... [VEDI]OVI. ARTIS VEDIOVIS INTER DUOS LUCOS. (PRAEN.)
Various conjectures have been made for correcting this note. We may take it that the first word is rightly completed: some letters seem to have preceded it, and _feriae_ has been suggested[98], but not generally accepted. The next word, _Artis_, must be a slip of the stone-cutter. That it was not Martis we are sure, as Ovid says that there was no note in the Fasti for this day except on the cult of Vediovis[99]. Even Mommsen is in despair, but suggests _Aedis_ as a possibility, and that _dedicata_ was accidentally omitted after it.
We do not know when the temple was dedicated[100]. The cult of Vediovis seems to have no special connexion with other March rites: and it seems as well to postpone consideration of it till May 21, the dedication-day of the temple _in arce_. See also on Jan. 1.
As we have seen, the first ‘moving’ of the ancilia was on the 1st. This is the second mentioned in the calendars; the third, according to Lydus (4. 42), was on the 23rd (Tubilustrium, q.v.). As the Salii seem to have danced with the shields all through the month up to the 24th[101], it has been supposed that these were the three principal days of ‘moving’; and Mr. Marindin suggests that they correspond to the three most important _mansiones Saliorum_, of which two were probably the Curia Saliorum on the Palatine and the Sacrarium Martis in the Regia[102].
EQUIRR[IA]. (MAFF. VAT. ESQ.) FERIAE MARTI. (VAT.) SACRUM MAMURIO. (RUSTIC CALENDARS[103].) MAMURALIA. (PHILOC.)
These notes involve several difficulties. To begin with, this day is an even number, and there is no other instance in the calendar of a festival occurring on such a day. Wissowa[104], usually a very cautious inquirer, here boldly cuts the knot by conjecturing that the Mars festival of this day had originally been on the next, i.e. the Ides, but was put back one day to enable the people to frequent both the horse-races (Equirria) and the festival of Anna Perenna[105]. The latter, he might have added, was obviously extremely popular with the lower classes, as we shall see from Ovid’s description; and though the scene of it was close to that of the Equirria, or certainly not far away, it is not impossible that it may have diverted attention from the nobler and more manly amusement. Wissowa strengthens his argument by pointing out an apparent parallel between the festival dates of March and October. Here, as elsewhere, in the calendar, we find an interval of three days between two festivals, viz. between March 19 (Quinquatrus) and March 23 (Tubilustrium), and between Oct. 15 (‘October horse’) and Oct. 19 (Armilustrium). Now, as we shall see, the rites of March 19 and Oct. 19 seem to correspond to each other[106]; and if there were a chariot-race on March 15, it would also answer to the race on the day of the ‘October horse,’ Oct. 15, with a three days’ interval as in October. The argument is not a very strong one, but there is a good deal to be said for it.