—but the extension of a city from one strong position to another[1162]. This is especially clear at Narce, where it is distinctly proved by the pottery found in the excavations, that the hill (Monte li Santi) subsequently added to the original city was not co-eval with the latter as a settlement; i. e. that it was the absorption by an older settlement of a probably uninhabited position which here took place, and not the synoecizing of distinct political communities[1163]. In the later Rome the montani of the seven districts, together with the pagani, or inhabitants of what had originally been the farm-country around Rome, formed the united city[1164]. It is most interesting to find that the earliest divisions, i. e. of the montes, were imitated in the foundation of some colonies—we should find them probably in many if we had the necessary information[1165].
All we know of the cult of the montani on this day is as follows: (1) There was a sacrifice on the Palatium (which seems to have been the first in dignity of the montes) by the Flamen Palatualis[1166]; but we do not know to what deity, and can only guess that it was Pales, or Palatua[1167]. (2) On this day no carts or other vehicles drawn by beasts of burden were allowed in the city, as we learn from Plutarch, who asks the reason of this, and gives some quaint answers[1168]. But the explanations are useless to us, and we cannot even guess whence Plutarch drew his knowledge of the fact, unless it was from personal observation. Let us remember, however, that this was a feast of montani: is it not likely that this was a survival from a time when the farm-waggons of the pagani really never ascended to the ‘hills’?
Prid. Id. Dec. (Dec. 12). EN.
Conso in Aventin[o]. (Amit.)
xviii (Ante Caes. xvi[1169]) Kal. Ian. (Dec. 15). NP.
CONS[UALIA]. (MAFF. PRAEN. AMIT. ANT.) FERIAE CONSO
(PRAEN. AMIT.)
For these see on Aug. 21. If the conclusions there arrived at are sound we might guess that these winter rites of Consus arose from the habit of inspecting the condition of the corn-stores in mid-winter[1170]. It is this day that has the note attached to it in the Fasti Praenestini, ‘Equi et [muli floribus coronantur] quod in eius tu[tela] ... itaque rex equo [vectus?],’ which was commented on under Aug. 21. See also under Aug. 25 (Opeconsivia); Wissowa, s. v. Consus, in Lex. Myth.; and de Feriis, vi foll.
xvi (Ante Caes. xiv[1171]) Kal. Ian. (Dec. 17). NP.
SATURNALIA. (MAFF. AMIT. GUID. RUST. PHILOC.)
FERIAE SATURNO. (MAFF. AMIT.)
SATURN[O] AD FO[RUM]. (AMIT.)
FERIAE SERVORUM. (SILV.)
This was the original day of the Saturnalia[1172], and, in a strictly religious sense, it was the only day. The festival, in the sense of a popular holiday, was extended by common usage to as much as seven days[1173]: Augustus limited it to three in respect of legal business, and the three were later increased to five[1174].
Probably no Roman festival is so well known to the general reader as this, which has left its traces and found its parallels in great numbers of mediaeval and modern customs[1175], occurring about the time of the winter solstice. Unfortunately, it is here once more a matter of difficulty to determine what features in the festival were really of old Latin origin, in spite of information as to detail, which is unusually full; for both Saturnus himself and his cult came to be very heavily overlaid with Greek ideas and practice.
That Saturnus was an old agricultural god admits, however, of no doubt; the old form of the word was probably Săĕturnus, which is found on an inscription on an ancient vase[1176], and this leads us to connect him with serere and satio; and popular tradition attributed to him the discovery of agricultural processes[1177]. But the Roman of the historical age knew very little about him, and cared only for his Graecized festival; like Faunus, he is the object of no votive inscriptions in Rome and its neighbourhood[1178]; and this conclusively proves that he was never what may be called popular as a deity. As the first king of Latium there were plenty of legends about him, or as the first civilizer of his people, the representative of a Golden Age[1179]; but no one has as yet thoroughly investigated these[1180], with a view to distinguish any Italian precipitate in the mixture of elements of which they certainly consist. We are still without the invaluable aid of the contributors to Roscher’s Lexicon.
