xiii Kal. Mart. (Feb. 17). NP.
QUIR[INALIA]. (CAER. MAFF. FARN. PHILOC.)
QUIRINO IN COLLE. (FARN. CAER.)
How the festival of Quirinus came to be placed at this time I cannot explain: we know nothing of it, and cannot assume that it was of an expiatory character, like the Lupercalia preceding it, and the Feralia following. Of the temple ‘in colle’ we also know nothing[1448] that can help us. We have already learnt that this day was called ‘stultorum feriae,’ and why; but the conjunction of the last day of the sacra of the curiae with those of Quirinus is probably accidental; we cannot safely assume any connexion through the word ‘curia.’ The name Quirinalia was familiar enough[1449]; but it may be that it only survived through the stultorum feriae.
The Roman of the later Republic identified Quirinus with Romulus; Virgil, e. g. in the first Aeneid (292) speaks of ‘Remo cum fratre Quirinus[1450].’ We have no clue to the origin of this identification. It may have been suggested by the use of the name Quirites; but neither do we know when or why that name came to signify the Roman people in their civil capacity, and the etymology of these words and their relation to each other still entirely baffles research[1451].
There is, however, a general agreement that Quirinus was another form of Mars, having his abode on the hill which still goes by his name. That Mars and Quirinus were ever the same deities was indeed denied by so acute an inquirer as Ambrosch[1452]; but he denied it partly on the ground that no trace of the worship of Mars had been found on the Quirinal; and since his time two inscriptions have been found there on the same spot, one at least of great antiquity, which indicate votive offerings to Mars and Quirinus respectively[1453]. From these Mommsen concludes that Quirinus was at one time worshipped there under the name of Mars; which involves also the converse, that Mars was once worshipped under the adjectival cult-title Quirinus. Unluckily Mars Quirinus is a combination as yet undiscovered; and as the existence of a patrician Flamen Quirinalis distinct from the Flamen Martialis points at least to a very early differentiation of the two, it may be safer to think of the two, not as identical deities, but rather as equivalent cult-expressions of the same religious conception in two closely allied communities[1454].
That the Quirinal was the seat of the cult of Quirinus admits of no doubt; and the name of the hill, which we are told was originally Agonus or Agonalis[1455], arose no doubt from the cult[1456]. Here were probably two temples of the god, the one dating from B.C. 293, and having June 29 as its day of dedication; the other of unknown date, which celebrated its birthday on the Quirinalia[1457]. A ‘sacellum Quirini in colle’ is also mentioned at the time of the Gallic invasion[1458] (this was perhaps the predecessor of the temple of June 29), and also the house of the Flamen Quirinalis which adjoined it. To the Quirinal also belong the Salii Agonenses, Collini, or Quirinales, who correspond to the Salii of the Palatine and of Mars[1459]. And here, lastly, seems to belong the mysterious Flora or Horta Quirini, whose temple, according to Plutarch[1460], was ‘formerly’ always open. About the cult of Quirinus on his hill we know, however, nothing, except that there were two myrtles growing in front of his temple, one called the patrician and the other the plebeian[1461], and to which a curious story is attached. Preller[1462] noted that these correspond to the two laurels in the sacrarium Martis in the Regia, and conjectured that each pair symbolized the union of the state in the cults of the two communities.
Of the duties of the Flamen Quirinalis we have already seen something[1463]: unluckily they throw little or no new light on the cult of Quirinus. He was concerned in the worship of Robigus, of Consus, and of Acca Larentia, all of them ancient cults of agricultural Rome; and he seems to have been in close connexion with the Vestal Virgins[1464]. These are just such duties as we might have expected would fall to the Flamen of Mars; and probably the two cults were much alike in character.
vii Kal. Mart. (Feb. 23.) NP.
TER[MINALIA]. (CAER. MAFF. RUST. PHILOC. SILV.)
