Livy, 36. 2. 3. The passage refers to _ludi magni_, i. e. _special_ votive games, vowed after the fixed organization of the ludi Romani; but it is none the less illustrative of the latter, as they originated in votive games. Footnote 940: So Marq. 349 and note; Mommsen in _C. I. L._ 329, 335. I follow Aust, _Lex._ s. v. Iuppiter, 732. The ‘epulum Minervae’ of the rustic calendars is but slender evidence for an ancient and special connexion of the goddess with this day; but Mommsen thinks that the epulum ‘magis Minervae quam Iovis fuisse.’ Footnote 941: Aust, l. c. Footnote 942: Aust, _Lex._ s. v. Iuppiter, 670, 735. Footnote 943: In Capitolio (Gellius, 12. 8. 2; Liv. 38. 57. 5). For the collegium of _epulones_, which from 196 B.C. had charge of this and other public feasts, see Marq. 347 foll. Footnote 944: Val. Max. 2. 1. 2; Plin. _N. H._ 33. 111; Aust, l. c.; Preller, i. 120. Footnote 945: Marq. 348. Footnote 946: _R. R._ 132. Festus (68) explains daps as ‘res divina quae fiebat aut hiberna semente aut verna,’ and Cato directs the farmer to begin to sow after the ceremony he describes. I do not clearly understand whether Marquardt intended also to connect the epulum Jovis of Nov. 13 with the autumn sowing. Footnote 947: I am unable to offer any explanation of these words, though half inclined to suspect that Vesta was the original deity of this rite of the farm, and that Jupiter and the wine-offering are later intrusions. Footnote 948: _Fasti_, 6. 307. For Vacuna see Preller, i. 408. Footnote 949: Bk. 2. 23 (cp. 2. 50); Marq. 195 foll. For a comparison of Greek and Roman usage of this kind see de Coulanges, _La Cité antique_, p. 132 foll. Footnote 950: He compares this common meal with those of the πρυτανεῖα of Greek cities, and also with the φιδίτια at Sparta. But it is most unlikely that the practice of the curiae should have had any but a native origin. Footnote 951: See cap. 7 of Ambrosch’s _Studien_; and cp. cap. 1 on the Regia as the older centre. Footnote 952: I may relegate to a footnote the further conjecture that the original deity of the epulum was Vesta. We know that this Sept. 13 was one of the three days on which the Vestals prepared the _mola salsa_ (Serv. _Ecl._ 8. 32). We cannot connect this _mola salsa_ with the cult of Jupiter on this day, for the Vestals have no direct connexion with that cult at any period of the year; but it is possible that it was a survival from the time when the common meal took place in the Regia. Footnote 953: See Aust’s admirable and exhaustive article on Jupiter in Roscher’s _Lexicon_. Footnote 954: