The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic. W. Warde Fowler
tegat ornatas longa corona fores.
With this Mannhardt[267] aptly compares the like concomitants of the midsummer fires in North Germany, Scotland, and England. In Scotland, for example, before the bonfires were kindled on midsummer eve, the houses were decorated with foliage brought from the woods[268]. The custom of decoration at special seasons, May-day, mid-summer, harvest, and Christmas, is even now, with the exception of midsummer, universal, and is probably descended from these primitive rites, by which our ancestors sought in some mysterious way to influence the working of the powers of vegetation.
2. At the earliest glimmer of daybreak the shepherd purified the sheep. This was done by sprinkling and sweeping the fold; then a fire was made of heaps of straw, olive-branches, and laurel, to give good omen by the crackling, and through this apparently the shepherds leapt, and the flocks were driven[269]. For this we have, of course, numerous parallels from all parts of the world. Burning sulphur was also used:
Caerulei fiant vivo de sulfure fumi
Tactaque fumanti sulfure balet ovis[270].
3. After this the shepherd brought offerings to Pales, of whom there may perhaps have been in the farmyard a rude image made of wood[271]; among these were baskets of millet and cakes of the same, pails of milk, and other food of appropriate kinds. The meal which followed the shepherd himself appears to have shared with Pales[272]. Then he prays to the deity to avert all evil from himself and his flocks; whether he or they have unwittingly trespassed on sacred ground and caused the nymphs or fauni to fly from human eyes; or have disturbed the sacred fountains, and used branches of a sacred tree for secular ends. In these petitions the genuine spirit of Italian religion—the awe of the unknown, the fear of committing unwittingly some act that may bring down wrath upon you—is most vividly brought out in spite of the Greek touches and names which are introduced. He then goes on to his main object[273]:
Pelle procul morbos: valeant hominesque gregesque,
Et valeant vigiles, provida turba, canes.
Absit iniqua fames. Herbae frondesque supersint,
Quaeque lavent artus, quaeque bibantur, aquae.
Ubera plena premam: referat mihi caseus aera,
Dentque viam liquido vimina rara sero.
Sitque salax aries, conceptaque semina coniunx
Reddat, et in stabulo multa sit agna meo.
Lanaque proveniat nullas laesura puellas,
Mollis et ad teneras quamlibet apta manus.
Quae precor eveniant: et nos faciamus ad annum
Pastorum dominae grandia liba Pali.
This prayer must be said four times over[274], the shepherd looking to the east and wetting his hands with the morning dew[275]. The position, the holy water, and the prayer in its substance, though now addressed to the Virgin, have all descended to the Catholic shepherd of the Campagna.
4. Then a bowl is to be brought, a wooden antique bowl apparently[276], from which milk and purple sapa, i.e. heated wine, may be drunk, until the drinker feels the influence of the fumes, and when he is well set he may leap over the burning heaps:
Moxque per ardentes stipulae crepitantis acervos
Traiicias celeri strenua membra pede[277].
The Parilia of the urbs was celebrated in much the same way in its main features; but the day was reckoned as the birthday of Rome, and doubtless on this account it came under the influence of priestly organization[278]. It is connected with two other very ancient festivals: that of the Fordicidia and that of the ‘October horse.’ The blood which streamed from the head of the horse sacrificed on the Ides of October was kept by the Vestals in the Penus Vestae, and mixed with the ashes of the unborn calves burnt at the Fordicidia; and the mixture seems to have been thrown upon heaps of burning bean-straw to make it smoke, while over the smoke and flames men and women leaped on the Palatine Hill[279]. The object was of course purification; Ovid calls the blood, ashes, and straw februa casta, i.e. holy agents of purification, and adds in allusion to their having been kept by the Vestals:
Vesta dabit: Vestae munere purus eris.
Ovid had himself taken part in the rite; had fetched the suffimen, and leaped three times through the flames, his hands sprinkled with dew from a laurel branch. Whether the februa were considered to have individually any special significance or power, it is hard to say. Mannhardt, who believed the ‘October horse’ to be a corn-demon, thought that the burning of its blood symbolized the renewal of its life in the spring, while the ashes thrown into the fire signified the safe passage of the growing crops through the heat of the summer[280]; but about this so judicious a writer is naturally not disposed to dogmatize. We can, however, be pretty sure that the purification was supposed to carry with it protection from evil influences both for man and beast, and also to aid the growth of vegetation. The theory of Mannhardt, adopted by Mr. Frazer, that the whole class of ceremonies to which the Parilia clearly belongs, i.e. the Easter and Midsummer fires and Need-fires of central and northern Europe, may best be explained as charms to procure sunshine,[281] has much to be said for it, but does not seem to find any special support in the Roman rite.
It may be noted in conclusion that a custom of the same kind, and one perhaps connected with a cult of the sun,[282] took place not far from Rome, at Mount Soracte; at what time of year we do not know. On this hill there was a worship of Apollo Soranus,[283] a local deity, to which was attached a kind of guild of worshippers called Hirpi Sorani, or wolves of Soranus;[284] and of these we may guess, from the legend told of their origin, that in order to avert pestilence, &c., they dressed or behaved themselves like wolves.[285] Also on a particular day, perhaps the summer solstice, these Hirpi ran through the flames, ‘super ambustam ligni struem ambulantes non aduruntur,’[286] and on this account were excused by a senatus consultum from all military or other service. A striking parallel with this last feature is quoted by Mannhardt, from Mysore, where the Harawara are degraded Brahmins who act as priests in harvest-time, and make a living by running through the flames unhurt with naked soles: but in this case there seems to be no animal representation. Mannhardt tries to explain the Hirpi as dramatic representations of the Corn-wolf or vegetation spirit.[287] On the other hand, it is possible to consider them as survivals of an original clan who worshipped the wolf as a totem[288]; a view adopted by Mr. Lang[289], who compares the bear-maidens of Artemis at Brauron in Attica. But the last word has yet to be said about these obscure animalistic rites.
ix Kal. Mai. (Apr. 23). FP (CAER.) NP (MAFF.) F (PRAEN.)[290]
VEIN[ALIA] (CAER.) VIN[ALIA] (MAFF. PRAEN. ESQ.)
Praen. has a mutilated note beginning IO[VI], and ending with [CUM LATINI BELLO PREME]RENTUR A RUTULIS, QUIA MEZENTIUS REX ETRUS[CO]RUM PACISCEBATUR, SI SUBSIDIO VENISSET, OMNIUM ANNORUM VINI FRUCTUM. (Cp. Festus, 65 and 374, where it appears that libations of all new wine were made to Jupiter.)
VENERI (CAER.)
[V]EBERI ERUC. [EXTR]A PORTAM COLLIN[AM]. (ARV.)
This day was generally known as Vinalia Priora, as distinguished from the Vinalia Rustica of August 19. Both days were believed to be sacred to Venus[291]; the earlier one, according to Ovid, was the foundation-day of the temple of Venus Erycina, with which he connected the legend of Aeneas and Mezentius. But as both Varro and Verrius are agreed that the days were sacred, not to Venus but to Jupiter[292], we may leave the legend alone and content ourselves with asking how Venus came into the connexion.
The most probable supposition is that this day being, as Ovid implies, the dies