Romulus

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.