CHAPTER XIII

THE KINGS OF ROME AND ALBA

§ 1. Numa and Egeria

[Sidenote: Egeria at Nemi a nymph of water and of the oak, perhaps a form of Diana.] From the foregoing survey of custom and legend we may infer that the sacred marriage of the powers both of vegetation and of water has been celebrated by many peoples for the sake of promoting the fertility of the earth, on which the life of animals and men ultimately depends, and that in such rites the part of the divine bridegroom or bride is often sustained by a man or woman. The evidence may, therefore, lend some countenance to the conjecture that in the sacred grove at Nemi, where the powers of vegetation and of water manifested themselves in the fair forms of shady woods, tumbling cascades, and glassy lake, a marriage like that of our King and Queen of May was annually celebrated between the mortal King of the Wood and the immortal Queen of the Wood, Diana. In this connexion an important figure in the grove was the water-nymph Egeria, who was worshipped by pregnant women because she, like Diana, could grant them an easy delivery.[540] From this it seems fairly safe to conclude that, like many other springs, the water of Egeria was credited with a power of facilitating conception as well as delivery. The votive offerings found on the spot, which clearly refer to the begetting of children,[541] may possibly have been dedicated to Egeria rather than to Diana, or perhaps we should rather say that the water-nymph Egeria is only another form of the great nature-goddess Diana herself, the mistress of sounding rivers as well as of umbrageous woods,[542] who had her home by the lake and her mirror in its calm waters, and whose Greek counterpart Artemis loved to haunt meres and springs.[543] The identification of Egeria with Diana is confirmed by a statement of Plutarch that Egeria was one of the oak-nymphs[544] whom the Romans believed to preside over every green oak-grove;[545] for while Diana was a goddess of the woodlands in general she appears to have been intimately associated with oaks in particular, especially at her sacred grove of Nemi.[546] Perhaps, then, Egeria was the fairy of a spring that flowed from the roots of a sacred oak. Such a spring is said to have gushed from the foot of the great oak at Dodona, and from its murmurous flow the priestess drew oracles.[547] Among the Greeks a draught of water from certain sacred springs or wells was supposed to confer prophetic powers.[548] This would explain the more than mortal wisdom with which, according to tradition, Egeria inspired her royal husband or lover Numa.[549] When we remember how very often in early society the king is held responsible for the fall of rain and the fruitfulness of the earth, it seems hardly rash to conjecture that in the legend of the nuptials of Numa and [Sidenote: The legend of the nuptials of Numa and Egeria may be a reminiscence of a sacred marriage which the kings of Rome contracted with a goddess of water and of vegetation.] Egeria we have a reminiscence of a sacred marriage which the old Roman kings regularly contracted with a goddess of vegetation and water for the purpose of enabling him to discharge his divine or magical functions. In such a rite the part of the goddess might be played either by an image or a woman, and if by a woman, probably by the Queen. If there is any truth in this conjecture, we may suppose that the King and Queen of Rome masqueraded as god and goddess at their marriage, exactly as the King and Queen of Egypt appear to have done.[550] The legend of Numa and Egeria points to a sacred grove rather than to a house as the scene of the nuptial union, which, like the marriage of the King and Queen of May, or of the vine-god and the Queen of Athens, may have been annually celebrated as a charm to ensure the fertility not only of the earth but of man and beast. Now, according to some accounts, the scene of the marriage was no other than the sacred grove of Nemi, and on quite independent grounds we have been led to suppose that in that same grove the King of the Wood was wedded to Diana. The convergence of the two distinct lines of enquiry suggests that the legendary union of the Roman king with Egeria may have been a reflection or duplicate of the union of the King of the Wood with Egeria or her double Diana. This does not imply that the Roman kings ever served as Kings of the Wood in the Arician grove, but only that they may originally have been invested with a sacred character of the same general kind, and may have held office on similar terms. To be more explicit, it is possible that they reigned, not by right of birth, but in virtue of their supposed divinity as representatives or embodiments of a god, and that as such they mated with a goddess, and had to prove their fitness from time to time to discharge their divine functions by engaging in a severe bodily struggle, which may often have proved fatal to them, leaving the crown to their victorious adversary. Our knowledge of the Roman kingship is far too scanty to allow us to affirm any one of these propositions with confidence; but at least there are some scattered hints or indications of a similarity in all these respects between the priests of Nemi and the kings of Rome, or perhaps rather between their remote predecessors in the dark ages which preceded the dawn of legend.[551]

§ 2. The King as Jupiter

[Sidenote: The Roman king seems to have personated Jupiter and worn his costume.] In the first place, then, it would seem that the Roman king personated no less a deity than Jupiter himself. For down to imperial times victorious generals celebrating a triumph, and magistrates presiding at the games in the Circus, wore the costume of Jupiter, which was borrowed for the occasion from his great temple on the Capitol; and it has been held with a high degree of probability both by ancients and moderns that in so doing they copied the traditionary attire and insignia of the Roman kings.[552] They rode a chariot drawn by four laurel-crowned horses through the city, where every one else went on foot;[553] they wore purple robes embroidered or spangled with gold; in the right hand they bore a branch of laurel and in the left hand an ivory sceptre topped with an eagle; a wreath of laurel crowned their brows; their face was reddened with vermilion; and over their head a slave held a heavy crown of massy gold fashioned in the likeness of oak leaves.[554] In this attire the assimilation of the man to the god comes out above all in the eagle-topped sceptre, the oaken crown, and the reddened face. For the eagle was the bird of Jove, the oak was his sacred tree, and the face of his image standing in his four-horse chariot on the Capitol was in like manner regularly dyed red on festivals; indeed, so important was it deemed to keep the divine features properly rouged that one of the first duties of the censors was to contract for having this done.[555] The Greeks sometimes painted red the face or the whole body of the wine-god Dionysus.[556] These customs may have been a substitute for an older practice of feeding a god by smearing the face, and especially the lips, of his idol with the blood of a sacrificial victim. Many examples of such a practice might be adduced from the religion of barbarous peoples.[557] As the triumphal procession always ended in the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, it was peculiarly appropriate that the head of the victor should be graced by a crown of oak leaves, for not only was every oak consecrated to Jupiter,[558] but the Capitoline temple of the god was said to have been built by Romulus beside a sacred oak, venerated by shepherds, to which the king attached the spoils won by him from the enemy’s general in battle.[559] We are expressly told that the oak crown was [Sidenote: The oak crown as an emblem of Jupiter and of the Roman emperors.] sacred to Capitoline Jupiter;[560] a passage of Ovid proves that it was regarded as the god’s special emblem. Writing in exile on the shores of the Black Sea, the poet sends the book which he has just composed to Rome to be published there; he personifies the volume and imagines it passing along the Sacred Way and up to the door of the emperor’s stately palace on the Palatine hill. Above the portal hung shining arms and a crown of oak leaves. At the sight the poet starts: “Is this, quoth I, the house of Jove? For sure to my prophetic soul the oaken crown was reason good to think it so.”[561] The senate had granted Augustus the right to have the wreath of oak always suspended over his door;[562] and elsewhere Ovid counts this among the more than mortal honours bestowed on the emperor.[563] On the Capitol at Cirta there stood a silver image of Jupiter wearing a silver crown of oak leaves and acorns.[564] Similarly at Dodona, the most famous sanctuary of the oak in Greece, the image of Zeus appears to have worn a chaplet of oak leaves; for the god is constantly thus portrayed on coins of Epirus.[565] And just as Roman kings appear to have personated the oak-god Jupiter, so Greek kings appear to have personated the oak-god Zeus. The legendary Salmoneus of Elis is certainly reported to have done so;[566] Periphas, an ancient king of Athens, is said to have been styled Zeus by his people, and to have been changed into an eagle by his jealous name-sake.[567] In Homer kings are often spoken of as nurtured by Zeus and divine.[568] Indeed we are told that in ancient days every Greek king was called Zeus.[569]

[Sidenote: To the Romans the breach between the human and the divine was not so wide as it seems to us.] Thus we may fairly assume that on certain solemn occasions Roman generals and magistrates personated the supreme god, and that in so doing they revived the practice of the early kings. To us moderns, for whom the breach which divides the human and the divine has deepened into an impassable gulf, such mimicry may appear impious, but it was otherwise with the ancients. To their thinking gods and men were akin, for many families traced their descent from a divinity, and the deification of a man probably seemed as little extraordinary to them as the canonisation of a saint seems to a modern Catholic. The Romans in particular were quite familiar with the spectacle of men masquerading as spirits; for at the funerals of great houses all the illustrious dead of the family were personated by men specially chosen for their resemblance to the departed. These representatives wore [Sidenote: Roman custom of representing dead ancestors by masked men.] masks fashioned and painted in the likeness of the originals: they were dressed in rich robes of office, resplendent with purple and gold, such as the dead nobles had worn in their lifetime: like them, they rode in chariots through the city preceded by the rods and axes, and attended by all the pomp and heraldry of high station; and when at last the funeral procession, after threading its way through the crowded streets, defiled into the Forum, the maskers solemnly took their seats on ivory chairs placed for them on the platform of the Rostra, in the sight of the people, recalling no doubt to the old, by their silent presence, the memories of an illustrious past, and firing the young with the ambition of a glorious future.[570]

[Sidenote: The kings of Alba seem also to have claimed to represent Jupiter.] According to a tradition which we have no reason to reject, Rome was founded by settlers from Alba Longa, a city situated on the slope of the Alban hills, overlooking the lake and the Campagna.[571] Hence if the Roman kings claimed to be representatives or embodiments of Jupiter, the god of the sky, of the thunder, and of the oak, it is natural to suppose that the kings of Alba, from whom the founder of Rome traced his descent, may have set up the same claim before them. Now the Alban dynasty bore the name of Silvii or Wood, and it can hardly be without significance that in the vision of the historic glories of Rome revealed to Aeneas in the underworld, Virgil, an antiquary as well as a poet, should represent all the line of Silvii as crowned [Sidenote: The Silvii and the Julii.] with oak.[572] A chaplet of oak leaves would thus seem to have been part of the insignia of the old kings of Alba Longa as of their successors the kings of Rome; in both cases it marked the monarch as the human representative of the oak-god. With regard to Silvius, the first king of the Alban dynasty, we are told that he got his name because he had been born or brought up in the forest, and that when he came to man’s estate he contested the kingdom with his kinsman Julus, whose name, as some of the ancients themselves [Sidenote: Julus, the little Jupiter.] perceived, means the Little Jupiter. The people decided in favour of Silvius, but his rival Julus was consoled for the loss of the crown by being invested with religious authority and the office of chief pontiff, or perhaps rather of Flamen Dialis, the highest dignity after the kingship. From this Julus or Little Jupiter, the noble house of the Julii, and hence the first emperors of Rome, believed themselves to be sprung.[573] The legend of the dispute between Silvius and Julus may preserve a reminiscence of such a partition of spiritual and temporal powers in Alba Longa as afterwards took place in Rome, when the old regal office was divided between the Consuls and the King of the Sacred Rites.[574] Many more instances of such a schism will meet us later on. That the Julian house worshipped Vejovis, the Little Jupiter, according to the ancient rites of Alba Longa, is proved by the inscription on an altar which they dedicated to him at their ancestral home of Bovillae, a colony of Alba Longa, situated at the foot of the Alban hills.[575] The Caesars, the most illustrious family of the Julian house, took their name from their long hair (_caesaries_),[576] which was probably in those early days, as it was among the Franks long afterwards, a symbol of royalty.[577]

[Sidenote: The Alban kings seem to have been expected to make thunder and rain for the good of their subjects.] But in ceding the pontificate to their rivals, it would seem that the reigning dynasty of the Silvii or Woods by no means renounced their own claim to personate the god of the oak and the thunder; for the Roman annals record that one of them, Romulus, Remulus, or Amulius Silvius by name, set up for being a god in his own person, the equal or superior of Jupiter. To support his pretensions and overawe his subjects, he constructed machines whereby he mimicked the clap of thunder and the flash of lightning. Diodorus relates that in the season of fruitage, when thunder is loud and frequent, the king commanded his soldiers to drown the roar of heaven’s artillery by clashing their swords against their shields. But he paid the penalty of his impiety, for he perished, he and his house, struck by a thunderbolt in the midst of a dreadful storm. Swollen by the rain, the Alban lake rose in flood and drowned his palace. But still, says an ancient historian, when the water is low and the surface unruffled by a breeze, you may see the ruins of the palace at the bottom of the clear lake.[578] Taken along with the similar story of Salmoneus, king of Elis,[579] this legend points to a real custom observed by the early kings of Greece and Italy, who like their fellows in Africa down to modern times may have been expected to produce rain and thunder for the good of the crops.[580] The priestly king Numa passed for an adept in the art of drawing down lightning from the sky.[581] Mock thunder, we know, has been made by various peoples as a rain-charm in modern times;[582] why should it not have been made by kings in antiquity?

[Sidenote: The legends of the deaths of Roman kings point to a close connexion between the king and the thunder-god.] In this connexion it deserves to be noted that, according to the legend, Salmoneus, like his Alban counterpart, was killed by a thunderbolt; and that one of the Roman kings, Tullus Hostilius, is reported to have met with the same end in an attempt to draw down Jupiter in the form of lightning from the sky.[583] Aeneas himself, the legendary ancestor both of the Alban and the Roman kings, vanished from the world in a violent thunderstorm, and was afterwards worshipped as Jupiter Indiges. A mound of earth, encircled with fine trees, on the bank of the little river Numicius was pointed out as his grave.[584] Romulus, too, the first king of Rome, [Sidenote: Death and deification of Romulus.] disappeared in like manner. It was the seventh of July, and the king was reviewing his army at the Goat’s Marsh, outside the walls of the city. Suddenly the sky lowered and a tempest burst, accompanied by peals of thunder. Soon the storm had swept by, leaving the brightness and serenity of the summer day behind. But Romulus was never seen again. Those who had stood by him said they saw him caught up to heaven in a whirlwind; and not long afterwards a certain Proculus Julius, a patrician of Alban birth and descent, declared on oath that Romulus had appeared to him clad in bright armour, and announced that the Romans were to worship him as a god under the name of Quirinus, and to build him a temple on the spot. The temple was built and the place was henceforth known as the Quirinal hill.[585] In this legend it is significant that the annunciation of the king’s divinity should be put in the mouth of a member of the Julian house, a native of Alba; for we have seen reason to believe that at Alba the Julii had competed with the Silvii, from whom Romulus was descended, for the kingship, and with it for the honour of personating Jupiter. If, as seems to be philologically possible, the word Quirinus is derived from the same root as _quercus_, “an oak,” the name of the deified Romulus would mean no more than “the oak-god,” that is, Jupiter.[586] Thus the tradition would square perfectly with the other indications of custom and legend which have led us to conclude that the kings both of Rome and of Alba claimed to embody in their own persons the god of the sky, of thunder, and of the oak. Certainly the stories which associated the deaths of so many of them with thunderstorms point to a close connexion with the god of thunder and lightning. A king who had been wont to fulminate in his lifetime might naturally be supposed at death to be carried up in a thunderstorm to heaven, there to discharge above the clouds the same duties which he had performed on earth. Such a tale would be all the more likely to attach itself to the twin Romulus, if the early Romans shared the widespread superstition that twins have power over the weather in general and over rain and wind in particular.[587] That tempests are caused by the spirits of the dead is a belief of the Araucanians of Chili. Not a storm bursts upon the Andes or the ocean which these Indians do not ascribe to a battle between the souls of their fellow-countrymen and the dead Spaniards. In the roaring of the wind they hear the trampling of the ghostly horses, in the peal of the thunder the roll of the drums, and in the flashes of lightning the fire of the artillery.[588]

[Sidenote: Every Latin town probably had its local Jupiter.] Thus, if the kings of Alba and Rome imitated Jupiter as god of the oak by wearing a crown of oak leaves, they seem also to have copied him in his character of a weather-god by pretending to make thunder and lightning. And if they did so, it is probable that, like Jupiter in heaven and many kings on earth, they also acted as public rain-makers, wringing showers from the dark sky by their enchantments whenever the parched earth cried out for the refreshing moisture. At Rome the sluices of heaven were opened by means of a sacred stone, and the ceremony appears to have formed part of the ritual of Jupiter Elicius, the god who elicits from the clouds the flashing lightning and the dripping rain.[589] And who so well fitted to perform the ceremony as the king, the living representative of the sky-god?

