Note 35 — Chapter I · THE KING OF THE WOOD

Statius, Sylvae, iii. 1. 52–60; Gratius Faliscus, Cynegeticon, i. 484 sq. As to the date we know from the calendars (W. Warde Fowler, The Roman Festivals of the Republic, p. 198) and from Festus (p. 343 ed. Müller; compare Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 100) that the festival of Diana on the Aventine at Rome fell on the Ides, that is, the 13th of August. Further, the Ides of August was held as the birthday of Diana at Lanuvium (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, xiv., No. 2112; G. Wilmanns, Exempla Inscriptionum Latinarum, No. 319; C. G. Bruns, Fontes Juris Romani,⁷ ed. O. Gradenwitz, p. 389; H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, No. 7212). Moreover, Martial (xii. 67. 2) and Ausonius (De feriis Romanis, 5 sq.) speak of the Ides of August as Diana’s day. Hence we may safely conclude that the Hecateias idus which Statius (l.c.) mentions as the date of the festival of Diana at Nemi were no other than the Ides of August, all the more that the poet describes the time as the hottest of the year. Compare G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer (Munich, 1902), p. 201.