Quaestiones Romanae

Question 88. Why do they call the money that is laid out upon the public plays lucar?

Solution. Is it because there are many groves consecrated to the Gods about the city, which they call luci, and the revenue of these they expend upon the said plays?

Question 89. Why do they call the Quirinalia the Feast of Fools?

Solution. Was it because they set apart that day for those that were unacquainted with their own curiae, as Juba saith? Or was it for them that did not sacrifice with their tribes, as the rest did, in the Fornicalia, by reason of business or long journeys or ignorance, so that it was allowed to them to solemnize that feast upon this day?

Question 90. What is the reason that, when there is a sacrifice to Hercules, they mention no other God and no dog appears within the enclosure, as Varro saith?

Solution. Is the reason of their naming no other God, because they are of opinion that Hercules was but a half God? And, as some say, Evander built an altar to him and brought him a sacrifice, whilst he was yet here among men. And of all creatures he had most enmity to a dog, for this creature always held him hard to it, as (lid Cerberus; and that which most of all prejudiced him was that, when Oeonus, the son of Licymnius, was slain for a dog’s sake by the Hippocoontidae, he was necessitated to take up the cudgels, and lost many of his friends and his brother Iphicles.