But neither annalist nor play-writer can stand against that passage from the sacred books with which he began his chapter; and if we give the latter its due weight, the value of the others is relatively diminished. It appears to me that the one represents the true primitive Italian idea of divine powers, which with its abundance of names offered excellent opportunities to anthropomorphic tendencies of the Graecizing school, while the others show those tendencies actually producing their results. Any conclusion on the point must be of the nature of a guess; but I am strongly disposed to think (1) that Nerio was not originally an independent deity, but a name attached to Mars expressive of some aspect of his power, (2) that the name gradually became endowed with personality, and (3) that out of the combination of Mars and Nerio the Graecizing school developed a myth of which the fragments have been taken by Usener and his followers as pure Roman. Having once been displaced by Minerva, Nerio vanished from the calendar, and with her that special aspect of Mars—whatever it may have been—which the name was intended to express. The five days, 18th to 23rd, became permanently associated with Minerva. The 19th was the dedication-day of at least one of her temples, and counted as her birthday[175]: the 23rd was the Tubilustrium, with a sacrifice to ‘dea fortis,’ who seems to have been taken for Minerva, owing to an incorrect idea that the latter was specially the deity of trumpet-players[176]. She was no doubt an old Italian deity of artificers and trade-guilds; but the Tubilustrium was really a Mars-festival, and Minerva had no immediate connexion with it. X KAL. APR. (MARCH 23). NP. TUBILUST[RIUM]. (CAER. MAFF. VAT. FARN. MIN. III.) TUBILUSTRIUM. (PHILOC.) Note in Praen.: [FERIAE] MARTI[177]. HIC DIES APPELLATUR ITA, QUOD IN ATRIO SUTORIO TUBI LUSTRANTUR, QUIBUS IN SACRIS UTUNTUR. LUTATIUS QUIDEM CLAVAM EAM AIT ESSE IN RUINIS PALA[TI I]NCENSI A GALLIS REPERTAM, QUA ROMULUS URBEM INAUGURAVERIT. IX KAL. APR. (MARCH 24). NP. Q. R. C. F. (VAT. CAER.) Q. REX. C. F. (MAFF. PRAEN.) Note in Praen.: HUNC DIEM PLERIQUE PERPERAM INTERPRETANTES PUTANT APPELLAR[I] QUOD EO DIE EX COMITIO FUGERIT [REX: N]AM NEQUE TARQUINIUS ABIIT EX COMITIO [URBIS], ET ALIO QUOQUE MENSE EADEM SUNT [IDEMQUE S]IGNIFICANT. QU[ARE COMITIIS PERACTIS IUDICI]A FIERI INDICA[RI IIS MAGIS PUTAMUS][178].