We can learn little or nothing from the calendar of this month about the origin of Mars, and we have no other sufficient evidence on which to base a satisfactory conjecture. But from the cults of the month, and partly also from those of October, we can see pretty clearly what ideas were prominent in his worship even in the early days of the Roman state. They were chiefly two, and the two were closely connected. He was the Power who must be specially invoked to procure the safety of crops and cattle; and secondly, in his keeping were the safety and success of the freshly-enrolled host with its armour and its trumpets. In short, he was that deity to whom the most ancient Romans looked for aid at the season when all living things, man included, broke into fresh activity. He represents the characteristics of the early Roman more exactly than any other god; for there are two things which we may believe with certainty about the Roman people in the earliest times—(1) that their life and habits of thought were those of an agricultural race; and (2) that they continually increased their cultivable land by taking forcible possession in war of that of their neighbours.
MENSIS APRILIS.
There can hardly be a doubt that this month takes its name, not from a deity, but from the verb aperio; the etymology is as old as Varro and Verrius, and seems perfectly natural[186]. The year was opening and the young corn and the young cattle were growing. It was therefore a critical time for crops and herds; but there was not much to be done by man to secure their safety. The crops might be hoed and cleaned[187], but must for the most part be left to the protection of the gods. The oldest festivals of the month, the Robigalia and Fordicidia, clearly had this object. So also with the cattle; oves lustrantur, say the rustic calendars[188]; and such a lustratio of the cattle of the ancient Romans survived in the ceremonies of the Parilia.
Thus, if we keep clear of fanciful notions, such as those of Huschke[189], about these early months of the year, which he seems to imagine was thought of as growing like an organic creature, we need find no great difficulty in April. We need not conclude too hastily that this was a month of purification preliminary to May, as February was to March. Like February, indeed, it has a large number of dies nefasti[190], and its festivals are of a cathartic character, while March and May have some points in common; but beyond this we cannot safely venture. The later Romans would hardly have connected April with Venus[191], had it been a sinister month; it was not in April, but in March and May, that weddings were ill-omened.
We may note the prevalence in this month of female deities, or of those which fluctuate between male and female—a sure sign of antiquity. These are deities of the earth, or vegetation, or generation, such as Tellus, Pales, Ceres, Flora, and perhaps also Fortuna. Hence the month became easily associated in later times with Venus, who was originally, perhaps, a garden deity[192], but was overlaid in course of time with ideas brought from Sicily and Greece, and possibly even from Cyprus and the East. Lastly, we may note that the Magna Mater Idaea found a suitable position for her worship in this month towards the end of the third century B.C.
Kal. Apr. (April 1). F.
VENERALIA: LUDI. (PHILOC.)
Note in Praen.: ‘FREQUENTER MULIERES SUPPLICANT FORTUNAE VIRILI, HUMILIORES ETIAM IN BALINEIS, QUOD IN IIS EA PARTE CORPOR[IS] UTIQUE VIRI NUDANTUR, QUA FEMINARUM GRATIA DESIDERATUR.’
Lydus[193] seems to have been acquainted with this note of Verrius in the Fasti of Praeneste; if so, we may guess that some words have been omitted by the man who cut the inscription, and we should insert with Mommsen[194], after ‘supplicant,’ the words ‘honestiores Veneri Verticordiae.’ If we compare the passage of Lydus with the name Veneralia given to this day in the calendar of Philocalus, we may guess that the cult of Venus on April 1 came into fashion in late times among ladies of rank, while an old and gross custom was kept up by the humiliores in honour of Fortuna Virilis[195]. This seems to be the most obvious explanation of the concurrence of the two goddesses on the same day; they were probably identified or amalgamated under the Empire, for example by Lydus, who does not mention Fortuna by name, and seems to confuse her worship on this day with that of Venus. But the two are still distinct in Ovid, though he seems to show some tendency to amalgamation[196].
Fortuna Virilis, thus worshipped by the women when bathing, would seem from Ovid to have been that Fortuna who gave women good luck in their relations with men[197]. The custom of bathing in the men’s baths may probably be taken as some kind of lustration, more especially as the women were adorned with myrtle, which had purifying virtues[198]. How old this curious custom was we cannot guess. Plutarch[199] mentions a temple of this Fortuna dedicated by Servius Tullius; but there was a strong tendency, as we shall see later on, to attribute all Fortuna-cults to this king.
The Venus who eventually supplanted Fortuna is clearly Venus Verticordia[200], whose earliest temple was founded in 114 B.C., in obedience to an injunction of the Sibylline books, after the discovery of incest on the part of three vestal virgins, ‘quo facilius virginum mulierumque mens a libidine ad pudicitiam converteretur[201].’ Macrobius insists that Venus had originally no share in the worship of this day or month[202]; she must therefore have been introduced into it as a foreigner. Robertson Smith[203] has shown some ground for the conjecture that she was the Cyprian Aphrodite (herself identical with the Semitic Astarte), who came to Rome by way of Sicily and Latium. For if Lydus can be trusted, the Roman ceremony of April 1 was found also in Cyprus, on the same day, with variations in detail. If that be so, the addition of the name Verticordia is a curious example of the accretion of a Roman cult-title expressive of domestic morality on a foreign deity of questionable reputation[204].
Prid. Non. Apr. (April 4). C.
MATR[I] MAG[NAE]. (MAFF.)
LUDI MEGALESIACI. (PHILOC.)
Note in Praen.: LUDI M[ATRI] D[EUM] M[AGNAE] I[DAEAE]. MEGALESIA VOCANTUR QUOD EA DEA MEGALE APPELLATUR. NOBILIUM MUTITATIONES CENARUM SOLITAE SUNT FREQUENTER FIERI, QUOD MATER MAGNA EX LIBRIS SIBULLINIS ARCESSITA LOCUM MUTAVIT EX PHRYGIA ROMAM.
The introduction of the Magna Mater Idaea into Rome can only be briefly mentioned here, as being more important for the history of religion at Rome than for that of the Roman religion. In B.C. 204, in accordance with a Sibylline oracle which had previously prophesied that the presence of this deity alone could drive the enemy out of Italy, the sacred stone representing the goddess arrived at Rome from Pessinus in Phrygia[205]. Attalus, King of Pergamus, had acquired this territory, and now, as a faithful friend to Rome, consented to the transportation of the stone, which was received at Rome with enthusiasm by an excited and now hopeful people[206]. Scipio was about to leave with his army for Africa; a fine harvest followed; Hannibal was forced to evacuate Italy the next year; and the goddess did everything that was expected of her[207].
The stone was deposited in the temple of Victory on the Palatine on April 4[208]. The day was made a festival; though no Roman festival occurs between the Kalends and Nones of any month, the rule apparently did not hold good in the case of a foreign worship[209]. Great care was taken to keep up the foreign character of the cult. The name of the festival was a Greek one (Megalesia), as Cicero remarked[210]; all Romans were forbidden by a senatus consultum to take any part in the service of the goddess[211]. The temple dedicated thirteen years later on April 10[212] seems to have been frequented by the nobilitas only, and the custom of giving dinner-parties on April 4, which is well attested, was confined to the upper classes[213],