Note 329 — MENSIS APRILIS.

Plin. N. H. 18. 286; two years earlier, according to Velleius, 1. 14. This is, I think, the only case in which a deity taken in hand by the decemviri sacris faciundis cannot be traced to a Greek origin; but the characteristics of Flora are so like those of Venus that in the former, as in the latter, Aphrodite may be concealed. The games as eventually organized had points in common with the cult of Aphrodite at Hierapolis (Lucian, Dea Syr. 49; Farnell, Cults, ii. 643); and it is worth noting that their date (173 B.C.) is subsequent to the Syrian war. Up to that time the games were not regular or annual (Ovid, Fasti, 5. 295).