The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic. W. Warde Fowler

some were ὔμνοι κλητικοί, or invocations to the god to appear, some παιᾶνες, or shouts of encouragement in his great fight with the dragon, or perhaps intended to scare the dragon away. For Apollo was believed to return in the spring, to be born anew, and to struggle in his infancy with the demon of evil. At other places in Greece similar performances are found; at Delos^[85], at Ortygia^[86] near Ephesus, at Tegyra, and elsewhere. At Ortygia the Κουρῆτες stood and clashed their arms to frighten away Hera the enemy of Apollo’s mother Leto, in the annual dramatic representation of the perilous labour of the mother and the birth of her son. These practices (and similar ones among northern peoples) seem to be the result of the poetical mythology of an imaginative race acting on still more primitive ideas. From all parts of the world Mr. Frazer has collected examples of rites of this kind occurring at some period of real or supposed peril, and often at the opening of a new year, in which dances, howling, the beating of pots and pans, brandishing of arms, and even firing of guns are thought efficacious in driving out evil spirits which bring hurt of some kind to mankind or to the crops which are the fruits of his labour^[87]. This notion of evil spirits and the possibility of expelling them is at the root of the whole series of practices, which in the hands of the Greeks became adorned with a beautiful mythical colouring, while the Romans after their fashion embodied them in the cult of their city with a special priesthood to perform them, and connected them with the name of their great priest king.

      In an elaborate note^[88] Mr. Frazer has attempted to explain the rites of the Salii in the light of the material he has collected. He is inclined to see two objects in their performances: (1) the routing out of demons of all kinds in order to collect them for transference to the human scapegoat, Mamurius Veturius (see below on March 14), who was driven out a fortnight later; and (2) to make the corn grow, by a charm consisting in leaping and dancing, which is known in many parts of the world. It will perhaps be safer to keep to generalities in matters of which we have but slender knowledge; and to conclude that the old Latins believed that the Spirit which was beginning to make the crops grow must at this time be protected from hostile demons, in order that he might be free to perform his own friendly functions for the community. Though the few words preserved of the Salian hymns are too obscure to be of much use^[89], we seem to see in them a trace of a deity of vegetation; and the prayer to Mars, which is given in Cato’s agricultural treatise, is most instructive on this point^[90].

      The Salii in these processions were clothed in a trabea and tunica picta^[91], the ‘full dress’ of the warrior inspired by some special religious zeal, wearing helmet, breastplate, and sword. They carried the ancile on the left arm, and a staff or club of some kind to strike it with^[92]. At certain sacred places they stopped and danced, their praesul giving them the step and rhythm; and here we may suppose that they also sang the song of which a few fragments have come down to us, where the recurring word Mamurius seems beyond doubt to be a variant of Mars^[93]. Each evening they rested at a different place—mansiones Saliorum, as they were called—and here the sacred arms were hung up till the next day, and the Salii feasted. They were twenty-four in number, twelve Palatini and twelve Collini (originally Agonales or Agonenses), the former specially devoted to the worship of Mars Gradivus, the latter to that of Quirinus^[94]. The antiquity of the priesthood is proved by the fact that the Salii must be of patrician birth, and patrimi and matrimi (i.e. with both parents living) according to the ancient rule which descended from the worship of the household^[95].

      It has been suggested that the shields (ancilia) which the Salii carried, being twelve in number for each of the two guilds, represented the twelve months of the year, either as twelve suns^[96] (the sun being renewed each month), or as twelve moons, which is a little more reasonable. This idea implies that the number of the Salii (which was the same as that of the Fratres Arvales) was based on the number of months in the year, which is very far from likely; it would seem also to assume that the shape of the shields was round, like sun or moon, which was almost certainly not the case. According to the legend, the original shield fell on the first new moon of the year; but it is quite unnecessary to jump to the conclusion that the others represent eleven other new moons. It would rather seem probable to a cautious inquirer that though an incrustation of late myth may have grown upon the Salii and their carmen and their curious arms, no amount of ingenious combination has as yet succeeded in proving that such myths had their origin in any really ancient belief of the Romans. What we know for certain is that there were twelve warrior-priests of the old Palatine city, and that they carried twelve shields of an antique type, which Varro compares to the Thracian peltae (L. L. 7. 43); shaped not unlike the body of a violin, with a curved indentation on each side^[97], which, when the shield was slung on the back, would leave space for the arms to move freely. In this respect, as in the rest of his equipment, the Salius simply represented the old Italian warrior in his ‘war-paint.’ In the examples of expulsion of evils referred to above as collected by Mr. Frazer, it is interesting to notice how often the expellers use military arms, or are dressed in military fashion. This may perhaps help us to understand how attributes apparently so distinct as the military and the agricultural should be found united in Mars and his cult.

Non. Mart. (March 7). F.

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      … [VEDI]OVI. ARTIS VEDIOVIS INTER DUOS LUCOS. (PRAEN.)

      Various conjectures have been made for correcting this note. We may take it that the first word is rightly completed: some letters seem to have preceded it, and feriae has been suggested^[98], but not generally accepted. The next word, Artis, must be a slip of the stone-cutter. That it was not Martis we are sure, as Ovid says that there was no note in the Fasti for this day except on the cult of Vediovis^[99]. Even Mommsen is in despair, but suggests Aedis as a possibility, and that dedicata was accidentally omitted after it.

      We do not know when the temple was dedicated^[100]. The cult of Vediovis seems to have no special connexion with other March rites: and it seems as well to postpone consideration of it till May 21, the dedication-day of the temple in arce. See also on Jan. 1.

vii Id. Mart. (March 9). C.

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      ARMA ANCILIA MOVENT. (PHILOC.)

      As we have seen, the first ‘moving’ of the ancilia was on the 1st. This is the second mentioned in the calendars; the third, according to Lydus (4. 42), was on the 23rd (Tubilustrium, q.v.). As the Salii seem to have danced with the shields all through the month up to the 24th^[101], it has been supposed that these were the three principal days of ‘moving’; and Mr. Marindin suggests that they correspond to the three most important mansiones Saliorum, of which two were probably the Curia Saliorum on the Palatine and the Sacrarium Martis in the Regia^[102].

PRID. ID. MART. (MARCH 14). NP.

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      EQUIRR[IA]. (MAFF. VAT. ESQ.)

       FERIAE MARTI. (VAT.)

       SACRUM MAMURIO. (RUSTIC CALENDARS^[103].) MAMURALIA. (PHILOC.)

      These notes involve several difficulties. To begin with, this day is an even number, and there is no other instance in the calendar of a festival occurring on such a day. Wissowa^[104], usually a very cautious inquirer, here boldly cuts the knot by conjecturing that the Mars festival of this day had originally been on the next, i.e. the Ides, but was put back one day to enable the people to frequent both the horse-races (Equirria) and the festival of Anna Perenna^[105]. The latter, he might have added, was obviously extremely popular