[4] The Augustan grammarian Verrius Flaccus[5] connected the Lucaria to the disastrous defeat of the Romans by the Gauls at the Battle of the Allia, which was fought on 18 July.
The festival, he says, was celebrated in the large grove between the Via Salaria and the Tiber river, where the Romans who survived the battle had hidden.
[6] The lucus thus would have been located on the Pincian Hill, which was later cultivated as gardens and leisure parks by Lucullus, Pompeius, Sallust and others.
[13] Georg Wissowa thought that it may have been connected to the Neptunalia on 23 July, when leafy huts, called umbrae, were built as shelters to protect against the hot summer sun and bulls were sacrificed.
[14] Neptune embodied fresh as well as salt water among the Romans, and the collocation of festivals in July, including also the Furrinalia on 25 May express concerns for drought.