942. “All over India the hedge-priest is very often an autochthon, his long residence in the land being supposed to confer upon him the knowledge of the character and peculiarities of the local gods, and to teach him the proper mode in which they may be conciliated. Thus the Doms preserve to the present day the animistic and demonistic beliefs of the aboriginal races, which the Khasiyas, who have succeeded them, temper with the worship of the village deities, the named and localised divine entities, with the occasional languid cult of the greater Hindu gods. The propitiation of the vague spirits of wood, or cliff, river or lake, they are satisfied to leave in charge of their serfs” (W. Crooke, Natives of Northern India, London, 1907, pp. 104 sq.). When the Israelites had been carried away captives into Assyria, the new settlers in the desolate land of Israel were attacked by lions, which they supposed to be sent against them by the god of the country because, as strangers, they did not know how to propitiate him. So they petitioned the king of Assyria and he sent them a native Israelitish priest, who taught them how to worship the God of Israel. See 2 Kings xvii. 24-28.
943. H. Jordan, Die Könige im alten Italien (Berlin, 1884), pp. 15-25.
944. Livy, i. 56. 7; Dionysius Halicarnasensis, Ant. Rom. iv. 68. 1.
945. Livy, i. 34. 2 sq., i. 38. 1, i. 57. 6; Dionysius Halicarnasensis, Ant. Rom. iv. 64.
946. I owe to Mr. A. B. Cook the interesting suggestion that the double consulship was a revival of a double kingship.
948. Pausanias, iv. 5. 10; G. Gilbert, Handbuch der griech. Staatsalterthümer, i. 2nd Ed., 122 sq.
949. The two supreme magistrates who replaced the kings were at first called praetors. See Livy, iii. 55. 12; B. G. Niebuhr, History of Rome, 3rd Ed., i. 520 sq.; Th. Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht, ii. 3rd Ed., 74 sqq. That the power of the first consuls was, with the limitations indicated in the text, that of the old kings is fully recognised by Livy (ii. 1. 7 sq.).
950. It was a disputed point whether Tarquin the Proud was the son or grandson of Tarquin the Elder. Most writers, and Livy (i. 46. 4) among them, held that he was a son. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, on the other hand, argued that he must have been a grandson; he insists strongly on the chronological difficulties to which the ordinary hypothesis is exposed if Servius Tullius reigned, as he is said to have reigned, forty-four years. See Dionysius Halic. Ant. Rom. iv. 6 sq.
951. Livy, i. 48. 2; Dionysius Halic. Ant. Rom. iv. 31 sq. and 46.
952. Livy, i. 56; Dionysius Halic. Ant. Rom. iv. 67-69, 77; Valerius Maximus, vii. 3. 2; Aurelius Victor, De viris illustribus, x. The murder of Brutus’s father and brother is recorded by Dionysius; the other writers mention the assassination of his brother only. The resemblance between Brutus and Hamlet has been pointed out before. See F. York Powell, in Elton’s translation of Saxo Grammaticus’s Danish History (London, 1894), pp. 405-410.
953. D. Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, pp. 617 sq. Many more examples are given by A. H. Post, Afrikanische Jurisprudenz (Oldenburg and Leipsic), i. 134 sqq.
954. D. Livingstone, op. cit. p. 434.
955. H. Hecquard, Reise an die Küste und in das Innere von West-Afrika (Leipsic, 1854), p. 104. This and the preceding example are cited by A. H. Post, l.c.
956. J. A. Chisholm, “Notes on the Manners and Customs of the Winamwanga and Wiwa,” Journal of the African Society, No. 36 (July 1910), p. 384.
957. J. Spieth, Die Ewe-Stämme (Berlin, 1906), pp. 784 sq.
958. Sir William MacGregor, “Lagos, Abeokuta, and the Alake,” Journal of the African Society, No. 12 (July 1904), pp. 470 sq.
