Roman Questions (16-20)

Question 16. Why is it that the temple of Matuta is not to be gone into by maid-servants; but the ladies bring in one only, and her they box and cuff?

Solution. If to baste this maid be a sign that they ought not to enter, then they prohibit others according to the fable. For Ino, being jealous of her husband’s loving the servant-maid, is reported to have fell outrageously upon her son. The Grecians say the maid was of an Aetolian family, and was called Antiphera. Therefore with us also in Chaeronea the sexton, standing before the temple of Leucothea (Matuta) holding a wand in his hand, makes proclamation that no man-servant nor maid-servant, neither man nor woman Aetolian, should enter in.

Question 17. Why do they not supplicate this Goddess for good things for their own children, but for their brethren’s and sisters’ children?

Solution. Was it because Ino was a lover of her sister and nursed up her children, but had hard fortune in her own children? Or otherwise, in that it is a moral and good custom, and makes provision of much benevolence towards relations?

Question 18. Why do many of the richer sort pay tithe of their estates to Hercules?

Solution. Is this the reason, that Hercules sacrificed the tenth part of Geryon’s oxen at Rome? Or that he freed the Romans from the decimation under the Etrurians? Or that these things have no sufficient ground of credit from history, but that they sacrificed bountifully to Hercules, as to a certain monstrous glutton and gormandizer of good cheer? Or did they rather do it, restraining extravagant riches as a nuisance to the commonwealth, as it were to diminish something of that thriving constitution that grows up to the highest pitch of corpulency; being of opinion that Hercules was most of all honored with and rejoiced in these frugalities and contractions of abundance, and that he himself was frugal, content with a little, and every way sparing in his way of living?

Question 19. Why do they take the month of January for the beginning of the new year?

Solution. Anciently March was reckoned the first, as is plain by many other marks and especially by this, that the fifth month from March was called Quintilis, and the sixth Sextilis, and so forward to the last. December was so called, being reckoned the tenth from March; hence it came to pass that some are of opinion and do affirm that the Romans formerly did not complete the year with twelve months, but with ten only, allotting to some of the months above thirty days. But others give us an account that, as

December is the tenth from March, January is the eleventh and February the twelfth; in which month they use purifications, and perform funeral rites for the deceased upon the finishing of the year; but this order of the months being changed, they now make January the first, because on the first day of this month (which day they call the Kalends of January) the first consuls were constituted, the kings being deposed. But some speak with a greater probability, which say that Romulus, being a warlike and martial man and reputing himself the son of Mars, set March in the front of all the months, and named it from Mars; but Numa again, being a peaceable prince and ambitious to bring off the citizens from warlike achievements, set them upon husbandry, gave the pre-eminence to January, and brought Janus into a great reputation, as he was more addicted to civil government and husbandry than to warlike affairs. Now consider whether Numa hath not pitched upon a beginning of the year most suitable to our natural disposition. For there is nothing at all in the whole circumvolution of things naturally first or last, but by law or custom some appoint one beginning of time, some another; but they do best who take this beginning from after the winter solstice, when the sun, ceasing to make any further progress, returns and converts his course again to us. For there is then a kind of tropic in nature itself, which verily increaseth the time of light to us and shortens the time of darkness, and makes the Lord and Ruler of the. whole current of nature to approach nearer to us.

Question 20. When the women beautify the temple of the Goddess appropriate to women, which they call Bona, why do they bring no myrtle into the house, although they be zealous of using all budding and flowering vegetables?

Solution. Is not the reason (as the fabulous write the story) this, that the wife of Faulius a diviner, having drunk wine secretly and being discovered, was whipped by her

husband with myrtle rods; hence the women bring in no myrtle, but offer to her a drink-offering of wine, which they call milk? Or is it this, that, as they abstain from many things, so especially they reserve themselves chaste from all things that appertain to venery when they perform that divine service; for they do not only turn their husbands out of doors but banish from the house every male kind, when they exercise this canonical obedience to their Goddess. They therefore reject myrtle as an abomination, it being consecrated to Venus; and the Venus whom at this day they call Murcia they anciently called Myrtia, as it would seem.