More promising at first sight is the tradition which connects him in Rome itself with the Capitoline hill. Varro tells us positively that this hill was originally called Mons Saturnius; and that there was once an oppidum there called Saturnia, of which certain vestiges survived to his own time, including a ‘fanum Saturni in faucibus,’ i. e. apparently the ara Saturni of which Dionysius records that it was at the ‘root of the hill,’ by the road leading to the summit[1181], in fact on the same spot where stood later the temple of which eight columns are still standing. Close to this, it may be noted, was a sacellum of Dis Pater[1182], the Latinized form of Plutus; in the temple was the aerarium of later Rome[1183], and built into the rock behind, the chambers of records (tabularia). But it would be idle to found upon these facts or traditions any serious hypothesis as to the original nature of the Roman cult of Saturn; all attempts must fail in the bewildering fog of ancient fancy and ancient learning. Saturnus belongs, like Janus, with whom he was closely connected in legend[1184], to an age into whose religious ideas we cannot penetrate, and survived into Roman worship only through Greek resuscitation[1185], and in the feast of the Saturnalia. All we seem to see is that he is somehow connected with things that are put in the earth[1186]—seed, treasure, perhaps stores of produce; to which may just be added that the one spot in Rome at all times associated with him is close to the market, and that market-days (nundinae) were said to be sacred to him[1187]. The temple of Janus is also close by, and it is not impossible that both these ancient gods had some closer relation to the Forum and the business done there than we can at present understand with our limited knowledge. Neither of them, it may be noted, had a flamen attached to his cult; from which we may infer that they did not descend from the primitive household or the earliest form of community, but rather represented some place or process common to several communities, such as a forum and the business transacted there[1188]. It is precisely such gods who figure in tradition as kings, not of a single city, but of Latium.
But to turn to the festival; if the god was obscure and uninteresting, this was not the case with his feast. It seems steadily to have gained in popularity down to the time of the empire, and still maintained it when Macrobius wrote the dialogue supposed to have taken place on the three days of the Saturnalia, and called by that name. Seneca tells us that in his day all Rome seemed to go mad on this holiday[1189]. Probably its vogue was largely due merely to the accident of fashion, partly perhaps to misty ideas about the Golden Age and the reign of Saturn[1190]; but it seems to be almost a general human instinct to rest and enjoy oneself about the time of the winter solstice, and to show one’s good-will towards all one’s neighbours[1191]. In Latium, as elsewhere, this was the time when the autumn sowing had come to an end, and when all farm-labourers could enjoy a rest[1192]. Macrobius alludes also to the completion of all in-gathering by this date: ‘Itaque omni iam fetu agrorum coacto ab hominibus hos deos (Saturnus and Ops) coli quasi vitae cultioris auctores[1193].’ The close concurrence of Consualia, Opalia, and Saturnalia at this time seems to show that some final inspection of the harvest work of the autumn may in reality have been coincident with, or have immediately preceded, the rejoicings of the winter solstice.
There are several well-attested features of the Saturnalia as it was in historical times[1194]. On Dec. 17 there was a public sacrifice at the temple (formerly the ara) of Saturn by the Forum[1195], followed by a public feast, in breaking up from which the feasters shouted ‘Io Saturnalia’[1196]. During the sacrifice Senators and Equites wore the toga, but laid it aside for the convivium, which reminds us of the ritual of the Fratres Arvales, except that the toga was in the latter case the praetexta[1197]. These proceedings of the first and original day of the festival might seem pretty clearly to descend from the religion of the farm, yet the convivium is said by Livy to have been introduced as late as 217 B.C.[1198].
