Vii Kal. Mart. (Feb. 23.) Np
Ter[minalia]. (Caer. Maff. Rust. Philoc. Silv.)
Was there any connexion between the Terminalia and the end of the year? The Roman scholars thought so; Varro1465 writes, ‘Terminalia quod is dies anni extremus constitutus; duodecimus enim fuit Februarius, et quum intercalatur, inferiores quinque dies duodecimo demuntur mense.’ So Ovid,
Tu quoque sacrorum, Termine, finis eras.
But Terminus is the god of the boundaries of land, and has nothing to do with time; and the Terminalia is not the last festival of the year in the oldest calendars. The Romans must have been misled by the coincidence of the day of Terminus with the last day before intercalation. The position in the year of the rites to be described seems parallel to that of the Compitalia and Paganalia, which were concerned with matters of common interest to a society of farmers: and we may remember that Pliny1466 said of the Fornacalia that it was ‘farris torrendi feriae et aeque religiosae terminis agrorum.’
The ritual of the Terminalia in the country districts is described by Ovid1467. The two landowners garlanded each his side of the boundary-stone, and all offerings were double1468. An altar is made; and fire is carried from the hearth by the farmer’s wife, while the old man cuts up sticks and builds them in a framework of stout stakes. Then with dry bark the fire is kindled; from a basket, held ready by a boy1469, the little daughter of the family thrice shakes the fruits of the earth into the fire, and offers cakes of honey. Others stand by with wine; and the neighbours (or dependants) look on in silence and clothed in white. A lamb is slain, and a sucking-pig, and the boundary-stone sprinkled with their blood; and the ceremony ends with a feast and songs in praise of holy Terminus.
This rite was, no doubt, practically a yearly renewal of that by which the stone was originally fixed in its place. The latter is described by the gromatic writer Siculus Flaccus1470. Fruits of the earth, and the bones, ashes, and blood of a victim which had been offered were put into a hole by the two (or three) owners whose land converged at the point, and the stone was rammed down on the top and carefully fixed. The reason given for this was of course that the stone might be identified in the future, e. g. by an arbiter, if one should be called in1471; but it also reminds us of the practice of burying the remains of a victim1472, and the use of the blood shows the extreme sanctity of the operation.
That the stone was regarded as the dwelling-place of a numen is proved by the fact that it was sprinkled with blood and garlanded1473; and the development of a god Terminus is perfectly in keeping with Roman religious ideas. It is more difficult to determine what was the relation of this Terminus to the great Jupiter who was so intimately associated, as we have seen1474 with the idea of keeping faith with your neighbours. Was he the numen originally thought to occupy the stone, and is the name Terminus, as marking a distinct deity, a later growth? I am disposed to think that this was so; for we saw that there is some reason to believe that Jupiter did not disdain to dwell in objects such as trees and stones, and there is no need to look to Greece for the origin of his connexion with boundaries1475. But Jupiter and Terminus remained on the whole distinct; and a Jupiter Terminus or Terminalis is first found on the coins of Varro the great scholar, probably in B.C. 761476.
The close connexion of the two is seen in the legend that when Jupiter was to be introduced into the great Capitoline temple, from the Capitolium vetus on the Quirinal, all the gods made way for him but Terminus1477.
Quid nova cum fierent Capitolia? nempe deorum
Cuncta Iovi cessit turba, locumque dedit.
Terminus, ut veteres memorant, inventus in aede
Restitit, et magno cum love templa tenet.
This, as Preller truly observes, is only a poetical way of expressing his stubbornness, and his close relation to Jupiter, with whom he continued to share the great temple. It seems certain that there was in that temple a stone supposed to be that of Terminus, over which there was a hole in the roof1478: for all sacrifice to Terminus must be made in the open air.
Nunc quoque, se supra ne quid nisi sidera cernat,
Exiguum templi tecta foramen habent1479.
Precisely the same feature is found in the cult of Semo Sancus or Dius Fidius1480, who was concerned with oaths and treaties; and of Hercules we are told that the oath taken in his name must be taken out of doors1481.
Of the stone itself we know nothing. It is open to us to guess that it was originally a boundary-stone, perhaps between the ager of the Palatine city and that of the Quirinal. The mons Capitolinus seems to have been neutral ground, as we may guess by the tradition of the asylum there; it was outside the pomoerium, and in the early Republic was the property of the priestly collegia1482. It was, therefore, a very appropriate place for a terminus between two communities1483.
From Ovid (679 foll.) we gather that there was a terminus-stone at the sixth milestone on the via Laurentina, at which public sacrifices were made, perhaps on the day of the Terminalia: this was probably at one time the limit of the ager Romanus in that direction.