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

the Vinalia also came to be considered as sacred to the goddess. The date of the foundation was 181 B.C., exactly at a time when many new worships, and especially Greek ones, were being introduced into Rome^[294]. That of the Sicilian Aphrodite, under the name of Venus, seems to have become at once popular with its Graecus ritus and lascivia maior^[295]; and the older connexion of the festival with Jupiter tended henceforward to disappear. It must be noted, however, that the day of the Vinalia Rustica in August was also the dies natalis of one if not two other temples of Venus^[296], and one of these was as old as the year B.C. 293. Thus we can hardly avoid the conclusion that there was, even at an early date, some connexion in the popular mind between the goddess and wine. The explanation is perhaps to be found in the fact that Venus was specially a deity of gardens, and therefore no doubt of vineyards^[297]. An interesting inscription from Pompeii confirms this, and attests the connexion of Venus with wine and gardens, as it is written on a wine-jar^[298]:

      PRESTA MI SINCERU[M] ITA TE AMET QUE

      CUSTODIT ORTU[M] VENUS.

      The Vinalia, then, both in April and August, was really and originally sacred to Jupiter. The legendary explanation is given by Ovid in 11. 877–900. Whatever the true explanation may have been, the fact can be illustrated from the ritual employed; for it was the Flamen Dialis^[299] who ‘vindemiam auspicatus est,’ i.e. after sacrificing plucked the first grapes. Whether this auspicatio took place on either of the Vinalia has indeed been doubted, for even August 19 would hardly seem to suit the ceremony Varro describes^[300]; but the fact that it was performed by the priest of Jupiter is sufficient for our purpose.

      Of this day, April 23, we may guess that it was the one on which the wine-skins were first opened, and libations from them made to Jupiter. These are probably the libations about which Plutarch^[301] asks ‘Why do they pour much wine from the temple of Venus on the Veneralia’ (i.e. Vinalia)? The same libations are attested by Verrius: ‘Vinalia diem festum habebant quo die vinum novum Iovi libabant’^[302]. After the libation the wine was tasted, as we learn from Pliny^[303]; and it seems probable that it was brought from the country into Rome for this purpose only a few days before. Varro has preserved an interesting notice which he saw posted in vineyards at Tusculum: ‘In Tusculanis hortis (MSS. sortis) est scriptum: ‘Vinum novum ne vehatur in urbem ante quam vinalia kalentur’^[304]; i.e. wine-growers were warned that the new wine was not to be brought into the city until the Vinalia had been proclaimed on the Nones. It must, however, be added that this notice may have had reference to the Vinalia in August; for Verrius, if he is rightly reported by Paulus^[305], gives August 19 as the day on which the wine might be brought into Rome. Paulus may be wrong, and have confused the two Vinalia^[306]; but in that case we remain in the dark as to what was done at the Vinalia Rustica, unless indeed we explain it as a rite intended to secure the vintage that was to follow against malignant influences. This would seem to be indicated by Pliny (H. N. 18. 284), where he classes this August festival with the Robigalia and Floralia^[307], and further on quotes Varro to prove that its object was to appease the storms (i.e. to be expected in September).

      As regards the connexion of the vine-culture with Jupiter, it should be observed that the god is not spoken of as Jupiter Liber, but simply Jupiter; and though the vine was certainly introduced into Italy from Greece, we need not assume that Dionysus, coming with it, was from the beginning attached to or identified with Jupiter. The gift of wine might naturally be attributed to the great god of the air, light, and heat; the Flamen Dialis who ‘vindemiam auspicatus est’ was not the priest of Jupiter Liber; nor does the aetiological legend, in which the Latins avoid the necessity of yielding their first-fruits to the Etruscan tyrant Mezentius by dedicating them to Jupiter, point to any other than the protecting deity of Latium.^[308]

VII Kal. Mai. (April 25). NP.

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      [ROB]IGALIA. (CAER. ESQ. MAFF. PRAEN.)

      Note in Praen: FERIAE ROBIGO VIA CLAUDIA AD MILLIARIUM V NE ROBIGO FRUMENTIS NOCEAT. SACRIFICIUM ET LUDI CURSORIBUS MAIORIBUS MINORIBUSQUE FIUNT. FESTUS EST PUERORUM LENONIORUM, QUIA PROXIMUS SUPERIOR MERETRICUM EST.

      Robigo means red rust or mildew which attacks cereals when the ear is beginning to be formed^[309], and which is better known and more dreaded on the continent than with us. This destructive disease is not caused by the sun’s heat, as Pliny^[310] tells us was the notion of some Italians, but by damp acting in conjunction with a certain height of temperature, as Pliny himself in fact explains it.

      Robigus^[311] is the spirit who works in the mildew; and it has been conjectured that he was a form or indigitation of Mars^[312], since Tertullian tells us that ‘Marti et Robigini Numa ludos instituit’^[313]. This is quite consistent with all we know of the Mars of the farm-worship, who is invoked to avert evil simply because he can be the creator of it^[314]. The same feature is found in the worship of Apollo, who had at Rhodes the cult-title ἐρυθίβιος^[315], or Apollo of the blight, as elsewhere he is Apollo Smintheus, i.e. the power that can bring and also avert the pest of field-mice.

      Robigus had a grove of his own at the fifth milestone on the Via Claudia; and Ovid relates in pretty verses how, as he was returning from Nomentum (doubtless by way of his own gardens, which were at the junction of the Via Claudia with the Via Flaminia near the Milvian bridge^[316]), he met the Flamen Quirinalis with the exta of a dog and a sheep to offer to the god^[317]. He joined the procession, which was apparently something quite new to him, and witnessed the ceremony, noting the meri patera, the turis acerra, and the rough linen napkin^[318], at the priest’s right hand. He versified the prayer which he heard, and which is not unlike that which Cato directs the husbandman to address to Mars in the lustration of the farm^[319]:

      Aspera Robigo, parcas Cerialibus herbis,

      Et tremat in summa leve cacumen humo.

      Tu sata sideribus caeli nutrita secundi

      Crescere, dum fiant falcibus apta, sinas.

      Parce, precor, scabrasque manus a messibus aufer,

      Neve noce cultis: posse nocere sat est, &c.

      Ovid then asked the flamen why a dog—nova victima—was sacrificed, and was told that the dangerous Dog-star was in the ascendant^[320]:

      Est Canis, Icarium dicunt, quo sidere moto

      Tosta sitit tellus, praecipiturque seges.

      Pro cane sidereo canis hic imponitur arae,

      Et quare pereat, nil nisi nomen habet.

      In this, however, both he and the priest were certainly mistaken. Sirius does not rise, but disappears on April 25, at sunset; and it is almost certain that the sacrifice of the dog had nothing to do with the star. The real meaning of the choice of victim was unknown both to priest and poet: but modern research has made a reasonable attempt to recover it^[321].

      We are told^[322] of a sacrifice of reddish sucking whelps, and of augury made from their exta, which must have been closely connected with the Robigalia, if not (in later times at least) identified with it. Originally it was not on a fixed day, as is proved by an extract from the commentarii pontificum quoted by Pliny^[323]; but it is quite possible that for convenience, as the religio of the urbs got more and more dissociated from the agriculture in which it had its origin, the date was fixed for April 25—the rites of the Robigalia being of the same kind, and the date suitable. The whelps were red or reddish; and from the language of Festus, quoting Ateius Capito, we gather that this colour was supposed to resemble that of the corn when ripe: ‘Rufae canes immolabantur, ut fruges flavescentes ad maturitatem perducerentur’ (p. 285). We should indeed naturally have expected that the rufous colour was thought to resemble the red mildew, as Mannhardt explains it^[324];