Whether there was any sacrificial rite in immediate connexion with these revels we do not know. Macrobius indeed tells us[130] that sacrifice was offered in the month of March to Anna Perenna ‘ut annare perannareque commode liceat’[131]; and Lydus, that on the Ides there were εὐχαὶ δημόσιαι ὑπὲρ τοῦ ὑγιεινὸν γενέσθαι τὸν ἐνιαυτόν; but we do not know what was the relation between these and the scene described by Ovid. Who was the Anna Perenna in whose honour these revels, sacrifices, and prayers took place, whatever their relation to each other? Ovid and Silius Italicus[132] tell legends about her which are hardly genuine Italian, and in which Anna Perenna is confused with the other Anna whom they knew, the sister of Dido. Hidden under such stories may sometimes be found traces of a belief or a cult of which we have no other knowledge; but in this poetical medley there seems to be only one feature that calls on us to pause. After her wanderings Anna disappears in the waters of the river Numicius: Corniger hanc cupidis rapuisse Numicius undis Creditur, et stagnis occuluisse suis. Her companions traced her footsteps to the bank: she seemed to tell them Placidi sum nympha Numici, Amne perenne latens Anna Perenna vocor. This tale led Klausen[133] into some very strange fancies about the goddess, whom he regarded as a water-nymph, thinking that all her other characteristics (e.g. the year) might be explained symbolically; the running water representing the flow of time, &c. But it is probable that she only came into connexion with the river Numicius because Aeneas was there already. If Aeneas, as Jupiter Indiges, was buried on its banks[134], what could be more natural than that another figure of the Dido legend should be brought there too? There does not indeed seem to be any reason for connecting the real Anna Perenna with water[135]. All genuine Roman tradition seems to represent her, as we shall see directly, as an old woman; and when she appears in another shape, she must have become mixed up with other ideas and stories. It may perhaps be just possible that on this day some kind of an image of her may have been thrown into the Tiber, as was the case with the straw puppets (Argei) on May 15, and that the ceremony dropped out of practice, but just survived in the Numicius legend[136]. But this is simply hypothesis.