Mars and Anna Perenna: March Gods and the Etruscan New Year in Archaic Rome

John Franklin Hall
Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah

In historical times, the Roman New Year began on January 1. It was a time for celebration, the first day of the month of Janus, whose function as a god of beginnings and endings was depicted in the iconography of two faces, one directed forward, the other to the rear.¹ Roman consuls and other government officials regularly took office on this first day of the year, and their inauguration, a detailed and complicated act of religious ritual, comprised an integral part of the ceremonies of the day.² Since our modern calendar has developed from that of ancient Rome, the day has not entirely lost its significance even in our time. Indeed, the festive spirit, the departure of the aged old year, and the advent of the infant New Year are reminiscent of the Roman celebration. Some of these customs, however, are not to be found in the celebration of January 1, but rather as a part of the ritual activities associated with March 15, a day more familiar to modern society as a time of foreboding and caution. This aura of doom derives, of course, from the occurrence on that day of what was to the ancient Romans a catastrophic event, the assassination of Julius Caesar.

Caesar's Julian calendar perpetuated the civil year of the late republic with its January commencement. This first-century B.C. calendar was far more complex than the modern calendar. A solar-based twelve-month calendar, it nevertheless recalled its lunar origins through the scheduling of religious ceremonies and festivals on special days, the Kalends, Nones, and Ides, which were established to correlate with phases of the moon. Moreover, the individual days of the year were designated in accordance with religious practice as dies fasti, nefasti, or comitiales (i.e., days without religious restriction, days with religious restriction, and days for holding public meetings). Accordingly, the celebration of religious rites, the conduct of public or private business, and the functioning of the daily life of the entire state, were required to accord with the prescriptions and prohibitions of the calendar.³

Of course, Caesar's calendar was not the first Roman calendar. As noted above, it was preceded at some time by an antique lunar calendar. Another calendar in use during most of the period of the Roman republic, like the later Julian calendar, seems to have been solar-based.⁴ However, "the history of the Roman calendar prior to Caesar's reform is, due to confusion in the tradition, one of the most contested areas of ancient chronology."⁵ Modern scholarship agrees on a single point: the year had not always begun with January! Ancient testimonia is precise in this matter. Macrobius, in his work on religious festivals, and Ovid, in a fanciful mythological commentary on the calendar year, both identify March as the first month of the ancient Roman year.⁶ Moreover, the nomenclature of the numerically named Roman months — Quinctilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, December — confirms March as the first in the order of months.⁷

The great Roman historian Theodor Mommsen presumed that the change of the New Year from March to January was initiated by Caesar as a part of his calendar reform and took effect in the year 46 B.C.⁸ However, with the 1929 discovery of the Fasti Antiates Minores, a January New Year is shown rather to belong to the pre-Julian calendar of the republic, the so-called calendar of Numa.⁹ The implementation of the January New Year is dated by most scholars to 153 B.C., when consuls are known to have begun to assume office on the first day of January. Previously, consular inaugurations were conducted on March 15. Michels views the transposition to January 1 as merely an accommodation to a civil calendar long in place.¹⁰ This makes sense especially when we remember that the consular inauguration was a religious ceremony and, as with religious rites in general, would have persisted in a format and with a date whose change would not necessarily have coincided with calendar reform. Accordingly, acceptance should be accorded Michels' hypothesis that the republican calendar, or calendar of Numa, was established by the decemviri of 450 B.C., who by a recorded lex de intercalandis transformed the lunar calendar of the Etruscan monarchy to the lunisolar calendar of the republic.¹¹ Whereas the Etruscan calendar comprised a year of twelve lunar months beginning in March and ending either with February or with an added intercalary period, the decemviral calendar began in January and ended in December.¹²

In turn, the Etruscan lunar calendar had replaced at Rome a primitive agricultural calendar of sorts, the so-called calendar of Romulus. While ancient literary tradition complicates matters by an entirely false association of Numa with the calendar, it was to Tarquin and the Etruscans that Roman antiquarians linked the inclusion of the months of January and February, as well as the organization of the monthly system of the Ides, the Etruscan high holy day of the month, which always occurred when the moon was full.¹³ Similarly, the regularization of religious festivals and ceremonies on the calendar is to be attributed to Rome's Etruscan rulers and not to Numa. Rome's intricate system of religious festivals, accordingly, took its origin from the Etruscans, as did many of the city's individual religious festivals.¹⁴

