[426]. This note is wrongly entered in the Fasti Venusini, under May 16.
[427]. Festus, 245, s. v. Publica sacra. Cp. Mommsen, Staatsrecht, iii. 123. Festus distinguishes pagi, montes, sacella, of which the festivals would seem to be the Paganalia, Septimontium, and sacra Argeorum, respectively.
[428]. See under [March 17]. We arrive at the procession by comparing the Varronian extracts from the sacra Argeorum (L. L. 545) with Gellius, 10. 15.30, and Ovid, Fasti, 3. 791. See a restoration of the itinerary of the procession in Jordan, Topogr. ii. 603.
[429]. Sacella in Varro (L. L. 545); sacraria, ib. 548; Argea in Festus, 334, where the word seems to be an adjective; Argei in Liv. 1. 24 ‘loca sacris faciendis, quae Argeos pontifices vocant.’ The number depends on the reading of Varro, 7. 44, xxiv or xxvii; Jordan decided for xxiv: but see Mommsen, Staatsrecht, iii. 123.
[430]. Fasti, 3. 791.
[431]. Jordan, Topogr. ii. 271 foll.
[432]. Dionysius, 1. 38; Ovid, Fasti, 5. 621 foll.; Festus, p. 334, s. v. Sexagenarii; Plutarch, Q. R. 32 and 86.
[433]. Dionysius says there were thirty; he had probably seen the ceremony, but may have only made a rough guess at the number or have thought of the thirty Curiae. Ovid writes of two: ‘Falcifero libata seni duo corpora gentis Mittite,’ &c. (Jordan proposed to read ‘senilia’ for ‘seni duo.’)
[434]. Festus, 334.
[435]. Festus, l. c.; Cicero, pro Roscio Amerino, 35. 100. Sexagenarios de ponte was apparently an old saying (cp. ‘depontani,’ Festus, 75); the earliest notice we have of it, which comes from the poet Afranius, seems to connect it with the pons sublicius.