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Classical Texts Library >> Ovid, Fasti >> Book 6

OVID, FASTI 6

FASTI CONTENTS

BOOK 1

January

BOOK 2

February

BOOK 3

March

BOOK 4

April

BOOK 5

May

BOOK 6

June

FASTI BOOK 6, TRANSLATED BY JAMES G. FRAZER

[1] The explanations of this month’s name also are doubtful. I will state them all, and you shall choose which one you please. I’ll sing the truth, but some will say I lied, and think that no deities were ever seen by mortal. There is a god within us. It is when he stirs us that our bosom warms; it is his impulse that sows the seeds of inspiration. I have a peculiar right to see the faces of the gods, whether because I am a bard, or because I sing of sacred things. There is a grove where trees grow thick, a spot sequestered from every sound except the purl of water.

[11] There I was musing on what might be the origin of the month just begun, and was meditating on its name. Lo, I beheld the goddesses, but not those whom the teacher of ploughing beheld when he followed his Ascraean sheep1; nor those whom Priam’s son compared in watery Ida’s dells2; yet one there was of these. Of these there was one, the sister of her husband: she it was, I recognized, who stands within Jove’s citadel. I shivered, and, speechless though I was, my pallid hue betrayed my feeling; then the goddess herself removed the fears she had inspired. For she said, “O poet, minstrel of the Roman year, thou who hast dared to chronicle great things in slender couplets, thou hast won for thyself the right to look upon a celestial divinity by undertaking to celebrate the festivals in thy numbers. But lest thou should be ignorant and led astray by vulgar error, know that June takes its name from mine. It is something to have married Jupiter and to be Jupiter’s sister. I know not whether I am prouder of him as brother or as husband. If descent is considered, I was the first to call Saturn by the name of father: I was the first child whom fate bestowed on him. Rome was once named Saturnia after my sire: this land was the next he came to after heaven. If the marriage-bed counts for much, I am called the consort of the Thunderer, and my temple is joined to that of Tarpeian Jupiter. If a leman could give her name to the month of May, shall a like honour be grudged to me? To what purpose, then, am I called Queen and chief of goddesses? Why did they put a golden sceptre in my right hand? Shall the days (luces) make up a month and I be called Lucina after them, and yet shall I take a name from not a single month? Then indeed might I repent of having loyally laid aside my anger at the offspring of Electra and the Dardanian house.3 I had a double cause of anger: I fretted at the rape of Ganymede, and my beauty was misprized by the Idaean judge. It might repent me that I cherish not the battlements of Carthage, since my chariot and arms are there.4 It might repent me that I have laid Sparta, and Argos, and my Mycenae, and ancient Samos, under the heel of Latium; add to these old Tatius,5 and the Faliscans, who worship Juno, and whom I nevertheless suffered to succumb to the Romans. Yet let me not repent, for there is no people dearer to me: here may I be worshipped, here may I occupy the temple with my own Jupiter. Mavors himself hath said to me, ‘I entrust these walls to thee. Thou shalt by mighty in the city of thy grandson.’ His words have been fulfilled: I am celebrated at a hundred altars, and no the least of my honours is that of the month (named after me). Nevertheless it is not Rome alone that does me that honour: the inhabitants of neighbouring towns pay me the same compliment. Look at the calendar of woodland Aricia, and the calendars of the Laurentine folk and of my own Lanuvium; there, too, there is a month of June.6 Look at Tibur and at the sacred walls of the Praenestine goddess: there shalt thou read of Juno’s season. Yet Romulus did not found these towns; but Rome was the city of my grandson.”

[65] So Juno ended. I looked back. The wife of Hercules stood by, and in her face were signs of vigour.7 "If my mother were to bid me retire from heaven outright,” quoth she, “I would not tarry against my mother’s will. Now, too, I do not content about he name of this season. I coax, and I act the part almost of a petitioner, and I should prefer to maintain my right by prayer alone. Thou thyself mayest haply favour my cause. My mother owns the golden Capitol, where she shares the temple, and, as is right, occupies the summit along with Jupiter. But all my glory comes from the naming of the month; the honour about which they tease me is the only one I enjoy. What harm was it if thou didst, O Roman, bestow the title of a month upon the wife of Hercules, and if posterity remembered and ratified the gift? This land also owes me something on account of my great husband. Hither he drove the captured kine8: here Cacus, ill protected by the flames, his father’s gift, dyed with his blood the soil of the Aventine. But I am called to nearer themes. Romulus divided and distributed the people into two parts according to their years. The one was the readier to give counsel, the other to fight; the one age advised war, the other waged it. So he decreed, and he distinguished the months by the same token. June is the month of the young (iuvenes); the preceding is the month of the old.” 9

[89] So she spoke, and in the heat of rivalry the goddesses might have engaged in dispute, wherein anger might have belied their natural affection. But Concord came,10 at once the deity and the work of the pacific chief, her long tresses twined with Apollo’s laurel. When she had told how Tatius and brave Quirinus, and their two kingdoms and peoples., had united in one, and how fathers-in-law and sons-in-law were received in a common home, “The months of June,” quoth she, “gets its name from their junction.” 11

[97] Thus were three causes pleaded. But pardon me, ye goddesses; the matter is not one to be decided by my judgement. Depart from me all equal. Pergamum was ruined by him who adjudged the prize of beauty: two goddesses mar more than one can make.

KAL. IVN. 1st

[101] The first day is given to thee, Carna.12 She is the goddess of the hinge: by her divine power she opens what is closed, and closes what is open. Time has dimmed the tradition which sets forth how she acquired the powers she owns, but you shall learn it from my song. Near to the Tiber lies an ancient grove of Alernus13; the pontiffs still bring sacrifices thither. There a nymph was born (men of old named her Cranaë), often wooed in vain by many suitors. Her wont it was to scour the countryside and chase the wild beasts with her darts, and in the hollow vale to stretch the knotty nets. No quiver had she, yet they thought that she was Phoebus’ sister; and, Phoebus, thou needst not have been ashamed of her. If any youth spoke to her words of love, she straightway made him this answer: “In this place there is too much of light, and with the light too much of shame; if thou wilt lead to a more retired cave, I’ll follow.” While he confidingly went in front, she no sooner reached the bushes than she halted, and hid herself, and was nowise to be found. Janus had seen her, and the sight had roused his passion; to the hard-hearted nymph he used soft words. The nymph as usual bade him seek a more sequestered cave, and she pretended to follow at his heels, but deserted her leader. Fond fool! Janus sees what goes on behind his back; vain is thine effort; he sees thy hiding-place behind him. Vain is thine effort, lo! said I. For he caught thee in his embrace as thou didst lurk beneath a rock, and having worked his will he said: “In return for our dalliance be thine the control of hinges; take that for the price of thy lost maidenhood.” So saying, he gave her a thorn – and white it was – wherewith she could repel all doleful harm from doors.14