The Etruscan year began with the first full moon after the spring equinox, the itus Velcitna or the Ides of the Etruscan month of Velcitanus, an important Etruscan underworld deity.¹⁵ With Etruscan reformation of calendar and cult at Rome, the Roman year, reorganized after Etruscan models and patterns, commenced on the Ides of March. But why the Ides and not the Kalends? If the year began with March, would not March 1 be its initial day? This logic may appear obvious to us and even to the Romans of a later era, but not to an inhabitant of archaic Rome, Etruscan or Latin, for whom the forces of nature and their association with particular gods counted more than the numbering of days.

It must be remembered that in Etruscan Rome, as in Etruria, the Ides were particularly sacred days, which were holy to Juppiter every month. Further, the Ides were also sacred to the most important gods of that month, whose ceremonies were performed at the full moon, which in the lunar calendar of the Etruscans would consistently occur on the Ides. Thus, the day of greatest religious significance was the Ides, which occurred in the middle of the month, and not the Kalends, which occurred at the beginning. In the Etruscan lunar calendar, moreover, the length of the month itself was determined by counting forward and backward from the day of the full moon, the Ides. In a real sense, a month was simply a period of days before and after the full moon, that is, it was calculated from the Ides, which was the holiest day of the twenty-eight day period. The first day of the month was thus unimportant. It was merely the furthest day from the Ides, counting backwards. The Ides was the important day of the month and, through the process of intercalation, the Ides of March was arranged to fall on the first full moon following the vernal equinox. In this fashion it served as the New Year's Day.

It is not only the inauguration of consuls on March 15, a vestigial reminder of Etruscan office-taking at the year's beginning, but, more importantly, the particular religious ceremony connected to the Ides of March that reveals the day's prominence in the old calendar. The several epigraphic survivals of ancient fasti as well as Ovid's literary piece of the same name, both provide a clear record of the festivals of March.¹⁶

The first day of the month was best known for the celebration of the Matronalia, a major state festival honoring Juno Lucina. A feria Martis was also recorded as being celebrated to pay homage to the month's eponymous god by way of affixing fresh laurel wreaths to the sacrarium, a shrine of Mars in the courtyard of the official residence of Rome's ancient kings, the regia. Accompanying this rite was a performance of the leaping dance and sacred hymn of Mars's Salian priests, in connection with which the divinely wrought figure-eight shields, or ancile were displayed.¹⁷ Neither ceremony seems to pertain in any fashion to the celebration of a New Year.¹⁸

March 14 provides the date for the next festival of the month. Some calendars describe it as the Equirria of Mars, others as the Mamuralia.¹⁹ In his Fasti, Ovid mentions under the notation for this day only the Equirria, observing that horse races were run in the Campus Martius in honor of Mars.²⁰ On calendars of later date, however, the Mamuralia is regularly listed in place of the Equirria, leading some modern scholars to suppose it to be an alternate name for the same festival. According to one view, an informal but popular name made acceptable by long usage among the common people supplanted the less familiar term Equirria as the name of the ceremony. A contrasting view suggests that Mamuralia was itself the archaic and proper name for the festival, while Equirria was a colloquial usage. Those who assert the latter follow the testimony of a sixth-century A.D. scholar of Roman government, Laurentius Lydus, who defines the Mamuralia as the festival of a separate cult of Mamurius Veturius.²¹ In either instance the term Mamuralia is believed to derive from the archaic name of Mars preserved in the Salian hymn — Mamor or Marmar.²²

Ovid preserves the tradition that the name of this legendary figure was included in the Salian hymn, explaining that when the original ancile of Mars fell from the heavens, then king Numa Pompilius commissioned a smith by the name of Mamurius Veturius to make copies of the shield lest the original be stolen, thereby bringing a disaster on the state which could be averted only by the sacrificial death of citizens. Mamurius accomplished the task and asked as his only recompense that his name be included in the sacred hymn of Mars's Salian priests.²³ A different depiction of Mamurius Veturius is preserved by Servius and Festus, who note that Varro identified Mamurius as an old man driven from the city, not as might be expected on March 14, but rather the following day on the Ides of March when the Salian priests went throughout the city beating the sacred ancile with wooden rods and shouting "mamure, mamure."²⁴ Both traditions link Mamurius to the ancile and the Salii. In Ovid's tale, Mamurius, by the exercise of his metallic craft, prevented the death of citizens as atonement for a slight to the gods. His tale may also connect to the Varronian account in which Mamurius is seen as a scapegoat, driven out in order to carry with him the sins of the populace, thereby averting the gods' retribution upon the city and its inhabitants. Modern scholarship generally accepts Mamurius as an agent of expiation and as a personification of Mars in his guise as a seasonal agricultural deity. Mamurius is taken as the Latin adaptation of the archaic Italic Marmar, and Veturius as a proper name derives from the adjective vetus. The cult is linked to the New Year with literally "Old Man Mars" expelled on the first day of the year.²⁵

The traditional March 14 date for the Mamuralia is discrepant with Varro's placing the expulsion of Mamurius on the Ides. As Wissowa observed, to celebrate any major festival on an even-numbered day violates Roman tradition. He suggested that the Mamuralia may have originally occurred on the Ides and later been moved to avoid conflict with the other events of the day, religious rites of both Juppiter and Anna Perenna, as well as the inauguration of magistrates and officials.²⁶

On the Ides of March, Juppiter was honored with the customary rites and sacrifices performed in his honor on the Ides of each and every month. The major event of the day, however, was celebrated in honor of Anna Perenna. Ovid notes that in a grove just north of the Campus Martius, Rome's populace would retire, drain a cup of wine for each year they wished to live, and ultimately engage in amorous pursuits.²⁷ The poet confesses confusion at properly identifying the goddess whose cult was thus celebrated. In desperation Ovid turned to Greek mythology, with the usual disastrous result when attempts are made to define Roman religion as if it were synonymous with Greek mythology, falsely linking the Roman goddess to Anna, in Greek myth a sister to the ill-fated Carthaginian queen Dido.²⁸ Greater credence can be given Ovid's perpetuation of an antique Etrusco-Italic legend of Anna as an old hag of a goddess who intervened to protect the chastity of Minerva pursued by an aroused Mars, by disguising herself as the object of his desire and tricking the god into marrying her.²⁹ Several Roman antiquarians attest further connection between Minerva and Anna. The goddesses are said to have shared shrines and temples, especially that of Minerva on the Campus Martius. In a recent monograph Torelli demonstrates the Quinquatrus of Minerva, a four-day female puberty rite, commenced in the festival of Anna Perenna and terminated with rites to Minerva on March 19.³⁰ Martial similarly emphasized the role of Anna as a fertility goddess, remarking that Anna's grove took delight in virgin blood.³¹ Macrobius, following Varro, records that offerings were presented to Anna Perenna ut annare perennareque commode liceat.³² In this statement is revealed the true identity of Anna Perenna. She was a female personification of the year, anna a feminization of the common Latin masculine noun annus, and yet her divine function also extended to provide for the continuation of years — perennare. Anna Perenna, then, was the goddess of the continuing year cycle, presumably with power to extend or curtail the continuation of that cycle, and in that sense a goddess with power over life, and so ultimately a goddess of life force or fertility. Her cult was celebrated on the first day of the New Year, and for obvious reasons. The association of Anna Perenna with beginnings explains the introduction of Roman maidens on the first day of the year into a new cycle of life as women, as well as the particular form her rites of worship took.

It is important to remember that March 15 was the New Year's day of the Etruscans, introduced at Rome with the Etruscan calendar during the two centuries of Etruscan overlordship at Rome. Accordingly, it is in examining Etruscan religious practices and beliefs that the interconnection of the several March festivals may be best understood.

