IOVI. (TUSC.)
To these notes in the calendars we may add a few lines from Ovid:
Idibus Invicto sunt data templa Iovi.
Et iam Quinquatrus iubeor narrare minores:
Nunc ades o coeptis, flava Minerva, meis.
Cur vagus incedit tota tibicen in urbe?
Quid sibi personae, quid stola longa volunt?
All Ides, as we have seen, were sacred to Jupiter; they are so noted in the surviving calendars in May, June, August, September, October and November, and were probably originally so noted in all the months[[643]]. On this day the collegium or guild of the tibicines feasted in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus[[644]]. The temple referred to by Ovid of Jupiter Invictus as having been dedicated on this day may possibly have been one of two mentioned by Livy as dedicated on the Capitol in B.C. 192[[645]]; but the coincidence of a dedication-day with the Ides may perhaps suggest a higher antiquity[[646]].
For the right meaning and derivation of the word Quinquatrus the reader is referred to what has been already said under March 19. June 13 was usually called Quinquatrus minusculae, not because it was really Quinquatrus (i. e. five days after the Ides), but because through the feast of the tibicines it was associated with their patron Minerva[[647]], in whose temple on the Aventine they met, apparently before they set out on the revelling procession to which Ovid refers[[648]]. Varro makes this clear when he writes ‘Quinquatrus minusculae dictae Iuniae Idus ab similitudine maiorum’[[649]], i. e. it was not really Quinquatrus, but was popularly so called because the other festival of Minerva and her followers bore that name. Verrius Flaccus was equally explicit on the point: ‘Minusculae Quinquatrus appellantur quod is dies festus est tibicinum, qui colunt Minervam cuius deae proprie festus dies est Quinquatrus mense Martio’[[650]].
The revelry of the tibicines, during which they wore the masks and long robes mentioned by Ovid, was explained by a story which the poet goes on to tell, and which is told also by Livy and by Plutarch with some variations[[651]]; how they fled to Tibur in anger at being deprived by Appius Claudius the censor of their feast in the Capitol: how they were badly missed at Rome, tricked and made drunk by a freedman at Tibur, and sent home unconscious on a big waggon. The story is genuinely Roman in its rudeness and in the rough humour which Ovid fully appreciates; the favourite feature of a secession is seen in it, and also the peaceful settlement of difficulties by compromise and contract. I see no reason why it should not be the echo of an actual event, though in detail it is obviously intended to explain the masks and the long robes. These are to be seen represented on a coin of the gens Plautia[[652]], to which the fierce censor’s milder colleague belonged, who negotiated the return of the truants. Plutarch calls the ‘stolae longae’ women’s clothes; but it is more natural to suppose that they were simply the dress of Etruscan pipe-players of the olden time[[653]].