Abstract

An inscription found in 1912 near Praeneste,1 and now easily accessible in the new edition of Vol. I. of the Corpus of Latin inscriptions, records a dedication in honour of Juno PALOS-CARIA, an epithet previously unknown, and not yet, I believe, satisfactorily explained. Rosenberg's attempted explanation will not secure many adherents, while that of Lommatzsch, who would connect the word with palus -udis, and see an allusion to the ‘paludes Pomptinae,’ involves us in serious, though not insuperable, phonetic and morphological difficulties. If we were reduced to accepting the derivation from palus ‘marsh,’ I should prefer to see rather a reference to the festival of Juno on the Nonae Caprotinae, which took place near the Caprae palus in the Campus Martius. There would then be at least a definite connexion of the goddess with the palus, whereas there is no such connexion, so far as I know, of Juno with the Pomptine Marshes.