27.37
Prior
to the departure of the consuls religious observances were kept up for nine
days owing to the fall of a shower of stones at Veii. As usual, no sooner was
one portent announced than reports were brought in of others. At Menturnae
the temple of Jupiter and the sacred grove of Marica were struck with
lightning, as were also the wall of Atella and one of the gates. The people of
Menturnae reported a second and more appalling portent; a stream of blood
had flowed in at their gate. At Capua a wolf had entered the gate by night
and mauled one of the watch. These portents were expiated by the sacrifice
of full-grown victims, and special intercessions for the whole of one day
were ordered by the pontiffs. Subsequently a second nine days' observance
was ordered in consequence of a shower of stones which fell in the
Armilustrum. No sooner were men's fears allayed by these expiatory rites
than a fresh report came, this time from Frusino, to the effect that a child had
been born there in size and appearance equal to one four years old, and what
was still more startling, like the case at Sinuessa two years previously, it was
impossible to say whether it was male or female. The diviners who had been
summoned from Etruria said that this was a dreadful portent, and the thing
must be banished from Roman soil, kept from any contact with the earth,
and buried in the sea. They enclosed it alive in a box, took it out to sea, and
dropped it overboard.
The pontiffs also decreed that three bands of maidens, each
consisting of nine, should go through the City singing a hymn. This hymn
was composed by the poet Livius, and while they were practicing it in the
temple of Jupiter Stator, the shrine of Queen Juno on the Aventine was
struck by lightning. The diviners were consulted, and they declared that this
portent concerned the matrons and that the goddess must be appeased by a
gift. The curule aediles issued an edict summoning to the Capitol all the
matrons whose homes were in Rome or within a distance of ten miles. When
they were assembled they selected twenty-five of their number to receive
their offerings; these they contributed out of their dowries. From the sum
thus collected a golden basin was made and carried as an oblation to the
Aventine, where the matrons offered a pure and chaste sacrifice.
Immediately afterwards the Keepers of the Sacred Books gave notice of a
day for further sacrificial rites in honour of this deity. The following was the
order of their observance. Two white heifers were led from the temple of
Apollo through the Carmental Gate into the City; after them were borne two
images of the goddess, made of cypress wood. Then twenty-seven maidens,
vested in long robes, walked in procession singing a hymn in her honour,
which was perhaps admired in those rude days, but which would be
considered very uncouth and unpleasing if it were recited now. After the
train of maidens came the ten Keepers of the Sacred Books wearing the toga
praetexta, and with laurel wreaths round their brows. From the Carmental
Gate the procession marched along the Vicus Jugarius into the Forum,
where it stopped. Here the girls, all holding a cord, commenced a solemn
dance while they sang, beating time with their feet to the sound of their
voices. They then resumed their course along the Vicus Tuscus and the
Velabrum, through the Forum Boarium, and up the Clivus Publicius till they
reached the temple of Juno. Here the two heifers were sacrificed by the Ten
Keepers, and the cypress images were carried into the shrine.