Of this tale Preller remarked long ago that it has a Greek setting: it is in fact in its Ovidian form a reflex from stories such as those of the birth of Athena and of Kora. Yet it has been stoutly maintained[69] that it sprang from a real Italian germ, and is a fragment of the lost Italian mythology. Now, though it is certainly untrue that the Italians had no native mythology, and though there are faint traces, as we shall see, of tales about Mars himself, yet the Latins at least so rarely took these liberties with their deities[70], that every apparent case of a divine myth needs to be carefully examined and well supported. In this case we must conclude that there is hardly any evidence for a general belief that March 1 was the birthday of Mars; and that Ovid’s story of Juno and Mars must be looked on with suspicion so far as these deities are concerned. The idea that Mars was born on March 1 might arise simply from the fact that the day was the first of his month and also the first of the year. It is possible however to account for it in another way. It was the _dies natalis_ of the temple of Juno Lucina on the Esquiline, as we learn from the note in the Fasti Praenestini; and this Juno had a special power in childbirth. The temple itself was not of very ancient date[71], but Juno had no doubt always been especially the matrons’ deity, and in a sense represented the female principle of life[72]. To her all kalends were sacred, and more especially the first kalends of the year, on which we find that wives received presents from their husbands[73], and entertained their slaves. In fact the day was sometimes called the Matronalia[74], though the name has no technical or religious sense. Surely, if a mother was to be found for Mars, no one could be more suitable that Juno Lucina; and if a day were to be fixed for his birth, no day could be better than the first kalends of the year, which was also the dedication-day of the temple of the goddess. At what date the mother and the birthday were found for him it is impossible to discover. The latter may be as late as the Empire; the former may have been an older invention, since Mars seems to have been apt to lend himself, under Greek or Etruscan influence, somewhat more easily to legendary treatment than some other deities[75] But we may at any rate feel pretty sure that it was the Matronalia on March 1 that suggested the motherhood of Juno and the birth of Mars; and we cannot, as Roscher does, use the Matronalia to show that these myths were old and native[76].