Recently discovered epigraphic evidence and other archaeological material from Veii and Caere (the Etruscan cities closest in geographical proximity to Rome and with which Rome was most frequently associated historically) reveal in those places the cult of an Etruscan Anna Thannr. Thannr aproximates in Etruscan the Latin term Perenna. In Etruria, Thannr (just as was Anna Perenna at Rome) was the goddess associated with the beginning of life and procreative force. Anna Perenna was often associated with or identified as the Etruscan goddess and also as Menrvra, the Etruscan Minerva who is a fertility mother-goddess figure linked to the netherworld in her role of having powers over life and death. Here is further indication that in Etruria, as later in Rome, the goddesses were very much associated. Indeed, it is likely that the March rites of Anna Perenna and Minerva celebrated at Rome derived from earlier Etruscan rites upon which they were patterned by Rome's Etruscan rulers.³³

Several well-known and important Etruscan bronze mirrors are engraven with the figures of this Thannr Menrvra. In each case she is depicted presiding over a ceremony of gods and goddesses who are standing around an oversized funeral urn from which Menrvra is raising a baby labeled Maris husrnana, signifying in Etruscan — the young Maris.

A cista from Etruscan Praeneste is even more remarkable. Not an infant Maris, but a decrepit and aged Maris is portrayed as entering a cauldron of boiling water, only to emerge from it as a youthful Maris. Again, Menrvra is present as if assisting or overseeing the process.³⁴ A remarkable tale that is told by Aelian, himself a citizen of Praeneste, describes a chthonic centaur by the name of Maris who died thrice and was reborn thrice. Although the figure of Maris on the cista is clearly not that of a centaur (though the horse was, of course, nevertheless associated with both the Roman Mars and the Etruscan Maris as a sacred animal), the theme of the legend represented on the cista is the same as that of Aelian's story — rebirth and rejuvenation. A youthful Maris, the Etruscan god of time, and in Etruria a netherdivinity like Menrvra, is brought back to life, reclaimed to the upper world by Menrvra or Thannr, both of whom are at various times identified as the god's consort. All three of these Etruscan underworld deities possessed fertility functions and were associated with life, death, and time.³⁵

In Etruria their rites would clearly have been linked to the ending and the beginning of the year. When the Etruscan calendar and religious year was introduced in the early sixth century at Rome, festivals of the Etruscan Maris and Thannr were celebrated on the Ides of March. Maris was later syncretically linked to the archaic Latin Mamors or Marmar due to the shared fertility functions of the gods and, no doubt, the similarity of their names. From the syncretism of the old Italic god and the Etruscan god emerged a Roman Mars whose March cult was celebrated under the Etruscanized name of the Latin Mamors — Mamurius. The cult of Mamurius was closely linked to that of Etruscan Maris and particularly emphasized Maris's function as a god of time.³⁶

The name Veturius may have been added, not in fact because of any connection with the Latin vetus, but rather because an Etruscan family at Rome, the Veturii, performed priestly rites at the underground altar of Mars in the Campus Martius. It was here that the horse races which comprised the Equirria were presented.³⁷ This Etruscan chthonic Mars is further connected to the Campus Martius by its ancient function as a cemetery of honor for the most worthy of Romans and as an entrance to the underworld. A joint shrine to two of Maris's sometime consorts, Anna Perenna and Minerva, was also to be found in the Campus Martius, and Anna's grove of delights was immediately adjacent.³⁸

The ritual observances offered to these Etruscan divinities on the first day of the New Year clearly associates that date with the Etruscan religious calendar. Moreover, the institution of the March New Year at Rome coincided with the establishment of the Etruscan monarchy in the sixth century and endured through the period of Etruscan over-lordship at Rome, and beyond.

A final mention should be made of the irony of the assassination of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March, at one time Rome's holiest day. Caesar was, of course, not only sole head of the Roman state in 44 B.C. by virtue of his office of dictator perpetuus, but he was and had been since the year 63 pontifex maximus, chief priest of the state and titular head of the Roman religion. More significantly, he possessed many Etruscan associations and had modeled his ritual and propaganda as dictator on that of the early Etruscan kings of Rome. Some maintain that his assassination was a preventive measure lest the old Etruscan-style monarchy be reestablished.³⁹ The day, and Caesar's personal connection to it, make all the more credible the depiction of his murder in terms of ritual sacrifice.⁴⁰

Notes

1. Though a relatively minor god in classical times, in earliest Rome Janus was one of the most important gods of the fledgling settlement. A thorough treatment of his cult is offered in L. A. Holland, Janus and the Bridge (Rome: American Academy in Rome, 1961).

2. The inauguration to magisterial office was a rite in which the gods were consulted through the taking of auspices to approve appointment to office and bestowal of the religious powers which comprised the authority of public office in the sacral society that was archaic Rome. See P. Catalano, Contributi allo studio del diritto augurale, Universitî di Torino, Memorie del Instituto Giuridico, ser. 2:107 (1960): 15, 65, 91, 94, 214, 220-25, 240-45, 280, 289, 330-55, 423, 437, 550-60.

3. A thorough and comprehensive treatment of the Roman calendar, before and after the time of Caesar, is A. K. Michels, The Calendar of the Roman Republic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967). For basic calendric organization, see 31-83.

4. The pre-Julian calendars are reviewed in Michels, Calendar of the Roman Republic, 3-30; also see H. H. Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981), 41-49; H. Hauben, "Some Observations on the Early Roman Calendar," Ancient Society 11-12 (1980-81): 241-55.

5. Hauben, "Some Observations on the Early Roman Calendar," 241.

6. Macrobius, Saturnalia I, 12, 6; Ovid, Fasti III, 135-36. No epigraphic evidence survives to corroborate the literary testimony. Though a number of fasti, official state calendars, survive in inscriptional form, all postdate the time of the calendar reform which established January as the year's first month. See W. W. Fowler, The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic (London: Macmillan, 1916), 11-13, and A. E. Samuel, Greek and Roman Chronology: Calendars and Years in Classical Antiquity (Munich: Beck, 1972), 153-54.

7. Fowler, Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic, 5-7, provides a brief summary of evidence for March as the beginning of the Roman year in pre-Julian calendars.

8. Mommsen's discussion of the matter is found in his commentary on the passage in CIL I, 337. See also his Die römische Chronologie bis auf Caesar, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1859). A modern defense of Mommsen's position is made by W. Sontheimer, Kleine Pauly, 5 vols. (Stuttgart: Drückenmüller, 1967), 2:527, s.v. Februarius and col. 2:1311, s.v. Ianuarius. See also Hauben, "Some Observations on the Early Roman Calendar," 245, though Michels's Appendix 4 in The Calendar of the Roman Republic (207-32) is the most complete recent discussion of the problem.

9. Michels, Calendar of the Roman Republic, 25, 97, and n. 10; Samuel, Greek and Roman Chronology, 164; Hauben, "Some Observations on the Early Roman Calendar," 245.

10. Michels, Calendar of the Roman Republic, 97-99; Hauben, "Some Observations on the Early Roman Calendar," 45; for March 15 consular inaugurations up until 153 B.C. see T. R. S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, 3 vols. (New York: American Philological Association, 1952), 2:637-39.

11. Cicero, Atticus VI, 1, 8, notes the involvement of the decemviri in calendar reform, but the account of Macrobius, Saturnalia I, 13, 21, citing as sources the early historians Sempronius Tuditanus and Cassius Hemina, provides more complete information in ascribing the origin of the first republican calendar to a decemviral law.

12. Michels, Calendar of the Roman Republic, 119-44, offers a detailed discussion of the problem with careful analysis of existing primary sources.

13. The Latin idus derives from the Etruscan itus, thus revealing the Etruscan origin not only of the term Ides, but also of the organizational system of the Roman calendar, according to Varro, De Lingua Latina VI, 4, and Macrobius, Saturnalia I, 15, 14-17. The occasion of each and every Ides was sacred to the Roman Juppiter and his Etruscan counterpart, Tinia. For such gods of light, the day of the month when the heavens were illuminated not only during the day but also at night by the brilliance of the full moon, seemed appropriately sacred. Varro, De Lingua Latina V, 47, and Festus 372 L, inform us that the Ides' sheep, or ovis idulis, was sacrificed to Juppiter by his own priest, the flamen Dialis, in the sacred precinct of Juppiter erected by the Etruscans on the arx of the Capitoline Hill. See also Macrobius, Saturnalia I, 15, 16. For Etruscan involvement in the calendar's development, see the note which follows.