[131] There are greedy birds, not those that cheated Phineus’ maw of its repast,15 though from those they are descended. Big is their head, goggle their eyes, their beaks are formed for rapine, their feathers blotched with grey, their claws fitted with hooks. They fly by night and attack nurseless children, and defile their bodies, snatched from their cradles. They are said to rend the flesh of sucklings with their beaks, and their throats are full of the blood which they have drunk. Screech-owl is their name, but the reason of the name is that they are wont to screech horribly by night. Whether, therefore, they are born birds, or are made such by enchantment and are nothing but beldames transformed into fowls by a Marsian16 spell, they came into the chambers of Proca.17 In the chambers Proca, a child five days old, was a fresh prey for the birds. They sucked the infant with their greedy tongues, and the poor child squalled and craved help. Alarmed by the cry of her fosterling, the nurse ran to him and found his cheeks scored by their rigid claws. What was she to do? The colour of the child’s face was like the common hue of late leaves nipped by an early frost. She went to Cranaë and told what had befallen. Cranaë said, “Lay fear aside; thy nursling will be safe.” She went to the cradle; mother and father were weeping. “Restrain your tears,” she said, “I myself will heal the child.” Straightway she thrice touched the doorposts, one after the other, with arbutus leaves; thrice with arbutus leaves she marked the threshold. She sprinkled the entrance with water (and the water was drugged), and she held the raw inwards of a sow just two months old. And thus she spoke: “Ye birds of night, spare the child’s inwards: a small victim falls for a small child. Take, I pray ye, a heart for a heart, entrails for entrails. This life we give you for a better life.” When she had thus sacrificed, she set the severed inwards in the open air, and forbade those present at the sacrifice to look back at them. A rod of Janus, taken from the white-thorn, was placed where a small window gave light to the chambers. After that, it is said that the birds did not violate the cradle, and the boy recovered his former colour.

[169] You ask why fat bacon is eaten on these Kalends, and why beans are mixed with hot spelt. She is a goddess of the olden time, and subsists upon the foods to which she was inured before; no voluptuary is she to run after foreign viands. Fish still swam unharmed by the people of that age, and oysters safe in their shells. Latium knew not the fowl that rich Ionia supplies,18 nor the bird that delights in Pygmy blood19; and in the peacock naught but the feathers pleased, nor had the earth before sent captured beasts. The pig was prized, people feasted on the slaughtered swine: the ground yielded only beans and hard spelt. Whoever eats at the same time these two foods on the Kalends of the sixth month, they affirm that nothing can hurt his bowels.

[183] They say, too, that the temple of Juno Moneta was founded in fulfilment of thy vow, Camillus, on the summit of the citadel20: formerly it had been in the house of Manlius, who once protected Capitoline Jupiter against the Gallic arms.21 Great gods, how well had it been for him if in that fight he had fallen in defence of thy throne, O Jupiter on high! He lived to perish, condemned on a charge of aiming at the crown: that was the title that length of years reserved for him.

[191] The same day is a festival of Mars, whose temple, set beside the Covered Way,22 is seen afar without the walls from the Capene Gate. Thou, too, O Storm, didst deserve a shrine, by our avowal, what time the fleet was nearly overwhelmed in Corsican waters.23 These monuments set up by men are plain for all to see: if you look for stars, the bird of great Jupiter with its hooked talons then rises.24

IV. NON. 2nd

[197] The next day calls up the Hyades, which form the horns of the Bull’s forehead; and the earth is soaked with heavy rain.

III. NON. 3rd

[199] When twice the morning shall have passed, and twice Phoebus shall have repeated his rising, and twice the crops shall have been wetted by the fallen dew, on that day Bellona is said to have been consecrated in the Tuscan war,25 and ever she comes gracious to Latium. Her founder was Appius, who, when peace was refused to Pyrrhus, saw clearly in his mind, though from the light of day he was cut off.26 A small open space commands from the temple a view of the top of the Circus. There stands a little pillar of no little note. From it the custom is to hurl by hand a spear, war’s harbinger, when it has been resolved to take arms against a king and peoples.27

PR. NON. 4th

[209] The other part of the Circus is protected by Guardian Hercules: the god holds office in virtue of the Euboean oracle.28 The time of his taking office is the day before the Nones. If you ask about the inscription, it was Sulla who approved the work.

NON. 5th

[215] I inquired whether I should refer the Nones to Sancus, or to Fidius, or to thee, Father Semo; then Sancus said to me: “To whomsoever of them thou mayest give it, the honour will still be mine: I bear the three names: so willed the people of Cures.” Accordingly the Sabines of old bestowed on him a shrine, and established it on the Quirinal hill.

VIII. ID. 6th

[219] I have a daughter, and I pray she may outlive me; I shall always be happy while she survives. When I would give her to a son-in-law, I inquired what items were suitable for weddings and what should be avoided. Then it was shown to me that June after the sacred Ides is good for brides and good for bridegrooms, but the first part of this month was found to be unsuitable for marriages; for the holy wife of the Flamen Dialis spoke thus to me: “Until the calm Tiber shall have carried down to the sea on its yellow current the filth from the temple of Ilian Vesta, it is not lawful for me to comb down my hair with a toothed comb, or cut my nails with iron, or touch my husband, though he is the priest of Jupiter, and though he was given to me for life. Thou, too, be in no hurry; thy daughter will better wed when Vesta’s fire shall shine on a clean floor.” 29

VII. ID. 7th

[235] On the third morn after the Nones it is said that Phoebe chases away (the grandson of) Lycaon, and the Bear has none behind her to fear.30 Then I remember that I saw games held on the sward of the Field of Mars, and that hey were named thine, O smooth Tiber. The day is a festival for those who draw their dripping lines and hide their bronze hooks under little baits.

VI. ID. 8th

[241] The mind also has its divinity. We see that a sanctuary was vowed to Mind during the terror of thy war, thou treacherous Carthaginian. Thou didst renew the war, thou Carthaginian, and, thunder-struck by the consul’s death, all dreaded the Moorish bands. Fear had driven out hope, when the Senate made vows to Mind,31 and straightway she came better disposed. The day on which the vows paid to the goddess is separated from the coming Ides by six intermediate days.