[Sidenote: Many local Jupiters in Latium.] The conclusion which we have reached as to the kings of Rome and Alba probably holds good of all the kings of ancient Latium: each of them, we may suppose, represented or embodied the local Jupiter. For we can hardly doubt that of old every Latin town or settlement had its own Jupiter, as every town and almost every church in modern Italy has its own Madonna; and like the Baal of the Semites the local Jupiter was commonly worshipped on high places. Wooded heights, round which the rain-clouds gather, were indeed the natural sanctuaries for a god of the sky, the rain, and the oak. At Rome he occupied one summit of the Capitoline hill, while the other summit was assigned to his wife Juno, whose temple, with the long flight [Sidenote: Capitoline Jupiter and Juno.] of stairs leading up to it, has for ages been appropriately replaced by the church of St. Mary “in the altar of the sky” (_in Araceli_).[590] That both heights were originally wooded seems certain, for down to imperial times the saddle which joins them was known as the place “between the two groves.”[591] Virgil tells us that the hilltop where gilded temples glittered in his day had been covered of old by shaggy thickets, the haunt of woodland elves and savage men, “born of the tree-trunks and the heart of oak.”[592] These thickets were probably composed of oaks, for the oak crown [Sidenote: The hills of Rome once wooded with oaks.] was sacred to Capitoline Juno as well as to Jupiter;[593] it was to a sacred oak on the Capitol that Romulus fastened the spoils,[594] and there is evidence that in early times oak-woods clothed other of the hills on which Rome was afterwards built. Thus the Caelian hill went originally by the name of the Mountain of the Oak Grove on account of the thickets of oak by which it was overgrown,[595] and Jupiter was here worshipped in his character of the oak-god;[596] one of the old gates of Rome, apparently between the Caelian and the Esquiline hills, was called the Gate of the Oak Grove for a similar reason;[597] and within the walls hard by was a Chapel of the Oak Grove dedicated to the worship of the oak-nymphs.[598] These nymphs appear on coins of the Accoleian family as three women supporting on their shoulders a pole from which rise leafy branches.[599] The Esquiline hill seems also to have derived its name from its oaks. After mentioning the Chapel of the Oak and other hallowed groves which still dotted the hill in his time, the antiquary Varro tells us that their bounds were now much curtailed, adding with a sigh that it was no wonder the sacred old trees should give way to the modern worship of Mammon.[600] Apparently the Roman nobles of those days sold the ancient woods, as their descendants sell their beautiful gardens, for building-land. To this list of oak-clad hills on the left bank of the Tiber must be added the Quirinal, if Quirinus, who had a very ancient shrine on the hill, was the oak-god.[601] Under the Aventine was a grove of evergreen oaks,[602] which appears to have been no other than the grove of Egeria outside the Porta Capena.[603] The old grove of Vesta, which once skirted the foot of the Palatine hill on the side of the Forum,[604] must surely have been a grove of oaks; for not only does an oak appear growing beside the temple of Vesta on a fine relief preserved in the gallery of the Uffizi at Florence, but [Sidenote: The sacred Vestal fire fed with oak-wood.] charred embers of the sacred Vestal fire have in recent years been discovered at the temple of Vesta in the Forum, and a microscopic analysis of them has proved that they consist of the pith or heart of trunks or great branches of oak (_quercus_).[605] The full significance of this discovery will appear later on. When the plebeians seceded to the Janiculum in the third century before Christ, the dictator Q. Hortensius summoned a meeting of the people and passed a law in an oak grove, which perhaps grew on the hill.[606] In this neighbourhood there was a street called the Street of the Oak Grove; it is mentioned in an inscription found in its original position near the modern Garibaldi bridge.[607] On the Vatican hill there stood an evergreen oak which was believed to be older than Rome; an inscription in Etruscan letters on a bronze tablet proclaimed the sanctity of the tree.[608] Finally, that oak woods existed at or near Rome in the earliest times has lately been demonstrated by the discovery in the Forum itself of a prehistoric cemetery, which contains amongst other sepultures the bones of several young children deposited in rudely hollowed trunks of oak.[609] With all this evidence before us we need not wonder that Virgil should speak of the primitive inhabitants of Rome as “born of the tree-trunks and the heart of oak,” and that the Roman kings should have worn crowns of oak leaves in imitation of the oak-god Jupiter, who dwelt in his sacred grove on the Capitol.

[Sidenote: The Alban kings may have imitated Latian Jupiter, who dwelt on the top of the Alban Mount.] If the kings of Rome aped Capitoline Jove, their predecessors the kings of Alba probably laid themselves out to mimic the great Latian Jupiter, who had his seat above the city on the summit of the Alban Mountain. Latinus, the legendary ancestor of the dynasty, was said to have been changed into Latian Jupiter after vanishing from the world in the mysterious fashion characteristic of the old Latin kings.[610] The sanctuary of the god on the top of the mountain was the religious centre of the Latin League, as Alba was its political capital till Rome wrested the supremacy from its ancient rival. Apparently no temple, in our sense of the word, was ever erected to Jupiter on this his holy mountain; as god of the sky and thunder he appropriately received the homage of his worshippers in the open air. The massive wall, of which some remains still enclose the old garden of the Passionist monastery, seems to have been part of the sacred precinct which Tarquin the Proud, the last king of Rome, marked out for the solemn annual assembly of the Latin League.[611] The god’s oldest sanctuary on this airy mountain-top was a grove;[612] and bearing in mind not merely the special consecration of the oak to Jupiter, but also the traditional oak crown of the Alban kings and the analogy of the Capitoline Jupiter at Rome, we may suppose that the trees in the grove were oaks.[613] We know that in antiquity Mount Algidus, an outlying group of the Alban hills, was covered with dark forests of oak;[614] and among the tribes who belonged to the Latin League in the earliest days, and were entitled to share the flesh of the white bull sacrificed on the Alban Mount, there was one whose members styled themselves the Men of the Oak,[615] doubtless on account of the woods among which they dwelt.

[Sidenote: Theophrastus’s description of the woods of Latium.] But we should err if we pictured to ourselves the country as covered in historical times with an unbroken forest of oaks. Theophrastus has left us a description of the woods of Latium as they were in the fourth century before Christ. He says: “The land of the Latins is all moist. The plains produce laurels, myrtles, and wonderful beeches; for they fell trees of such a size that a single stem suffices for the keel of a Tyrrhenian ship. Pines and firs grow in the mountains. What they call the land of Circe is a lofty headland thickly wooded with oak, myrtle, and luxuriant laurels. The natives say that Circe dwelt there, and they shew the grave of Elpenor, from which grow myrtles such as wreaths are made of, whereas the other myrtle-trees are tall.”[616] Thus the prospect from the top [Sidenote: The prospect from the Alban Mount in antiquity.] of the Alban Mount in the early days of Rome must have been very different in some respects from what it is to-day. The purple Apennines, indeed, in their eternal calm on the one hand, and the shining Mediterranean in its eternal unrest on the other, no doubt looked then much as they look now, whether bathed in sunshine, or chequered by the fleeting shadows of clouds; but instead of the desolate brown expanse of the fever-stricken Campagna, spanned by its long lines of ruined aqueducts, like the broken arches of the bridge in the vision of Mirza, the eye must have ranged over woodlands that stretched away, mile after mile, on all sides, till their varied hues of green or autumnal scarlet and gold melted insensibly into the blue of the distant mountains and sea.

Thus the Alban Mount was to the Latins what Olympus was to the Greeks, the lofty abode of the sky-god, who hurled his thunderbolts from above the clouds. The white steers which were here sacrificed to him in his sacred grove, as in the Capitol at Rome,[617] remind us of the white bulls which the Druids of Gaul sacrificed under the holy oak when [Sidenote: Resemblance between the Latin worship of Jupiter and the Druidical worship of the oak.] they cut the mistletoe;[618] and the parallel would be all the closer if, as we have seen reason to think, the Latins worshipped Jupiter originally in groves of oak. Other resemblances between ancient Gaul and Latium will meet us later on. When we remember that the ancient Italian and Celtic peoples spoke languages which are nearly related to each other,[619] we shall not be surprised at discovering traces of community in their religion, especially in what concerns the worship of the god of the oak and the thunder. For that worship, as we shall see presently, belongs to the oldest stratum of Aryan civilisation in Europe.

[Sidenote: Sacred marriage of Jupiter and Juno.] But Jupiter did not reign alone on the top of his holy mountain. He had his consort with him, the goddess Juno, who was worshipped here under the same title, Moneta, as on the Capitol at Rome.[620] As the oak crown was sacred to Jupiter and Juno on the Capitol,[621] so we may suppose it was on the Alban Mount, from which the Capitoline worship was derived. Thus the oak-god would have his oak-goddess in the sacred oak grove. So at Dodona the oak-god Zeus was coupled with Dione, whose very name is only a dialectically different form of Juno;[622] and so on the top of Mount Cithaeron he was periodically wedded to an oaken image of Hera.[623] It is probable, though it cannot be positively proved, that the sacred marriage of Jupiter and Juno was annually celebrated by all the peoples of the Latin stock in the month which they named after the goddess, the midsummer month of June.[624] Now on the first of June the Roman pontiffs performed certain rites in the grove of Helernus beside the Tiber, and on the same day, and perhaps in the same place, a nymph of the grove, by name Carna, received offerings of lard and bean-porridge. She was said to be a huntress, chaste and coy, who gave [Sidenote: Janus and Carna.] the slip to her lovers in the depths of the wood, but was caught by Janus. Some took her to be Diana herself.[625] If she were indeed a form of that goddess, her union with Janus, that is, Dianus, would be appropriate; and as she had a chapel on the Caelian hill, which was once covered with oak-woods,[626] she may have been, like Egeria, an oak-nymph. Further, Janus, or Dianus, and Diana, as we shall see later on, were originally mere doubles of Jupiter and Juno, with whom they coincide in name and to some extent in function. Hence it appears to be not impossible that the rite celebrated by the pontiffs on the first of June in the sacred grove of Helernus was the marriage of Jupiter and Juno under the forms of Janus and Diana. It would be some confirmation of this view if we could be sure that, as Ovid seems to imply, the Romans were in the habit of placing branches of white thorn or buckthorn in their [Sidenote: Ancient use of white thorn or buckthorn to ward off witchcraft.] windows on the first of June to keep out the witches;[627] for in some parts of Europe precisely the same custom is observed, for the same reason, a month earlier, on the marriage day of the King and Queen of May.[628] The Greeks certainly believed that branches of white thorn or buckthorn fastened to a door or outside the house had power to disarm the malignant arts of sorcerers[629] and to exclude spirits. Hence they hung up branches of it before the door when sacrifices were being offered to the dead, lest any of the prowling ghosts should be tempted to revisit their old homes or to invade those of other people.[630] When the atheist Bion lay adying, he not only caused sacrifices to be offered on his behalf to the gods whose existence he had denied, but got an old hag to mumble incantations over him and to bind magical thongs about his arms, and he had boughs of buckthorn and laurel attached to the lintel to keep out death.[631] However, the evidence as to the rites observed by the Romans on the first of June is too slight and dubious to allow us to press the parallel with May Day.

[Sidenote: At the sacred marriage of Jupiter and Juno in later times the parts of the deities may have been acted by the Flamen Dialis and the Flaminica.] If at any time of the year the Romans celebrated the sacred marriage of Jupiter and Juno, as the Greeks commonly celebrated the corresponding marriage of Zeus and Hera,[632] we may suppose that under the Republic the ceremony was either performed over images of the divine pair or acted by the Flamen Dialis and his wife the Flaminica. For the Flamen Dialis was the priest of Jove; indeed, ancient and modern writers have regarded him, with much probability, as a living image of Jupiter, a human embodiment of the sky-god.[633] In earlier times the Roman king, as representative of Jupiter, would naturally play the part of the heavenly bridegroom at the sacred marriage, while his queen would figure as the heavenly bride, just as in Egypt [Sidenote: The Flamen and Flaminica may have been the deputies of the king and queen.] the king and queen masqueraded in the character of deities, and as at Athens the queen annually wedded the vine-god Dionysus. That the Roman king and queen should act the parts of Jupiter and Juno would seem all the more natural because these deities themselves bore the title of King and Queen.[634] Even if the office of Flamen Dialis existed under the kings, as it appears to have done, the double representation of Jupiter by the king and the flamen need not have seemed extraordinary to the Romans of the time. The same sort of duplication, as we saw, appears to have taken place at Alba, when the Julii were allowed to represent the supreme god in the character of Little Jupiters, while the royal dynasty of the Silvii continued to wield the divine thunder and lightning.[635] And long ages afterwards, history repeating itself, another member of the Julian house, the first emperor of Rome, was deified in his lifetime under the title of Jupiter, while a flamen was appointed to do for him what the Flamen Dialis did for the heavenly Jove.[636] It is said that Numa, the typical priestly king, at first himself discharged the functions of Flamen Dialis, but afterwards appointed a separate priest of Jupiter with that title, in order that the kings, untrammeled by the burdensome religious observances attached to the priesthood, might be free to lead their armies to battle.[637] The tradition may be substantially correct; for analogy shews that the functions of a priestly king are too harassing and too incongruous to be permanently united in the same hands, and that sooner or later the holder of the office seeks to rid himself of part of his burden by deputing to others, according to his temper and tastes, either his civil or his religious duties. Hence we may take it as probable that the fighting kings of Rome, tired of parading as Jupiter and of observing all the elaborate ritual, all the tedious restrictions which the character of godhead entailed on them, were glad to relegate these pious mummeries to a substitute, in whose hands they left the crosier at home while they went forth to wield the sharp Roman sword abroad. This would explain why the traditions of the later kings, from Tullus Hostilius onwards, exhibit so few traces of sacred or priestly functions adhering to their office. Among the ceremonies which they henceforward performed by deputy may have been the rite of the sacred marriage.

[Sidenote: At the sacred marriage the King and Queen of Rome probably personated the god and goddess of the oak.] Whether that was so or not, the legend of Numa and Egeria appears to embody a reminiscence of a time when the priestly king himself played the part of the divine bridegroom; and as we have seen reason to suppose that the Roman kings personated the oak-god, while Egeria is expressly said to have been an oak-nymph, the story of their union in the sacred grove raises a presumption that at Rome in the regal period a ceremony was periodically performed exactly analogous to that which was annually celebrated at Athens down to the time of Aristotle.[638] The marriage of the King of Rome to the oak-goddess, like the wedding of the vine-god to the Queen of Athens, must have been intended to quicken the growth of vegetation by homoeopathic magic. Of the two forms of the rite we can hardly doubt that the Roman was the older, and that long before the northern invaders met with the vine on the shores of the Mediterranean their forefathers had married the tree-god to the tree-goddess in the vast oak forests of Central and Northern Europe. In the England of our day the forests have mostly disappeared, yet still on many a village green and in many a country lane a faded image of the sacred marriage lingers in the rustic pageantry of May Day.

Footnote 540:

See above, vol. i. pp. 17 _sq._

Footnote 541:

See above, vol. i. p. 12.

Footnote 542:

Catullus, xxxiv. 9 _sqq_.

Footnote 543:

Wernicke, in Pauly-Wissowa, _Real-Encyklopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft_, ii. coll. 1343, 1351.

Footnote 544:

Plutarch, _De fortuna Romanorum_, 9. This statement would be strongly confirmed by etymology if we could be sure that, as Mr. A. B. Cook has suggested, the name Egeria is derived from a root _aeg_ meaning “oak.” The name is spelt _Aegeria_ by Valerius Maximus (i. 2. 1). See A. B. Cook, “Zeus, Jupiter, and the Oak,” _Classical Review_, xviii. (1904) p. 366; _id_. “The European Sky-God,” _Folk-lore_, xvi. (1905) pp. 283 _sq._; and as to the root _aeg_ see O. Schrader, _Reallexikon der indogermanischen Atertumskunde_ (Strasburg, 1901), p. 164.

Footnote 545:

Festus, _s.v._ “Querquetulanae,” pp. 260, 261, ed. C. O. Müller.

Footnote 546:

See below, p. 380.

Footnote 547:

Servius on Virgil, _Aen._ iii. 466.

Footnote 548:

Tacitus, _Annals_, ii. 54; Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ ii. 232; Pausanias, ix. 2. 11, x. 24. 7; Lucian, _Bis accusatus_, 1.

Footnote 549:

See above, vol. i. p. 18.

