Ambrosch, _Studien_, p. 208. Tradition told that the Tarquinii had stored up great quantities of corn in Rome, i. e. had fed their workmen. Cp. Liv. 1. 56 and 2. 9.
See under August 13 (below, p. 198) for the parallel foundation of the temple of Diana on the Aventine, which also had a Greek and plebeian character.
_Fasti_, 4. 681 foll. Ovid does not distinctly say that the foxes were let loose in the Circus, but seems to imply it.
‘Factum abiit, monimenta manent; nam vivere captam Nunc quoque lex volpem Carseolana vetat.’
The best MSS. have ‘nam dicere certam.’ Bergk conjectured ‘namque icere captam.’ The reading given above is adopted from some inferior MSS. by H. Peter (Leipzig, 1889), following Heinsius and Riese. Mr. S. G. Owen of Ch. Ch., our best authority on the text of Ovid, has kindly sent me the suggestion _namque ire repertam_, comparing, for the use of _ire_, Ovid, _Am_. 3. 6. 20 ‘sic aeternus eas.’ This conjecture, which occurred independently to myself, suits the sense and is close to the reading of the best MSS.
J. Grimm, _Reinhardt der Fuchs_, cclxix (quoted by Peter). Ovid’s explanation is of course wrong; the story is beyond doubt meant to explain the ritual, or a law to which the ritual gave rise.
Preller-Jordan, ii. 43. See under Robigalia.
Ovid’s word is _terga_, but he must, I think, mean ‘tails.’
Mannhardt, op. cit. 185. Cp. Frazer, _Golden Bough_, i. 408; ii. 3 and 28 (for fertilizing power of tail).
It may be as well to note that the custom of tying some object in straw—wheel, pole with cross-piece, man who slips out in time, &c.—and then burning it and carrying it about the fields, is common in Europe and elsewhere (Frazer, _G. B._ ii. 246 foll.). At the same time animals are sometimes burnt in a bonfire: e.g. squirrels, cats, foxes, &c. (_G. B._ ii. 283). The explanation of Mannhardt, adopted by Mr. Frazer, is that they were corn-spirits burnt as a charm to secure sunshine and vegetation. If the foxes were ever really let loose among the fields, damage might occasionally be done, and stories might arise like that of Carseoli, or even laws forbidding a dangerous practice.
In _C. I. L._ 315 this mark is confused with those of the 23rd.
The letters _an_ also appear in a fragment of a lost note in Esq. Mommsen quotes Ovid, _Fasti_, 4. 775, and Tibull. 2. 5. 81 for the idea of an _annus pastorum_ beginning on this day. I can find no explanation of it, astronomical or other. Dion. Hal. 1. 88 calls the day the beginning of spring, which it certainly was not.