959. C. Partridge, “The Burial of the Atta of Igaraland, and the ‘Coronation’ of his Successor,” Blackwood’s Magazine, September 1904, pp. 329 sq. Mr. Partridge kindly gave me some details as to the election of the king in a letter dated 24th October 1904. He is Assistant District Commissioner in Southern Nigeria.
960. Major P. R. T. Gurdon, The Khasis (London, 1907), pp. 66-75.
961. Livy, i. 17; Cicero, De re publica, ii. 17. 31.
962. As to the nomination of the King of the Sacred Rites see Livy, xl. 42; Dionysius Halic. Ant. Rom. v. 1. 4. The latter writer says that the augurs co-operated with the pontiff in the nomination.
963. Th. Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht, ii. 3rd Ed., 6-8; A. H. J. Greenidge, Roman Public Life, pp. 45 sqq. Mr. Greenidge thinks that the king was regularly nominated by his predecessor and only occasionally by an interim king. Mommsen holds that he was always nominated by the latter.
964. Compare Lucretius, v. 1108 sqq.:
965. Nicolaus Damascenus, in Stobaeus, Florilegium, xliv. 41 (Frag. Histor. Graec. ed. C. Müller, iii. 463). Other writers say simply that the tallest, strongest, or handsomest man was chosen king. See Herodotus, iii. 20; Aristotle, Politics, iv. 4; Athenaeus, xiii. 20, p. 566 c.
966. Zenobius, Cent. v. 25.
967. J. Shooter, The Kafirs of Natal, pp. 4 sq. Compare D. Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, p. 186; W. Max Müller, Asien und Europa (Leipsic, 1893), p. 110.
968. Zenobius, Cent. v. 25.
969. Strabo, xi. 21, p. 492.
970. Hippocrates, De aere locis et aquis (vol. i. pp. 550 sq. ed. Kühn).
971. Captain Guy Burrows, The Land of the Pigmies (London, 1898), p. 95. Speaking of this tribe, Emin Pasha observes: “The most curious custom, however, and one which is particularly observed in the ruling families, is bandaging the heads of infants. By means of these bandages a lengthening of the head along its horizontal axis is produced; and whereas the ordinary Monbutto people have rather round heads, the form of the head in the better classes shows an extraordinary increase in length, which certainly very well suits their style of hair and of hats.” See Emin Pasha in Central Africa, being a Collection of Letters and Journals (London, 1888), p. 212.
972. Lewis and Clark, Expedition to the Sources of the Missouri, ch. 23, vol. ii. 327 sq. (reprinted at London, 1905); D. W. Harmon, quoted by Rev. J. Morse, Report to the Secretary of War of the United States on Indian Affairs (Newhaven, 1822), Appendix, p. 346; H. R. Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, ii. 325 sq.; R. C. Mayne, Four Years in British Columbia, p. 277; G. M. Sproat, Scenes and Studies of Savage Life, pp. 28-30; H. H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, i. 180.
973. C. Hill-Tout, The Far West, the Home of the Salish and Déné (London, 1907), p. 40. As to the custom in general among these tribes, see ibid. pp. 38-41. In Melanesia the practice of artificially lengthening the head into a cone by means of bandages applied in infancy is observed by the natives of Malikolo (Malekula) in the New Hebrides and also by the natives of the south coast of New Britain, from Cape Roebuck to Cape Bedder. See Beatrice Grimshaw, From Fiji to the Cannibal Islands (London, 1907), pp. 258-260; R. Parkinson, Dreissig Jahre in der Südsee (Stuttgart, 1907), pp. 204-206.
974. V. Fric and P. Radin, “Contributions to the Study of the Bororo Indians,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxvi. (1906) pp. 388 sq.
975. See The Spectator, Nos. 18 and 20.
976. Nicolaus Damascenus, in Stobaeus, Florilegium, xliv. 41 (Fragmenta Historic. Graecorum, ed. C. Müller, iii. 463).
977. Simon Grunau, Preussische Chronik, Tract. ii. cap. iii. § 2, p. 66, ed. M. Perlbach. This passage was pointed out to me by Mr. H. M. Chadwick.