V. ID. 9th

[249] O Vesta, grant me thy favour! In thy service now ope my lips, if it is lawful for me to come to thy sacred rites. I was wrapt up in prayer; I felt the heavenly deity, and the glad ground gleamed with a purple light. Not indeed that I saw thee, O goddess (far from me be the lies of poets!), nor was it meet that a man should look upon thee; but my ignorance was enlightened and my errors corrected without the help of an instructor. They say that Rome had forty times celebrated the Parilia32 when the goddess, Guardian of Fire, was received in her temple; it was the work of that peaceful king, than whom no man of more god-fearing temper was ever born in Sabine land.33 The buildings which now you see roofed with bronze you might then have seen roofed with thatch, and the walls were woven of tough osiers. This little spot, which now supports the Hall of Vesta, was then the great palace of unshorn Numa. Yet the shape of the temple, as it now exists, is said to have been its shape of old, and it is based on a sound reason. Vesta is the same as the Earth; under both of them is a perpetual fire; the earth and the hearth are symbols of the home. The earth is like a ball, resting on no prop; so great a weight hangs on the air beneath it. Its own power of rotation keeps its orb balanced; it has no angle which could press on any part; and since it is placed in the middle of the world and touches no side more or less, if it were not convex, it would be nearer to some part than to another, and the universe would not have the earth as its central weight. There stands a globe hung by Syracusan art in closed air, a small image of the vast vault of heaven, and the earth is equally distant from the top and bottom.34 That is brought about by its round shape. The form of the temple is similar: there is no projecting angle in it; a dome protects it from the showers of rain.

[283] You ask why the goddess is tended by virgin ministers. Of that also I will discover the true causes. They say that Juno and Ceres were born of Ops by Saturn’s seed; the third daughter was Vesta. The other two married; both are reported to have had offspring; of the three one remained, who refused to submit to a husband. What wonder if a virgin delights in a virgin minister and allows only chaste hands to touch her sacred things? Conceive of Vesta as naught but the living flame, and you see that no bodies are born of flame. Rightly, therefore, is she a virgin who neither gives nor takes seeds, and she loves companions in her virginity.

[295] Long did I foolishly think that there were images of Vesta: afterwards I learned that there are none under her curved dome. An undying fire is hidden in that temple; but there is no effigy of Vesta nor of the fire. The earth stands by its own power; Vesta is so called from standing by power (vi stando); and the reason of her Greek name may be similar.35 But the hearth (focus) is so named from the flames, and because it fosters (fovet) all things; yet formerly it stood in the first room of the house. Hence, too, I am of opinion that the vestibule took its name;36 it is from there that in praying we begin by addressing Vesta, who occupies the first place: it used to be the custom of old to sit on long benches in front of the hearth and to suppose that the gods were present at the table; even now, when sacrifices are offered to ancient Vacuna, they stand and sit in front of her hearths. Something of olden custom has come down to our time: a clean platter contains the food offered to Vesta. Lo, loaves are hung on asses decked with wreaths, and flowery garlands veil the rough millstones. Husbandmen used formerly to toast only spelt in the ovens, and the goddess of ovens has her own sacred rites37: the hearth of itself baked the bread that was put under the ashes, and a broken tile was laid on the warm floor. Hence the baker honours the hearth and the mistress of hearths and the she-ass that turns the millstones of pumice.

[319] Shall I pass over or relate thy disgrace, rubicund Priapus? It is a short story, but a very merry one.38 Cybele, whose brow is crowned with a coronet of towers, invited the eternal gods to her feast. She invited all the satyrs and those rural divinities, the nymphs. Silenus came, though nobody had asked him. It is unlawful, and it would be tedious, to narrate the banquet of the gods: the livelong night was passed in deep potations. Some roamed at haphazard in the vales of shady Ida; some lay and stretched their limbs at ease on the soft grass; some played; some slept; some, arm linked in arm, thrice beat with rapid foot the verdant ground. Vesta lay and careless took her peaceful rest, just as she was, her head low laid and propped upon a sod. But the ruddy guardian of gardens courted nymphs and goddesses, and to and fro he turned his roving steps. He spied Vesta too; it is doubtful whether he took her for a nymph or knew her to be Vesta; he himself said that he knew her not. He conceived a wanton hope, and tried to approach her furtively; he walked on tiptoe with throbbing heart. It chanced that old Silenus had left the ass, on which he rode, on the banks of a babbling brook. The god of the long Hellespont was going to begin, when the ass uttered an ill-timed bray. Frightened by the deep voice, the goddess started up; the whole troop flocked together; Priapus made his escape between hands that would have stopped him. Lampsacus is wont to sacrifice this animal to Priapus, saying: “We fitly give to the flames the innards of the tell-tale.” That animal, goddess, thou dost adorn with necklaces of loaves in memory of the event: work comes to a stop: the mills are empty and silent.

[349] I will explain the meaning of an altar of Baker Jupiter, which stands on the citadel of the Thunderer and is more famous for its name than for its value. The Capitol was surrounded and hard pressed by fierce Gauls: the long siege had already caused a famine. Having summoned the celestial gods to his royal throne, Jupiter said to Mars, “Begin.” Straightway Mars made answer, “Forsooth, nobody knows the plight of my people, and this my sorrow needs to find utterance in complaint. But if thou dost require me to declare in brief the sad and shameful tale: Rome lies at the foot of the Alpine foe.39 Is this that Rome, O Jupiter, to which was promised the domination of the world? is this that Rome which thou didst purpose to make the mistress of the earth? Already she had crushed her neighbours and the Etruscan hosts. Hope was in full career, but now she is driven from her own hearth and home. We have seen old men decked in embroidered robes – the symbol of the triumphs they had won – cut down within their bronze-lined halls. We have seen the pledges of Ilian Vesta removed from their proper seat40: plainly the Romans think that some gods exist. But if they were to look back to the citadel in which ye dwell, and to see so many of your homes beleaguered, they would know that the worship of the gods is of no avail, and that incense offered by an anxious hand is thrown away. And would that they could find a clear field of battle! Let them take arms, and, if they cannot conquer, then let them fall! As it is, starving and dreading a coward’s death, they are shut up and pressed hard on their own hill by a barbarous mob.” Then Venus and Quirinus, in the pomp of augur’s staff and striped gown, and Vesta pleaded hard for their own Latium. Jupiter replied, “A general providence is charged with the defence of yonder walls. Gaul will be vanquished and will pay the penalty. Only do thou, Vesta, look to it that the corn which is lacking may be thought to abound, and do not abandon thy proper seat. Let all the grain that is yet unground be crushed in the hollow mill, let it be kneaded by hand and roasted by fire in the oven.” So Jupiter commanded, and the virgin daughter of Saturn assented to her brother’s command, the time being the hour of midnight. Now sleep had overcome the wearied leaders. Jupiter chode them, and with his sacred lips informed them of his will. “Arise and from the topmost battlements cast into the midst of the foe the last resource which ye would wish to yield.” Sleep left them, and moved by the strange riddle they inquired what resource they were bidden to yield against their will. They thought it must be corn. They threw down the gifts of the Corn-goddess, which, in falling, clattered upon the helmets and the long shields of the foe. The hope that the citadel could be reduced by famine now vanished: the enemy was repulsed and a white altar set up to Baker Jupiter.

