Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1940)

43° The holed vessel in Italy

sought neither on the Palatine, nor in Terremare, and that its sacred functions—Ovid and
Plutarch notwithstanding—had nothing to do with the foundation of Rome).

L. du Jardin 'Mundus, Roma quadrata e lapis niger' in the Rendiconii della Poniificia
Accadauia 1930 vi. 47 ff. (mundus and Roma quadrata were originally on the Palatine,
but, when built over by Domitian's palace, were removed to the Comitium).

H. J. Rose ' The Mundus' in Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni 1931 VI1'
115—127 (largely in agreement with Weinstock puts forward the following contentions:
'(1) The word mundus, in the sense of a pit or underground shrine of some kind, is
probably not Latin. (2) So far as we know, it was applied to at least two u

nderground

structures in Rome, one in the Comitium, the other of unknown locality, which were, °r
had been, used for wholly different rites. (3) Neither of these had anything to do with
Roma Quadrata, or with the lapis manalis. (4) Neither of them had anything to do wit"
the so-called mundus found on the Palatine in 1914. (5) The connection of either
with the pit to be found in terremare is possible, but unproved').

W. Kroll 'Mundus' in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. xvi. 560—564 (the mundus was
a chthonian cult-centre, probably close to the Comitium. It was a circular pit opened tlrnce
a year, on days that were all comitiales, for the emergence of souls of the dead (cp- the
Greek Anthesteria: supra i. 687)—no concern of Ceres or any other deity. The lflf*
manalis of Festus (infra p. 432) must have been the famous lapis manalis outside
Porta Capena (infra p. 432 ff.) and should not—with E. Samter in the Archiv.f. Rd- '9
xxi. 332 f. and in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. xii. 784—be assumed to have closed
mundus. Weinstock and Rose rightly rejected the identification of this nmndus with
Roma quadrata of the Palatine and doubted the analogy of the Terremare pits. As
etymology, the Etruscan goddess mtmdux (E. Fiesel in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc X
643 f., infra p. 439 n. 2) is better ignored. P. Kretschmer suggests connexion with Germ*
Mund, Gothic munj>s).

L. Deubner 'Mundus' in Hermes 1933 lxviii. 276—287 (Ov. fast. 4. 821 ft- descr
three successive rites: (1) fruges thrown into a deep fossa; (2) earth from the neigh U^,jje
soil likewise thrown in; (3) an altar placed above the filled-in fossa and kindled.
parallel in Plout. v. Rom. 11 proves that Ovid's pit was the mundus. Ovid's altar a ^
the pit is due—as C. O. Thulin Die etruskische Disziplin iii (Goteborgs H6gsK°
Arsskrift 1909 i) p. 20 saw—to contamination with the rites of Terminus. Ovid s & ^
thrown in was another accretion wrongly connected by him with the mundus: the c ^
really symbolised Rome's mastery over all the neighbourhood (Lyd. de mens. 4- 73 P' j
21 ff.). Ovid's fruges thrown in were a gift to chthonian powers made at the mo ^e
founding the town. Kroll and Weinstock dismiss this association of the mundus ^.^^j.
founding of a town as an antiquarian figment. Deubner sees no ground for their seep ?e(j
town-foundations, the planting of boundary-stones, the erection of buildings, all '"V„;fis.
breaking into the earth and the earth-powers must in each case be propitiated f ^

Ovid does not definitely state that the mundus was on the Palatine; but he is spea ^

on

Romulus as the founder of Rome, and everyone knew that Romulus' f°unclati°npai!ltine
the Palatine. Weinstock wrongly refuses to admit the real existence of athere
mundus. Plutarch errs in locating Romulus' mundus on the Comitium. 1'° jrtrliscan
was a mundus there; but, if so, it was the mundus of a new

foundation—we

town of Four Regions (Plout. v. Rom. 11 brings the experts from Etrunaas
thinks it likely that this mundus on the Comitium, though described by (jrave
/366p<K KVK\orepr}s, should be identified with the quadrangular pit for offerings 1 inuiii,lS
of Romulus : Plutarch may well have blundered here also and attributed to ^

on the Comitium the shape of the mundus on the Palatine. As to the phrase ni« ^ (th
that refers to the Palatine mundus. Weinstock misunderstands schol. Bern. "l^er bail'
3. 105 mundus in sacro Cereris: this might mean, not a mundus in a small c f^evef) it
to contain it, but a mundus in the sacred precinct of Ceres; more probably.^ pajati,,e
was a mere guess of the scholiast or his source. Roma quadrata too was on yjfo&stij'
and had something to do with the founding of the town (Fest. p. 310' ^ '(j(angu'il1
infra p. 436 n. o). Thulin op. cit. p. 20 n. 1 already compared it with the qua