Ederit, huic laedi viscera posse negant.
This was undoubtedly the real popular belief—that by eating this food on Carna’s day your digestion was secured for the year. Macrobius[[531]] makes the practice into a much more definite piece of ritual. ‘Prayers are offered to this goddess,’ he says, ‘for the good preservation of liver, heart, and the other internal organs of our bodies. Her sacrifices are bean-meal and lard, because this is the best food for the nourishment of the body.’ Ovid is here the genuine Italian, Macrobius the scholar and theologian: both may be right.
Whatever, then, may be the meaning or etymology of the name Carna, we may at least be sure that the cult belongs to the age of ancient Latin agriculture[[532]], since it was in connexion with her name that the popular belief survived in Ovid’s time of the virtue of bean-eating on the Kalends of June.
We learn from Ovid (line 191) that this same day was the dies natalis of the temple of Mars extra portam Capenam, i. e. on the Via Appia—a favourite spot for the mustering of armies, and the starting-point for the yearly transvectio equitum[[533]]. I have already alluded to the baseless fabric of conjecture built on the conjunction of Mars and Juno on this day[[534]]; and need here only repeat that in no well-attested Roman myth is Mars the son of Juno, or Juno the wife of Jupiter. And it is even doubtful whether June 1 was the original dedication-day of this temple of Mars: the Venusian calendar does not mention it, and Ovid may be referring to a re-dedication by Augustus[[535]]. There is absolutely no ground for the myth-making of Usener and Roscher about Mars and Juno: but it is to the credit of the latter that he has inserted in his article on Mars a valuable note by Aust, in which his own conclusions are cogently controverted.
III. Non. Iun. (June 3). C.
BELLONÆ IN CIRC[O] FLAM[INIO]. (VEN.)
This temple was vowed by the Consul Ap. Claudius in an Etruscan war[[536]] (296 B.C.): the date of dedication is unknown. In front of the temple was an area of which the truly Roman story is told[[537]], that being unable to declare war with Pyrrhus with the orthodox ritual of the fetiales, as he had no land in Italy into which they could throw the challenging spear[[538]], they caught a Pyrrhan soldier and made him buy this spot to suit their purpose. Here stood the ‘columella’ from which henceforward the spear was thrown[[539]].
The temple became well known as a suitable meeting-place for the Senate outside the pomoerium, when it was necessary to do business with generals and ambassadors who could not legally enter the city[[540]]. But of the goddess very little is known. There is no sufficient reason to identify her with that Nerio with whom we made acquaintance in March, as is done too confidently by the writer of the article in Roscher’s Lexicon[[541]].
Prid. Non. Iun. (June 4). C.
HERC[ULI] MAGN[O] CUSTO[DI]. (VEN.)