OVID. FASTI. III. 923. THE festival of Anna Perenna, who, it is manifest from the name, was the goddess of the ever-circling year, was celebrated on the Ides of March, chiefly, it would appear, by the lower orders, who assembled near the junction of the Anio with the Tiber, and devoted this day to merriment and junketting. Ovid, after giving a most lively picture of the jovial indulgences of the crowd, endeavours to connect Anna Perenna with Anna, the sister of Dido, and tells a long story how she wandered to Italy, after the death of the unhappy queen, and was hospitably received by Æneas; but having excited the jealous fury of Lavinia, she was apprised of her danger in a dream, and fleeing from the palace by night, was drowned in the Numicius. Several other vague suppositions, with regard to the name and nature of this deity are afterwards detailed. The poet, however, was certainly aware of the truth, for he states that one of the arguments to prove that the Roman year originally commenced in March, rested upon the fact of the festival of Anna Perenna being celebrated in that month. III. 146. Nec mihi parva fides, annos hinc isse priores As a commentary on which take the words of Macrobius. Fast. S. I. 12. "Eodem quoque mense et publice et privatim ad Annam Perennam sacrificatum itur: ut annare perennare commode liceat." 1. 2. Geniale, "merry," "jovial." See note p. 172. (Advena Tibri.) The Tiber is called a stranger, because it was considered an Etrurian river. Thus Virg. G. I. 498. Dii patrii Indigetes, et Romule, Vestaque mater, and again Æn. II. 781. Et terram Hesperiam venies, ubi Lydius, arva to which add Hor. C. III. vii. 27. Nec quisquam citus æque Tusco denatat alveo. 4. (Cum pare quisque sua.) "Each with his mate." 6. (Frondea...casa.) Such leafy huts were called umbra, as we learn from Festus. Umbræ vocabantur Neptunalibus casæ frondeæ pro tabernaculis. See also the note on Tibull. II. i. 24. p. 183. 9...10. They pray that their years may equal the number of cyathi; they quaff and they fail not to empty them, "ad numerum," i. e. up to the number of years desired; they fail not to drink off as many cyathi as they desire to live years. The cyathus was not, as it is often called, a drinking cup, but a small vessel containing about one-third of a gill, used for measuring out the wine into the poculum, crater, calix, or whatever the goblet might be called, in which it was mixed with water, and out of which the draught was drained. Hence, when we consider that the ancient wines were much weaker than those which we are in the habit of drinking, and were, moreover, usually diluted, there is nothing very extravagant in the exclamation of Horace C. III. viii. 13. Sume, Mæcenas, cyathos amici-Sospitis centum...... Compare also C. III. xix. 9. Da Lunæ propere novæ, Da Noctis mediæ, da, puer, auguris modis, Qui Musas amat impares-Ternos ter cyathos adtonitus petet It was common, when drinking the health of a friend, to pour into the poculum a cyathus of wine for every letter in his name. Martial (XI. xxxvi. 7.) thus proposes the health of Caius Julius Proculus. Quincunces, et sex cyathos, bessemque bibamus, i. e. let us drink five, and six and eight cyathi, to make up the letters in the name of Caius Julius Proculus. 11. Nestor, the aged counsellor of the Grecian host, had lived through three generations of men. (Odyss. III. 245.) Τρὶς γὰρ δή μίν φασιν ἀνάξασθαι γένε ̓ ἀνδρῶν, whence he was termed trisæclisenex by Lævius (or Nævius,)1 and in Horace C. II. ix. 13. we read At non ter ævo functus amabilem-Ploravit omnes Antilochum senex Annos. 12. (Sibylla.) See note on Sibyls, p. 187, especially the tale with regard to the age of the Cumaan, p. 190. To this Ovid alludes in Met. XIV. 136...146, where the Sibyl declares that Apollo had granted her life for as many years as there were grains in a handful of sand iam mihi sæcula septem Acta vides: superest, numeros ut pulveris æquem, 11. 