words: "I beseech thee, O queen,-a goddess art thou, or art thou mortal?" Did not Thomas Rymer mistake the gay lady who came riding toward him for the Blessed Virgin?

To the suppliant she is gentle and kindly. His request is granted, his wants relieved; and Nausicaa has every right to say to him at parting, "Farewell, stranger, and hereafter even in thine own native land mayest thou remember me, for to me first thou owest the price of thy life" (vi, 461 f.). Is not this an echo of Calypso's claim: "Him I saved when he was bestriding the keel and all alone, for Zeus had smitten his swift ship. . . . Him I welcomed kindly and gave him, food and said that I would make him immortal and ageless all his days"? (v, 130–132, 135–136).

But whereas Calypso is outspoken in her desire that Odysseus shall be her lover always, Nausicaa's wish is breathed only to her maiden attendants: “Not without the will of all the gods who hold Olympus does this man come among the godlike Phaeacians. . . . Would that such a man as he is might be called my husband, dwelling here, and that it might please him here to remain" (v1, 240-245). Her father is willing to consent to the union (vII, 311-315); the people are ready to gossip about it (v1, 273-284); in fact, the whole stage seems set for a romance, and it is impossible not to believe with van Leeuwen, that "Nausicaa came out of a tradition in which the hero married a foreign princess." This princess can hardly have been a flesh-and-blood woman, as Shewan and Paton would have us think; rather does she belong in the company of the divine ladies who have rewarded with their love the heroes of fairy tales.2

28

That the story has not come down to us in its original form is our gain; for who would exchange the maiden Nausicaa for any number of fairy mistresses? And yet, in her speech, in her attitude toward Odysseus, and, most of all, in the marvel

28 A very close parallel occurs in the Tale of Loegaire mac Crimthann, in the Book of Leinster, where Fiachna of the Fairy Folk offers his daughter in marriage to the hero in return for the latter's services. Rationalized versions of Celtic stories frequently represent the fairy lady as the daughter of the king of Greece. See A. C. L. Brown, l. c. p. 41, n.; pp. 97-98.

ous environment that surrounds her, the old Fairy Mistress theme can be discerned; and we must add the sojourn of Odysseus among the Phaeacians to the list of visits of mortals to the Happy Otherworld. In three places in the Odyssey, then, we find the Fairy Mistress theme handled-in book v, where Calypso and her abode have most of the characteristics of such tales in other languages; in book X, where Circe seems to combine some qualities of the fairy mistress with traits which in other literatures belong to cruel enchantresses; and in books VI-VIII, where the fairy quality has disappeared almost entirely from the actors in the story, but is still to be seen in the description of the land of the Phaeacians and the palace of Alcinous.

"To the Elysian plain will the immortals convey thee," said Proteus to Menelaus, ". . . for thou hast Helen to wife, and art in their eyes the husband of the daughter of Zeus." And over and over again in popular story a joyous entrance into the otherworld is vouchsafed the mortal who has won the love of a divine lady. Not infrequently such an adventure is attached to the name of a historical characterTannhäuser, Ogier le Danois, Thomas of Erceldoune. In just the same way three tales of fairy mistresses may have clustered, along with other stories of mythical adventure, around the name of a hero who really sailed to Troy.

And back of all these Fairy Mistress stories seems to lie the conception of a mighty goddess, with the gift of eternal life in her keeping, and yet with power to cause suffering and even death. Whether this goddess was the great Earth Mother, whether her worship was originally bound up with a picture of the otherworld in which the joys of this life are heightened and intensified, whether these views were the possession of certain racial stocks and not of others, it is impossible, in the present state of our anthropological knowledge, to say. But perhaps in the further investigation of the larger subjects the exquisite use of the Fairy Mistress theme in the Odyssey and the striking resemblance between these Greek stories and the tales and ballads of western Europe may play some part.

IV. The Velia: a Study in Historical Topography

BY PROFESSOR HOMER FRANKLIN REBERT

ADELBERT COLLEGE OF WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY

1 6

To few, perhaps, outside of specialists in Roman topography is it known that the term Velia, like many another topographical name, is considerably more lacking in clearness and definiteness than our handbooks give us reason to suspect. Platner's Topography, styled by Ashby the most useful handbook on the subject in English, or indeed in any language,' follows earlier authorities in representing the Velia on his diagrams as a small oval-shaped hill standing alone in the plain between Esquiline and Palatine,2 a picture for which it is difficult to find any authority in the physical features at present discernible on the site.3 What we really have here is a saddle connecting the Palatine with the Esquiline and forming a dividing line between valleys to the east and west of it. For the rounded, isolated summit of the so-called Velia, no evidence can be found in the actual levels.1

We are led to believe, moreover, that the so-called Velia was 'more frequently referred to in literature as the Summa 1 J. R. S. II (1912), 278.

