Note 69 — MENSIS MARTIUS.

By Usener, in his remarkable paper in Rhein. Museum, xxx. 215 foll., on ‘Italische Mythen.’ He unluckily made the mistake of supposing that Ovid told this story under June 1 (i. e. nine months before the supposed birthday of Mars). There is indeed a kind of conjunction of June and Mars on June 1, as both had temples dedicated on that day; but neither of these can well be earlier than the fourth century B.C., and no one would have thought of them as having any bearing on the birth of Mars but for Usener’s blunder (Aust, de Aedibus sacris Pop. Rom. pp. 8 and 10, and his valuable note in Roscher’s article on Mars, p. 2390). Usener also adduces the derivation of Gradivus in Fest. 97 ‘quia gramine sit ortus.’