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

We have no data whatever for guessing why a horse-race should take place on the last day of February, or why there should be two days of racing, the second being March 14. This has not, however, prevented Huschke[1494] from making some marvellous conjectures, in which ingenuity and learning have been utterly thrown away.

We saw[1495] that the oldest races of this kind were connected with harvest rejoicings; and Mannhardt[1496] suggested that they originated in the desire to catch the spirit of vegetation in the last sheaf or in some animal form. Races also occur in various parts of Europe in the spring—e. g. at the Carnival, at Easter, and at Whitsuntide; and of these he says that they correspond with the others, and that the idea at the bottom of them is ‘die Vorstellung des wetteifernden Frühlingseinzuges der Vegetationsdämonen.’ However this may be, we cannot but be puzzled by the doubling of the Equirria, and are tempted to refer it to the same cause as that of the Salii and Luperci[1497].

That both were connected with the cult of Mars is almost beyond question. They were held in the Campus Martius, and were supposed to have been established by Romulus in honour of Mars[1498]; and we have already had an example of the occurrence of horses in the Mars-cult. It would seem, then, that the peculiar features of the worship of Mars began even before March 1. Preller noticed this long ago[1499], and suggested that even the Lupercalia and the Quirinalia have some relation to the Mars-cult, and that these fall at the time when the first beginnings of spring are felt—e. g. when the first swallows arrive[1500]. We may perhaps add the appearance of the Salii at the Regifugium to these foreshadowings of the March rites. Ovid seems to bear out Preller in his lines on this day[1501]: