XIII. Kal. 17th
Next day is vacant, but the third is dedicated to Quirinus. He who owns this name was Romulus before, whether because the ancient Sabines called a spear curis, and by his weapon the warlike god won his place among the stars; or because the Quirites gave their own name to their king; or because he united Cures to Rome. For when the father, lord of arms, saw the new walls and the many wars waged by the hand of Romulus, “O Jupiter,” he said, “the Roman power hath strength: it needs not the services of my offspring. To the sire give back the son. Though one of the two has perished, the one who is left to me will suffice both for himself and for Remus. Thou thyself hast said to me that there will be one whom thou wilt exalt to the blue welkin. Let the word of Jupiter be kept.” Jupiter nodded assent. At his nod both the poles shook, and Atlas shifted the burden of the sky. There is a place which the ancients call the She-goat’s Marsh. It chanced that there, Romulus, thou wast judging thy people. The sun vanished and rising clouds obscured the heaven, and there fell a heavy shower of rain in torrents.
Then it thundered, then the sky was riven by shooting flames. The people fled, and the king upon his father’s steeds soared to the stars. There was mourning, and the senators were falsely charged with murder, and haply that suspicion might have stuck in the popular mind. But Julius Proculus was coming from Alba Longa; the moon was shining, and there was no need of a torch, when of a sudden the hedges on his left shook and trembled. He recoiled and his hair bristled up. It seemed to him that Romulus, fair of aspect, in stature more than human, and clad in a goodly robe, stood there in the middle of the road and said, “Forbid the Quirites to mourn, let them not profane my divinity by their tears. Bid the pious throng bring incense and propitiate the new Quirinus, and bid them cultivate the arts their fathers cultivated, the art of war.” So he ordered, and from the other’s eyes he vanished into thin air. Proculus called the peoples together and reported the words as he had been bid. Temples were built to the god, and the hill also was named after him, and the rites observed by our fathers come round on fixed days,
Learn also why the same day is called the Feast of Fools. The reason for the name is trifling but apt. The earth of old was tilled by men unlearned: war’s hardships wearied their active frames. More glory was to be won by the sword than by the curved plough; the neglected farm yielded its master but a small return. Yet spelt the ancients sowed, and spelt they reaped; of the cut spelt they offered the first-fruits to Ceres. Taught by experience they toasted the spelt on the fire, and many losses they incurred through their own fault. For at one time they would sweep up black ashes instead of spelt, and at another time the fire caught the huts themselves. So they made the oven into a goddess of that name (Fornax); delighted with her, the farmers prayed that she would temper the heat to the corn committed to her charge. At the present day the Prime Warden (Curio Maximus) proclaims in a set form of words the time for holding the Feast of Ovens (Fornacalia), and he celebrates the rites at no fixed date; and round about the Forum hang many tablets, on which every ward has its own particular mark. The foolish part of the people know not which is their own ward, but hold the feast on the last day to which it can be postponed.
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