[302]. Fest. 65.
[303]. H. N. 18. 287.
[304]. L. L. 6. 16. Hortis is Mommsen’s very probable emendation for sortis of the MSS. O. Müller has sacris, which is preferred by Jordan (Preller, i. 196).
[305]. 264.
[306]. Mommsen (C. I. L. 326) thinks that there is no mistake in the gloss; but that the Vinalia Rustica represent a later and luxurious fashion of allowing a whole year to elapse before tasting the wine, instead of six months. From the vintage, however (end of September or beginning of October), to August 19 is not a whole year. See under August 19.
[307]. ‘Tria namque tempora fructibus metuebant, propter quod instituerunt ferias diesque festos, Robigalia, Floralia, Vinalia.’ That the Vinalia here referred to is the August one is clear, not only from the order of the words, but from what follows, down to the end of sec. 289. Secs. 287 to end of 288 deal with the Vinalia priora parenthetically; in 289 Pliny returns to the Vinalia altera (or rustica), after thus clearing the ground by making it clear that the April Vinalia ‘nihil ad fructus attinent.’ He then quotes Varro to show that in August the object is to avert storms which might damage the vineyards. Mommsen, C. I. L. 326, seems to me to have misread this passage.
[308]. Ovid, Fasti, 877 foll.: the legend was an old one for it is quoted by Macrob. (Sat. 3. 5. 10) from Cato’s Origines. See also Hehn, Kulturpflanzen, 65 foll., who is, however, in error as to the identification of Jupiter (Liber) with Ζεὶς Ἐλευθέριος.
[309]. See Columella, 2. 12; Plin. N. II. 18. 91; and article, ‘Mildew,’ in Encycl. Brit. For the botanical character of this parasite see Worthington Smith’s Diseases of Field and Garden Crops, chs. 21 and 23; and Hugh Macmillan’s Bible Teachings from Nature, p. 120 foll.
[310]. N. H. 18. 273: cp. 154. Pliny thought it chiefly the result of dew (cf. mildew, German mehlthau), and was not wholly wrong.
[311]. The masc. is no doubt correct. Ovid, Fasti, 4. 907, uses the feminine Robigo, but is alone among the older writers in doing so: see Preller-Jordan, ii. 44, note 2.