Footnote 550:

See above, pp. 130 _sqq._

Footnote 551:

The first, I believe, to point out a parallelism in detail between Rome and Aricia was Mr. A. B. Cook (_Classical Review_, xvii. (1902) pp. 376 _sqq._); but from the similarity he inferred the humanity of the Arician priests rather than the divinity of the Roman kings. A fuller consideration of all the evidence has since led him, rightly as I conceive, to reverse the inference. See his articles “Zeus, Jupiter, and the Oak,” _The Classical Review_, xviii. (1904) pp. 360-375; “The European Sky-God,” _Folk-lore_, xvi. (1905) pp. 260-332. In the first and second editions of this work I had suggested that the _regifugium_ at Rome may have been a relic of a rule of succession to the throne like that which obtained at Nemi. The following discussion of the religious position of the old Latin kings owes much to Mr. Cook’s sagacity and learning, of which he freely imparted to me.

Footnote 552:

Dionysius Halicarnasensis, _Antiquit. Rom._ iii. 61 _sq._, iv. 74, v. 35; B. G. Niebuhr, _History of Rome_, ii. 36; Th. Mommsen, _History of Rome_, New Edition (London, 1894), i. 83; A. J. H. Greenidge, _Roman Public Life_ (London, 1901), pp. 44 _sq._ But Mommsen, while he held that the costume of a Roman god and of the Roman king was the same, denied that the king personated the god. A truer historical insight is displayed by K. O. Müller in his treatment of the subject (_Die Etrusker_, Stuttgart, 1877, i. 348 _sq._). For a discussion of the evidence see Th. Mommsen, _Römisches Staatsrecht_, 3rd Ed., i. 372 _sq._, ii. 5 _sq._; J. Marquardt, _Römische Staatsverwaltung_, ii. 566 _sq._, iii. 2nd Ed., 507 _sq._; _id._, _Privatleben der Römer_, 2nd Ed., 542 _sq._; K. O. Müller, _op. cit._ i. 344-350, ii. 198-200; Aust, _s.v._ “Juppiter,” in W. H. Roscher’s _Lexikon der griech. u. röm. Mythologie_, ii. coll. 633, 725-728. Among the chief passages of ancient authors on the subject are Dionysius Halicarnasensis, _ll.cc._; Strabo, v. 2. 2, p. 220; Diodorus Siculus, v. 40; Appian, _Pun._ 66; Zonaras, _Annal._ vii. 8 and 21; Livy, i. 8. 1 _sq._, v. 23. 4 _sq._, v. 41. 2, x. 7. 9 _sq._; Florus, i. 5. 6; Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ viii. 195, xv. 127, 130, 137, xxxiii. 11. 111 _sq._; Juvenal, x. 36-43; Ovid, _Ex Ponto_, ii. 57 _sq._; Macrobius, _Saturn._ i. 6. 7-9; Servius on Virgil, _Ecl._ vi. 22, x. 27; Ael. Lampridius, _Alexander Severus_, 40. 8; Jul. Capitolinus, _Gordiani tres_, 4. 4; Aulus Gellius, v. 6. 5-7; Tertullian, _De corona militis_, 13. The fullest descriptions of a Roman triumph are those of Appian and Zonaras (vii. 21).

Footnote 553:

Camillus triumphed in a chariot drawn by white horses like the sacred white horses of Jupiter and the Sun. His Republican contemporaries were offended at what they regarded as a too close imitation of the gods (Livy, v. 23. 5 _sq._; Plutarch, _Camillus_, 7; Dio Cassius, lii. 13); but the Roman emperors followed his example, or perhaps revived the old custom of the kings. See Dio Cassius, xliii. 14; Suetonius, _Nero_, 25; Pliny, _Panegyric_, 22; Propertius, v. 1. 32; Ovid, _Ars amat._ i. 214. On the sanctity of white horses among various branches of the Aryan stock, see J. von Negelein, “Die volksthümliche Bedeutung der weissen Farbe,” _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, xxxiii. (1901) pp. 62-66; W. Ridgeway, _The Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse_ (Cambridge, 1905), pp. 105, 186, 187, 294, 295, 419. As to the horses of the Sun, see above, vol. i. pp. 315 _sq._

Footnote 554:

Tertullian, _De corona militis_, 13, “_Coronant et publicos ordines laureis publicae causae magistratus vero insuper aureis. Praeferuntur etiam illis Hetruscae. Hoc vocabulum est coronarum, quas gemmis et foliis ex auro quercinis ob Jovem insignes ad deducendas thensas cum palmatis togis sumunt._” The _thensae_ were the sacred cars in which the images of the gods were carried at the procession of the Circensian games (see W. Smith’s _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities_, 3rd Ed., _s.v._). That the Etruscan crown described by Tertullian was the golden crown held by a slave over the head of a general on his triumph may be inferred from Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xxxiii. 11, “_Vulgoque sic triumphabant, et cum corona ex auro Etrusca sustineretur a tergo, anulus tamen in digito ferreus erat aeque triumphantis et servi fortasse coronam sustinentis._” Compare Zonaras, _Annal._ vii. 21; Juvenal, x. 38 _sqq._ Mommsen says that the triumphal golden crown was made in the shape of laurel leaves (_Römisches Staatsrecht_, i. 3rd Ed., 427); but none of the ancient authors cited by him appears to affirm this, with the exception of Aulus Gellius (v. 6. 5-7, “_Triumphales coronae sunt aureae, quae imperatoribus ob honorem triumphi mittuntur. Id vulgo dicitur aurum coronarium. Haec antiquitus e lauru erant, post fieri ex aura coeptae_”). Gellius may have confused the wreath of real laurel which the general wore on his head (Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xxxiii. 127, 130, 137) with the golden crown which was held over him by a slave. The two crowns are clearly distinguished by Zonaras (_l.c._), though he does not describe the shape of the golden crown. Thus there is no good ground for rejecting the express testimony of Tertullian that the golden crown was shaped like oak-leaves. This seems to have been Mommsen’s own earlier opinion, since he mentions “a chaplet of oaken leaves in gold” as part of the insignia of the Roman kings (_Roman History_, London, 1894, i. 83).

Footnote 555:

Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xxxiii. 111 _sq._; Servius on Virgil, _Ecl._ vi. 22, x. 27.

Footnote 556:

Pausanias, ii. 2. 6, vii. 26. 11, viii. 39. 6. For other examples of idols painted red see my note on Pausanias, ii. 2. 6.

Footnote 557:

For instances see Fr. Kunstmann, “Valentin Ferdinand’s Beschreibung der Serra Leoa,” _Abhandlungen d. histor. Classe d. kön. Bayer. Akademie d. Wissenschaften_, ix. (Munich, 1866) p. 131; J. B. Labat, _Relation historique de l’Éthiopie Occidentale_ (Paris, 1732), i. 250; Gmelin, _Reise durch Sibirien_, ii. 476; “Ueber den religiösen Glauben und die Ceremonien der heidnischen Samojeden im Kreise Mesen,” _Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde_, N.F. viii. (1860) p. 59; E. Rae, _The White Sea Peninsula_, p. 150; J. B. Müller, “Les Mœurs et usages des Ostiackes,” _Recueil de voiages au Nord_, viii. (Amsterdam, 1727) pp. 414 _sq._; Delamare, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, xii. (1840) p. 482; Sahagun, _Histoire générale des choses de la Nouvelle-Espagne_ (Paris, 1880), p. 185; J. de Velasco, _Histoire du royaume de Quito_, p. 121 (Ternaux-Compans, _Voyages, relations et mémoires_, xviii., Paris, 1840); E. J. Payne, _History of the New World called America_, i. 374 n. 1; F. B. Jevons, _Introduction to the History of Religion_ (London, 1896), p. 158. Often we are merely told that the blood is smeared or sprinkled on the image. See A. B. Ellis, _Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast_, pp. 42, 79; _id._, _Yoruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast_, pp. 102, 106; A. F. Mockler-Ferryman, _British Nigeria_ (London, 1902), p. 255; Fr. Kramer, “Der Götzendienst der Niasser,” _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde_, xxxiii. (1890) p. 496. For more examples see my note on Pausanias, ii. 2. 6.

Footnote 558:

Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xii. 3; Phaedrus, iii. 17. 1 _sqq._; Servius on Virgil, _Georg._ iii. 332, and on _Ecl._ i. 17.

Footnote 559:

Livy, i. 10. 4 _sqq._

Footnote 560:

Plutarch, _Quaest. Rom._ 92.

Footnote 561:

Ovid, _Tristia_, iii. 31 _sqq._

Footnote 562:

Dio Cassius, liii. 19.

