It was this Power, we can hardly doubt, that the Latins knew by the name of Mars, the god whose cult is so prominent throughout the critical period of the quickening processes. We know him in Roman literature as a full-grown deity, with characteristics partly taken from the Greeks, partly extended and developed by a state priesthood and the usage of a growing and cosmopolitan city. We cannot trace him back, step by step, to his earliest vague form as an undefined Spirit, Power, or _numen_; it is very doubtful whether we can identify him, as mythologists have often done, with anything so obvious and definite as the sun, which by itself does not seem to have been held responsible by primitive peoples for the workings of nature at this time of year. We do not even know for certain the meaning of his name, and can get no sure help from comparative philology. Nevertheless there is a good deal of cumulative evidence which suggests a comparatively humble origin for this great god, some points of which we shall meet with in studying his cult during the month. The whole subject has been worked up by Roscher in the article on Mars in his _Mythological Lexicon_, which has the great advantage of being based on an entire re-examination of the Mars-cult, which he had handled in an earlier essay on Apollo and Mars.
FERIAE MARTI. (PRAEN.) N̄ MARTIS. (PHILOC.) IUN[O]NI LUCINAE E[S]QUILIIS QUOD EO DIE AEDES EI [DEDICA]TA EST PER MATRONAS QUAM VOVERAT ALBI[NIA] ... VEL UXOR ... SI PUERUM ... [AT]QUE IPSA[M].... (PRAEN.)
This was the New Year’s day of the Roman religious calendar. From Macrobius[62] we learn that in his day the sacred fire of Vesta was now renewed, and fresh laurels fixed on the Regia, the Curiae, and the houses of the flamens; the custom therefore was kept up long after the first of March had ceased to be the civil New Year. Ovid alludes to the same rites, and adds the Aedes Vestae as also freshly decorated[63]:
Neu dubites, primae fuerint quin ante Kalendae Martis, ad haec animum signa referre potes. Laurea flaminibus quae toto perstitit anno Tollitur, et frondes sunt in honore novae. Ianua tunc regis posita viret arbore Phoebi; Ante tuas fit idem, curia prisca, fores. Vesta quoque ut folio niteat velata recenti, Cedit ab Iliacis laurea cana focis.