978. Pausanias, v. 1. 4, vi. 20. 9.
979. Apollodorus, Epitoma, ii. 4-9, ed. R. Wagner (Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, ed. R. Wagner, pp. 183 sq.); Diodorus Siculus, iv. 73; Pausanias, v. 1. 6 sq., v. 10. 6 sq., v. 14. 7, v. 17. 7 sq., v. 20. 6 sq., vi. 21. 7-11.
980. Pausanias, vi. 21. 3.
981. Pausanias, v. 13. 1-6, vi. 20. 7.
982. Pausanias, iii. 12. 1, 20. 10 sq.
983. Pindar, Pyth. ix. 181-220, with the Scholia.
984. Pindar, Pyth. ix. 195 sqq.; Pausanias, iii. 12. 2.
985. Apollodorus, iii. 9. 2; Hyginus, Fab. 185; Ovid, Metam. x. 560 sqq.
986. E. Schuyler, Turkistan (London, 1876), i. 42 sq. This and the four following examples of the bride-race have been already cited by J. F. McLennan, Studies in Ancient History (London, 1886), pp. 15 sq., 181-184. He supposes them to be relics of a custom of capturing women from another community.
987. E. D. Clarke, Travels in Various Countries, i. (London, 1810), p. 333. In the fourth octavo edition of Clarke’s Travels (vol. i., London, 1816), from which McLennan seems to have quoted, there are a few verbal changes.
988. J. McLennan, op. cit. pp. 183 sq., referring to Kennan’s Tent Life in Siberia (1870), which I have not seen. Compare W. Jochelson, “The Koryak” (Leyden and New York, 1908), p. 742 (Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History, The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vol. vi.).
989. Letter of the missionary Bigandet, dated March 1847, in Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, xx. (1848) p. 431. A similar account of the ceremony is given by M. Bourien, “Wild Tribes of the Malay Peninsula,” Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London, N.S. iii. (1865) p. 81. See further W. W. Skeat and C.O. Blagden, Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula (London, 1906), ii. 68, 77 sq., 79 sq., 82 sq.
990. J. Cameron, Our Tropical Possessions in Malayan India (London, 1865), pp. 116 sq.
991. Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir (London, 1904), p. 219.
992. Middle High German brûtlouf, modern German Brautlauf, Anglo-Saxon brydhléap, old Norse brudhlaup, modern Norse bryllup. See Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, s.v. “Brautlauf”; K. Weinhold, Deutsche Frauen, 2nd Ed., i. 407. The latter writer supposes the word to refer merely to the procession from the house of the bride to the house of the bridegroom. But Grimm is most probably right in holding that originally it applied to a real race for the bride. This is the view also of K. Simrock (Deutsche Mythologie, 5th Ed. pp. 598 sq.). Another writer sees in it a trace of marriage by capture (L. Dargun, Mutterrecht und Raubehe (Breslau, 1883), p. 130). Compare K. Schmidt, Jus primae noctis (Freiburg i. B. 1881), p. 129.
993. A. Kuhn, Märkische Sagen und Märchen (Berlin, 1843), p. 358.
994. W. Kolbe, Hessische Volks-sitten und Gebräuche (Marburg, 1888), pp. 150 sq.
995. Lentner and Dahn, in Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern, i. (Munich, 1860) pp. 398 sq.
996. J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, ii. 153-155 (Bohn’s edition); J. Jamieson, Dictionary of the Scottish Language, s.v. “Broose.”
997. E. Herrmann, “Über Lieder und Bräuche bei Hochzeiten in Kärnten,” Archiv für Anthropologie, xix. (1891) p. 169.
998. Nicolaus Damascenus, quoted by Stobaeus, Florilegium, xliv. 41; Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, ed. C. Müller, iii. 457.
999. Strabo, v. 4. 12, p. 250.
1000. Arthur Young, “Tour in Ireland,” in Pinkerton’s Voyages and Travels, iii. 860.
1001. Mahabharata, condensed into English by Romesch Dutt (London, 1898), pp. 15 sqq.; J. C. Oman, The Great Indian Epics, pp. 109 sqq.