Was there any connexion between the Terminalia and the end of the year? The Roman scholars thought so; Varro[1465] writes, ‘Terminalia quod is dies anni extremus constitutus; duodecimus enim fuit Februarius, et quum intercalatur, inferiores quinque dies duodecimo demuntur mense.’ So Ovid,
But Terminus is the god of the boundaries of land, and has nothing to do with time; and the Terminalia is not the last festival of the year in the oldest calendars. The Romans must have been misled by the coincidence of the day of Terminus with the last day before intercalation. The position in the year of the rites to be described seems parallel to that of the Compitalia and Paganalia, which were concerned with matters of common interest to a society of farmers: and we may remember that Pliny[1466] said of the Fornacalia that it was ‘farris torrendi feriae et aeque religiosae terminis agrorum.’
The ritual of the Terminalia in the country districts is described by Ovid[1467]. The two landowners garlanded each his side of the boundary-stone, and all offerings were double[1468]. An altar is made; and fire is carried from the hearth by the farmer’s wife, while the old man cuts up sticks and builds them in a framework of stout stakes. Then with dry bark the fire is kindled; from a basket, held ready by a boy[1469], the little daughter of the family thrice shakes the fruits of the earth into the fire, and offers cakes of honey. Others stand by with wine; and the neighbours (or dependants) look on in silence and clothed in white. A lamb is slain, and a sucking-pig, and the boundary-stone sprinkled with their blood; and the ceremony ends with a feast and songs in praise of holy Terminus.
This rite was, no doubt, practically a yearly renewal of that by which the stone was originally fixed in its place. The latter is described by the gromatic writer Siculus Flaccus[1470]. Fruits of the earth, and the bones, ashes, and blood of a victim which had been offered were put into a hole by the two (or three) owners whose land converged at the point, and the stone was rammed down on the top and carefully fixed. The reason given for this was of course that the stone might be identified in the future, e. g. by an arbiter, if one should be called in[1471]; but it also reminds us of the practice of burying the remains of a victim[1472], and the use of the blood shows the extreme sanctity of the operation.
That the stone was regarded as the dwelling-place of a numen is proved by the fact that it was sprinkled with blood and garlanded[1473]; and the development of a god Terminus is perfectly in keeping with Roman religious ideas. It is more difficult to determine what was the relation of this Terminus to the great Jupiter who was so intimately associated, as we have seen[1474] with the idea of keeping faith with your neighbours. Was he the numen originally thought to occupy the stone, and is the name Terminus, as marking a distinct deity, a later growth? I am disposed to think that this was so; for we saw that there is some reason to believe that Jupiter did not disdain to dwell in objects such as trees and stones, and there is no need to look to Greece for the origin of his connexion with boundaries[1475]. But Jupiter and Terminus remained on the whole distinct; and a Jupiter Terminus or Terminalis is first found on the coins of Varro the great scholar, probably in B.C. 76[1476].
The close connexion of the two is seen in the legend that when Jupiter was to be introduced into the great Capitoline temple, from the Capitolium vetus on the Quirinal, all the gods made way for him but Terminus[1477].
This, as Preller truly observes, is only a poetical way of expressing his stubbornness, and his close relation to Jupiter, with whom he continued to share the great temple. It seems certain that there was in that temple a stone supposed to be that of Terminus, over which there was a hole in the roof[1478]: for all sacrifice to Terminus must be made in the open air.
Precisely the same feature is found in the cult of Semo Sancus or Dius Fidius[1480], who was concerned with oaths and treaties; and of Hercules we are told that the oath taken in his name must be taken out of doors[1481].
Of the stone itself we know nothing. It is open to us to guess that it was originally a boundary-stone, perhaps between the ager of the Palatine city and that of the Quirinal. The mons Capitolinus seems to have been neutral ground, as we may guess by the tradition of the asylum there; it was outside the pomoerium, and in the early Republic was the property of the priestly collegia[1482]. It was, therefore, a very appropriate place for a terminus between two communities[1483].
From Ovid (679 foll.) we gather that there was a terminus-stone at the sixth milestone on the via Laurentina, at which public sacrifices were made, perhaps on the day of the Terminalia: this was probably at one time the limit of the ager Romanus in that direction.
vi Kal. Mart. (Feb. 24). N.
REGIF[UGIUM], (CAER. MAFF. PHILOC.) REGIFUGIUM, CUM TARQUINIUS SUPERBUS FERTUR AB URBE EXPULSUS. (SILV.)
