[616]. Tylor, Prim. Cult. ii. 251; Grimm, German Mythology (Eng. trans.), p. 601 foll.
[617]. In July also the days were nefasti from the Kalends to the 9th; but to the meaning of this we have no clue whatever.
[619]. G. B. ii. 75. In an appendix (p. 373 foll. and esp. 382) will be found some other examples of the same type of ritual. Cp. also ii. 176 (from Punjaub), which example, however, does not seem in any way connected with harvest. But the practice of the Creek Indians is so unusually well attested that it deserves special attention. It is described by no less than four independent authorities (see Mr. Frazer’s note on p. 76).
[620]. Nissen, Landeskunde, 399.
[621]. The whole of Mr. Frazer’s section on the sacramental eating of new crops should be read in connexion with the Vestalia.
[622]. Aust, de Aedibus sacris, p. 7; Liv. 5. 19 and 23. The temple was in the Forum boarium, near the Circus maximus.
[623]. Wissowa in Myth. Lex. s. v. Mater Matuta, 2463.
[624]. Ovid, Fasti, 6. 473 foll.; Cic. Nat. Deor. 3. 48; Tusc. 1. 28. Plutarch (Quaest. Rom. 16. 1) noted a likeness between her cult and that of Leucothea in his own city of Chaeroneia; an interesting passage, though quite inconclusive as to the Greek origin of Mater Matuta. Plutarch, like Servius (Aen. 5. 241) and others, has adopted Ovid’s legend of Ino by way of explanation of the identity of Leucothea and Matuta. Merkel (Fasti, clxxxiv) believed the cult to be wholly Greek; Bouché-Leclercq (Hist. de Divination, iv. 147) follows Klausen in identifying Mater Matuta with Tethys (cf. Plut. Rom. 2) and with the deity of the oracle at Pyrgi. But see Wesseling on Diod. Sic. 15, p. 337; and Strabo, Bk. 5, p. 345.
[625]. C. I. L. i. 176, 177.