1002. J. D. Mayne, A Treatise on Hindu Law and Usage 3rd Ed., (Madras and London, 1883), p. 56; The Vikramânkadevacharita, edited by G. Bühler (Bombay, 1875), pp. 38-40; A. Holtzmann, Das Mahābharata und seine Theile, i. (Kiel, 1895), pp. 21 sq.; J. Jolly, Recht und Sitte, pp. 50 sq. (in G. Bühler’s Grundriss der indo-arischen Philologie).
1003. The Book of Ser Marco Polo., Yule’s translation, 2nd Ed., bk. iv. ch. 4, vol. ii. pp. 461-463.
1004. The Lay of the Nibelungs, translated by Alice Horton (London, 1898), Adventures vi. and vii.
1005. Parthenius, Narrat. Amat. vi. This passage was pointed out to me by Mr. A. B. Cook, who has himself discussed the contest for the kingship. See his article, “The European Sky-god,” Folk-lore, xv. (1904) pp. 376 sqq.
1006. Herodotus, vi. 126-130. It is to be observed that in this and other of the examples cited above the succession to the kingdom did not pass with the hand of the princess.
1007. See above, pp. 69, 84, 90 sq. These customs were observed at Whitsuntide, not on May Day. But the Whitsuntide king and queen are obviously equivalent to the King and Queen of May. Hence I allow myself to use the latter and more familiar titles so as to include the former.
1008. Ovid, Fasti, ii. 685 sqq.; Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 63; J. Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung, iii. 2nd Ed., 323 sq.; W. Warde Fowler, Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic, pp. 327 sqq.
1009. Another proposed explanation of the regifugium is that the king fled because at the sacrifice he had incurred the guilt of slaying a sacred animal. See W. Warde Fowler, Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic, pp. 328 sqq. The best-known example of such a ritual flight is that of the men who slew the ox at the Athenian festival of the Bouphonia. See The Golden Bough, Second Edition, ii. 294. Amongst the Pawnees the four men who assisted at the sacrifice of a girl to Ti-ra’-wa used to run away very fast after the deed was done and wash themselves in the river. See G. B. Grinnell, Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales (New York, 1889), pp. 365 sq. Among the ancient Egyptians the man whose duty it was to slit open a corpse for the purpose of embalming it fled as soon as he had done his part, pursued by all the persons present, who pelted him with stones and cursed him, “turning as it were the pollution on him; for they suppose that any one who violates or wounds or does any harm to the person of a fellow-tribesman is hateful” (Diodorus Siculus, i. 91. 4). Similarly in the western islands of Torres Straits the man whose duty it was to decapitate a corpse for the purpose of preserving the skull was shot at with arrows by the relatives of the deceased as an expiation for the injury he had done to the corpse of their kinsman. See Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, v. (Cambridge, 1904) pp. 249, 251. This explanation of the regifugium certainly deserves to be considered. But on this as on so many other points of ancient ritual we can hardly hope ever to attain to certainty.
1010. F. Cumont, “Les Actes de S. Dasius,” Analecta Bollandiana, xvi. (1897) pp. 5-16. See further Messrs. Parmentier and Cumont, “Le Roi des Saturnales,” Revue de Philologie, xxi. (1897) pp. 143-153; The Golden Bough, Second Edition, iii. 138 sqq. The tomb of St. Dasius, a Christian soldier who was put to death at Durostorum in 303 A.D. after refusing to play the part of Saturn at the festival, has since been discovered at Ancona. A Greek inscription on the tomb records that the martyr’s remains were brought thither from Durostorum. See F. Cumont, “Le Tombeau de S. Dasius de Durostorum,” Analecta Bollandiana, xxvii. (1908) pp. 369-372. Professor A. Erhard of Strasburg, who has been engaged for years in preparing an edition of the Acta Martyrum for the Berlin Corpus of Greek Fathers, informed me in conversation at Cambridge in the summer of 1910 that he ranks the Acts of St. Dasius among the authentic documents of their class. The plain unvarnished narrative bears indeed the stamp of truth on its face.