12. Compare the couplet with Ov. E. ex P. II. viii. 41. where the exile, when imploring the compassion of Tiberius, prays Sic pater in Pylios, Cumæos mater in annos 14. (Et iactant,) i. e. they adapt their gesticulations to the words which they repeat. The Italians have in all ages possessed, in an eminent degree, the power of imparting life and feeling to dumb signs, the developement of this faculty constituted the charm of the ancient pantomime, and forms the chief attraction of the modern ballet. 66 15. (Posito...cratere.) The drinking cup being laid aside-i. e. quitting their carousal in order to join in the dance. The words can scarcely mean Α cup of wine being placed on the altar as an offering, they proceed to join in the sacred dance," although some commentators endeavour to wring this out of them. 1 See Aul. Gell. XIX. 7. OVID. FASTI. V. 639. On the Ides of May an altar had been erected to the Lares Præstites, the Protectors of the city (see p. 138,) by Curius; but this as well as the ancient statues, in which they were represented as twins, with a dog at their feet, had been destroyed by time, and the poet had sought in vain to discover them. 3. (Curius.) Who Curius may have been we cannot tell. The most famous personage of this name, Manius Curius Dentatus, was consul three times, in B. C. 290, 275, 274, and Censor in 272. He vanquished the Samnites, and celebrated, during his second consulship, a triumph in honour of a victory over Pyrrhus, whom he eventually expelled from Italy. It is certain, however, that the worship of the Public Lares was instituted at a much earlier period, according to Varro1 by king Tatius, a statement confirmed by Dionysius. Hence the reading found in many MSS. is well worthy of attention. Ara erat illa quidem Curibus, sed multa vetustas, &c. 13. (Turba Diania.) Dogs, the attendants of the "Huntress Dian." 15. (Gemellorum.) Referring to the legend, according to which the Lares Compitales were the twin sons of the Nymph Lara and Mercury. Ov. Fast. II. 615, Fitque gravis, geminosque parit, qui compita servant, Et vigilant nostra semper in æde Lares. 17. (Geniumque Ducis.) "The guardian angel of our Prince." See note on the Genius, p, 170, and compare Hor. C. IV. v. 33. (Ad Augustum.) Te multa prece, te prosequitur mero-Defuso pateris: et Miscet numen, uti Græcia Castoris Et magni memor Her- 1 L. L. V. 10. 2 A. R. IV. 14. 66 (Tradidit illos,) sc. colendos. This probably refers to a fact recorded by Suetonius Octav. XXXI. Compitales Lares ornari bis anno instituit, vernis floribus et æstivis." 18. (Numina trina.) The twin Lares and the Genius of Augustus. 5...9. The epithet Præstites is manifestly formed from præsto, but Ovid, not satisfied with a single derivation, would connect the word with præsum and præsens also. 9...14. Plutarch in his Roman Questions, asks— Why does a dog stand beside those Lares, which are properly called Præstites, and why are they themselves clad in the hides of dogs? Are Præstites those who stand before, and whom it therefore becomes to guard the mansion, and to be objects of terror to strangers, (as is the nature of dogs,) but gentle and tame to those who dwell within? 10. (Stabat.) The tense of this verb and of quærebam, in line 15, indicates that the statue no longer existed, and that the author had sought without finding. 12. (Compita grata Deo.) Both here and in Fasti. II. 579, the Lares Præstites are considered to be the same with the Lares Compitales, worshipped at the compita, that is the point from which two streets branched off, or at which two roads crossed each other. In addition to what has been said above, (p. 138,) we may quote Varro (L. L. VI. 3.) "Compitalia, dies attributus Laribus...ideo ubi viæ competunt, tum in competis sacrificatur. Quotannis is dies concipitur." Pliny, in his description of Rome, (H. N. III. 5.) informs us that there were no less than 265 compita Larium within the city, "Complexa (sc, urbs) montes septem ipsa dividitur in regiones XIV. Compita Larium CCLXV." OVID. FASTI. V. 663. INTRODUCTION. MERCURIUS, an appellation manifestly derived from the same root as the words merx, mercari, mercator, &c., was, as the name imports, the Roman god of traffic and gain, the protector of merchants and shopkeepers, the aider and abettor of all the schemes and tricks employed |