[395] It chanced that at the festival of Vesta I was returning by that way which now joins the New Way to the Roman Forum,41 Hither I saw a matron coming down barefoot: amazed I held my peace and halted. An old woman of the neighbourhood perceived me, and bidding me sit down she addressed me in quavering tones, shaking her head. “This ground, where now are the forums, was once occupied by wet swamps: a ditch was drenched with the water that overflowed from the river. That Lake of Curtius,42 which supports dry altars, is now solid ground, but formerly it was a lake. Where now the processions are wont to defile through the Velabrum to the Circus, there was naught but willows and hollow canes; often the roysterer, returning home over the waters of the suburb, used to tip a stave and rap out tipsy words at passing sailors. Yonder god (Vertumnus), whose name is appropriate to various shapes, had not yet derived it from damming back the river (averso amne). Here, too, there was a grove overgrown with bulrushes and reeds, and a marsh not to be trodden with booted feet. The pools have receded, and the river confines its water within its banks, and the ground is now dry; but the old custom survives.” The old woman thus explained the custom. “Farewell, good old dame,” said I; “may what remains of life to thee be easy all!”

[417] The rest of the tale I had learned long since in my boyish years; yet not on that account may I pass it over in silence. Ilus, descendant of Dardanus, had lately founded a new city (Ilus was still rich and possessed the wealth of Asia); a celestial image of armed Minerva is believed to have leaped won on the hills of the Ilian city.43 (I was anxious to see it: I saw the temple and the place; that is all that is left here; the image of Pallas is in Rome.) Smintheus44 was consulted, and in the dim light of his shady grove he gave this answer with no lying lips: “Preserve the heavenly goddess, so shall ye preserve the city. She will transfer with herself the seat of empire.” Ilus preserved the image of the goddess and kept it shut up on the top of the citadel; the charge of it descended to his heir Laomedon. In Priam’s reign the image was not well preserved. Such was the goddess’s own will ever since judgement was given against her in the contest of beauty. Whether it was the descendant of Adrastus,45 or the guileful Ulysses, or Aeneas, they say someone carried it off; the culprit is uncertain; the thing is now at Rome: Vesta guards it, because she sees all things by her light that never fails.

[437]Alas, how alarmed the Senate was when the temple of Vesta caught fire, and the goddess was almost buried under her own roof!46 Holy fires blazed, fed by wicked fires, and a profane flame was blent with a pious flame. Amazed the priestesses wept with streaming hair; fear had bereft them of bodily strength. Metellus47 rushed into their midst and in a loud voice cried, “Hasten ye to the rescue! There is no help in weeping. Take up in your virgin hands the pledges given by fate; it is not by prayers but by deed that they can be saved. Woe’s me, do ye hesitate?” said he. He saw that they hesitate?” said he. He saw that they hesitated and sank trembling on their knees. He took up water, and lifting up his hands, “Pardon me, ye sacred things,” 48 said he, “I, a man, will enter a place where no man should set foot. If it is a crime, let the punishment of the deed fall on me! May I pay with my head the penalty, so Rome go free!” With these words he burst in. The goddess whom he carried off approved the deed and was saved by the devotion of her pontiff.

[455] Ye sacred flames, now ye shine bright under Caesar’s rule; the fire is now and will continue to be on the Ilian hearths, and it will not be told that under his leadership any priestess defiled her sacred fillets, and none shall be buried in the live ground.49 That is the doom of her who proves unchaste; because she is put away in the earth which she contaminated, since Earth and Vesta are one and the same deity.

[461] Then did Brutus win his surname from the Gallaecan50 foe, and dyed the Spanish ground with blood. To be sure, sorrow is sometimes blent with joy, lest festivals spell unmingled gladness for the people: Crassus lost the eagles, his son, and his soldiers at the Euphrates, and perished last of all himself.51 “Why exult, thou Parthian?” said the goddess; “thou shalt send back the standards, and there will be an avenger who shall exact punishment for the slaughter of Crassus.” 52

IV. ID. 10th

[469] But as soon as the long-eared asses are stripped of their violets, and the rough millstones grind the fruits of Ceres, the sailor, sitting at the poop, says, “We shall see the Dolphin, when the day is put to flight and dank night has mounted up.” 53

III. ID. 11th

[473] Now, Phrygian Tithonus, thou dost complain that thou art abandoned by thy spouse, and the watchful Morning Star comes forth from the eastern waters. Go, good mothers (the Matralia is your festival), and offer to the Theban goddess54 the yellow cakes that are her due. Adjoining the bridges and the great Circus is an open space of far renown, which takes its name from the statue of an ox55: there, on this day, it is said, Servius consecrated with his own sceptered hands a temple of Mother Matuta. Who the goddess is, why she excludes (for exclude she does) female slaves from the threshold of her temple, and why she calls for toasted cakes, do thou, O Bacchus, whose locks are twined with clustered grapes and ivy, (explain and) guide the poet’s course, if the house of the goddess is also thine. Through the compliance of Jupiter with her request Semele was consumed with fire56: Ino received thee, young Bacchus, and zealously nursed thee with the utmost care. Juno swelled with rage that Ino should rear the son who had been snatched from his leman mother; but that son was of the blood of Ino’s sister. Hence Athamas was haunted by the furies and by a delusive vision, and little Learchus, thou didst fall by thy father’s hand. His sorrowful mother committed the shade of Learchus to the tomb and paid all the honours due to the mournful pyre. She, too, after tearing her rueful hair, leaped forth and snatched thee, Melicertes, from thy cradle. A land there is, shrunk with narrow limits, which repels twin seas, and, single in itself, is lashed by twofold waters. Thither came Ino, clasping her son in her frenzied embrace, and hurled herself and him from a high ridge into the deep. Panope and her hundred sisters received them scatheless, and smoothly gliding bore them through their realms. They reached the mouth of thick-eddying Tiber before Ino had yet received the name of Leucothea and before her boy was called Palaemon. There was a sacred grove: it is doubtful whether it should be called the grove of Semele or the grove of Stimula: they say that it was inhabited by Ausonian Maenads. Ino inquired of them what was their nation; she learned that they were Arcadians and that Evander was king of the place.57