Footnote 563:

Ovid, _Fasti_, i. 607 _sqq._, iv. 953 _sq._ Tiberius refused a similar honour (Suetonius, _Tiberius_, 26); but Domitian seems to have accepted it (Martial, viii. 82. 7). Two statues of Claudius, one in the Vatican, the other in the Lateran Museum, represent the emperor as Jupiter wearing the oak crown (W. Helbig, _Führer durch die öffentlichen Sammlungen klassischer Altertümer in Rom_, 2nd Ed., i. Nos. 312, 673).

Footnote 564:

_Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_, viii. No. 6981.

Footnote 565:

J. Overbeck, _Griechische Kunstmythologie_, Besonderer Theil, i. 232 _sqq._; L. R. Farnell, _The Cults of the Greek States_, i. 107 _sq._

Footnote 566:

See above, vol. i. p. 310.

Footnote 567:

Antoninus Liberalis, _Transform._ 6. For this and the two following passages of Tzetzes I am indebted to Mr. A. B. Cook. See further his articles, “Zeus, Jupiter, and the Oak,” _Classical Review_, xvii. (1903) p. 409; “The European Sky-god,” _Folk-lore_, xv. (1904) pp. 299 _sqq._

Footnote 568:

H. Ebeling, _Lexicon Homericum_, _s.vv._ βασιλεύς, διοτρεφής, and θεῖος.

Footnote 569:

J. Tzetzes, _Antehomerica_, 102 _sq._:

οἱ πρὶν γάρ τε Δίας πάντας κάλεον βασιλῆας, οὕνεκά μιν καλὸς Διὸς ἀστὴρ σκῆπτρον ὀπάζει.

_id._, _Chiliades_, i. 474:

τοὺς βασιλεῖς δ’ ἀνέκαθε Δίας ἐκάλουν πάντας.

Footnote 570:

Polybius, vi. 53 _sq._

Footnote 571:

As to the situation, see Dionysius Halicarnasensis, _Ant. Rom._ i. 66; H. Nissen, _Italische Landeskunde_, ii. 582 _sq._

Footnote 572:

Virgil, _Aen._ vi. 772. I have to thank Mr. A. B. Cook for directing my attention to the Alban kings and their interesting legends. See his articles “Zeus, Jupiter, and the Oak,” _Classical Review_, xviii. (1904) pp. 363 _sq._; “The European Sky-god,” _Folk-lore_, xvi. (1905) pp. 285 _sqq._

Footnote 573:

Virgil, _Aen._ vi. 760 _sqq._, with the commentary of Servius; Livy, i. 3. 6 _sqq._; Ovid, _Metam._ xiv. 609 _sqq._; _id._, _Fasti_, iv. 39 _sqq._; Festus, _s.v._ “Silvi,” p. 340, ed. C. O. Müller; Aurelius Victor, _Origo gentis Romanae_, 15-17; Dionysius Halicarnasensis, _Antiquit. Rom._ i. 70; Diodorus Siculus, in Eusebius, _Chronic._ i. coll. 285, 287, ed. A. Schoene; Diodorus Siculus, vii. 3a and 3b, vol. ii. pp. 110-112, ed. L. Dindorf (Teubner edition); Joannes Lydus, _De magistratibus_, i. 21. As to the derivation of the name Julus, see Aurelius Victor, _op. cit._ 15, “_Igitur Latini Ascanium ob insignem virtutem non solum Jove ortum crediderunt, sed etiam per diminutionem, declinato paululum nomine, primo Jobum, dein postea Julum appellarant_”; also Steuding, in W. H. Roscher’s _Lexikon d. griech. u. röm. Mythologie_, ii. 574. Compare W. M. Lindsay, _The Latin Language_ (Oxford, 1894), p. 250. According to Diodorus, the priesthood bestowed on Julus was the pontificate; but the name Julus or Little Jupiter suggests that the office was rather that of Flamen Dialis, who was a sort of living embodiment of Jupiter (see below, pp. 191 _sq._), and whose name of _Dialis_ is derived from the same root as Julus. On the Julii and their relation to Vejovis see R. H. Klausen, _Aeneas und die Penaten_, ii. 1059 _sqq._

Footnote 574:

See above, p. 1, and vol. i. p. 44.

Footnote 575:

_Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_, xiv. No. 2387; L. Preller, _Römische Mythologie_, 3rd Ed., i. 263 _sq._ On Vejovis as the Little Jupiter see Festus, _s.v._ “Vesculi,” p. 379, “_Ve enim syllabam rei parvae praeponebant, unde Veiovem parvum Iovem et vegrandem fabam minutam dicebant_”; also Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 429-448. At Rome the sanctuary of Vejovis was on the saddle between the two peaks of the Capitoline hill (Aulus Gellius, v. 12. 1 _sq._; Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 429 _sq._); thus he appropriately dwelt on the same hill as the Great Jupiter, but lower down the slope. On coins of the Gargilian, Ogulnian and Vergilian houses Vejovis is represented by a youthful beardless head, crowned with oak. See E. Babelon, _Monnaies de la République Romaine_, i. 532, ii. 266, 529. On other Republican coins his head is crowned with laurel. See E. Babelon, _op. cit._ i. 77, 505-508, ii. 6, 8. Circensian games were held at Bovillae in honour of the Julian family, and Tiberius dedicated a chapel to them there. See Tacitus, _Annals_, ii. 41, xv. 23.

Footnote 576:

Festus, _s.v._ “Caesar,” p. 57, ed. C. O. Müller. Other but less probable explanations of the name are suggested by Aelius Spartianus (_Helius_, ii. 3 _sq._).

Footnote 577:

As to the Frankish kings see Agathias, _Hist._ i. 3; J. Grimm, _Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer_, pp. 239 _sqq._; _The Golden Bough_, Second Edition, i. 368 _sq._

Footnote 578:

Dionysius Halicarnasensis, _Antiquit. Roman._ i. 71; Diodorus Siculus, in Eusebius, _Chronic._ bk. i. coll. 287, 289, ed. A. Schoene; Diodorus Siculus, vii. 3a and 4, ed. L. Dindorf; Zonaras, _Annal._ vii. 1; Aurelius Victor, _Origo gentis Romanae_, 18; Ovid, _Metam._ xiv. 616-618; _id._, _Fasti_, iv. 50; Livy, i. 3. 9. The king is called Romulus by Livy, Remulus by Ovid, Aremulus by Aurelius Victor, Amulius by Zonaras, Amulius or Arramulius by Diodorus, and Allodius by Dionysius. A tale of a city submerged in the Alban lake is still current in the neighbourhood. See the English translators’ note to Niebuhr’s _History of Rome_, 3rd Ed., i. 200. Similar stories are told in many lands. See my note on Pausanias, vii. 24. 6.

Footnote 579:

See above, vol. i. p. 310.

Footnote 580:

See above, vol. i. pp. 342 _sqq._

Footnote 581:

Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ ii. 140, xxviii. 13 _sq._ Other writers speak only of Numa’s skill in expiating the prodigy or evil omen of thunderbolts. See Livy, i. 20. 7; Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 285-348; Plutarch, _Numa_, 15; Arnobius, _Adversus nationes_, v. 1-4.

Footnote 582:

See above, vol. i. pp. 248, 251.

Footnote 583:

Apollodorus, i. 9. 7; Virgil, _Aen._ vi. 592 _sqq._; Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ ii. 140, xxviii. 14 (referring to the first book of L. Piso’s _Annals_); Livy, i. 31. 8; Aurelius Victor, _De viris illustribus_, 4; Zonaras, _Annal._ vii. 6. According to another account Tullus Hostilius was murdered by his successor Ancus Martius during a violent storm (Dionysius Halicarnasensis, _Antiquit. Rom._ iii. 35; Zonaras, _l.c._).

Footnote 584:

Livy, i. 2. 6; Ovid, _Metam._ xiv. 598-608; Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ iii. 56; Dionysius Halicarnasensis, _Antiquit. Rom._ i. 64; Servius on Virgil, _Aen._ i. 259; Aurelius Victor, _Origo gentis Romanae_, 14. Only the last writer mentions the thunderstorm.

