Gestator patet essedo tacente, &c.
There is no explanation of virgineo cruore: but I would rather retain it than adopt even H. A. J. Munro’s virgine nequiore. See Friedländer, ad loc.
[136]. This seems to be Usener’s suggestion, p. 207.
[137]. Fasti, 3. 675.
[138]. No doubt this should be Nerio: see below on March 17.
[139]. There is some ground for believing that the two words implied two deities on occasion or originally: Varro, Sat. Menipp. fr. 506 ‘Te Anna ac Peranna’ (Riese, p. 219).
[140]. Wissowa (de Feriis x) thinks Ovid’s tale mere nugae: but this learned scholar never seems to be able to comprehend the significance of folk-lore.
[141]. Fasti, 3 661 foll.
[142]. Varro (L. L. 6. 14) calls them ‘sacerdotes Liberi,’ by courtesy, we may presume: and it is noticeable that Ovid describes this old Anna as wearing a mitra, which, in Propert. v. (iv.) 2. 31, is characteristic of Bacchus: ‘Cinge caput mitra: speciem furabor Iacchi.’
[143]. Op. cit. 208.