VOLT[URNALIA]. (ALLIF. MAFF. VALL.)
FERIAE VOLTURNO. (ARV. INTER ADDITA POSTERIORA.)
VOLTURNO FLUMINI SACRIFICIUM. (VALL.)
Of this very ancient and perhaps obsolete rite nothing seems to have
been known to the later Latin scholars, or they did not think it worth
comment. Varro mentions a Flamen Volturnalis, but tells us nothing about
him. From the occurrence of the name for a river in Campania it may be
guessed that the god in this case was a river also; and if so, it must
be the Tiber. This is Mommsen’s conclusion, and the only difficulty he
finds in it is that (in his view) Portunus is also the Tiber[925]. Why
did he not see that the same river-god, even if bearing different names,
could hardly have two flamines? I am content to see in Volturnus an old
name for the Tiber, signifying the winding snake-like river[926], and in
Portunus a god of storehouses, as I have explained above.
Here, then, we perhaps have a trace of the lost cult of the Tiber, which
assuredly must have existed in the earliest times—and the _flamen_ is
the proof of its permanent importance. When the name was changed to
Tiber we do not know, nor whether ‘Albula’ marks an intermediate stage
between the two; but that this was the work of the pontifices seems
likely from Servius[927], who writes ‘Tiberinus ... a pontificibus
indigitari solet.’ Of a god Tiberinus there is no single early record.
It should just be mentioned that Jordan[928], relying on Lucretius, 5.
745, thought it probable that Volturnus might be a god of whirlwinds;
and Huschke[929] has an even wilder suggestion, which need not here be
mentioned.
Footnote 790:
Varro, _R. R._ I. 33, has only the following: ‘Quinto intervallo,
inter caniculam et aequinoctium auctumnale oportet stramenta desecari,
et acervos construi, aratro offringi, frondem caedi, prata irrigua
iterum secari.’
Footnote 791:
This is the natural position for the _ager_ of the oldest community on
the Palatine. The Campus Martius was believed to have been ‘king’s
land’ of the later developed city (Liv. 2. 5).
Footnote 792:
Liv. 10. 1. 9; Aust, _de Aedibus sacris_, p. 10.
Footnote 793:
Marq. 377; Dio Cass. 37. 24 and 25; Tac. _Ann._ 12. 23.
Footnote 794:
_C. I. L._ i. 49 and 179.
Footnote 795:
See Preller, ii. 228; and article ‘Sacerdos’ in _Dict. of
Antiquities_, new edition.
Footnote 796:
On this difficult subject see _Dict. of Antiquities_, s.v.
Indigitamenta; and the long and exhaustive article by R. Peter in
Roscher’s _Lexicon_ (which is, however, badly written, and in some
respects, I think, misleading).
Footnote 797:
See the valuable summary of Aust (in ten lines).
Footnote 798:
Plin. _N. H._ 35. 19.
Footnote 799:
40. 19.
Footnote 800:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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