Festus, 245, s. v. Publica sacra. Cp. Mommsen, _Staatsrecht_, iii. 123. Festus distinguishes _pagi_, _montes_, _sacella_, of which the festivals would seem to be the Paganalia, Septimontium, and sacra Argeorum, respectively. Footnote 428: See under March 17. We arrive at the procession by comparing the Varronian extracts from the sacra Argeorum (_L. L._ 545) with Gellius, 10. 15.30, and Ovid, _Fasti_, 3. 791. See a restoration of the itinerary of the procession in Jordan, _Topogr._ ii. 603. Footnote 429: Sacella in Varro (_L. L._ 545); sacraria, ib. 548; Argea in Festus, 334, where the word seems to be an adjective; Argei in Liv. 1. 24 ‘loca sacris faciendis, quae Argeos pontifices vocant.’ The number depends on the reading of Varro, 7. 44, xxiv or xxvii; Jordan decided for xxiv: but see Mommsen, _Staatsrecht_, iii. 123. Footnote 430: _Fasti_, 3. 791. Footnote 431: Jordan, _Topogr._ ii. 271 foll. Footnote 432: Dionysius, 1. 38; Ovid, _Fasti_, 5. 621 foll.; Festus, p. 334, s. v. Sexagenarii; Plutarch, _Q. R._ 32 and 86. Footnote 433: Dionysius says there were thirty; he had probably seen the ceremony, but may have only made a rough guess at the number or have thought of the thirty Curiae. Ovid writes of two: ‘Falcifero libata seni duo corpora gentis Mittite,’ &c. (Jordan proposed to read ‘senilia’ for ‘seni duo.’) Footnote 434: Festus, 334. Footnote 435: Festus, l. c.; Cicero, _pro Roscio Amerino_, 35. 100. _Sexagenarios de ponte_ was apparently an old saying (cp. ‘depontani,’ Festus, 75); the earliest notice we have of it, which comes from the poet Afranius, seems to connect it with the pons sublicius. Footnote 436: ‘The etymology will of course explain a word, but only if it happens to be right; the history of the word is a surer guide’ (Skeat). In this case we have not even the history. Footnote 437: See Schwegler, i 383. note; Marq. 183. Mommsen (_Staatsrecht_, iii. 123) reverts to the opinion that Argei is simply Ἀργεῖοι, and preserves a reminiscence of Greek captives. Nettleship, in his _Notes in Latin Lexicography_, p. 271, is inclined to connect the word with ‘arcere’, in the sense of confining prisoners. More fanciful developments in a paper by O. Keller, in Fleckeisen’s _Jahrbuch_, cxxxiii. 845 foll. Footnote 438: The puppets may have been made in March, and then hung in the sacella till May: so Jordan, _Topogr._ l. c. The writer in _Myth. Lex._ thinks that human victims were originally kept in these sacella, for whom the puppets were surrogates. Footnote 439: There is an interesting modern parallel in Mannhardt, _A. W. F._ 178. Footnote 440: Varro, _L. L._ 5. 83, and Jordan, _Topogr._ i. 398. The general opinion seems now to favour the view that there was an original connexion between the _pontifices_ and the _pons sublicius_. Footnote 441: Varro, _L. L._ 5. 83; Dionys. 2. 73, 3. 45. Footnote 442: