This theory, resting as it does on a very wide induction from unquestionable facts, beyond doubt explains many of the conceptions of primitive agricultural man; whether it can be applied satisfactorily to the Italian Faunus is perhaps less evident. At present I rather prefer to think of the Fauni as arising from the contact of the first clearers and cultivators of Italian soil with a wild aboriginal race of the hills and woods. But on such questions certainty is impossible, and dogmatism entirely out of place. III ID. DEC. (DEC. 11). NP. AG. IN.... (AMIT.). AG[ONIA] (MAFF. PRAEN. ANT.) SEPTIMONTIA (PHILOC.). SEPTIMONTIUM, GUID. SILV.[1153] For Agonia see on Jan. 9. This (Dec. 11) is the third day on which this mysterious word appears in the calendars. The AG. IN. of the Amiternian calendar was conjectured by Mommsen in the first edition of _C. I. L._, vol. i, to indicate ‘Agonium Inui’[1154]; but in the new edition he withdraws this; ‘ab incertis coniecturis abstinebimus.’ This is done in deference to Wissowa, who has pointed out that there is no other case in the calendars of a festival-name inscribed in large letters being followed immediately by the name of a deity[1155]. We must fall back on the supposition that AG. IN. ... is simply a cutter’s error for the AGON. of three other calendars. It is impossible to determine what was the relation between this agonium, or solemn sacrifice, and the Septimontium or Septimontiale sacrum, which appears only in very late calendars, or whether indeed there was any relation at all. It is not absolutely certain that the so-called Septimontium took place on this day. It was only a conjecture of Scaliger’s (though a clever one) that completed the gloss in Festus on the word ‘Septimontium’[1156] [_Septimontium dies ap_]_pellatur mense_ [_Decembri qui dicitur in f_]_astis agonalia._ The word Septimontium suggested itself, as the gloss occurred under letter S. Other support for the conjecture is found in the two late calendars, and in a fragment of Lydus[1157], who connects the two ceremonies. But even if Scaliger’s conjecture be right, it does not follow that the Agonium was identical with or was part of the Septimontiale sacrum. The latter does not appear in the old calendars, as it was not ‘pro populo,’ but only ‘pro montibus’ (see below); and if it was there represented by the word Agonium, it is not easy to see how the latter should have found its way into the calendar. It seems better to conclude that the two were distinct.