ertook in the forum of that city.[670] This
prominence of Juno may be a counterpart, I think, to the special
attention shown to Hercules and Genius in the previous winter.[671] And
it is interesting to notice that the libertinae were directed to collect
money for their own goddess Feronia.[672]

It is evident that Livy, in detailing these directions from the books of
the pontifices,[673] took them in the chronological order in which they
were to be carried out; for the day sacred to Juno Regina of the
Aventine is September 1, that of Feronia November 13, and the last
instruction he mentions is in December, when Saturnus was to have a
sacrifice and _lectisternium_ at his own temple in the forum (prepared
by senators), and a _convivium publicum_. This meant, we note with
interest, the Graecising of this old Roman cult, which now took the form
which is so familiar to us of public rejoicing by all classes, including
slaves.[674] But long before these dates the terrible disaster of
Trasimene had forced the Senate, at the urgent persuasion of the
dictator Fabius, to have recourse to the sacred books again.[675] Never
before had they been so frequently consulted; the ordinary _piacula_ of
the pontifices were not thought of; a consul had grievously broken the
_pax deorum_, and what remedy was possible no Roman authority could
tell. The prescriptions of the books were many and various; the most
interesting of them is the famous _ver sacrum_, an old Italian custom,
already referred to, but here prescribed by a Greek authority. This was
submitted to the people in Comitia, and carried with quaint provisions
suited to protect them against any unconscious mistake in carrying out
the vow, such as might produce further _religio_. We will only notice
that though, according to the old tradition, it was to Mars that the
Italian stocks were wont in time of famine and distress to dedicate the
whole agricultural produce of the year, together with the male children
born that spring,[676] in this crisis it is to Jupiter that the vow is
made. It is the Roman people only who here make the vow, and they make
it, I doubt not, to that great Jupiter of the Capitol who for 300 years
has been their guardian, and in whose temple are kept the sacred books
that ordered it.[677]

But the authorities were determined to make now a supreme effort to
still the alarm, and to restore the people to cheerfulness. They went on
to vow _ludi magni_, _i.e._ extra ga