The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic. W. Warde Fowler
doubt.
The 19th came to be considered as sacred to Minerva[166], because a temple to that goddess was consecrated on this day, on the Caelian or the Aventine, or possibly both[167]. There is no obvious connexion between Mars and Minerva; and it is now thought probable that Minerva has here simply taken the place of another goddess, Nerio—one almost lost to sight in historical times, but of whose early connexion with Mars some faint traces are to be found. Thus where we find Minerva brought into close relation with Mars, as in the myth of Anna Perenna, it is thought that we should read Nerio instead of Minerva[168]. This conclusion is strengthened by a note of Porphyrion on Horace Epist. ii. 2. 209 ‘Maio mense religio est nubere, et etiam Martio, in quo de nuptiis habito certamine a Minerva Mars victus est: obtenta virginitate Neriene est appellata.’ As Neriene must = Nerio[169], this looks much like an attempt to explain the occurrence of two female names, Minerva and Nerio, in the same story; the original heroine, Nerio, having been supplanted by the later Minerva[170].
Of this Nerio much, perhaps too much, has been made in recent years by ingenious scholars. A complete love-story has been discovered, in which Mars, at first defeated in his wooing, as Porphyrion tells us in the passage just quoted, eventually becomes victorious; for Nerio is called wife of Mars in a fragment of an old comedy by Licinius Imbrex, in a passage of Plautus, and in a prayer put into the mouth of Hersilia by Gellius the annalist, when she asked for peace at the hand of T. Tatius[171]. And this story has been fitted on, without sufficient warrant, to the Mars-festivals of this month. Mars is supposed to have been born on the Kalends, to have grown wondrously between Kalends and Ides, to have fallen then in love with Nerio, to have been fooled as we saw by Anna Perenna, to have been rejected and defeated by his sweetheart, and finally to have won her as his wife on the 19th[172]. Are we to find here a fragment of real Italian mythology, or an elaborate example of the Graecizing anthropomorphic tendencies of the third and second centuries B.C.?
The question is a difficult one, and lies rather outside the scope of this work. Those who have read Usener’s brilliant paper will find it hard to shake themselves free of the conviction that he has unearthed a real myth, unless they carefully study the chapter of Aulus Gellius which is its chief foundation. Such a study has brought me back to the conviction that Plautus and the others were writing in terms of the fashionable modes of thought of their day, and were not appealing to popular ideas of the relations of Italian deities to each other[173]. Aulus Gellius begins by quoting a comprecatio from the book of the Libri sacerdotum populi Romani. ‘In his scriptum est: Luam Saturni, Salaciam Neptuni, Horam Quirini, Virites Quirini, Maiam Volcani, Heriem Iunonis, Moles Martis Nerienemque Martis.’ A glance at the names thus coupled together is enough to show that Mars is not here thought of as the husband of Neriene; the names Lua, Salacia, &c., seem rather to express some characteristic of the deity with whose name they are joined or some mode of his operation[174]; and Gellius himself, working on an etymology of Nerio which has generally been accepted as correct, explains the name thus: ‘Nerio igitur Martis vis et potentia et maiestas quaedam esse Martis demonstratur.’ In the latter part of his chapter, after quoting Plautus, he says that he has heard the poet blamed by an eminent critic for the strange and false notion that Nerio was the wife of Mars; but he is inclined to think that there was a real tradition to that effect, and cites his namesake the annalist and Licinius Imbrex in support of his view.
But neither annalist nor play-writer can stand against that passage from the sacred books with which he began his chapter; and if we give the latter its due weight, the value of the others is relatively diminished. It appears to me that the one represents the true primitive Italian idea of divine powers, which with its abundance of names offered excellent opportunities to anthropomorphic tendencies of the Graecizing school, while the others show those tendencies actually producing their results. Any conclusion on the point must be of the nature of a guess; but I am strongly disposed to think (1) that Nerio was not originally an independent deity, but a name attached to Mars expressive of some aspect of his power, (2) that the name gradually became endowed with personality, and (3) that out of the combination of Mars and Nerio the Graecizing school developed a myth of which the fragments have been taken by Usener and his followers as pure Roman.
