240 



DISCOVERY 



Originally tlu' knowliilKi- of tin- calondar, like thai 

 of all religious law, was the monopoly of the aristo- 

 cratic college of priests, but inevitably, in course of 

 time, announcement was supplemented by publication. 

 In 304 B.C. for the first time the calendar was exhibited 

 in the market-place, and in i8g B.C. one of the consuls 

 adorned the temple of Hercules and the Muses with 

 a permanent record of the dates of the regular festivals. 

 After the adjustment of Julius Cxsar, the reformed 

 calendar was copied and set up in Rome and else- 

 where, and thanks to the survival of a number of 

 fragments of these inscriptions, we possess the Roman 

 calendar practically complete. 



This document, though itself of imperial date, throws 

 the most valuable light upon the early Roman religion. 

 As Rome became a cosmopolitan city, Roman religion 

 had been permeated with foreign influences. Roman 

 mythology, like Roman literature, was Greek in origin, ■ 

 and in the literary sources for the study of Roman 

 religion it is often impossible to disentangle what is 

 genuinely Roman. But thanks to the conservatism 

 of Roman official documents, these inscriptions enable 

 us to recover the general outline of the public worship 

 of early Rome with absolute certainty. For in these 

 calendars the old native festivals arc written in large 

 capitals, and so distinguished from the later accretions 

 to the ceremonies of the religious year. The informa- 

 tion given by the calendar is, of course, similar to that 

 originally proclaimed each month by the religious 

 authorities. It enables the ordinary man to know 

 when, without offence, he may proceed with political 

 or other secular business, and upon what dates he 

 should perform religious duties. The first column 

 divides the days into the purely secular week of eight 

 days from market-day to market-day. 



Although market-days provided schoolboys with 

 a holiday, they appear to have had no religious sig- 

 nificance. In another column, against each day is 

 set a symbol to show whether religious law allowed the 

 meeting of political assemblies or the transaction of 

 ordinary secular business. Most of the older religious 

 festivals involved complete abstinence from secular 

 business, particularly those which were concerned with 

 the dead or the powers of earth. There were a few 

 cases where the day was divided between religion 

 and business, and affairs might be transacted when the 

 religious ceremonies had finished. There were other 

 days which, for various reasons, were " unlucky." 

 Out of the 365 days, 239 were marked as available for 

 the transaction of secular business ; upon the remaining 

 126 it was wholly or partially prohibited. Further, 

 as we have already noticed, the calendars set out the 

 major festivals of the early Republic in large capitals, 

 while minor festivals, movable feasts, festivals which 

 had been adopted by Rome under foreign influences. 



and, in some examples, valuable explanatory notes, 

 are inscribed in a smaller lettering. 



The nature of the older festivals brings us back to 

 our starting-point, the religious calendar of a people 

 interested primarily in agriculture and flocks and herds, 

 which begins in March and ends with February, the 

 month to which we still add the extra day in Leap 

 Years. The break in the religious ceremonies is 

 between those of February, which look backwards to 

 the past year and its dead, and those of March, which 

 look forward to the promise of the coming year. 

 Throughout the year the festivals reflect the seasonal 

 preoccupations of the farmer. The god of March 

 represented the quickening power of spring, first 

 manifest in his month. The leaping dance of his 

 armed priests has been explained as a magical leaping 

 to make the crops grow high. The clashing of their 

 shields and spears which accompanied the dance may 

 have served the double purpose of frightening away 

 evil influences and of thunder-making by sympathetic 

 magic. March, too, marks the opening of the cam- 

 paigning season, when the arms and military 

 trumpets were ceremonially purified against their 

 coming use. Early in April a sacrifice of pregnant 

 cows took place. Their calves were burned and the 

 ashes used for fertility " medicine " in the shepherd's 

 festival, which fell a few days later. In this month, 

 too, sacrifices were performed to keep the mildew from 

 the crop. May was marked by a festival of placation 

 of the possibly malevolent ghosts of the dead, and in 

 every household the father " redeemed " the family 

 with black beans, which he spat out of his mouth 

 nine times without looking back, and sent to their place 

 such ghosts as were haunting the house. In May, 

 too, certain human images made of wicker%vork were 

 cast into the river, a magical rite the object of which 

 was probably to provide sufficient rain for the crops. 

 And in this month took place the Ambarvalia, the 

 festival which was perpetuated by the Catholic Church 

 in the Rogation processions, and which still surx-ives 

 in some parishes in England in the yearly "beating 

 of the bounds." The object, in the words of Cato's 

 prayer, was to " keep, avert, and turn from us all 

 disease, seen or unseen, all desolation, ruin, damage, 

 and unseasonable influence ; to give increase to the 

 fruits, the corn, the vines, and the plantations, and 

 to bring them to a prosperous issue." In June the 

 Temple of Vesta, the sacred hearth and storehouse 

 of the State, was purified ; the agricultural significance 

 of the ceremony was the purification and preparation 

 of the storehouse against the harvest of the now ripen- 

 ing corn. July in Italy is a month of heat and drought. 

 Two of the older festivals belonging to the month seem 

 to have to do with deities of water, but their details 

 are very obscure. In August the har\est was safely 



