Note 307 — MENSIS APRILIS.
Reading edition
‘Tria namque tempora fructibus metuebant, propter quod instituerunt ferias diesque festos, Robigalia, Floralia, Vinalia.’ That the Vinalia here referred to is the August one is clear, not only from the order of the words, but from what follows, down to the end of sec. 289. Secs. 287 to end of 288 deal with the Vinalia priora parenthetically; in 289 Pliny returns to the Vinalia altera (or rustica), after thus clearing the ground by making it clear that the April Vinalia ‘nihil ad fructus attinent.’ He then quotes Varro to show that in August the object is to avert storms which might damage the vineyards. Mommsen, C. I. L. 326, seems to me to have misread this passage.