14. The traditional legend of Numa as the author of Rome's religious and calendric system must be reconsidered in light of historical and archaeological evidence of the sort alluded to above, evidence which continues to appear as more is learned of the Etruscans and their important role in archaic Rome. Their involvement in the formulation of Rome's religious system was, however, not completely unknown in antiquity. Censorinus, De Die Natali 18, rejected the Numa fable and asserted that the origin of the twelve-month calendar was later, citing as his authority Junius Gracchanus who attributed the creation of January and February to the Etruscan Tarquin, and the development of intercalation to Servius Tullius, whose Etruscan background has recently been confirmed in R. Thomsen, King Servius Tullius: A Historical Synthesis (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1980). On the larger question of the so-called calendar of Numa as an Etruscan borrowing, see Michels, Calendar of the Roman Republic, 121-24 and 132-34.

15. Epigraphic evidence confirms that the Etruscan month of Velcitna began the Etruscan year and corresponded to the first month on the Roman calendar, March. See M. Pallottino, Testimonia Linguae Etruscae, 2nd ed. (Florence: Leo Olschki Editore, 1954), #856. For a discussion of the Etruscan calendar, see A. J. Pfiffig, Religio Etrusca (Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1975), 91-94.

16. Numerous fasti attest the religious events of March in general and the Ides in particular. The best summary of this information is to be found in H. H. Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981), 84-95, 258, 260. See also Fowler, Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic, 33-65.

17. The rites of both ceremonies are detailed in Ovid, Fasti III, 351-94; Dionysius Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romanae II, 71; Plutarch, Numa 13. See also Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic, 84-87. The particular use of the laurel in connection with New Year rites of expiation, an important role of the Mars worshipped in earliest Rome (see below), is discussed in Hugh W. Nibley, "Sparsiones," Classical Journal 40 (1945): 517.

18. Contra Fowler, Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic, 38-42, who argues that March 1 was the first day of the year, since it was the first day of the first month of the year. Other than the premise that the New Year's day must be the first day of the first month of the year, a premise that does not necessarily follow if the New Year's day was determined by considerations of religious ritual, the only evidence Fowler can adduce to substantiate his contention is the information that the sacred ancile were twelve in number, and so must represent the twelve months of the year, thus symbolizing the advent of the New Year.

19. Fowler, Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic, 44; Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic, 89.

20. Ovid, Fasti III, 517-22.

21. The problem arises in the conflicting evidence of three surviving calendars which mention on March 14 a festival of Mars associated with horse races, a late imperial almanac of Philocalus (CIL I, 254), and rustic calendars (menologia rustica in CIL I, 281-82) also of late date which note for March 14 a festival of Mamurius, but make no mention of an Equirria. Mommsen, CIL I, 311, opines that the Equirria was the proper ceremony, and he is followed by Fowler, Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic, 45-46. That the Mamuralia was actually the original festival of March 14 is held by H. Usener, "Italische Mythen," Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 30 (1875): 182-229, especially 209-13; and by J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, 2 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1890), 2:208. The latter view is based on acceptance of the testimony of Lydus, De Mensibus IV, 49, as well as that of earlier and more reliable authors who associate Mamurius Veturius with the events of March 14 and 15 (see below). A thorough presentation of the controversy is found in Fowler, Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic, 44-50. See also Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic, 89.

22. A. Illuminati, "Mamurius Veturius," Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni 32 (1961): 48 and n. 18. The most complete discussion on the derivation and development of the nomenclature of Mars is H. Wagenvoort, "The Origin of the Ludi Saeculares," Studies in Roman Literature, Culture, and Religion (Leiden: Brill, 1956), 207-12.

23. Ovid, Fasti III, 259-398. See also Illuminati, "Mamurius Veturius," 41-43; Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic, 89.

24. Varro, Festus 117 L; Servius, Commentarius in Aeneidem VII, 188. Both accounts probably derive from work on the subject by the noted antiquarian Varro (Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic, 89). Other sources also seem to follow Varro's version of Mamurius' activities; see Plutarch, Numa 4, 8, 15, 17; Pliny, Naturalis Historia XXXIV, 1. See also the treatment accorded Mamurius in Propertius IV, 2, 61; and Minucius Felix, Octavius XXIV, 3. The most complete accounting of references to Mamurius by ancient sources is Illuminati, "Mamurius Veturius," 41-64.

25. The true function of the god Mars in Etruscan and pre-Etruscan Rome is best explained in connection with his chthonic and secular role, examined in considerable detail in Wagenvoort, "The Origin of the Ludi Saeculares," 193-232. See also John F. Hall, "The Saeculum Novum of Augustus and Its Etruscan Antecedents," in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1986), 2564-89. Much useful information is also found throughout Illuminati, "Mamurius Veturius," 41-80.

26. G. Wissowa, "De Feriis," 9-13, in W. H. Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1902). A discussion of Wissowa's contention is found in both Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic, 89; and Fowler, Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic, 44-48.

27. Ovid, Fasti, III, 523-42. The grove sacred to Anna Perenna and the site of her "bawdy fertility festival" has been shown to have been located in Via Flaminia ad lapidem primum, near the present site of Porta del Popolo. See R. E. A. Palmer, Roman Religion and Roman Empire (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1973), 200; and Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic, 90.

28. Ovid, Fasti III, 543-656. See also Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic, 90.

29. Ovid, Fasti III, 660-96.

30. The role of Minerva as a goddess entrusted with overseeing the coming of age of Roman maidens and her association in this regard with Anna Perenna, a fertility goddess connected with the consummation of sexual activity for young women, even to the "duplicazioni di culti, di feste, e di santuari di Minerva e di Anna Perenna," is clearly demonstrated in M. Torelli, Lavinio e Roma: riti iniziatici e matrimonio tra archeologia e storia (Rome: Quasar, 1984), 62-74. Torelli also indicates that Mars, interestingly, fills a corresponding role in his guise as fertility god for young men at Rome (111-14). The connection of the three in the Etrusco-Italic legend referred to by Ovid is thus explained.

31. Martial, Epigrammata IV, 6, 16, makes clear allusion here to the fertility rites linked to the coming of age of Roman maidens.

32. Macrobius, Saturnalia I, 12, 6. Torelli, Lavinio e Roma, 57, argues that the usually reliable Varro is the source of Macrobius in these matters. For a summary of primary evidence and scholarly opinion on Anna Perenna, see R. Lamacchia, "Annae Festum Geniale Perennae," Parola del Passato 16 (1958): 381-404.

33. The evidence for the cult of Anna Thannr is summarized in Pfiffig, Religio Etrusca, 304-6.

34. Wagenvoort, "The Origin of the Ludi Saeculares," 213-22, offers a detailed explication of this evidence.

35. Aelian, Varia Historia IX, 16. See Wagenvoort, "The Origin of the Ludi Saeculares," 220-26. See also G. Hermansen, "Mares, Maris, Mars, and the Archaic Gods," Studi Etruschi 54 (1986): 147-64.

36. On the fertility and funereal function of the Mars cult and its association with the time and the beginning of the year, see Wagenvoort, "The Origin of the Ludi Saeculares," passim; Hermansen, "Mares, Maris, Mars, and the Archaic Gods," passim; Nibley, "Sparsiones," 516, 519-20; Hall, "The Saeculum Novum of Augustus and Its Etruscan Antecedents," 2569-74.

37. The rites of Mamurius Veturius, their specific conduct and their administration by the Veturii is explained in Illuminati, "Mamurius Veturius," 51-80.

38. Wagenvoort, "The Origin of the Ludi Saeculares," 210-13; Hall, "The Saeculum Novum of Augustus and Its Etruscan Antecedents," 2569-74.

39. John F. Hall, "The Municipal Aristocracy of Etruria and their Participation in Politics at Rome, B.C. 91 - A.D. 14," Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1984, 101-27; S. Weinstock, Divus Julius (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 175-79, 270-364.

40. Nibley, "Sparsiones," 525.