23
Why do they sell articles for funerals in the precinct of Libitina, whom they identify with Venus? Cf. Life of Numa, xii. (67 e); Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, iv. 15. 5; Varro, De Lingua Latina, vi. 47.
23
Is this also one of the philosophic devices of king Numa, that they should learn not to feel repugnance at such things nor shun them as a pollution?
23
Or is it rather a reminder that whatever is born must die, since one goddess presides over births and deaths? For in Delphi there is a little statue of Aphrodite of the Tomb, to which they summon the departed to come forth for the libations.
24
Why have they in the month three beginnings or fixed points, and do not adopt the same interval of days between them?
24
Is it, as JubaMüller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iii. p. 470. and his followers relate, that on the Kalends the officials used to call Cf. Old Latin calare, equated with Greek καλεῖν by Plutarch and by other writers. the people and announce the Nones for the fifth day thereafter, regarding the Ides as a holy day?