This note of Silvius is based on a very old and natural misapprehension. Ovid[1484], and probably most Romans, believed that the expulsion of Tarquin was commemorated on this day. There is, however, strong indirect evidence to show that the ‘flight of the king’ on Feb. 24 was something very different.
1. We have already had a ‘flight of the people’ (Poplifugia) on July 5; and we saw that this was probably a purificatory rite of which the meaning had been lost—the sacrifice perhaps of a sacred animal followed by the flight of the crowd as from a murder. It seems impossible, at any rate unwise, to separate Poplifugia and Regifugium in general meaning, for there is no other parallel to them in the calendar. Both were explained historically by the Romans, because in both the obscure (and perhaps obsolete) religious rite was inexplicable otherwise; and we must also endeavour to treat both on the same principle.
2. It seems pretty clear that Verrius Flaccus did not believe in the historical explanation of the Regifugium. In Festus, page 278, we find a mutilated gloss which evidently refers to this day, and is thus completed by Mommsen[1485]:—
[Regifugium notatur in fastis dies a.d.] vi kal. [Mart. qui creditur sic dict]us quia [eo die Tarquinius rex fugerit ex urbe]. Quod fal[sum est; nam e castris in exilium abisse cum r]ettul[erunt annales. Rectius explicabit qui regem e]t Salios[1486] [hoc die ... facere sacri]ficium in [comitio eoque perfecto illum inde fugere n]overit ...
It may be said that this is all guesswork, and no evidence; but it is borne out by the following passage in Plutarch’s sixty-third Roman question:
Ἔστι γοῦν τις ἐν ἀγορᾷ θυσία πρὸς τῷ λεγομένῳ Κομητίῳ πάτριος, ἣν θύσας ὁ Βασιλεὺς κατὰ τάχος ἄπεισι Φεύγων ἐξ ἀγορϡας.
Whence Plutarch drew this statement we cannot tell. He does not give the day on which the sacrifice and flight took place; and Huschke[1487] has denied that he refers to the Regifugium at all. He believes that Plutarch is thinking of the days marked Q. R. C. F. (March 24 and May 24), on which Varro says, or seems to say, that the Rex sacrorum sacrificed in the Comitium[1488]; and this may have been so, for the note in the Fasti Praenestini on March 24 shows that there was a popular misinterpretation of Q. R. C. F., which took the letters to mean, ‘quod eo die ex comitio fugerit rex.’ In this confusion we can but appeal to the word Regifugium, which is attached to Feb. 24 only. Taking this together with Plutarch’s statement, and remembering the great improbability of the historical explanation being the true one, we are justified in accepting Mommsen’s completion of the passage in Festus, and in concluding that there was really on Feb. 24 a flight of the Rex after a sacrifice.
And this view is strengthened by the frequent occurrence of sacerdotal flights in ancient and primitive religions. These were first collected by Lobeck[1489], and have of late been treated of and variously explained by Mannhardt, Frazer, and Robertson Smith[1490]. The best known examples are those of the Bouphonia (‘ox murder’) at Athens, in which every feature shows that the slain ox was regarded, ‘not merely as a victim offered to a god, but in itself a sacred creature, the slaughter of which was sacrilege or murder’[1491]; and the sacrifice of a bull-calf to Dionysus at Tenedos, where the priest was attacked with stones, and had to flee for his life[1492]. We do not yet know for certain whether the origin of these ideas is to be found in totemism, or in the sanctity of cattle in the pastoral age, or in the representation of the spirit of vegetation in animal form. The second of these explanations, as elucidated by Robertson Smith, would seem most applicable to the Athenian rite; but in the case of the Roman one, we do not know what the victim was. It is also just possible, as Hartung long ago suggested[1493], that the victim was a scapegoat carrying away pollution, and therefore to be avoided; but I do not find any example of flight from a scapegoat, among the many instances collected by Mr. Frazer (Golden Bough, ii. 182 foll.).
iii Kal. Mart. (Feb. 27). NP.
EQ[UIRRIA]. (MAFF. CAER.: cp. Varro, L. L. 6. 13).
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]:
I may aptly add Ovid’s next couplet, now that we have at last reached the end of the Roman year:—