1011. Tacitus, Annals, xiii. 15; Arrian, Epicteti dissert. i. 25. 8; Lucian, Saturnalia, 4.
1012. As to these temporary kings see The Golden Bough, Second Edition, ii. 24 sqq.
1013. Varro, Rerum rusticarum, iii. 1. 5; Virgil, Aen. viii. 324; Tibullus, i. 3. 35; Augustine, De civitate Dei, vii. 19. Compare Wissowa, in W. H. Roscher’s Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie, iv. 433 sq.
1014. On Saturn as the god of sowing and the derivation of his name from a root meaning “to sow,” from which comes satus “sowing,” see Varro, De lingua Latina, v. 64; Festus, s.v. “Opima spolia,” p. 186, ed. C. O. Müller; Augustine, De civitate Dei, vii. 2, 3. 13, 15; Wissowa, in W. H. Roscher’s Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie, iv. 428. The derivation is confirmed by the form Saeturnus which occurs in an inscription (Saeturni pocolom, H. Dessau, Inscript. Latinae selectae, No. 2966). As to the Saturnalia see L. Preller, Römische Mythologie, 3rd Ed., ii. 15 sqq.; J. Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung, 2nd Ed., pp. 586 sqq.; Dezobry, Rome au siècle d’Auguste, iii. 143 sqq.; W. Warde Fowler, Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic, pp. 268 sqq. The festival was held from the seventeenth to the twenty-third of December. I formerly argued that in the old days, when the Roman year began with March instead of with January, the Saturnalia may have been held from the seventeenth to the twenty-third of February, in which case the festival must have immediately preceded the Flight of the King, which fell on February the twenty-fourth. See The Golden Bough, Second Edition, iii. 144 sqq.; Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship, p. 266. But this attempt to bring the ancient Saturnalia into immediate juxtaposition to the King’s Flight breaks down when we observe, as my friend Mr. W. Warde Fowler has pointed out to me, that the Saturnalia fell in December under the Republic, long before Caesar, in his reform of the calendar, had shifted the commencement of the year from March to January. See Livy, xxii. 1. 19 sq.
1015. Roman farmers sowed wheat, spelt, and barley in December, flax up to the seventh of that month, and beans up to the eleventh (the festival of Septimontium). See Palladius, De re rustica, xiii. 1. In the lowlands of Sicily at the present day November and December are the months of sowing, but in the highlands August and September. See G. Pitrè, Usi e costumi, credenze e pregiudizi del popolo siciliano, iii. (Palermo, 1889) pp. 132 sqq. Hence we may suppose that in the Roman Campagna of old the last sowing of autumn was over before the middle of December, when the Saturnalia began.
1016. This temporary liberty accorded to slaves was one of the most remarkable features of the Saturnalia and kindred festivals in antiquity. See The Golden Bough, Second Edition, iii. 139 sqq.
1017. The learned Swiss scholar, J. J. Bachofen long ago drew out in minute detail the parallel between these birth legends of the Roman kings and licentious festivals like the Roman Saturnalia and the Babylonian Sacaea. See his book Die Sage von Tanaquil (Heidelberg, 1870), pp. 133 sqq. To be frank, I have not had the patience to read through his long dissertation.
1018. Livy, i. 16; Dionysius Halic. Ant. Rom. ii. 56; Plutarch, Romulus, 27; Florus, i. 1. 16 sq. See above, pp. 181 sq.
1019. Varro, De lingua Latina, vi. 18; Plutarch, Romulus, 29; id., Camillus, 33; Macrobius, Saturn. i. 11. 36-40. The analogy of this festival to the Babylonian Sacaea was long ago pointed out by J. J. Bachofen. See his book Die Sage von Tanaquil (Heidelberg, 1870), pp. 172 sqq.
