Why do men not marry during the month of May?Cf. Ovid, , v. 489.

Is it because this month comes between April and June, of which they regard April as sacred to Venus and June as sacred to Juno, both of them divinities of marriage: and so they put the wedding a little earlier or wait until later?

Or is it because in this month they hold their most important ceremony of purification, in which they now throw images from the bridge into the river,Cf. 272 b, supra. but in days of old they used to throw human beings? Wherefore it is the custom that the Flaminica, reputed to be consecrate to Juno, shall wear a stern face, and refrain from bathing and wearing ornaments at this time.

Or is it because many of the Latins make offerings to the departed in this month? And it is for this reason, perhaps, that they worship Mercury in this month and that the month derives its name from Maia.The mother of Mercury.

Or is May, as some relate, named after the older (maior) and June after the younger generation (iunior)? For youth is better fitted for marriage, as EuripidesFrom the of Euripides; Nauck, p. 369, Euripides, no. 23; Cf., 786 a, 1094 f. also says: Old age bids Love to take her leave for aye And Aphrodite wearies of the old. They do not, therefore, marry in May, but wait for June which comes next after May.

Why do they part the hair of brides with the point of a spear?Cf., chap. xv. (26 e).

Does this symbolize the marriage of the first Roman wivesThe Sabine women. by violence with attendant war, or do the wives thus learn, now that they are mated to brave and warlike men, to welcome an unaffected, unfeminine, and simple mode of beautification? Even as Lycurgus,Cf., 189 e, 227 c, 997 c; and the , chap. xiii. (47 c); Cf. also , 42 (Bernardakis, vol. vii. p. 72). by giving orders to make the doors and roofs of houses with the saw and the axe only, and to use absolutely no other tool, banished all over-refinement and extravagance.

Or does this procedure hint at the manner of their separation, that with steel alone can their marriage be dissolved?

Or is it that most of the marriage customs were connected with Juno?See Roscher, , ii. coll. 588-592. Now the spear is commonly held to be sacred to Juno, and most of her statues represent her leaning on a spear, and the goddess herself is surnamed Quirite; for the men of old used to call the spear curis; wherefore they further relate that Enyalius is called Quirinus by the Romans.Cf., chap. xxix. (36 b); Dionysius of Halicarnassus, , ii. 48; Ovid, , ii. 475 ff.

Why do they call the money expended upon public spectacles Lucar?

Is it because round about the city there are, consecrated to gods, many groves which they call luci, and they used to spend the revenue from these on the public spectacles?

Why do they call the Quirinalia the Feast of Fools?Cf. Ovid, , ii. 513 ff.

Is it because, as JubaMüller, iii. p. 470. states, they apportioned that day to men who did not know their own kith and kin?Curiae Or was it granted to those who, because of some business, or absence from Rome, or ignorance, had not sacrificed with the rest of their tribe on the Fornacalia, that, on this day, they might take their due enjoyment of that festival?