[81] Servius on Virgil, Aen. vii. 776. Helbig proposed to identify as Virbius some bronze statuettes found at Nemi, which represent a young man naked except for a cloak thrown over his left arm, holding in his extended right hand a shallow bowl, while in his raised left hand he seems to have held a spear or staff on which he leaned. See Bulletino dell’ Inst. di Corrisp. Archeologica, 1885, p. 229. But to this it has been objected by Rossbach (op. cit. p. 162) that Virbius appears to have been portrayed as an older, probably bearded man (Ovid, Metam. xv. 538 sqq.).
[82] Servius on Virgil, Aen. vii. 761; compare id. on Aen. vii. 84. See also Ovid, Metam. xv. 545 sq.—
“Hoc nemus inde colo de disque minoribus unus
Nomine sub dominae lateo atque accenseor illi.”
[83] P. Ribadeneira, Flos Sanctorum (Venice, 1763), ii. 93 sq.; Acta Sanctorum, August 13, pp. 4 sqq. (Paris and Rome, 1867). The merit of tracing the saint’s pedigree belongs to Mr. J. Rendel Harris. See his Annotators of Codex Bezae (London, 1901), pp. 101 sq. Prudentius has drawn a picture of the imaginary martyrdom which might melt the stoniest heart (Peristeph. xi. p. 282 sqq., ed. Th. Obbarius). According to the Acta Sanctorum the saint shared the crown of martyrdom with twenty members of his household, of whom nineteen were beheaded, while one of them, his nurse Concordia, was scourged to death (“plumbatis caesa”). It is an odd coincidence that his Greek prototype Hippolytus dedicated just twenty horses to Aesculapius (Pausanias, ii. 27. 4); and it is another odd coincidence, if it is nothing worse, that the bones of Orestes, the other mythical hero of Nemi, were buried beside the temple of Concordia in Rome, and that Servius, who mentions this tradition (on Virgil, Aen. ii. 116), should immediately afterwards quote the words “virgine caesa.” If we knew why the hero Hippolytus dedicated just twenty horses to the god who raised him from the dead, we might perhaps know why the saint Hippolytus went to heaven attended by a glorious company of just twenty martyrs. Bunsen courageously stood out for the historical reality of the martyr, whom he would fain identify with his namesake the well-known writer of the third century (Hippolytus and his Age, London, 1852, i. pp. 212 sqq.).
[84] Cato, Origines, i., quoted by Priscian, Inst. iv. 21, vol. i. p. 129, ed. Hertz; M. Catonis praeter librum de re rustica quae extant, ed. H. Jordan, p. 12.
[85] Livy, ii. 25; Dionysius Halicarnas. Antiquit. Roman. vi. 29.
[86] Festus, p. 145, ed. C. O. Müller.
[87] Persius, Sat. vi. 55 sqq.
[88] Wissowa suggests that Manius Egerius was a half-forgotten male counterpart of Egeria (W. H. Roscher’s Lexikon d. griech. und röm. Mythologie, s.v. “Egeria”); and Dessau observes that the name Egerius “sine dubio cohaeret cum Egerio fonte” (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, xiv. p. 204). The same view is taken by Messrs. A. B. Cook and E. Pais. Mr. Cook holds that the original form of the names was Aegerius and Aegeria, which he would interpret as “the Oak God” and “the Oak Goddess.” See A. B. Cook, “The European Sky-God,” Folk-lore, xvi. (1905) pp. 291 sq.; E. Pais, Ancient Legends of Roman History (London, 1906), p. 142.