[69]. By Usener, in his remarkable paper in Rhein. Museum, xxx. 215 foll., on ‘Italische Mythen.’ He unluckily made the mistake of supposing that Ovid told this story under June 1 (i. e. nine months before the supposed birthday of Mars). There is indeed a kind of conjunction of June and Mars on June 1, as both had temples dedicated on that day; but neither of these can well be earlier than the fourth century B.C., and no one would have thought of them as having any bearing on the birth of Mars but for Usener’s blunder (Aust, de Aedibus sacris Pop. Rom. pp. 8 and 10, and his valuable note in Roscher’s article on Mars, p. 2390). Usener also adduces the derivation of Gradivus in Fest. 97 ‘quia gramine sit ortus.’
[70]. The practical Roman mind applied the myth chiefly to the history of its state, and in such a way that its true mythic character was lost, or nearly so. What became in Greece mythic literature became quasi-history at Rome. Thus it is that Romulus is so closely connected with Mars in legend: the race-hero and the race-god have almost a mythical identity. The story of the she-wolf may be at least as much a myth of the birth of Mars as Ovid’s story of Juno, in spite of the fatherhood of Mars in that legend.
[71]. Aust, as quoted above. The date was probably 379 B.C. (Plin. N. H. 16. 235).
[72]. Roscher in Lex. s. v. Juno, p. 576.
[73]. Marq. 571, where is a list of passages referring to these gifts. Some are familiar, e. g. Horace, Od. 3. 8, and Juvenal, 9. 53 (with the scholiast in each case).
[74]. Schol. Cruq. on Horace, l. c., and the scholiast on Juvenal, l. c.
[75]. See e. g. the mysterious scene on a cista from Praeneste given in Roscher, Lex. 2407, to which the clue seems entirely lost.
[76]. Lex. s. v. Mars, 2399; s. v. Juno, 584.
[77]. Ovid, 3. 351 foll.; Plut. Numa, 13.
[78]. Dion. Hal. 2. 71.