[507] Dissembling her godhead, the daughter of Saturn slily incited the Latian Bacchanals by glozing words: “Too easy souls! O blinded hearts! This stranger comes no friend to our assemblies. Her aim is treacherous, she would learn our sacred rites. Yet she has a pledge by which we can ensure her punishment.” Scarce had she ended, when the Thyiads, with their locks streaming down their necks, filled the air with their howls, and laid hands on Ino, and strove to pluck the boy from her. She invoked the gods whom still she knew not: “Ye gods and men of the land, succour a wretched mother!” The cry reached the neighbouring rocks of the Aventine. The Oetaean hero58 had driven the Iberian kine to the river bank; he heard and hurried at full speed towards the voice. At the approach of Hercules the women, who but a moment before had been ready to use violence, turned their backs shamefully in womanish flight. “What would’st thou here, O sister of Bacchus’s mother59?” quoth Hercules, for he recognized her: “doth the same deity60 who harasses me harass the also?” She told him her story in part, but part the presence of her son induced her to suppress; for she was ashamed to have been goaded into crime by the furies. Rumour – for she is fleet – flew far on pulsing wings, and thy name, Ino, was on many lips. It is said that as a guest thou didst enter the home of loyal Carmentis and there dist stay thy long hunger.61 The Tegean priestess is reported to have made cakes in haste with her own hand and to have quickly backed them on the hearth. Even to this day she loves cakes at the festival of the Matralia. Rustic civility was dearer to her than the refinements of art. “Now,” said Ino, “reveal to me, O prophetess, my future fate, so far as it is lawful; I pray thee, add this favour to the hospitality I have already received.” A brief pause ensued, and then the prophetess assumed her heavenly powers, and all her bosom swelled with majesty divine. Of a sudden you could hardly know her again; so holier, so taller far was she than she had been but now. “Glad tidings I will sing: rejoice, Ino, they labours are over,” said she. “O come propitious to this people evermore! Thou shalt be a divinity in the sea: thy son, too, shall have his home in the ocean. Take ye both different names in your own waters. Thou shalt be called Leucothea by the Greeks and Matuta by our people: thy son will have all authority over harbours; he whom we name Portunus will be named Palaemon in his own tongue. Go, I pray ye, be friendly, both of ye, to our country!” Ino bowed assent, she gave her promise. Their troubles ceased: they changed their names: he is a god and she a goddess.

[551] You ask why she forbids female slaves to approach her? She hates them, and the source of her hatred, with her leave, I will tell in verse. One of thy handmaids, daughter of Cadmus,62 used often to submit to the embraces of thy husband. The caitiff Athamas loved her secretly, and from her he learned that his wife gave toasted seed-corn to the husbandmen. You yourself, indeed, denied it, but rumour affirmed it. That is why you hate the service of a woman slave. Nevertheless let not an affectionate mother pray to her on behalf of her own offspring: she herself proved to be no lucky parent. You will do better to commend to her care the progeny of another; she was more serviceable to Bacchus than to her own children. They relate that she said to thee, Rutilius, “Whither doest thou hasten? On my day in thy consulship thou shalt fall by the hand of a Marsian foe.” Her words were fulfilled, and the stream of the Tolenus flowed purple, its water mingled with blood.63 When the next year was come, Didius, slain on the same day,64 doubled the forces of the foe.

[569] The same day, Fortune, is thine, and the same founder, and he same place.65 But who is yonder figure that is hidden in robes thrown one upon the other? It is Servius: so much is certain, but different causes are assigned for this concealment, and my mind, too, is haunted by doubt. While the goddess timidly confessed her furtive love, and blushed to think that as a celestial being she should made with a mere man (for she burned with a deep, an onvermastering passion for the king, and he was the only man for whom she was not blind), she was wont to enter his house by a small window (fenestra); hence the gate66 bears the name of Fenestella (“the Little Window”). To this day she is ashamed and hides the loved features beneath a veil, and the king’s face is covered by many a robe. Or is the truth rather that after the murder of Tullius the common folk were bewildered by the death of the gentle chief, there were no bounds to their grief, and their sorrow increased with the sight of his statue, until they hid him by putting robes on him?

[585] A third reason must be expounded in my verse at greater length, though I will rein in my steeds. Having accomplished her marriage by means of crime, Tullia used to incite her husband by these words: “What boots is that we are will matched, thou by my sister’s murder, and I by thy brother’s, if we are content to lead a life of virtue? Better that my husband and thy wife had lived, if we do not dare attempt some greater enterprise. I offer as my dower the head and kingdom of my father: if thou art a man, go to, exact the promised dower. Crime is a thing for kings. Kill thy wife’s father and seize the kingdom, and dye our hands in my sire’s blood.” Instigated by such words, he, private man though he was, took his seat upon the lofty throne; the mob, astounded, rushed to arms. Hence blood and slaughter, and the weak old man was overpowered: his son-in-law (Tarquin) the Proud snatched the sceptre from his father-in-law. Servius himself, at the foot of the Esquiline hill, where was his palace, fell murdered and bleeding on the hard ground. Driving in a coach to her father’s home, his daughter passed along the middle of the streets, erect and haughty. When he saw her father’s corpse, the driver burst into tears and drew up. She chode him in these terms: “Wilt thou go on, or dost thou wait to reap the bitter fruit of this thy loyalty? Drive, I say, the reluctant wheels across his very face!” A sure proof of the deed is the name of the street called Wicked after her; the event is branded with eternal infamy. Yet after that she dared to touch the temple, her father’s monument: strange but true the tale I’ll tell. There was a statue seated on a throne in the likeness of Tullius: it is aid to have put its hand to its eyes, and a voice was heard, “Hide my face, lest it should see the execrable visage of my own daughter.” The statue was covered by a robe lent for the purpose: Fortune forbade the garment to be moved, and thus she spoke from her own temple: “That day on which the statue of Servius shall be laid bare by unmuffling his face will be the first day of modesty cast to the winds.” 67 Ye matrons, refrain from touching the forbidden garments; enough it is to utter prayers in solemn tones. Let him who was the seventh king in our city always keep his head covered with Roman drapery. This temple was once burnt,68 yet the fire spared the statue: Mulciber himself rescued his son. For the father of Tullius was Vulcan, his mother was the beautiful Ocresia of Corniculum.69 After performing with her the sacred rites in due form, Tanaquil ordered Ocresia to pour wine on the hearth, which had been adorned. There among the ashes there was, or seemed to be, the shape of the male organ; but rather the shape was really there. Ordered by her mistress, the captive Ocresia sat down at the hearth. She conceived Servius, who thus was begotten of seed from heaven. His begetter gave a token of his paternity when he touched the head of Servius with gleaming fire, and when on the king’s hair there blazed a cap of flame.

