Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 16, 1905.djvu/329

 The European Sky -God. 281

archaic characters on tablets of oak.^ Indeed, the common cult of the Latins, that of Jupiter Latiaris, was carried on in a grove of oaks^ on the summit of the Alban Mount.

As Jupiter and Juno had their oaks, so had Janus and Diana (Jana) before them. Pliny ^ states that "on the Vatican is an oak-tree {ilex) older than Rome itself, bearing a bronze inscription in Etruscan letters, which proves that even in those early days the tree was thought worthy of religious veneration." This tree was probably sacred to Tina or Tinia, the Etruscan Jupiter/ though the proximity of the Janiculum, an ancient seat of Janus, makes it possible that it was a Janus-oak. Virgil ^ speaks of an oak sacred to Father Tiber, who was regarded as the son of Janus.*' When the Plebs seceded to the Janiculum, it was in a grove of oaks by the Tiber-side that O. Hortensius the dictator passed the law which induced them to return.'^ Further, the title Quirinus, which was borne alike by Janus ^ and by Jupiter,'^ I take to mean " the Oak-god," quins being " the oaken spear " and Quirites " the men of the oaken spear." '^^ Juno also was entitled Qiiiris or Quiritis}^ Diana, the orisfinal

1 Cic. de div. 2. 85.

^ Liv. I. 31. 3 ex summi cacuminis luco. That this "lucus" was of oaks I infer from the tradition that the sow of Alba Longa was found "sub ilicibus" (Verg. Aen. 8. 43, Auson. epist. 7. 17).

^ Plin. nat. hist. 16. 237.

the Etruscans had a settlement on the Vatican, whence they were expelled by the Romans in obedience to an oracle.
 * Roscher Lex ii. 627 fif. According to Paul. exc. Fest. p. 161 Lindemann,

"Verg. Aen. 10. 421 ff. * Serv. in Verg. Aeti. 8. 330.

Tlin. nat. hist. 16. 37, cp. Varr. de ling. Lat. 5. 152 and the vicus A escleti on the Tiber-bank opposite to the Janiculum (Pauly-V^^issowa i. 682).

^ Roscher Lex. ii. 16 and 40.

3 Two tiles from Casteldieri (Dessau 3036) are inscribed [Io]zii Quirino and Lovi Cyrin[o'] C. Tati Max.

1° See Class. Rev. xviii. 368 f. " Roscher Lex. ii. 596 fif.