168 



rity over wife and children, so strict, and systematically carried out to 

 all its consequences as it has never existed anywhere else. I have said 

 already that the whole character of the marriage ceremonies was 

 explained by the popular tradition, which connected their introduction 

 with the story of the Sabine maidens. So were also the privileges 

 which the Roman matrons enjoyed. Their freedom from all servile 

 labour but spinning and weaving, was supposed to be a reward for their 

 noble and successful endeavours for restoring peace between their 

 Roman husbands and their Sabine fathers. 



If there should be still a proof wanted for the theory which I have 

 advanced, I trust it will be found in the following. The festival on 

 which the Rape of the Sabines is said to have taken place, was the 

 Consualia, instituted in honour of the god Consus. This is one of the 

 old Roman deities, that were almost forgotten in later times. Nothing 

 was known for certain of the attributes and meaning of this god. The 

 later writers call him Neptunus Equester,'f a most unhappy interpreta- 

 tion, arising, no doubt, from the observation, that in Thessaly and 

 Boeotia equestrian games were celebrated in honour of Poseidon 

 Hippios. But the Roman Neptune had no connection with horses 

 whatever; he was confined to his original element the sea; and in 

 proportion as the Romans were a non-maritime people, the god of the 

 sea occupied a very inferior position in the Roman mythology, even at 

 the time when Rome had the sway of the Mediterranean. In the very 

 infancy of her existence, however, when the seven hills were the haunts 

 of shepherds and rude husbandmen, it is hardly conceivable that a 

 festival should have been instituted in honour of Neptune the sea-god. 

 Equally futile is the guess, for it hardly deserves any other name, 

 that Consus was the god of secret counsel, f This notion is merely 

 taken from an etymology, and that a false one, of the name Consus ; for 

 it can neither be derived from consilium nor from consulo. 



The real signification of Consus, and his place in the mythology of 

 Rome, is nevertheless perfectly clear ; and here we have an instance 

 which shows that, on some difficult points of Roman antiquities, 

 modem research, guided by the true method of critical investigation, 

 has been enabled, after the lapse of two thousand years, to come nearer 

 the truth than the Roman authoi*s themselves, though they were 

 surrounded by a mass of evidence of which we can only scrape together 

 some miserable fragments. 



In trying to explain the nature of Consus, it is of great importance to 

 know that his altar was under ground, and laid open only during the 



*LiT. 1.9. Dionjsias I. 33. Strabo V. 8, 3, p. 380, and others, 

 f Dioujsiiu II. 80. Plutarch. Romul. U. Neibiihr, Rom. Hist. L, Note 639. 