[637] To thee, too, Concordia, Livia dedicated a magnificent shrine, which she presented to her dear husband. But learn this, thou age to come: where Livia’s colonnade now stands, there once stood a huge palace.70 The single house was like the fabric of a city; it occupied a space larder than that occupied by the walls of many a town. It was levelled with the ground, not on a charge of treason, but because its luxury was deemed harmful. Caesar brooked to overthrow so vast a structure, and to destroy so much wealth, to which he was himself the heir. That is the way to exercise the censorship; that is the way to set an example, when an upholder of law does himself what he warns others to do.

PR. ID. 12th; ID. 13th

[649] The next day has no mark attached to it which you can note. On the Ides a temple was dedicated to Unconquered Jupiter. And now I am bidden to tell of the Lesser Quinquatrus.71 Now favour my undertaking, thou yellow-haired Minerva. “Why does the flute-player march at large through the whole City? What mean the masks? What means the long gown?” So did I speak, and thus did Tritonia72 answer me, when she had laid aside her spear – would that I could report the very words of the learned goddess! “In the times of your ancestors of yore the flute-player was much employed and was always held in great honour. The flute played in temples, it played at games, it played at mournful funerals. The labour was sweetened by its reward; but a time followed which of a sudden broke the practice of the pleasing art. Moreover, the aedile had ordered that the musicians who accompanied funeral processions should be ten, no more. The flute-players went into exile from the City and retired to Tibur73: once upon a time Tibur was a place of exile! The hollow flute was missed in the theatre, missed at the altars; no dirge accompanied the bier on the last march. At Tibur there was a certain man who had been a slave, but had long been free, a man worthy of any rank. In his country place he made ready a banquet and invited the tuneful throng; they gathered to the festal board. It was night, and their eyes and heads swam with wine, when a messenger arrived with a made-up tale, and thus he spoke (to the freedman): ‘Break up the banquet without delay, for see here comes the master of thy rod!’ 74 Immediately the guests bestirred their limbs, reeling with heady wine; their shaky legs or stood or slipped. But the master of the house, ‘Off with you all!’ says he, and when they dawdled he packed them in a wain that was well lined with rushes. The time, the motion, and the wine allured to slumber, and the tipsy crew fancied that they were on their way back to Tibur. And now the wain had entered the city of Rome by the Esquiline, and at morn it stood in the middle of the Forum. In order to deceive the Senate as to their persons and their number, Plautius75 commanded that their faces should be covered with masks; and he mingled others with them and ordered them to wear long garments, to the end that women flute-players might be added to the band. In that way he thought that the return of the exiles could be best concealed, lest they should be censured for having come back against the orders of their guild.76 The plan was approved, and now they are allowed to wear their new garb on the Ides and to sing merry words to the old tunes.”

[693] When she had thus instructed me, “It only remains for me to learn,” said I, “why that day is called Quinquatrus.” 77 “A festival of mine,” quoth she, “is celebrated under that name in the month of March, and among my inventions is also the guild of flute-players. I was the first, by piercing boxwood with holes wide apart, to produce the music of the long flute. The sound was pleasing; but in the water that reflected my face I saw my virgin cheeks puffed up. ‘I value not the art so high; farewell, my flute!’ said I, and threw it away; it fell on the turf of the river-bank. A satyr78 found it and at first beheld it with wonder; he knew not its use, but perceived that, when he blew into it, the flute gave forth a note, and with the help of his fingers he alternately let out and kept in his breath. And now he bragged of his skill among the nymphs and challenged Phoebus; but, vanquished by Phoebus, he was hanged and his body flayed of its skin. Yet am I the inventress and foundress of this music; that is why the profession keeps my days holy.”

XVII. KAL IVL. 15th

[711] The third day will come, on which thou, O Thyone79 of Dodona, wilt stand visible on the brow of Agenor’s80 bull. It is the day on which thou, O Tiber, dost send the filth of Vesta’s temple down the Etruscan water to the sea.81

XVI. KAL. 16th

[715] If any trust can be put in the winds, spread your canvas to the West Wind, ye mariners; tomorrow it will blow fair upon your waters.

XV. KAL. 17th; XIV. KAL. 18th

[717] But when the father of the Heliades82 shall have dipped his rays in the billows, and heaven’s twin poles are girdled by the stars serene, the offspring of Hyrieus83 shall lift his mighty shoulders above the earth: on the next night the Dolphin will be visible. That constellation once indeed beheld the Volscians and the Aequians put to flight upon thy plains, O land of Algidus; whence thou, Tubertus,84 didst win a famous triumph over the neighbouring folks and didst later ride victorious in a car drawn by snow-white horses.

XIII. KAL. 19th

[725] Now twice six days of the month are left, but to that number add one day; the sun departs from the Twins, and the constellation of the Crab blames red. Pallas begins to be worshipped on the Aventine hill.

XII. KAL 20th

[729] Now, Laomedon,85 thy son’s wife rises, and having risen she dispels the night, and the dank hoar-frost flees from the meadows. The temple is said to have been dedicated to Summanus,86 whoever he may be, at the time when thou, Pyrrhus, wast a terror to the Romans.87

XI. KAL. 21st

[733] When that day also has been received by Galatea in her father’s waters, and all the world is sunk in untroubled sleep, there rises above the horizon the young man blasted by the bolts of his grandsire and stretches out his hands, entwined with twin snakes.88 Familiar, too, the wrong that Theseus did, when, too confiding, he did curse his son to death.89 Doomed by his piety, the youth was journeying to Troezen, when a bull cleft with his breast the waters in the path. Fear seized the startled steeds; in vain their master held them back, they dragged him along the crags and flinty rocks. Hippolytus fell from the car, and, his limbs entangled by the reins, his mangled body was whirled along, till he gave up the ghost, much to Diana’s rage. “There is no need for grief,” said the son of Coronis,90 “for I will restore the pious youth to life all unscathed, and to my leech-craft gloomy fate shall yield.” Straightway he drew from an ivory casket simples that before had stood Glaucus’ ghost91 in good stead, what time the seer went down to pluck the herbs he had remarked, and the snake was succoured by a snake. Thrice he touched the youth’s breast, thrice he spoke healing words; then Hippolytus lifted his head, low laid upon the ground. He found a hiding-place in a sacred grove and in the depths of Dictynna’s own woodland; he became Virbius of the Arician Lake.92 But Clymenus93 and Clotho94 grieved, she that life’s broken thread should be respun, he that his kingdom’s rights should be infringed. Fearing the example thus set, Jupiter aimed a thunderbolt at him who used the resources of a too potent art. Phoebus, thou didst complain. But Aesculapius is a god, be reconciled to thy parent: he did himself for thy sake what he forbids others to do.