2 Platner, Topography and Monuments of Ancient Rome (1911), frontispiece, Fig. 4, and Fig. 6; O. Richter, Topographie der Stadt Rom2 (Munich, 1901), Taf. 3; Carter-Huelsen, The Roman Forum, p. 2; Ruggiero, Il Foro Romano, p. 6; Kiepert-Huelsen, Formae Urbis Romae Antiquae (the maps do not agree with one another as to the limits of the so-called Velia, which may also be said of two maps on the same page in Kiepert, Formae Orbis Antiqui, xxII). In reality the slope of the so-called Velia extends in the direction of the Forum as far as the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina.

3 Cf. Van Deman, A. J. A. xxvII (1923), 391 for discussion of levels in this district.

4 Equally difficult is it to find the evidence that justified Huelsen (CarterHuelsen, p. 238) in referring to the junction of the Nova Via and Sacra Via as lying at the top of the Velia, for this point, marked q on his map (Pl. 11), can scarcely be called the top of anything. The continuation of the Augustan Sacra Via, at all events, passing the Arch of Titus, continues to slope upwards to the Arch of Augustus on the Palatine.

Sacra Via,' a view, unfortunately, that does not find support in any literary reference. Augustus, in fact, offers positive evidence against this belief, when, in listing the buildings that he had constructed or reconstructed, he writes,6 Aedem Larum in summa sacra via, aedem deum Penatium in Velia.

The truth of the matter is that there was at the disposal of the topographer very meager evidence for interpreting and defining the Velia, and the result was that his own conjecture, without being subjected to historical criticism, was too readily accepted as actual fact in the manuals.

Two considerations make it seem desirable to attempt again a definition of this term Velia which, as a matter of fact, occurs none too frequently in the literature. The first is that the progress made in our knowledge of Rome's early history, proceeding from a study of the primitive Italic peoples and also from an analytical study of Roman religion, offers an additional means for testing the rather obscure accounts on which mainly. our knowledge of the word depends. The second is that Dr. E. B. Van Deman in a study of the Neronian Sacra Via 7 has taken occasion to identify, beyond any question, the street on which the temple of the Penates (in Velia) stood and Mr. Philip B. Whitehead in a new study of the church of SS. Cosma e Damiano has identified in an equally definitive way the site of the Augustan structure. We are thus supplied with a definite point of departure for studying the evidence

anew.

8

The current conception of the Velia seems to be that it formed part of the Palatine city although outside its wall, that it was a separate hill with definitely marked physical delimitations, and that it continued in use as a topographical

5 Platner, op. cit. p. 33.

6 Monum. Ancyr. IV, 7. Cf. Solinus, 1, 22: Tullus Hostilius in Velia, Ancus Marcius in summa sacra via.

7 A. J. A. xxvII (1923), 395.

8 For the original study see La chiesa dei SS. Cosma e Damiano, Nuovo Bull. Arch. Crist. XIX (1913), 143-165. The new study, presented at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute, is soon to be published.

term throughout the length of Rome's history. A building, whether erected 509 B.C. or in the time of Hadrian, is located by the statement that it stood on the Velia. A glance at the literary references, however, suggests that the Velia, be it hill or district or ridge or slope, is associated chiefly with the early period of Rome's history and that the word was not in general use in the later period. But before we enter upon this question, let us see, if we can, what was the earliest meaning attached to the word.

Of prime importance in this connection is Labeo's account of the Septimontium as recorded by Festus (348): Septimontio, ut ait Antistius Labeo, hisce montibus feriae: Palatio, cui sacrificium quod fit, Palatuar dicitur; Veliae, cui item sacrificium; Fagutali, Suburae, Cermalo, Oppio, Caelio monti, Cispio monti. Wissowa, in an article entitled "Septimontium und Subura," comes to the conclusion that Septimontium was the name of a period in the city's existence as well as the name of a religious festival, and that it must have antedated the City of Four Regions. Obvious objections to this theory were presented and discussed by Professor Platner.10 Several years later Carter" contended that the "detailed study of the festival indicated that it was a celebration carried out jointly by seven small communities rather than a celebration by seven parts of one city. The Septimontium proves the league of seven communities, rather than the existence of one city containing all seven of them."

The Velia, at all events, was one of seven montes that participated in the celebration of the Septimontium. But the question arises as to what the meaning of mons is here. Kornemann, 12 in discussing the nature of the settlements of primitive Italic peoples, points out that it was characteristic of these peoples to build their villages on the hilltops and to

,12

9 Satura Viadrina, pp. 1–19 ( = Wissowa's Gesammelte Abhandlungen, Munich, 1904, pp. 230-252).

10 Class. Phil. 1 (1906), 76 ff.

11 A. J. A. XII (1908), 178.

12 "Polis und Urbs," Klio, v, 72 ff.