Читать книгу The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic - W. Warde Fowler - Страница 32

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VEIN[ALIA] (CAER.) VIN[ALIA] (MAFF. PRAEN. ESQ.)

Praen. has a mutilated note beginning IO[VI], and ending with [CUM LATINI BELLO PREME]RENTUR A RUTULIS, QUIA MEZENTIUS REX ETRUS[CO]RUM PACISCEBATUR, SI SUBSIDIO VENISSET, OMNIUM ANNORUM VINI FRUCTUM. (Cp. Festus, 65 and 374, where it appears that libations of all new wine were made to Jupiter.)

VENERI (CAER.)

[V]EBERI ERUC. [EXTR]A PORTAM COLLIN[AM]. (ARV.)

This day was generally known as Vinalia Priora, as distinguished from the Vinalia Rustica of August 19. Both days were believed to be sacred to Venus^[291]; the earlier one, according to Ovid, was the foundation-day of the temple of Venus Erycina, with which he connected the legend of Aeneas and Mezentius. But as both Varro and Verrius are agreed that the days were sacred, not to Venus but to Jupiter^[292], we may leave the legend alone and content ourselves with asking how Venus came into the connexion.

The most probable supposition is that this day being, as Ovid implies, the dies natalis of one of the temples of Venus^[293], the Vinalia also came to be considered as sacred to the goddess. The date of the foundation was 181 B.C., exactly at a time when many new worships, and especially Greek ones, were being introduced into Rome^[294]. That of the Sicilian Aphrodite, under the name of Venus, seems to have become at once popular with its Graecus ritus and lascivia maior^[295]; and the older connexion of the festival with Jupiter tended henceforward to disappear. It must be noted, however, that the day of the Vinalia Rustica in August was also the dies natalis of one if not two other temples of Venus^[296], and one of these was as old as the year B.C. 293. Thus we can hardly avoid the conclusion that there was, even at an early date, some connexion in the popular mind between the goddess and wine. The explanation is perhaps to be found in the fact that Venus was specially a deity of gardens, and therefore no doubt of vineyards^[297]. An interesting inscription from Pompeii confirms this, and attests the connexion of Venus with wine and gardens, as it is written on a wine-jar^[298]:

PRESTA MI SINCERU[M] ITA TE AMET QUE

CUSTODIT ORTU[M] VENUS.

The Vinalia, then, both in April and August, was really and originally sacred to Jupiter. The legendary explanation is given by Ovid in 11. 877–900. Whatever the true explanation may have been, the fact can be illustrated from the ritual employed; for it was the Flamen Dialis^[299] who ‘vindemiam auspicatus est,’ i.e. after sacrificing plucked the first grapes. Whether this auspicatio took place on either of the Vinalia has indeed been doubted, for even August 19 would hardly seem to suit the ceremony Varro describes^[300]; but the fact that it was performed by the priest of Jupiter is sufficient for our purpose.

Of this day, April 23, we may guess that it was the one on which the wine-skins were first opened, and libations from them made to Jupiter. These are probably the libations about which Plutarch^[301] asks ‘Why do they pour much wine from the temple of Venus on the Veneralia’ (i.e. Vinalia)? The same libations are attested by Verrius: ‘Vinalia diem festum habebant quo die vinum novum Iovi libabant’^[302]. After the libation the wine was tasted, as we learn from Pliny^[303]; and it seems probable that it was brought from the country into Rome for this purpose only a few days before. Varro has preserved an interesting notice which he saw posted in vineyards at Tusculum: ‘In Tusculanis hortis (MSS. sortis) est scriptum: ‘Vinum novum ne vehatur in urbem ante quam vinalia kalentur’^[304]; i.e. wine-growers were warned that the new wine was not to be brought into the city until the Vinalia had been proclaimed on the Nones. It must, however, be added that this notice may have had reference to the Vinalia in August; for Verrius, if he is rightly reported by Paulus^[305], gives August 19 as the day on which the wine might be brought into Rome. Paulus may be wrong, and have confused the two Vinalia^[306]; but in that case we remain in the dark as to what was done at the Vinalia Rustica, unless indeed we explain it as a rite intended to secure the vintage that was to follow against malignant influences. This would seem to be indicated by Pliny (H. N. 18. 284), where he classes this August festival with the Robigalia and Floralia^[307], and further on quotes Varro to prove that its object was to appease the storms (i.e. to be expected in September).

As regards the connexion of the vine-culture with Jupiter, it should be observed that the god is not spoken of as Jupiter Liber, but simply Jupiter; and though the vine was certainly introduced into Italy from Greece, we need not assume that Dionysus, coming with it, was from the beginning attached to or identified with Jupiter. The gift of wine might naturally be attributed to the great god of the air, light, and heat; the Flamen Dialis who ‘vindemiam auspicatus est’ was not the priest of Jupiter Liber; nor does the aetiological legend, in which the Latins avoid the necessity of yielding their first-fruits to the Etruscan tyrant Mezentius by dedicating them to Jupiter, point to any other than the protecting deity of Latium.^[308]