X. KAL. 22nd

[763] However great thy haste to conquer, O Caesar, I would not have thee march, if the auspices forbade. Be Flaminius and the Trasimenian shores thy witnesses that the kind gods give many warnings by means of birds. If you ask the date of that ancient disaster, incurred through recklessness, it was the tenth day from the end of the month.95

IX. KAL. 23rd

[769] The next day is luckier: on it Masinissa defeated Syphax,96 and Hasdrubal fell by his own sword.97

VIII. KAL. 24th

[771] Time slips away, and we grow old with silent lapse of years; there is no bridle that can curb the flying days. How quickly has come round the festival of Fors Fortuna! Yet seven days and June will be over. Come, Quirites, celebrate with joy the goddess Fors! On Tiber’s bank she has her royal foundations. Speed some of you on foot, and some in the swift boat, and think no shame to return tipsy home from your ramble. Ye flower-crowned skiffs, bear bands of youthful revellers, and let them quaff deep draughts of wine on the bosom of the stream. The common folk worship this goddess because the founder of her temple is said to have been of their number and to have risen to the crown from humble rank. Her worship is also appropriate for slaves, because Tullius, who instituted the neighbouring temples o the fickle goddess, was born of a slave woman.

VI. KAL. 26h

[785] Lo, returning from the suburban shrine, a maudlin worshipper thus hails the stars: “Orion, thy belt is now invisible, and perhaps it will be invisible to-morrow: after that it will be within my ken.” But if he had not been tipsy, he would have said that the solstice would fall on the same day.98

V. KAL. 27th

[791] Next morn the Lares were given a sanctuary on the spot where many a wreath is twined by deft hands. At the same time was built the temple of Jupiter Stator, which Romulus of old founded in front o the Palatine hill.99

III. KAL. 29th

[795] When as many days of the month remain as the Fates have names, a temple was dedicated to thee, Quirinus, god of the striped gown.100

PR. KAL. 30th

[798] To-morrow is the birthday of the Kalends of July. Pierides, put the last touches to my undertaking. Tell me, Pierides, who associated you with him to whom his stepmother was forced to yield reluctantly.101 So I spoke, and Clio answered me thus: “Thou dost behold the monument of that famous Philip from whom the chaste Marcia is descended, Marcia who derives her name from sacrificial Ancus, and whose beauty matches her noble birth.102 In her the figure answers to the soul; in her we find lineage and beauty and genius all at once. Nor deem our praise of figure base; on the same ground we praise great goddesses. The mother’s sister of Caesar was once married to that Philip.103 O florious dame! O lady worthy of that sacred house!” So Clio sang. Her learned sisters chimed in; Alcides bowed assent and twanged his lyre.


1. Hesiod of Ascra: Theogonia 22.
2. The Judgement of Paris, on “many-fountained Ida,” Idê polupidax. This una is Juno, “Iovis soror et coniunx,” Virg. Aen. i. 46. The great temple on the Capitol contained three shrines, dedicated to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. Compare ll. 52, 73, below.
3. Dardanus, son of Electra, by Zeus.
4. Virgil, Aen. i. 12 – 18 “hic illius arma, hic currus fuit.”
5. He alludes to Juno Curitis, Curritis, or Quiritis, whose worship Titus Tatius, Savine king, is said to have introduced at Rome, setting up a table in her honour in each curia.
6. Called Junonius at Aricia and Praeneste.
7. Hebe, daughter of Zeus and Hera, whom he thinks of by the Latin name Iuventas.
8. See i. 543 ff.
9. Compare v. 59.
10. See i. 637-650.

11. See iii. 195-228.
12. Probably the name is derived from caro, carnis, “flesh,” but Ovid has confounded her with Cardea, goddess of hinges, as if from cardo.
13. See ii. 67.
14. Branches of whitethorn, or buckthorn, kept out witches, and protected against wandering ghosts. See below, l. 165.
15. The Harpies. See Virg. Aen. iii. 25.
16. Marsians were famous for wizardry.
17. King of Alba Longa.
18. Francolin (attagen).
19. Crane. The Cranes were said to wage war on the Pygmies.
20. See i. 637.

21. M. Manlius Capitolinus, 390 B.C.
22. Probably a colonnade rising along the side of the Appian way.
23. Dedicated by L. Corn. Scipio, 259 B.C., after expelling the Carthaginians from Corsica.
24. True evening rising was on June 3.
25. Vowed by Appius Claudius Caecus in 296 B.C., when he as consul conquered the Etruscan and Samnite united forces.
26. After the defeat of 280 B.C., Pyrrhus offered honourable terms of peace: but Appius Claudius the Blind had himself carried into the Senate, and persuaded them to refuse.
27. The fetialis, or sacred herald, advanced to the enemy boundary, and threw over it a spear with the solemn words of declaration. See Livy i. 32. When war was declared against Pyrrhus, a soldier of Pyrrhus was caught, and compelled to buy a patch of land, and there a pillar was set up before Bellona’s temple. This was taken to represent the enemy territory in future declarations of war.
28. The Sibylline Books; the Sibyl being of Cumae, founded by Euboea.
29. See vi. 713 note. The Flamen Dialis and his wife were subjected to many strange taboos.
30. Because Arctophylax, the Bearward, had set, Arcturus was identified with Arcas, grandson of Lycaon, whose daughter was Callisto. Lycaon is here put for him.

31. After the defeat at Lake Trasimene, 217 B.C.
32. See iv.732.
33. Numa.
34. The orrery of Archimedes, which Cicero tells us was brought to Rome by Marcellus, the conqueror of Syracuse, 212 B.C.
35. histêmi, hestanai, confused with hestia.
36. Ovid takes vestibulum as from Vesta, guessing that the hearth stood there, as it did not. But he goes on as if he took it from ve and stare, “to stand apart.”
37. See ii. 525.
38. Told already in i. 391-440.
39. This refers to the capture of Rome by the Gauls, 390 B.C., and the siege of the Capitol. The besieged threw out loaves of bread, to show they were not in want.
40. The Vestals buried some of their sacred things, and carried away what they could: these included relics brought from Troy. See below, l. 451, and Livy v. 40-41.