Having once been displaced by Minerva, Nerio vanished from the calendar, and with her that special aspect of Mars—whatever it may have been—which the name was intended to express. The five days, 18th to 23rd, became permanently associated with Minerva. The 19th was the dedication-day of at least one of her temples, and counted as her birthday[175]: the 23rd was the Tubilustrium, with a sacrifice to ‘dea fortis,’ who seems to have been taken for Minerva, owing to an incorrect idea that the latter was specially the deity of trumpet-players[176]. She was no doubt an old Italian deity of artificers and trade-guilds; but the Tubilustrium was really a Mars-festival, and Minerva had no immediate connexion with it.
x Kal. Apr. (March 23). NP.
TUBILUST[RIUM]. (CAER. MAFF. VAT. FARN. MIN. III.)
TUBILUSTRIUM. (PHILOC.)
Note in Praen.: [FERIAE] MARTI[177]. HIC DIES APPELLATUR ITA, QUOD IN ATRIO SUTORIO TUBI LUSTRANTUR, QUIBUS IN SACRIS UTUNTUR. LUTATIUS QUIDEM CLAVAM EAM AIT ESSE IN RUINIS PALA[TI I]NCENSI A GALLIS REPERTAM, QUA ROMULUS URBEM INAUGURAVERIT.
ix Kal. Apr. (March 24). NP.
Q. R. C. F. (VAT. CAER.)
Q. REX. C. F. (MAFF. PRAEN.)
Note in Praen.: HUNC DIEM PLERIQUE PERPERAM INTERPRETANTES PUTANT APPELLAR[I] QUOD EO DIE EX COMITIO FUGERIT [REX: N]AM NEQUE TARQUINIUS ABIIT EX COMITIO [URBIS], ET ALIO QUOQUE MENSE EADEM SUNT [IDEMQUE S]IGNIFICANT. QU[ARE COMITIIS PERACTIS IUDICI]A FIERI INDICA[RI IIS MAGIS PUTAMUS][178].
These two days must be taken in connexion with the 23rd and 24th of May, which are marked in the calendars in exactly the same way. The explanation suggested by Mommsen is simple and satisfactory[179]; the 24th of March and of May were the two fixed days on which the comitia curiata met for the sanctioning of wills[180] under the presidency of the Rex. The 23rd in each month, called Tubilustrium, would be the day of the lustration of the tubae or tubi used in summoning the assembly. The letters Q. R. C. F. (quando rex comitiavit fas) mean that on the days so marked proceedings in the courts might only begin when the king had dissolved the Comitia.
The tuba, as distinguished from the tibia, which was the typical Italian instrument, was a long straight tube of brass with a bell mouth[181]. It was used chiefly in military[182] and religious ceremonies; and as the comitia curiata was an assembly both for military and religious objects, this would suit well with Mommsen’s idea of the object of the lustration. The Tubilustrium was the day on which these instruments, which were to be used at the meeting of the comitia on the following day, were purified by the sacrifice of a lamb. Of the Atrium Sutorium, where the rite took place, we know nothing.
There are some words at the end of Verrius’ note in the Praenestine Calendar, which, as Mommsen has pointed out[183], come in abruptly and look as if something had dropped out: ‘Lutatius quidem clavam eam ait esse in ruinis Pala[ti i]ncensi a Gallis repertam, qua Romulus urbem inauguraverit.’ This clava must be the lituus of Romulus, mentioned by Cicero[184], which was found on the Palatine and kept in the Curia Saliorum. We cannot, however, see clearly what Verrius or his excerptor meant to tell us about it; there would seem to have been a confusion between lituus in the sense of baculum and lituus in the sense of a tuba incurva. The latter was in use as well as the ordinary straight tuba[185]; in shape it closely resembled the clava of the augur, and perhaps the resemblance led to the notion that it was the clava of Romulus and not a tuba which