The mention of these buildings carries us back to the very earliest Rome, when the rex and his sons and daughters[64] (Flamines and Vestales, in their later form) performed between them the whole religious duty of the community; to these we may perhaps add the warrior-priests of Mars (Salii). The connexion of the decoration with the Mars-cult is probable, if not certain; the laurel was sacred to Mars, for in front of his _sacrarium_ in the regia there grew two laurels[65], and it has been conjectured that they supplied the boughs used on this day[66].
March 1 is also marked in the calendar of Philocalus as the birthday of Mars (N̄ = natalis Martis). This appears in no other calendar as yet discovered, and is conspicuously absent in the Fasti Praenestini; it is therefore very doubtful whether any weight should be given to a fourth-century writer whose calendar had certainly an urban and not a rustic basis[67]. There is no trace of allusion to a birth of Mars _on this day_ in Latin literature, though the day is often mentioned. There was indeed a pretty legend of such a birth, told by Ovid under May 2[68], which has its parallels in other mythologies; Juno became pregnant of Mars by touching a certain flower of which the secret was told her by Flora:
Protinus haerentem decerpsi pollice florem; Tangitur et tacto concipit illa sinu. Iamque gravis Thracen et Iaeva Propontidis intrat Fitque potens voti, Marsque creatus erat.
Of this tale Preller remarked long ago that it has a Greek setting: it is in fact in its Ovidian form a reflex from stories such as those of the birth of Athena and of Kora. Yet it has been stoutly maintained[69] that it sprang from a real Italian germ, and is a fragment of the lost Italian mythology. Now, though it is certainly untrue that the Italians had no native mythology, and though there are faint traces, as we shall see, of tales about Mars himself, yet the Latins at least so rarely took these liberties with their deities[70], that every apparent case of a divine myth needs to be carefully examined and well supported. In this case we must conclude that there is hardly any evidence for a general belief that March 1 was the birthday of Mars; and that Ovid’s story of Juno and Mars must be looked on with suspicion so far as these deities are concerned.