41. The Via Nova was as old as the time of the kings. Like the Via Sacra (these were the only roads in Rome called via), it began from the Porta Mugonia, the old gate of the Palatine (near the arch of Titus), and ran along the N. slope of the Palatine, behind the House of the Vestals, and descended by a staircase to the Velabrum, lately made (nunc).
42. A place in the Forum, then dry, where in ancient times a gulf had appeared, which could not be filled until the most precious thing of Rome should be cast in. Marcus Curtius leapt in fully armed on horseback, crying that arms and valour were the most precious thing for Rome. The gulf then filled up (362 B.C.).
43. The famous Palladium, the Luck of Tory, which fell from heaven as described here, and so long as it was preserved, Troy was safe. Ulysses and Diomedes stole it (see Ovid, Met. xiii. 335-356); but the Roman belief was, that it remained until Aeneas brought it to Italy, and that it was kept in the temple of Vesta at Rome.
44. Apollo Smintheus, the Mouse Apollo, named for having destroyed a plague of mice.
45. Diomedes.
46. 241 B.C.
47. L. Caecilius Metellus, Pontifex Maximus.
48. The sacred things on which the safety of Rome depended : the Palladium, the conical image (acus) of the Mother o the Gods, the earthen chariot which had been brought from Veii, the ashes of Orestes, the sceptre of Priam, the veil of Iliona, and the sacred shields (ancilia).
49. The infula and vitta were torn from an unfaithful Vestal before she was buried alive.
50. A tribe of north-west Spain (Galicia) conquered by Dec. Junius Brutus, 138-137 B.C.

51. At Carrhae, 53 B.C.
52. See v. 580.
53. Correct for true evening rising; apparent, May 26.
54. Mater Matuta, wrongly identified with Ino.
55. Forum Boarium.
56. See iii. 715, note. Ino is sister of Semele, and wife of Athamas. In consequence of Juno’s resentment, Athamas went mad, and murdered his son Learchus; upon which Ino cast herself into the sea, with her other son Melicertes, from the Isthmus of Corinth. Panope and the other sea-nymphs caught her; and the two became sea-divinities with the names of Leucothea and Palaemon. See Met. iv. 512-519.
57. See i. 469.
58. Hercules, burnt on his pyre on Mount Oeta.
59. Ino.
60. Juno.

61. See i. 461. Tegea is in Arcadia.
62. Ino. Compare ii. 628, iii. 853.
63. P. Rutilius Lupus, slain by the Marsians at the river Tolenus, 90 B.C. In 89 B.C. L. Porcius Cato was slain by the same tribe. T. Didius served in the Marsic war.
64. Pallatnis, for Aurora.
65. King Servius Tullius dedicated a temple to Fortune and one to Matuta on the same day and place. The muffled image was probably Fortune herself.
66. Unknown.
67. Ovid seems to allude to the opinion that this was a statue of Chastity or Modesty.
68. In the great conflagration of 213 B.C.
69. Ocresia, or Ocrisia, was the wife of a prince of Corniculum named Tullius. When Tarquin took that city, the wife was given as a handmaid to Tanaquil. She was with child and Servius was her son. But his great fortunes suggested the magical story told here. When the boy was young, his head was once seen to be aflame, and this was taken for an omen (Livy, i. 39).
70. Bequethed by Vedius Pollio to Augustus, who destroyed it and built this colonnade on the site, and named it after Livia, 7 B.C.

71. See iii. 809 for the greater Quinquatrus.
72. Athena, who by one account was a daughter of Poseidon and the Tritonian lake in Libya.
73. The flute-players, enraged at some ordinance of the Twelve Tables, seceded to Tibur, and refused to return. Livy says that the magistrates made them drunk, and got them back to Rome in wagons (ix. 30. 5-10); Ovid and Plutarch ascribed the feat to a freedman (Plutarch. Quest. Rom. 55).
74. The vindicta was the rod with which the freedman had been touched in the ceremony of manumission. The messenger pretends that the freedman’s old master is coming, possibly to reclaim him as a slave.
75. Censor 312 B.C., his colleague being Appius Claudius, whose action drove the flute-players into exile, according to Livy. Ovid suggests that one of the censors helped them to evade the law. Plautius is a conjection for MS. callidus or Claudius.
76. i.e. the guild of flute-players.
77. Ovid thought this implied five days; see iii. 809.
78. Marsyas.
79. One of the Hyades, also called nymphs of Dodona. Their true morning rising was on May 6; apparent, June 9.
80. Father of Europa.

81. Swept out yearly on this day.
82. Helios, hêlios, “the Sun.”
83. Orion. See v. 493-536. Ovid is right for one star of Orion as to the day, but wrong in placing it at evening instead of morning.
84. In 431 B.C., A. Postumius Tubertus, dictator, defeated the Aequians and Volscians at Mount Algidus.
85. Father of Tithonus.
86. A sort of nocturnal Jupiter, god of the nightly sky, especially in his capacity of a hurler of lightning.
87. Probably 278 B.C.
88. Anguitenens (Ophiuchus). Evening rising, April 19; but this is within a few days of its true morning setting at Alexandria.
89. See Met. xv. 497-529. Phaedra, wife of Theseus, made advances to his son Hippolytus, which were repulsed. She accused him of having made advances to her, and he prayed to his father Poseidon, to punish Hippolytus. Poseidon sent a bull out of the sea to frighten Hippolytus’s horses, and the young man was killed.
90. Aesculapius.

91. The story is told by Apollodorus, iii. c. 1. Glaucus, as a boy, was drowned in a jar of honey; and his father restored him by using a herb which he saw a serpent use for a fellow-serpent.
92. See iii. 263.
93. Pluto.
94. One of the three Fates.
95. 217 B.C. Flaminius set the omens at defiance.
96. Hasdrubal, son of Gisco, and Syphax were defeated by Masinissa and Scipio, 203 B.C.
97. Hasdrubal, brother of Hannibal, fell fighting at the Metaurus, 207 B.C.; perhaps this refers to the son of Gisco, who took poison after the defeat of Syphax.
98. True morning rising of middle star was on June 21; apparent, July 13. The summer solstice was on June 24.
99. In a battle between Romans and Sabines, the Romans were driven back; but Romulus prayed Jupiter to stay their flight, and vowed a temple in case of success to Jupiter the Stayer, which he afterwards built on the spot (Livy i. 12).
100. See ii. 511, February 17. There appears to have been only one temple, dedicated by L. Papirius Cursor in 293 B.C., rebuilt by Augustus 16 B.C.; but on which day does not appear.

101. Juno, who reluctantly gave Hercules a place in the temple of the Muses.
102. L. Marcius Philippus restored the temple of Hercules Musarum, in the time of Augustus. His daughter Marcia was wife of P. Fabius Maximus. Compare Ovid, Ex Ponto, i. 127-142, iii. 1. 75-78. The Marcian family claimed to be descended from King Ancus Marcius, and added the surname Rex to their family name.
103. Atia, mother of Augustus, appears to have married Marcius Philippus after the death of C. Ocatvius. Atia was niece of Julius Caesar. Some think that Atia had a younger sister, also Atia, who was confused with the elder.