There are some words at the end of Verrius’ note in the Praenestine Calendar, which, as Mommsen has pointed out[183], come in abruptly and look as if something had dropped out: ‘Lutatius quidem clavam eam ait esse in ruinis Pala[ti i]ncensi a Gallis repertam, qua Romulus urbem inauguraverit.’ This _clava_ must be the _lituus_ of Romulus, mentioned by Cicero[184], which was found on the Palatine and kept in the Curia Saliorum. We cannot, however, see clearly what Verrius or his excerptor meant to tell us about it; there would seem to have been a confusion between _lituus_ in the sense of _baculum_ and _lituus_ in the sense of a _tuba incurva_. The latter was in use as well as the ordinary straight _tuba_[185]; in shape it closely resembled the _clava_ of the augur, and perhaps the resemblance led to the notion that it was the _clava_ of Romulus and not a _tuba_ which was this day purified with the other _tubae_.
We can learn little or nothing from the calendar of this month about the origin of Mars, and we have no other sufficient evidence on which to base a satisfactory conjecture. But from the cults of the month, and partly also from those of October, we can see pretty clearly what ideas were prominent in his worship even in the early days of the Roman state. They were chiefly two, and the two were closely connected. He was the Power who must be specially invoked to procure the safety of crops and cattle; and secondly, in his keeping were the safety and success of the freshly-enrolled host with its armour and its trumpets. In short, he was that deity to whom the most ancient Romans looked for aid at the season when all living things, man included, broke into fresh activity. He represents the characteristics of the early Roman more exactly than any other god; for there are two things which we may believe with certainty about the Roman people in the earliest times—(1) that their life and habits of thought were those of an agricultural race; and (2) that they continually increased their cultivable land by taking forcible possession in war of that of their neighbours.
See Nissen, _Italienische Landeskunde_, i. 404; Ovid, _Fasti_, 3. 235—
Quid, quod hiems adoperta gelu tunc denique cedit, Et pereunt victae sole tepente nives, Arboribus redeunt detonsae frigore frondes, Uvidaque in tenero palmite gemma tumet: Quaeque diu latuit, nunc se qua tollat in auras, Fertilis occultas invenit herba vias. Nunc fecundus ager: pecoris nunc hora creandi, Nunc avis in ramo tecta laremque parat. Tempora iure colunt Latiae fecunda parentes Quarum militiam votaque partus habet.