HOLIDAYS AND AMUSEMENTS The Italian peoples, of all races, have always had a wonderful capacity for enjoying themselves out of doors.

The Italian _festa_ of to-day, usually, as in ancient times, linked to some religious festival, is a scene of gaiety, bright dresses, music, dancing, bonfires, races, and improvisation or mummery; and all that we know of the ancient rural festivals of Italy suggests that they were of much the same lively and genial character.

Tibullus gives us a good idea of them: "Agricola assiduo primum satiatus aratro Cantavit oerto rustica verba pede; Et satur arenti primum est modulatus avena Carmen, ut ornatos diceret ante decs; Agricola et minio suffusus, Bacche, rubenti Primus inexperta duxit ab arte choros."[454] It would be easy to multiply examples of such merry-making from the poets of the Augustan age, nearly all of whom were born and bred in the country, and shared Virgil's tenderness for a life of honest work and play among the Italian hills and valleys.

But in this chapter we are to deal with the holidays and enjoyments of the great city, and the rural festivals are only mentioned here because almost all the characteristics of the urban holiday-making are to be found in germ there.

The Roman calendar of festivals has its origin in the regularly recurring rites of the earliest Latin husbandman.