The note ‘feriae Iovi’ in the calendar of Amiternum is confirmed in a curious way, by a statement of Dio Cassius[708], who says that in B.C. 42 the Senate passed a decree that Caesar’s birthday should be celebrated on this day[709], and that any one who refused to take part in the celebration should be ‘sacer Iovi et Divo Iulio.’ But we know far too little of the rites of this day to enable us to make even a guess at the meaning of its connexion with Jupiter. It is just worth noting that two days later we find a festival of Juno, the Nonae Caprotinae; the two days may have had some connexion with each other, being separated by an interval of one day, as is the case with the three days of the Lemuria, the two days of the Lucaria in this month, and in other instances[710]; and their rites were explained by two parts of the same aetiological story—viz. that the Romans fled before the Fidenates on the 5th, and in turn defeated them on the 7th[711]. But we are quite in the dark as to the meaning of such a connexion, if such there was. Nor can we explain the singular fact that this is the only festival in the whole year, marked in large capitals in the calendars, which falls _before the Nones_[712]. There is hardly a word in the whole calendar the meaning of which is so entirely unknown to us as this word Poplifugia. Of the parallel one, the Regifugium in February, something can be made out, as we shall see[713]; and it is not unlikely that the ritualistic meaning concealed in both may be much the same. But all attempts to find a definite explanation for Poplifugia have so far been fruitless, with the single exception perhaps of that of Schwegler[714], who himself made the serious blunder of confounding this day with the Nonae Caprotinae. It is true that the two days and their rites were confused even in antiquity, but only by late writers[715]; the calendars, on the other hand, are perfectly plain and so is Varro[716], who proceeds from the one to the other in a way that can leave no doubt that he understood them as distinct.