Romulus

The two kings did not at once hold council in common with one another, but each at first sat with his own hundred councillors apart, then afterwards they united them all into one body, as at the present time. Tatius dwelt where now is the temple of Moneta, and Romulus beside the so-called Steps of Fair Shore;[*](The Greek text is probably corrupt. The scalae Caci or Steps of Cacus must be meant.) these are near the descent into the Circus Maximus from the Palatine.

There also, it is said, grew the sacred cornel-tree, of which the following tale is told. Romulus, once, in trial of his strength, cast thither from the Aventine hill a spear, the shaft of which was made of cornel-wood; the head of the spear sank deep into the ground, and no one had strength to pull it up, though many tried, but the earth, which was fertile, cherished the wooden shaft, and sent up shoots from it, and produced a cornel-trunk of good size. Those who came after Romulus preserved this with religious care as one of the most sacred objects, and walled it in.

And if any visitor thought that it was not green nor flourishing, but likely to wither away and die, he immediately proclaimed it loudly to all he met, and these, as though helping to save a house on fire, would cry Water! Water! and run together from all sides carrying full buckets to the place. But when Caius Caesar, as they say, was repairing the steps about the enclosure, and the workmen dug here and there in the neighbourhood, the roots were inadvertently destroyed and the tree withered away.

The Sabines, then, adopted the Roman months, about which I have written sufficiently in my Life of Numa.[*](Chapters xviii. and xix. ) Romulus, on the other hand, made use of their oblong shields, and changed his own armour and that of the Romans, who before that carried round shields of the Argive pattern. Feasts and sacrifices they shared with one another, not discarding any which the two peoples had observed before, but instituting other new ones. One of these is the Matronalia, which was bestowed upon the women to commemorate their putting a stop to the war; and another is the Carmentalia.

This Carmenta is thought by some to be a Fate presiding over human birth, and for this reason she is honoured by mothers. Others, however, say that the wife of Evander the Arcadian,[*](Cf. Plutarch’s Roman Questions, 56 (Morals, p. 278 b, c), and Livy, i. 7. 8. ) who was a prophetess and inspired to utter oracles in verse, was therefore surnamed Carmenta, since carmina is their word for verses, her own proper name being Nicostrate. As to her own name there is general agreement, but some more probably interpret Carmenta as meaning bereft of mind, because of her ecstasies under inspiration, since carere is the Roman word for to be bereft, and mens for mind.

Of the Parilia I have spoken before.[*](Chapter xii. 1.) As for the Lupercalia, judging by the time of its celebration, it would seem to be a feast of purification, for it is observed on the inauspicious days[*](Dies nefasti.) of the month of February, which name can be interpreted to mean purification, and the very day of the feast was anciently called Febrata. But the name of the festival has the meaning of the Greek Lycaea, or feast of wolves, which makes it seem of great antiquity and derived from the Arcadians in the following of Evander.[*](Cf. Livy, 1. 5, 1-2.)

Indeed, this meaning of the name is commonly accepted; for it can be connected with the she-wolf of story. And besides, we see that the Luperci[*](Priests of Faunus, the Roman Pan.) begin their course around the city at that point where Romulus is said to have been exposed. However, the actual ceremonies of the festival are such that the reason for the name is hard to guess. For the priests slaughter goats, and then, after two youths of noble birth have been brought to them, some of them touch their foreheads with a bloody knife, and others wipe the stain off at once with wool dipped in milk.

The youths must laugh after their foreheads are wiped. After this they cut the goats’ skins into strips and run about, with nothing on but a girdle, striking all who meet them with the thongs,[*](Cf. Plutarch’s Antony, xii. 1.) and young married women do not try to avoid their blows, fancying that they promote conception and easy child-birth. A peculiarity of the festival is that the Luperci sacrifice a dog also.