Quaestiones Romanae

Plutarch

Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. IV. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1936 (printing).

Why do they call the money expended upon public spectacles Lucar?

Is it because round about the city there are, consecrated to gods, many groves which they call luci, and they used to spend the revenue from these on the public spectacles?

Why do they call the Quirinalia the Feast of Fools?[*](Cf. Ovid, Fasti, ii. 513 ff.)

Is it because, as Juba[*](Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iii. p. 470.) states, they apportioned that day to men who did not know their own kith and kin?[*](Curiae) Or was it granted to those who, because of some business, or absence from Rome, or ignorance, had not sacrificed with the rest of their tribe on the Fornacalia, that, on this day, they might take their due enjoyment of that festival?