1020. Aristotle, Hist. anim. v. 32, p. 557b, ed. Bekker; Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. ii. 8; id., De causis plantarum, ii. 9; Plutarch, Quaest. conviv. vii. 2. 2; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xv. 79-81, xvi. 114, xvii. 256; Palladius, iv. 10. 28, vii. 5. 2; Columella, xi. 2. 56; Geoponica, iii. 6, x. 48. As to the practice in modern Greece and the fig-growing districts of Asia Minor, see P. de Tournefort, Relation d’un voyage du Levant (Amsterdam, 1718), i. 130; W. R. Paton, “The Pharmakoi and the Story of the Fall,” Revue archéologique, IVème Série, ix. (1907) p. 51. For an elaborate examination of the process and its relation to the domestication and spread of the fig-tree, see Graf zu Solms-Laubach, “Die Herkunft, Domestication und Verbreitung des gewöhnlichen Feigenbaums (Ficus Carica, L.),” Abhandlungen der Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, xxviii. (1882) pp. 1-106. This last writer thinks that the operation was not practised by Italian husbandmen, because it is not mentioned by Cato and Varro. But their silence can hardly outweigh the express mention and recommendation of it by Palladius and Columella. Theophrastus, it is true, says that the process was not in use in Italy (Hist. Plantarum, ii. 8. 1), but he can scarcely have had exact information on this subject. Caprificatio, as this artificial fertilisation of fig-trees is called, is still employed by the Neapolitan peasantry, though it seems to be unknown in northern Italy. Pliny’s account has no independent value, as he merely copies from Theophrastus. The name “goat-fig” (caprificus) applied to the wild fig-tree may be derived from the notion that the tree is a male who mounts the female as the he-goat mounts the she-goat. Similarly the Messenians called the tree simply “he-goat” (τράγος). See Pausanias, iv. 20. 1-3.
1021. G. Pitrè, Usi e costumi, credenze e pregiudizi del popolo siciliano, iii. 113.
1022. Budgett Meakin, The Moors (London, 1902), p. 258; E. Doutté, Magie et religion dans l’Afrique du Nord (Algiers, 1908), p. 568.
1023. A. Engler, in V. Hehn’s Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere, 7th Ed., (Berlin, 1902), p. 99. Compare Graf zu Solms-Laubach, op. cit.; Encyclopaedia Biblica, s.v. “Fig-tree,” vol. iv. 1519. The ancients were well aware of the production of these insects in the wild fig-tree and their transference to the cultivated fig-tree. Sometimes instead of fertilising the trees by hand they contented themselves with planting wild fig-trees near cultivated fig-trees, so that the fertilisation was effected by the wind, which blew the insects from the male to the female trees. See Aristotle, l.c.; Theophrastus, De causis plantarum, ii. 9; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xv. 79-81; Palladius, iv. 10. 28. On subject of the fertilisation of the fig the late Professor H. Marshall Ward of Cambridge kindly furnished me with the following note, which will serve to supplement and correct the brief account in the text:—“The fig is a hollow case full of flowers. In the wild fig a small gall wasp (Cynips psenes) lays its eggs: this kind of fig is still called Caprificus. The eggs hatch in the female flowers at the base of the hollow fig: at the top, near the ostiole observable on any ripe fig, are the male flowers. When the eggs hatch, and the little insects creep through the ostiole, the male flowers dust the wasp with pollen, and the insect flies to another flower (to lay its eggs), and so fertilises many of the female flowers in return for the nursery afforded its eggs. Now, the cultivated fig is apt to be barren of male flowers. Hence the hanging of branches bearing wild figs enables the escaping wasps to do the trick. The ancients knew the fact that the propinquity of the Caprificus helped the fertility of the cultivated fig, but, of course, they did not know the details of the process. The further complexities are, chiefly, that the fig bears two kinds of female flowers: one especially fitted for the wasp’s convenience, the other not. The Caprificus figs are inedible. In Naples three crops of them are borne every year, viz. Mamme (in April), Profichi (in June), and Mammoni (in August). It is the June crop that bears most male flowers and is most useful.” The suggestion that the festival of the seventh of July was connected with this horticultural operation is due to L. Preller (Römische Mythologie, 3rd Ed., i. 287).
