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Updated: June 29, 2025
At any rate it can be shown that the Flamines, Salii, Luperci, and Vestales were institutions not special to Rome, but general among the Latins, and at least the first three colleges appear to have been formed in the kindred communities independently of the Roman model.
Unless indeed, after all, the creature is punished for hindering the Luperci in their running.
But if this feast be in honour of the she-wolf, in gratitude for her suckling and preserving of Romulus, then it is very natural to sacrifice a dog, for it is an enemy of wolves; unless, indeed, the beast is put to death to punish it for hindering the Luperci when they ran their course.
The national sodalitates or priesthoods such as those of the Sodales Titii, Luperci, Augustales etc. were somewhat different. AUTEM: for the form of the parenthesis cf. 7. MAGNAE MATRIS: the image of Cybele was brought to Rome in 204 B.C. from Pessinus in Phrygia. See Liv. 29, 10. The Sacra are called Idaea from Mount Ida in Phrygia, which was a great centre of the worship of Cybele.
In ritual also, the number divisible by three of the members of almost all the oldest colleges of the Vestal Virgins, the Salii, the Arval Brethren, the Luperci, the Augurs probably had reference to that three-fold partition. These three elements into which the primitive body of burgesses in Rome was divided have had theories of the most extravagant absurdity engrafted upon them.
A heathen deity of Italy, Lupercus, the guardian of their flocks and pastures, has also been identified with Pan, and in whose honour annual rural festivals, known as Lupercalia, were observed. The Lupercalian festivals were held on the 15th of the Kalends of March. The priests, Luperci, used to dance naked through the streets as part of the ceremonies attached to the festival.
Another thing peculiar to this feast is for the Luperci to sacrifice a dog. But as, a certain poet who wrote fabulous explanations of Roman customs in elegiac verses, says, that Romulus and Remus, after the conquest of Amulius, ran joyfully to the place where the wolf gave them suck; and that in imitation of that, this feast was held, and two young noblemen ran
'But we do not forget that our whole theory of the development of the rite rests on a hypothesis which the lack of materials prevents us from demonstrating. He would explain Luperci as Lupiherci 'wolf-goats. Over this we need not linger; but how does all this prove Mannhardt to have returned to the method of comparing Greek with Vedic divine names, and arriving thence at some celestial phenomenon as the basis of a terrestrial myth?
Two Alpine pikes sparkle in the hand of each, and long shields guard their bodies. Here he had embossed the dancing Salii and the naked Luperci, the crests wreathed in wool, and the sacred shields that fell from heaven; in cushioned cars the virtuous matrons led on their rites through the city.
At any rate it can be shown that the Flamines, Salii, Luperci, and Vestales were institutions not special to Rome, but general among the Latins, and at least the first three colleges appear to have been formed in the kindred communities independently of the Roman model.
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