This tale led Klausen[[133]] into some very strange fancies about the goddess, whom he regarded as a water-nymph, thinking that all her other characteristics (e.g. the year) might be explained symbolically; the running water representing the flow of time, &c. But it is probable that she only came into connexion with the river Numicius because Aeneas was there already. If Aeneas, as Jupiter Indiges, was buried on its banks[[134]], what could be more natural than that another figure of the Dido legend should be brought there too? There does not indeed seem to be any reason for connecting the real Anna Perenna with water[[135]]. All genuine Roman tradition seems to represent her, as we shall see directly, as an old woman; and when she appears in another shape, she must have become mixed up with other ideas and stories. It may perhaps be just possible that on this day some kind of an image of her may have been thrown into the Tiber, as was the case with the straw puppets (Argei) on May 15, and that the ceremony dropped out of practice, but just survived in the Numicius legend[[136]]. But this is simply hypothesis.
The fact is that, whatever else Anna Perenna may have been, all that we can confidently say of her is that she represented in some way the circle or ring of the year. This is indicated not only by the name, which can hardly be anything but a feminine form of annus, but by the time at which her festival took place, the first full moon of the new year. The one legend preserved about her which is of undoubted Italian origin is thought to point in the same direction. Ovid, wishing to explain ‘cur cantent obscena puellae’ in that revel of the ‘plebs’ on the Tiber-bank, tells us[[137]] how Mars, once in love with Minerva[[138]], came to Anna and asked her aid. It was at length granted, and Mars had the nuptial couch prepared: thither a bride was led, but not the desired one; it was old Anna with her face veiled like a bride who was playing the passionate god such a trick as we may suppose not uncommon in the rude country life of old Latium.
There is no need to be startled at the rude handling of the gods in this story, which seems so unlike the stately and orderly ideas of Roman theology. It must be borne in mind that folk-tales like this need not originally have been applied to the gods at all. They are probably only ancient country stories of human beings, based on some rude marriage custom—stories such as delighted the lower farm folk and slaves on holiday evenings; and they have survived simply because they became in course of time attached to the persons of the gods, as the conception of divinities grew to be more anthropomorphic. Granted that Anna or Perenna[[139]] was the old woman of the past year, that Mars was the god of the first month, and that the story as applied to human beings was a favourite one, we can easily understand how it came to attach itself to the persons of the gods[[140]].
Yet another story is told by Ovid of an Anna[[141]], in writing of whom he does not add the name Perenna. The Plebs had seceded to the Mons Sacer, and were beginning to suffer from starvation, when an old woman from Bovillae, named Anna, came to the rescue with a daily supply of rustica liba. This myth seems to me to have grown out of the custom, to be described directly, of old women[[142]] selling liba on the 17th (Liberalia), the custom having been transferred to that day through an etymological confusion between liba and Liberalia. Usener, however, saw here a connexion between Anna and Annona[[143]]; and recently it has been suggested that a certain Egyptian Anna, who is said by Plutarch to have invented a mould for bread-baking, may have found her way to Rome through Greek channels[[144]].
XVI Kal. Apr. (March 17). NP.
LIB[ERALIA]. (MAFF. FARN. RUST.)
LIB. AG[ONIA]. LIBERO LIB. (CAER.)
AG[ONIA]. (VAT.)
LIBERO IN CA[PITOLIO]. (FARN.)
This is one of the four days marked AG. or AGON. in the Fasti (Jan. 9, May 21, Dec. 11)[[145]]. It is curious that on this day two of the old calendars should mark the Liberalia only, and one the Agonia only, and one both. The day was generally known as Liberalia[[146]]; the other name seems to have been known to the priests only, and more especially to the Salii Collini or Agonenses[[147]], who must have had charge of the sacrifice. Wissowa seems to be right in thinking (de Feriis xii) that the conjunction of Liberalia and Agonia is purely accidental, and that the day took its common name from the former simply because, as the latter occurred four times in the year, confusion would be likely to arise.
Liber is beyond doubt an old Italian deity, whose true nature, like that of so many others, came to be overgrown with Greek ideas and rites. There is no sign of any connexion between this festival and the cult of Dionysus; hence we infer that there was an old Latin Liber before the arrival of the Greek god in Italy. What this god was, however, can hardly be inferred from his cult, of which we only know a single feature, recorded by Ovid[[148]]. He tells us that old women, sacerdotes Liberi, sat crowned with ivy all about the streets on this day with cakes of oil and honey (liba), and a small portable altar (foculus), on which to sacrifice for the benefit of the buyer of these cakes. This tells us nothing substantial, and we have to fall back on the name—always an uncertain method. The best authorities seem now agreed in regarding the word Liber (whatever be its etymology) as having something of the same meaning as genius, forming an adjective liberalis as genius forms genialis, and meaning a creative, productive spirit, full of blessing, and so generous, free, &c.[[149]] If this were so it would not be unnatural that the characteristics and rites of Dionysus should find here a stem on which to engraft themselves, or that Liber should become the object of obscene ceremonies which need not be detailed here, and also the god of the Italian vine-growers.
It is possible that Liber may have been an ancient cult-title of Jupiter; we do in fact find a Jupiter Liber in inscriptions, though the combination is uncommon[[150]]. In that case Liber may have been an emanation or off-shoot from Jupiter, as Silvanus probably was from Mars[[151]]. But I am disposed to think that the characteristics of Liber, so far as we know them, are not in keeping with those of Jupiter; and that the process was rather of the opposite kind, that is, the cult of Liber in its later form became attached to that of Jupiter, who was always the presiding deity of vineyards and wine-making[[152]].
This was also the usual day on which boys assumed the toga virilis (toga recta, pura, libera):