The god had a bronze statue in the Vicus Tuscus, and perhaps for that reason was believed to have come to Rome from Etruria[854]. But his name, like Picumnus, is beyond doubt Latin, and may be supposed to indicate the turn or change in the year at the fruit-season[855]; and if he really was an immigrant, which is possible, his original cult in Etruria was not Etruscan proper, but old Italian. Three other dedications are mentioned in the calendars as occurring on Aug. 13: to Hercules invictus ad portam trigeminam; to Castor and Pollax in circo Flaminio; and to Flora ad circum maximum. Of these cults nothing of special interest is known, and the deities are treated of in other parts of this work. XVI KAL. SEPT. (AUG. 17). NP. PORT[UNALIA]. (MAFF. AMIT. VALL.) TIBERINALIA. (PHILOC.) FERIAE PORTUNO. (AMIT. ANT.) PORTUNO AD PONTEM AEMILIUM. (AMIT. VALL. ALLIF.) IANO AD THEATRUM MARCELLI. (VALL. ALLIF.) Who was Portunus, and why was his festival in August? Why was it at the Pons Aemilius, and where was that bridge? Can any connexion be found between this and the other August rites? These questions cannot be answered satisfactorily; the scraps of evidence are too few and too doubtful. We have here to do with another ancient deity, who survives in the calendars only, and in the solitary record that he had a special flamen. This flamen might be a plebeian[856], which seems to suit with the character of other cults in the district by the Tiber, and may perhaps point to a somewhat later origin than that of the most ancient city worships. There are but two or three texts which help us to make an uncertain guess at the nature of Portunus. Varro[857] wrote ‘Portunalia et Portuno, quoi eo die aedes in portu Tiberino facta et feriae institutae.’ Mommsen takes the _portus_ here as meaning Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber, and imagines a yearly procession thither from Rome on this day[858]. This of course is pure hypothesis; but if, as he insists, _portus_ is rarely or never used for a city wharf on a river such as that at Rome, we may perhaps accept it provisionally; but in doing so we have to yield another point to Mommsen, viz. the identity of Portunus and Tiberinus. In the very late calendar of Philocalus this day is called Tiberinalia, and from this Mommsen infers the identity of the two deities[859].