The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic An...

1414. For examples of this idea see under Feb. 24 (Regifugium); Robertson Smith, 286; Mannhardt, Myth. Forsch. 58 foll.

1415. It may indeed be misrepresented by Plutarch (who is the only writer who mentions it), and may have been originally an ἀλολυγή. For the confusion of mournful and joyful cries at a sacrifice see Robertson Smith, 411.

1416. Robertson Smith notes (p. 396) that young men, or rather lads, occur as sacrificers in Exodus xxiv. 5.

1417. p. 91 foll.

1418. Mannhardt is not lucid on this point; he was evidently in difficulties (pp. 97-99). He seems clear that the application of the blood produces an identity between victim and youths; but in similar cases it is not through death that victim, god, and priest become identical, but through the life-giving virtue of the blood. The blood-application must surely mean the acquisition of new life; but he makes it symbolic of death.

1419. Frazer, G. B. ii. 242.

1420. Mannhardt seems to have felt this difficulty (p. 86), and to have tried to overcome it, but without success.

1421. I here omit the feasting, as it is by no means certain at what point of time it took place. If the victims themselves were eaten, it would be part of the sacrificial act and would precede the running; but this is not common in the case of such piacula, and one victim, we must remember, was a dog. It is more likely that Val. Max. is here wrong (see above, p. 311, note 6).

1422. See Mannhardt, Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, 318 foll., and for other examples, Frazer, G. B. ii. 1 foll.; Preller-Robert, Griech. Myth. i. 144 (Zeus-festival on Pelion).

1423. After Schwegler, i. 361; rejected by Marq. (439, note 4).

1424. p. 101. The ‘wolves’ represent of course the Palatine city.

1425. See his eminently modest and sensible remarks at the end of his 5th section, p. 113.

1426. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, 416 foll.; Encycl. Brit. art. ‘Sacrifice’; and for the Lupercalia, Academy, Feb. 11, 1888, where a totemistic origin is suggested.

1427. See also Lobeck, Aglaoph. pp. 183-6; Lang, Myth, Ritual and Religion, vol. ii. 177 (cp. 106) and reff., 213; Dict. of Antiquities, art. ‘Sacrificium,’ p. 584.

1428. Festus, p. 57 ‘Creppos, id est lupercos, dicebant a crepitu pellicularum,’ &c.

1429. Preller, i. 389. On this Jordan has added no comment.

1430. Ann. 12. 24; Jordan, Topogr. i. 163 foll., has examined Tacitus’s account with great care. Tacitus starts the pomoerium from the Forum boarium, while Dionysius and Plutarch start the runners from the Lupercal; but the two are close together.

1431. The reading is not quite certain; the MSS. have ‘Larum de forumque.’

1432. The Sacellum Larum has generally been supposed to be that in summa sacra via (Jordan, op. cit. ii. 269). Kiepert and Huelsen make it the sacellum or ara Larum praestitum at the head of the Vicus Tuscus.

1433. L. L. 6. 34. Mommsen proposed ‘a regibus Romanis moenibus cinctum.’ But it is safer to keep to the MS. reading and make the best of it. Jordan sees in the words a ‘scurrilous’ allusion to the luperci.

1434. For modern practices of the kind in England see Brand, Popular Antiquities, ch. 36; and for Oxford, p. 209. As Brand puts it, the beaters (i. e. ministers, churchwardens, &c.), ‘beg a blessing on the fruits of the earth, and preserve the rights and boundaries of their parish.’ The analogy with the old Italian processions is very close.

1435. So C. I. L. 6. 1933 ‘lupercus Quinctialis vetus.’ See Mommsen, Forsch. i. 117. Unger, however (p. 56 foll.), argues for the form Quintilianus, as it appears in Fest. 87, and Ovid, Fasti, 2. 378; and also denies that the names indicate gentile priesthoods. But his arguments depend on a doubtful etymology. See Marq. 440, note.

1436. Liv. 5. 46. Mommsen connects the name Kaeso, which is found in both gentes, with the cutting of the strips at the Lupercalia. The Fabii in Ovid’s story (361 foll.) are led by Remus, and the Quintilii by Romulus.

1437. See under March 1, p. 41.

1438. So Mannhardt, 101, who tries to explain it as we have seen.

1439. Gilbert, Gesch. und Topogr. i. 86, note, tries to make out that the Fabii belonged to the Palatine proper; and the other guild, not to the Quirinal, but to the Cermalus, and thus also to account for the fact that in Ovid’s story the Fabii come first to the feast; but all this is pure guesswork.

1440. Plut. Rom. 21 and Caes. 61; Ovid, Fasti, 2. 425 foll.; Paul. 57; Liv. fragm. 12 (Madvig); Serv. Aen. 8. 343. All these passages make it clear that the object was to procure fertility in women. Nic. Damasc., Vita Caesaris 21, does not specify women (cp. Dion. Hal. 1. 80).

1441. Liv. l. c. and Serv. l. c. are explicit on this point.

1442. Op. cit. 113 foll. and his Baumkultus, p. 251 foll. (see also Frazer, G. B. ii. 214 and 232 foll.). An example of the same kind of practice in India is in Crooke, Religion and Folklore, vol. i. p. 100. See under May 1 (Bona Dea), p. 104.

1443. They were also called ‘amiculum Iunonis’ (Fest. 85: cp. Ovid, Fasti, 2. 427 foll.); Juno here, as so often, representing the female principle. Farnell (Cults, i. 100) aptly compares with this the Athenian custom of carrying Athena’s aegis round Athens, and taking it into the houses of married women.

1444. Lactantius, Inst. 1. 21. 45, describes them as ‘nudi, uncti, coronati, personati, aut luto obliti currunt’; but we have no certain confirmation from earlier sources except as to the nakedness (Ovid, Fasti, 2. 267).

1445. ‘Iocantes obvios petiverunt’ (Val. Max.). Mannhardt, Myth. Forsch. 140 foll.

1446. Mon. Ancyr. iv. 2; Marq. 446.

1447. Baronius, Annal. Eccles. viii. 60 foll.

1448. Aust, de Aedibus sacris, p. 11; Jordan, Eph. Epigr. iii. 238.

1449. e. g. Cic. ad Quint. Fratr. 2. 3. 2.

1450. See other references in Preller, i. 374, note. Ambrosch (Studien, 169, note 50) observes that Cicero (de Off. 3. 10) writes with a trace of scepticism: ‘Romulus fratre interempto sine controversia peccavit, pace vel Quirini vel Romuli dixerim.’

1451. See Jordan on Preller, i. 369. The article ‘Quirinus’ in Myth. Lex. has not yet appeared as I write.

1452. Studien, 169.

1453. C. I. L. i. 41 = vi. 475 and i. 630 = vi. 565. The older one is attributed by Mommsen to the consul P. Cornelius of B.C. 236: ‘P. Corn[elios] L. f. coso[l] prob[avit] Mar[te sacrom].’ The other, ‘Quirino L. Aimilius L. f. praitor,’ must be set down to an Aemilius praetor in 204, 191, or 190. The inference is that Mars became known as Quirinus in that spot at the end of the third century B.C. It is worth noting that the legendary smith, Mamurius, had a statue on the Quirinal (Jord. Top. ii. 125).