Cedit ab Iliacis laurea cana focis.
The mention of these buildings carries us back to the very earliest Rome, when the rex and his sons and daughters[[64]] (Flamines and Vestales, in their later form) performed between them the whole religious duty of the community; to these we may perhaps add the warrior-priests of Mars (Salii). The connexion of the decoration with the Mars-cult is probable, if not certain; the laurel was sacred to Mars, for in front of his sacrarium in the regia there grew two laurels[[65]], and it has been conjectured that they supplied the boughs used on this day[[66]].
March 1 is also marked in the calendar of Philocalus as the birthday of Mars (N̄ = natalis Martis). This appears in no other calendar as yet discovered, and is conspicuously absent in the Fasti Praenestini; it is therefore very doubtful whether any weight should be given to a fourth-century writer whose calendar had certainly an urban and not a rustic basis[[67]]. There is no trace of allusion to a birth of Mars on this day in Latin literature, though the day is often mentioned. There was indeed a pretty legend of such a birth, told by Ovid under May 2[[68]], which has its parallels in other mythologies; Juno became pregnant of Mars by touching a certain flower of which the secret was told her by Flora:
Protinus haerentem decerpsi pollice florem;
Tangitur et tacto concipit illa sinu.
Iamque gravis Thracen et Iaeva Propontidis intrat
Fitque potens voti, Marsque creatus erat.
Of this tale Preller remarked long ago that it has a Greek setting: it is in fact in its Ovidian form a reflex from stories such as those of the birth of Athena and of Kora. Yet it has been stoutly maintained[[69]] that it sprang from a real Italian germ, and is a fragment of the lost Italian mythology. Now, though it is certainly untrue that the Italians had no native mythology, and though there are faint traces, as we shall see, of tales about Mars himself, yet the Latins at least so rarely took these liberties with their deities[[70]], that every apparent case of a divine myth needs to be carefully examined and well supported. In this case we must conclude that there is hardly any evidence for a general belief that March 1 was the birthday of Mars; and that Ovid’s story of Juno and Mars must be looked on with suspicion so far as these deities are concerned.
The idea that Mars was born on March 1 might arise simply from the fact that the day was the first of his month and also the first of the year. It is possible however to account for it in another way. It was the dies natalis of the temple of Juno Lucina on the Esquiline, as we learn from the note in the Fasti Praenestini; and this Juno had a special power in childbirth. The temple itself was not of very ancient date[[71]], but Juno had no doubt always been especially the matrons’ deity, and in a sense represented the female principle of life[[72]]. To her all kalends were sacred, and more especially the first kalends of the year, on which we find that wives received presents from their husbands[[73]], and entertained their slaves. In fact the day was sometimes called the Matronalia[[74]], though the name has no technical or religious sense. Surely, if a mother was to be found for Mars, no one could be more suitable that Juno Lucina; and if a day were to be fixed for his birth, no day could be better than the first kalends of the year, which was also the dedication-day of the temple of the goddess. At what date the mother and the birthday were found for him it is impossible to discover. The latter may be as late as the Empire; the former may have been an older invention, since Mars seems to have been apt to lend himself, under Greek or Etruscan influence, somewhat more easily to legendary treatment than some other deities[[75]] But we may at any rate feel pretty sure that it was the Matronalia on March 1 that suggested the motherhood of Juno and the birth of Mars; and we cannot, as Roscher does, use the Matronalia to show that these myths were old and native[[76]].
Yet another legend was attached to this day. It was said that the original ancile, or sacred shield of Mars, fell down from heaven[[77]], or was found in the house of Numa[[78]], on March 1. This was the type from which were copied the other eleven belonging to the collegium of Salii Palatini; in the legend the smith who did this work was named Mamurius, and was commemorated in the Salian hymn[[79]]. These are simply fragments of a tangle of myth which grew up out of the mystery attaching to the Salii, or dancing priests of Mars, and to the curious shields which they carried, and the hymns which they sang[[80]]; in the latter we know that the word Mamuri often occurred, which is now generally recognized as being only a variant of the name Mars[[81]]. We shall meet with the word again later in the month. This also was the first day on which the shields were ‘moved,’ as it was called; i. e. taken by the Salii from the sacrarium Martis in the Regia[[82]], and carried through the city in procession. Dionysius (ii. 70) has left us a valuable description of these processions, which continued till the 24th of the month; the Salii leaped and danced, reminding the writer of the Greek Curetes, and continually struck the shields with a short spear or staff[[83]] as they sang their ancient hymns and performed their rhythmical dances.