Footnote 585:

Livy, i. 16; Cicero, _De legibus_, i. 1. 3; _id._, _De re publica_, i. 16. 25, ii. 10. 20; Ovid, _Fasti_, ii. 475-512; Plutarch, _Romulus_, 27 _sq._; Dionysius Halicarnasensis, _Antiquit. Rom._ ii. 56 and 63; Zonaras, _Annal._ vii. 4; Aurelius Victor, _De viris illustribus_, 2; Florus, _Epitoma_, i. 1. 16-18. From Cicero (_De legibus_, i. 1. 3) we learn that the apparition of Romulus to Proculus Julius took place near the spot where the house of Atticus afterwards stood, and from Cornelius Nepos (_Atticus_, 13. 2) we know that Atticus had an agreeable villa and shady garden on the Quirinal. As to the temple of Quirinus see also Varro, _De lingua Latina_, v. 51; Festus, pp. 254, 255, ed. C. O. Müller; Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xv. 120. As to the site of the temple and the question whether it was identical with the temple dedicated by L. Papirius Cursor in 293 B.C. (Livy, x. 46. 7; Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ vii. 213) see O. Richter, _Topographie der Stadt Rom_, 2nd Ed., pp. 286 _sqq._; G. Wissowa, _Gesammelte Abhandlungen_ (Munich, 1904), pp. 144 _sqq._

Footnote 586:

See A. B. Cook, “Zeus, Jupiter, and the Oak,” _Classical Review_, xviii. (1904) pp. 368 _sq._; _id._ “The European Sky-god,” _Folk-lore_, xvi. (1905) p. 281. But a serious argument against the proposed derivation of Quirinus from _quercus_ is that, as I am informed by my learned philological friend the Rev. Prof. J. H. Moulton, it is inconsistent with the much more probable derivation of Perkunas from _quercus_. See below, p. 367, note 3.

Footnote 587:

See above, vol. i. pp. 262 _sqq._

Footnote 588:

J. I. Molina, _Geographical, Natural, and Civil History of Chili_ (London, 1809), ii. 92 _sq._ The savage Conibos of the Ucayali river in eastern Peru imagine that thunder is the voice of the dead (W. Smyth and F. Lowe, _Journey from Lima to Para_, London, 1836, p. 240); and among them when parents who have lost a child within three months hear thunder, they go and dance on the grave, howling turn about (De St. Cricq, “Voyage du Pérou au Brésil,” _Bulletin de la Société de Géographie_, ivme série, vi., Paris, 1853, p. 294). The Yuracares of eastern Peru threaten the thunder-god with their arrows and defy him when he thunders (A. D’Orbigny, _L’Homme américain_, i. 365), just as the Thracians did of old (Herodotus, iv. 94). So the Kayans of Borneo, on hearing a peal of thunder, have been seen to grasp their swords for the purpose of keeping off the demon who causes it (A. W. Nieuwenhuis, _In Centraal Borneo_, i. 140 _sq._, 146 _sq._).

Footnote 589:

See above, vol. i. p. 310; and for the connexion of the rite with Jupiter Elicius see O. Gilbert, _Geschichte und Topographie der Stadt Rom im Altertum_, ii. 154 _sq._; Aust, in W. H. Roscher’s _Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie_, ii. 657 _sq._ As to the connexion of Jupiter with the rain-making ceremony (_aquaelicium_), the combined evidence of Petronius (_Sat._ 44) and Tertullian (_Apologeticus_, 40) seems to me conclusive.

Footnote 590:

Ovid, _Fasti_, i. 637 _sq._, vi. 183 _sqq._; Livy, vii. 28. 4 _sq._; Cicero, _De divinatione_, i. 45. 101; Solinus, i. 21. Although the temple was not dedicated until 344 B.C., the worship of the goddess of the hill appears to have been very ancient. See H. Jordan, _Topographie der Stadt Rom im Altertum_, i. 2, pp. 109 _sq._; W. H. Roscher, _Lexikon d. griech. u. röm. Mythologie_, ii. coll. 592 _sq._

Footnote 591:

Livy, i. 8. 5; Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 430; Dionysius Halicarnasensis, _Antiquit. Rom._ ii. 15.

Footnote 592:

Virgil, _Aen._ viii. 314-318, 347-354.

Footnote 593:

Plutarch, _Quaest. Rom._ 92.

Footnote 594:

Livy, i. 10. 5.

Footnote 595:

_Mons Querquetulanus_; see Tacitus, _Annals_, iv. 65.

Footnote 596:

A monument found at Rome represents Jupiter beside an oak, and underneath is the dedication: _Jovi Caelio_. See H. Dessau, _Inscriptiones Latinae selectae_, No. 3080.

Footnote 597:

_Porta Querquetulana_ or _Querquetularia_; see Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xvi. 37; Festus, pp. 260, 261, ed. C. O. Müller.

Footnote 598:

Festus, _ll.cc._; Varro, _De lingua Latina_, v. 49.

Footnote 599:

E. Babelon, _Monnaies de la République Romaine_, i. 99 _sq._

Footnote 600:

Varro, _De lingua Latina_, v. 49, where, however, “_alii ab aesculetis_” is a conjecture of C. O. Müller’s. I do not know what authority O. Richter has for reading _aesculis consitae_ (“planted with oaks”) for _excultae_ in this passage (_Topographie der Stadt Rom_, 2nd Ed., p. 302, n. 4). Modern topographers prefer to derive the name from _ex-colere_ in the sense of “the hill outside the city” (O. Richter, _l.c._; O. Gilbert, _Geschichte und Topographie der Stadt Rom im Altertum_, i. 166 _sq._).

Footnote 601:

See above, p. 182.

Footnote 602:

Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 295 _sq._

Footnote 603:

See above, vol. i. p. 18; and for the identification, O. Gilbert, _Geschichte und Topographie der Stadt Rom im Altertum_, ii. 152 _sqq._; A. B. Cook, “Zeus, Jupiter, and the Oak,” _Classical Review_, xviii. (1904) p. 366.

Footnote 604:

Cicero, _De divinatione_, i. 45, 101.

Footnote 605:

G. Boni, in _Notizie degli Scavi_, May 1900, pp. 161, 172; _id._, _Aedes Vestae_, p. 14 (extract from the _Nuova Antologia_, 1st August 1900). Copies of these and other papers containing Commendatore Boni’s account of his memorable excavations and discoveries were kindly given me by him during my stay in Rome in the winter of 1900-1901. That the fire in question was a sacrificial one is proved by the bones, potsherds, and rude copper money found among the ashes. Commend. Boni thinks that the charred remains of the wood prove that the fire was extinguished, probably by libations, and that therefore it cannot have been the perpetual holy fire of Vesta, which would have burned up completely all the fuel. But a new fire was annually lit on the first of March (Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 143 _sq._; Macrobius, _Saturn._ i. 12. 6), which may imply that the old fire was ceremonially extinguished, as often happens in such cases.

Footnote 606:

Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xvi. 37.

Footnote 607:

O. Richter, _Topographie der Stadt Rom_, 2nd Ed., p. 211.

Footnote 608:

Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xvi. 237. The inscription was probably not in the Etruscan language, but only in an archaic alphabet like that employed in the inscription on the pyramidal stone which has been found under the Black Stone in the Forum.

Footnote 609:

G. Boni, “Bimbi Romulei,” _Nuova Antologia_, 16th February 1904, pp. 5 _sqq._ (separate reprint); E. Burton-Brown, _Recent Excavations in the Roman Forum_ (London, 1904), p. 150.

Footnote 610:

Festus, _s.v._ “Oscillantes,” p. 194, ed. C. O. Müller.

Footnote 611:

Dionysius Halicarnasensis, _Antiquit. Rom._ iv. 49; A. Schwegler, _Römische Geschichte_, i. 341; H. Nissen, _Italische Landeskunde_, ii. 580. It is to be observed that Dionysius does not here speak of the dedication of a temple to Jupiter; when he describes the foundation of the temple of Capitoline Jupiter by Tarquin (iv. 59 and 61) his language is quite different. The monastery, founded in 1777 by Cardinal York, the last of the Stuarts, has now been converted into a meteorological station and an inn (K. Baedeker, _Central Italy and Rome_, 13th Ed., p. 400). It is fitting enough that the atmospheric phenomena should be observed by modern science on the spot where they were worshipped by ancient piety.

Footnote 612:

Livy, i. 31. 3.

Footnote 613:

According to tradition, the future site of Alba Longa was marked out by a white sow and her litter, which were found lying under evergreen oaks (Virgil, _Aen._ viii. 43), as Mr. A. B. Cook has pointed out (_Classical Review_, xviii. 363). The tradition seems to shew that the neighbourhood of the city was wooded with oaks.