On the 18th and 19th, which were general holidays, the day began with an early bath[1199]; then followed the family sacrifice of a sucking pig, to which Horace alludes in familiar lines:
Then came calls on friends, congratulations, games, and the presentation of gifts[1201]. All manner of presents were made, as they are still at Christmas: among them the wax candles (cerei) deserve notice, as they are thought to have some reference, like the yule log, to the returning power of the sun’s light after the solstice. They descended from the Saturnalia into the Christmas ritual of the Latin Church[1202]. The sigillaria, or little paste or earthenware images which were sold all over Rome in the days before the festival[1203], and used as presents, also survived into Christian times; thus, in the ancient Romish Calendar, we find that all kinds of little images were on sale at the confectioners’ shops, and even in England the bakers made little images of paste at this season[1204]. What was the original meaning of the custom we do not know; but it reminds us of the oscilla of the Latin festival and the Compitalia[1205].
But the best known feature of the Saturnalia is the part played in it by the slaves, who, as we all know, were waited on by their masters, and treated as being in a position of entire equality. The earliest reference to this is in a fragment of Accius, quoted by Macrobius[1206]:
But even this custom, as Marquardt points out, may not have been of genuine Latin origin: ‘Though the Romans looked on it as a reminiscence of the Golden Age when all men were equal, it may have begun with the lectisternium of 217 B.C., for such entertainments were a characteristic of lectisternia.’ When we turn, however, to the same author’s account[1207] of the Greek forms of religion introduced through the Sibylline oracles, of which the lectisternium was one, we do not find slaves included in the ritual of any of them. There was no general exclusion of outsiders or women, but nothing is said of slaves. And on the whole we may still perhaps consider the other explanation possible, that the slaves here represent the farm-servants of olden time, whatever social position they may have held, who at the end of their year’s work were allowed to enjoy themselves ‘exaequato omnium iure.’
xiv (Ante Caes. xii) Kal. Dec. (Dec. 19). NP.
OPAL[IA]. (MAFF. AMIT.)
FERIAE OPI: OPI AD FORUM. (AMIT.)
For Ops see on Aug. 25, when the sacrifice was in the Regia, the significance of which I endeavoured to explain. Here it is ‘ad forum,’ which has lately aroused a little unfruitful dispute. Is the temple of Saturn meant, which was also described as ‘ad forum’ in the same calendar? This is still the view of Mommsen[1208], who seems to hold the old opinion that there was a sacellum Opis attached to the aedes Saturni, or that this aedes was dedicated to both deities[1209]. H. Jordan made up his mind that ‘ad forum’ meant the Regia[1210]; but this is not supported by any similar entry in the Fasti. Aust and Wissowa believe that Ops had a separate temple ‘ad forum,’ of which all traces are lost, as has happened with many others[1211]; and the latter, as we have already seen, disbelieves in any connexion between Saturnus and Ops, attributing it entirely to Greek influence.
However this may be, the one interesting fact about the temple—or whatever it was—is that it was ‘ad forum.’ The conjunction of Saturnus and Ops at this place and time must surely indicate some connexion of function between the two. But what it was is not discoverable; under Saturnalia I have merely suggested the direction in which we may look for it.
xii (Ante Caes. x). Kal. Ian. (Dec. 21). NP.
DIVA[LIA]. (MAFF. PRAEN.)
Praen. adds a terribly mutilated note, which Mommsen thus fills up from stray hints in Varro, Pliny (following Verrius), and Macrobius[1212]:
FERIAE DIVA[E ANGERONAE, QUAE AB ANGINAE MORBO] APPELL[ATUR, QUOD REMEDIA EIUS QUONDAM] PRAE[CEPIT. STATUERUNT EAM ORE OBLIGATO] IN AR[A VOLUPIAE, UT QUI NO]SSET N[OMEN] OCCUL[TUM URBIS, TACERET. S]UNT TAMEN, [QUI FIERI ID SACRU]M AIUNT OB AN[NUM NOVUM; MANI]FESTUM ESSE [ENIM PRINCIPIU]M [A]NNI NOV[I].
