The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic / An Introduction to the Study of the Religion of the Romans

by W. Warde Fowler

[990]. Niebuhr, Hist. of Rome, ii. 37. Strong arguments are urged against this view by Aust, Lex. 696.

[991]. Paul. Diac. 87. The lucus is mentioned in the corrupt fragments of the Argean itinerary (see on May 15) in Varro, L. L. 5. 50 (see Jordan, Topogr. ii, 242): where I am inclined to think the real reading is ‘Esquiliis cis Iovis lucum fagutalem’; ‘Iuppiter Fagutalis’ in Plin. N. H. 16. 37; a ‘vicus Iovis Fagutalis,’ C. I. L. vi. 452 (110 A.D.).

[992]. For Iuppiter Viminius and his ara, Fest. 376.

[993]. Liv. 1. 10; Dionys. 2. 34; Propert. 5. (4.) 10.

[994]. For other examples of this practice see Bötticher, Baumkultus, pp. 73 and 134; Virgil, Aen. 10. 423, and Servius, ad loc.; Statius, Theb. 2. 707.

[995]. Corn. Nep. Atticus, 20; cf. Mommsen, Res Gestae Divi Augusti, p. 53; Dion. Hal. 2. 34. 4. This is apparently what Livy alludes to in 1. 10, attributing it, after Roman fashion, to Romulus: ‘Templum his regionibus, quas modo animo metatus sum, dedico sedem opimis spoliis.’ For a discussion of the shape of this temple see Aust, in Lex. s. v. Iuppiter, 673. He is inclined to attribute it (679) to the A. Cornelius Cossus who dedicated the second spolia opima in B.C. 428 (Liv. 4. 20).

[996]. The meaning of the cult-title is obscure; Lex. s. v. Iuppiter, 673.

[997]. Paul. Diac. 92; Serv. Aen. 12. 206.

[998]. Aust, in Lex. 676. The idea is that of Helbig in his Italiker in der Poebene, 91 foll. Cp. Schwegler, Röm. Gesch. i. 681, and Preller, i. 248 foll. H. Nettleship, Essays in Latin Literature, p. 35, and Strachan-Davidson (Polybius, Prolegomena, viii) discuss the oath per Iovem lapidem usefully. Nettleship saw that the passage of Servius is the only one which ‘gives any real support’ to the notion that the god was represented by a stone; and Strachan-Davidson notes the aetiological method of Servius.

[999]. Cp. his note on the ‘sceptrum’ (Aen. 12. 206), which he explains as being the substitute for a ‘simulacrum’ of Jupiter. Was this ‘simulacrum’ a stone? If so he would have said so. Obviously he knew little or nothing about these cult-objects.