1025. 1 Kings iv. 25; 2 Kings xviii. 31; Isaiah xxxvi. 16; Micah iv. 4; Zechariah iii. 10; Judges ix. 10 sq.; H. B. Tristram, The Natural History of the Bible 9th Ed. (London, 1898), pp. 350 sqq.; Encyclopaedia Biblica, s.v. “Fig Tree,” vol. ii. 1519 sq.
1026. Herodotus, i. 71.
1027. Zamachschar, cited by Graf zu Solms-Laubach, op. cit. p. 82. For more evidence as to the fig in antiquity see V. Hehn, Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere, 7th Ed., pp. 94 sqq.
1028. Letter of Mr. C. W. Hobley to me, dated Nairobi, British East Africa, July 27th, 1910. This interesting information was given spontaneously and not in answer to any questions of mine.
1029. C. W. Hobley, The Ethnology of A-Kamba and other East African Tribes (Cambridge, 1910), pp. 85, 89 sq. In British Central Africa “every village has its ‘prayer-tree,’ under which the sacrifices are offered. It stands (usually) in the bwalo, the open space which Mr. Macdonald calls the ‘forum,’ and is, sometimes, at any rate, a wild fig-tree.” “This is the principal tree used for making bark-cloth. Livingstone says, ‘It is a sacred tree all over Africa and India’; and I learn from M. Auguste Chevalier that it is found in every village of Senegal and French Guinea, and looked on as ‘a fetich-tree’” (Miss A. Werner, The Natives of British Central Africa, pp. 62 sq.).
1030. From the unpublished papers of the Rev. John Roscoe, which he has kindly placed at my disposal.
1031. Varro, De lingua Latina, v. 54; Livy, i. 4. 5; Ovid, Fasti, ii. 411 sq.; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xv. 77; Festus, pp. 266, 270, 271, ed. C. O. Müller; Tacitus, Annals, xiii. 58; Servius on Virgil, Aen. viii. 90; Plutarch, Romulus, 4; id., Quaestiones Romanae, 57; Dionysius Halicarnasensis, Antiquitates Romanae, iii. 71. 5. All the Roman writers speak of the tree as a cultivated fig (ficus), not a wild fig (caprificus), and Dionysius agrees with them. Plutarch alone (Romulus, 4) describes it as a wild fig-tree (ἐρινεός). See also above, p. 10.
1032. Festus, p. 266, ed. C. O. Müller; Ettore Pais, Ancient Legends of Roman History (London, 1906), pp. 55 sqq. Festus indeed treats the derivation as an absurdity, and many people will be inclined to agree with him.
1033. On the fifth of July a ceremony called the Flight of the People was performed at Rome. Some ancient writers thought that it commemorated the dispersal of the people after the disappearance of Romulus. But this is to confuse the dates; for, according to tradition, the death of Romulus took place on the seventh, not the fifth of July, and therefore after instead of before the Flight of the People. See Varro, De lingua Latina, vi. 18; Macrobius, Sat. iii. 2. 14; Dionysius Halicarn. Ant. Rom. ii. 56. 5; Plutarch, Romulus, 29; id., Camillus, 33; W. Warde Fowler, Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic, pp. 174 sqq. Mr. Warde Fowler may be right in thinking that some connexion perhaps existed between the ceremonies of the two days, the fifth and the seventh; and I agree with his suggestion that “the story itself of the death of Romulus had grown out of some religious rite performed at this time of year.” I note as a curious coincidence, for it can hardly be more, that at Bodmin in Cornwall a festival was held on the seventh of July, when a Lord of Misrule was appointed, who tried people for imaginary crimes and sentenced them to be ducked in a quagmire called Halgaver, which is explained to mean “the goat’s moor.” See T. F. Thiselton Dyer, British Popular Customs, p. 339. The “goat’s moor” is an odd echo of the “goat’s marsh” at which Romulus disappeared on the same day of the year (Livy, i. 16. 1; Plutarch, Romulus, 29; id., Camillus, 33).