[170] Odes, iii. 18.
[171] Cic. de Inventione, ii. 161.
[172] pp. 236-284.
[173] R.F. 325, condensed from Siculus Flaccus (Gromatici, i. 141).
[174] Fasti, ii. 641 foll.
[175] See, e.g., Jevons, Introduction, etc., p. 138; Robertson Smith, Semites, p. 321.
[176] See, e.g., Tibullus ii. 1. 55; Virg. Ecl. vi. 22, x. 27, and Servius on both these passages. Pliny, N.H. xxxiii. 111; and cp. below, p. 177. For primitive ideas about the colour red see Jevons, Introd. pp. 67 and 138; Samter, Familienfeste, p. 47 foll. Cp. also the very interesting paper of von Duhn in Archiv, 1906, p. 1 foll., esp. p. 20: "Es soll eben wirklich pulsierendes kraftvolles Leben zum Ausdruck gebracht werden." His conclusions are based on the widespread custom of using red in funerals, coffins, and for colouring the dead man himself: the idea being to give him a chance of new life—which is what he wants—red standing for blood.
[177] I am not sure that I am right in calling this whitethorn. For the qualities of the Spina alba see Ovid, Fasti, vi. 129 and 165, "Sic fatus spinam, quae tristes pellere posset A foribus nexas, haec erat alba, dedit." In line 165 he calls it Virga Janalis. See also Festus, p. 289, and Serv. ad Ecl. viii. 29; Bücheler, Umbrica, p. 136.
[178] The details are fully set forth in Marquardt, Röm. Privataltertümer, p. 52 foll. The religious character of confarreatio and its antiquity are fully recognised by Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, p. 427. Some interesting parallels to the smearing of the doorposts from modern Europe will be found collected in Samter, Familienfeste, p. 81 foll. The authority for the wolf's fat was Masurius Sabinus, quoted by Pliny, N.H. xxviii. 142 (cp. 157), who adds from the same author, "ideo novas nuptas illo perungere postes solitas, ne quid mali medicamenti inferretur." The real reason was, no doubt, that it was a charm against evil spirits, not against poison; but it is worth while to quote here another passage of Pliny (xx. 101), where he says that a squill hung in limine ianuae had the same power, according to Pythagoras. Some may see a reminiscence of totemism in the wolf's fat: in any case the mention of the animal as obtainable is interesting.
[179] Dieterich, Mutter Erde, p. 6 foll. The idea is that the child comes from mother earth, and will eventually return to her.