The date given by Pliny and Macrobius proves that Angerona was the deity of the Divalia; but the etymology of the latter is useless, and the statement of Pliny as to the statue with the mouth gagged and sealed fails to give us any clue to the nature or function of the goddess[1213]. Angerona is, in fact, the North Pole of our exploration: no one has ever reached her, and probably no one ever will. The mention of Volupia by Macrobius gives no help; she is only elsewhere mentioned as one of the numina of the Indigitamenta by Augustine[1214]. The only possible clue is that of which Mommsen has taken advantage in the very clever completion of Verrius’ last words, viz. the fact that this day (21st) is the centre one of the winter solstice. He here even allows himself an etymology, and derives Angeronalia ‘ab angerendo, id est ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀναφέρεσθαι τὸν ἥλιον’: quoting Plutarch (de Iside, ch. 52) for similar Egyptian ideas of the sun’s birth at this time. Though the etymology may be doubtful, the inference from the date of the festival is certainly acceptable, in the absence of anything more definite: and the ‘Praenestine fragments’ clearly suggest the word ‘annus.’
x (Ante Caes. VIII) Kal. Ian. (Dec. 23). NP.
LAR[ENTALIA]. (MAFF. PRAEN.)
Here again Praen. has a valuable note, which, in this case, is fairly well preserved: FERIAE IOVI. ACCAE LARENTIAE. ... HANC ALII REMI ET ROM[ULI NUTRICEM ALII] MERETRICEM, HERCULIS SCORTUM [FUISSE DIC]UNT: PARENTARI EI PUBLICE, QUOD P[OPULUM] R[OMANUM] HE[REDEM FECE]RIT MAGNAE PECUNIAE, QUAM ACCEPE[RAT TESTAME]NTO TARUTILI AMATORIS SUI[1215].
As regards the feriae Iovi we are utterly in the dark. Macrobius explains it thus: ‘Iovique feriae consecratae, quod aestimaverunt antiqui animas a Iove dari et rursus post mortem eidem reddi,’ which is obviously a late invention. I can see no possible connexion of Jupiter with the Larentalia, and believe the conjunction to be accidental.
Mommsen writes: ‘De origine Larentalium ipsiusque Larentinae indole ac natura parum constat.’ He himself has investigated the myth of Acca Larentia in a memorable essay[1216], and we may take his opinion on the Larentalia as at present conclusive. It is to be noted, however, that the view he formerly held as to the impossibility of connecting Lārentia and Lāres[1217] is not re-asserted in the new edition of the Corpus (vol i); the connexion, he says, may be right, but does not help us to explain the ‘feriae Iovi’ or the parentatio (performance of funeral rites) at the grave of Larentina (or Larentia).
This parentatio seems to me the one thing known to us about the Larentalia which can possibly aid us. We are told by Varro that it took place in the Velabrum, ‘qua in Novam viam exitur, ut aiunt quidam, ad sepulcrum Accae[1218].’ The Flamen Quirinalis took part in it, and the Pontifices[1219]. Now the Parentalia took place in February. Is it possible that this is a survival from a time when it was in December—a survival, because it was at the tomb of a semi-deity, and was a public function[1220]? It is very curious that we have a record of a private parentatio wilfully transferred from February to December, and probably to this day. Cicero, in a mutilated passage from which Plutarch has apparently drawn one of his ‘Roman Questions,’ seems to have stated that Dec. Brutus (consul 138 B.C.) used to do his parentatio in December[1221]. Whether Cicero was here alluding to the Larentalia we do not know; but Plutarch notes the fact of the parentatio of Larentia in December, and is led thereby to write the quaestio next in order on the story of Larentia[1222]. Was the learned Brutus simply a pedant, changing his parentatio to a date which he believed to be the real original one, or had he some special reason for connecting his family with December and Larentia?
However we may answer this question, there is, perhaps, a bare possibility that the Larentalia was originally a feast of the dead of the old Rome on the Palatine, preserved in the calendar of the completed city only through the reputed survival of the tomb of Larentia in the Velabrum at the foot of the rock.