[186]. Varro, L. L. 6. 33; Censorinus, 2. 20. Verrius Flaccus in the heading to April in Fasti Praen.: ... ‘quia fruges flores animaliaque et maria et terrae aperiuntur.’ Mommsen, Chron. 222. Ovid quaintly forsakes the scholars to claim the month for Venus (Aphrodite), Fasti, 4. 61 foll. I do not know why Mr. Granger should call it the boar-month (from aper), in his Worship of the Romans, p. 294.
[187]. Segetes runcuri, Varro, R. R. I. 30. Columella’s instructions are of the same kind (II. 2).
[188]. C. I. L. 280.
[189]. Röm. Jahr, 216.
[190]. February has thirteen, all but two between Kal. and Ides. The Nones and Ides are NP. April has thirteen between Nones and 22nd; or fourteen if we include the 19th, which is NP in Caer. The Ides are NP, Nones N.
[191]. See the fragmentary heading to the month in Fasti Praen.; Ovid, l. c.; Lydus, 4. 45; Tutela Veneris, in rustic calendars; Veneralia (April 1), Philocalus.
[192]. Varro, R. R. 1. 1. 6: ‘Item adveneror Minervam et Venerem, quarum unius procuratio oliveti, alterius hortorum.’ Cp. L. L. 6. 20 ‘Quod tum (Aug. 19) dedicata aedes et horti ei deae dicantur ac tum fiant feriati holitores.’ Cf. Preller, Myth. i. 434 foll. The oldest Venus-temple was in the low ground of the Circus Maximus (B.C. 295). “Venus, like Ceres, may have been an old Roman deity of the plebs, but she never entered into the State-worship in early times.” Macrob. 1. 12. 12 quotes Cincius (de Fastis) and Varro to prove that she had originally nothing to do with April, and that there was no dies festus or insigne sacrificium in her honour during the month.
[193]. 4. 45 Ταῖς τοίνυν καλάνδαις ἀπριλλίαις αἱ σεμναὶ γυναικῶν ὑπὲρ ὁμονοίας καὶ βίου σώφρονος ἐτίμων τὴν Ἀφροδίτην· αἱ δὲ τοῦ πλήθους γυναῖκες ἐν τοῖς τῶν ἀνδρῶν βαλανείοις ἐλούοντο, πρὸς θεραπείαν αὐτῆς μυρσίνη ἐστεμμέναι, κ.τ.λ. Cp. Macrob. 1. 12. 15.
[194]. C. I. L. 315.
[195]. We shall find some reason for believing that in the early Republican period new cults came in rather through plebeian than patrician agency (see below, on Cerealia). But in the period of the new nobilitas the lower classes seem rather to have held to their own cults, while the upper social stratum was more ready to accept new ones. See below, on April 4, for the conditions of such acceptance. The tendency is to be explained by the wide and increasing sphere of the foreign relations of the Senatorial government.