Footnote 614:

See below, p. 380.

Footnote 615:

Querquetulani. See Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ iii. 69; Dionysius Halicarnasensis, _Antiquit. Rom._ v. 61. As to the white bulls sacrificed at the great Latin festival and partaken of by the members of the League, see Arnobius, _Adversus nationes_, ii. 68; Dionysius Halicarnasensis, _Ant. Rom._ iv. 49. Compare Cicero, _Pro Plancio_, ix. 23; Varro, _De lingua Latina_, vi. 25.

Footnote 616:

Theophrastus, _Histor. plant._ v. 8. 3.

Footnote 617:

Arnobius, _Adversus nationes_, ii. 68; Livy, xxii. 10. 7; Ovid, _Ex Ponto_, iv. 4. 31; Servius on Virgil, _Georg._ ii. 146; Horace, _Carmen Saeculare_, 49.

Footnote 618:

Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xvi. 250 _sq._

Footnote 619:

“Italic and Keltic are so closely bound together by important phonetic and morphological affinities that they are sometimes spoken of as one branch” of Aryan speech (J. H. Moulton, _Two Lectures on the Science of Language_, Cambridge, 1903, p. 6, note). “The connection of the Celtic and Italic languages is structural. It is much deeper than that of Celts and Teutons, and goes back to an earlier epoch. Celts and Latins must have dwelt together as an undivided people in the valley of the Danube, and it must have been at a much later time—after the Umbrians and Latins had crossed the Alps—that the contact of Celts and Teutons came about” (Isaac Taylor, _The Origin of the Aryans_, p. 192; compare _id._ p. 257). See also P. Giles, _Manual of Comparative Philology_ 2nd Ed., (London, 1901), p. 26.

Footnote 620:

Livy, xlii. 7. 1, xlv. 15. 10. Compare Dio Cassius, xxxix. 20. 1. The temple on the Alban Mount was dedicated in 168 B.C., but the worship was doubtless far older.

Footnote 621:

See above, pp. 176, 184.

Footnote 622:

Strabo, vii. 7. 12, p. 329; Hyperides, _Or._ iii. coll. 35-37, pp. 43 _sq._, ed. Blass; G. Curtius, _Griech. Etymologie_, 5th Ed., p. 236; W. H. Roscher, _Juno und Hera_ (Leipsic, 1875), pp. 17 _sq._; _id._, _Lexikon d. griech. u. röm. Mythologie_, ii. coll. 576, 578 _sq._ See below, p. 381.

Footnote 623:

See above, pp. 140 _sqq._

Footnote 624:

W. H. Roscher, _Juno und Hera_, pp. 64 _sqq._; _id._, _Lexikon d. griech. u. röm. Mythologie_, ii. 575 _sq._, 591 _sqq._ At Falerii the image of Juno was annually carried in procession from her sacred grove, and in some respects the ceremony resembled a marriage procession (Ovid, _Amores_, iii. 13; Dionysius Halicarnasensis, _Antiquit. Rom._ i. 21). The name of June was _Junius_ at Rome, _Junonius_ at Aricia, Laurentum and Lavinia, and _Junonalis_ at Tibur and Praeneste (Ovid, _Fasti_, vi. 59-63; Macrobius, _Sat._ i. 12. 30). The forms _Junonius_ and _Junonalis_ are recognised by Festus (p. 103, ed. C. O. Müller). Their existence among the Latins seems to render the derivation of _Junius_ from Juno quite certain, though that derivation is doubted by Mr. W. Warde Fowler (_Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic_, pp. 99 _sq._).

Footnote 625:

Ovid, _Fasti_, vi. 101-168; Macrobius, _Sat._ i. 12. 31-33; Tertullian, _Ad nationes_, ii. 9; Varro, quoted by Nonius Marcellus, _De compendiosa doctrina_, p. 390, ed. L. Quicherat. There was a sacred beechen grove of Diana on a hill called Corne near Tusculum (Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xvi. 242). But _Corne_ has probably no connection with _Carna_. The grove of Helernus was crowded with worshippers on the first of February (Ovid, _Fasti_, ii. 67, where _Helerni_ is a conjectural emendation for _Averni_ or _Asyli_). Nothing else is known about Helernus, unless with Merkel (in his edition of Ovid’s _Fasti_, pp. cxlviii. _sq._) we read _Elerno_ for _Eterno_ in Festus, p. 93, ed. C. O. Müller. In that case it would seem that black oxen were sacrificed to him. From the association of Carna with Janus it was inferred by Merkel (_l.c._) that the grove of Helernus stood on or near the Janiculum, where there was a grove of oaks (see above, p. 186). But the language of Ovid (_Fasti_, ii. 67) points rather to the mouth of the Tiber.

Footnote 626:

See above, p. 185.

Footnote 627:

Ovid, _Fasti_, vi. 129-168. A Roman bride on the way to her husband’s house was preceded by a boy bearing a torch of buckthorn (_spina alba_, Festus, _s.v._ “Patrimi,” p. 245, ed. C. O. Müller; Varro, quoted by Nonius Marcellus, _De compendiosa doctrina_, _s.v._ “Fax,” p. 116, ed. L. Quicherat). The intention probably was to defend her from enchantment and evil spirits. Branches of buckthorn were also thought to protect a house against thunderbolts (Columella, _De re rustica_, x. 346 _sq._).

Footnote 628:

See above, p. 54.

Footnote 629:

Dioscorides, _De arte medica_, i. 119.

Footnote 630:

Scholiast on Nicander, _Theriaca_, 861.

Footnote 631:

Diogenes Laertius, _Vitae philosophorum_, iv. 54-57.

Footnote 632:

See above, p. 143.

Footnote 633:

Plutarch, _Quaest. Rom._ 111 εἰκὸς μὲν οὖν ἐστι καὶ τὸν ἱερέα τοῦ Διὸς ὥσπερ ἔμψυχον καὶ ἱερὸν ἄγαλμα καταφύξιμον ἀνεῖσθαι τοῖς δεομένοις; L. Preller, _Römische Mythologie_, 3rd Ed., i. 201; F. B. Jevons, _Plutarch’s Romane Questions_, p. lxxiii.; C. Julian, in Daremberg et Saglio, _Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines_, ii. 1156 _sqq._

Footnote 634:

Cicero, _De re publica_, iii. 13. 22; Virgil, _Aen._ x. 112; Horace, _Sat._ ii. 1. 42 _sq._; Ovid, _Fasti_, vi. 37; Varro, _De lingua Latina_, v. 6. 7; Livy, v. 21. 2, v. 23. 7; Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xxxv. 115; Flavius Vopiscus, _Probus_, xii. 7; L. Preller, _Römische Mythologie_, 3rd Ed., i. 205, 284; W. H. Roscher, _Lexikon d. griech. u. röm. Mythologie_, ii. 600 _sqq._

Footnote 635:

See above, pp. 179 _sq._

Footnote 636:

Cicero, _Philippics_, ii. 43. 110; Suetonius, _Divus Julius_, 76; Dio Cassius, xliv. 6. The coincidence has been pointed out by Mr. A. B. Cook (_Classical Review_, xviii. 371).

Footnote 637:

Livy, i. 20. 1 _sq._

Footnote 638:

Numa was not the only Roman king who is said to have enjoyed the favours of a goddess. Romulus was married to Hersilia, who seems to have been a Sabine goddess. Ovid tells us how, when the dead Romulus had been raised to the rank of a god under the name of Quirinus, his widow Hersilia was deified as his consort. Thus, if Quirinus was a Sabine oak-god, his wife would be an oak-goddess, like Egeria. See Ovid, _Metam._ xiv. 829-851. Compare Livy, i. 11. 2; Plutarch, _Numa_, 14. On Hersilia as a goddess see A. Schwegler, _Römische Geschichte_, i. 478, note 10; L. Preller, _Römische Mythologie_, 3rd Ed., i. 372. Again, of King Servius Tullius we read how the goddess Fortuna, smitten with love of him, used to enter his house nightly by a window. See Ovid, _Fasti_, vi. 569 _sqq._; Plutarch, _Quaestiones Romanae_, 36; _id._, _De fortuna Romanorum_, 10. However, the origin and nature of Fortuna are too obscure to allow us to base any conclusions on this legend. For various more or less conjectural explanations of the goddess see W. Warde Fowler, _Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic_, pp. 161-172.