Note 624 — MENSIS IUNIUS.

Ovid, Fasti, 6. 473 foll.; Cic. Nat. Deor. 3. 48; Tusc. 1. 28. Plutarch (Quaest. Rom. 16. 1) noted a likeness between her cult and that of Leucothea in his own city of Chaeroneia; an interesting passage, though quite inconclusive as to the Greek origin of Mater Matuta. Plutarch, like Servius (Aen. 5. 241) and others, has adopted Ovid’s legend of Ino by way of explanation of the identity of Leucothea and Matuta. Merkel (Fasti, clxxxiv) believed the cult to be wholly Greek; Bouché-Leclercq (Hist. de Divination, iv. 147) follows Klausen in identifying Mater Matuta with Tethys (cf. Plut. Rom. 2) and with the deity of the oracle at Pyrgi. But see Wesseling on Diod. Sic. 15, p. 337; and Strabo, Bk. 5, p. 345.