iii Non. Quinct. (July 5). NP.
POPLIF[UGIA]. (MAFF. AMIT. ANT.)
FERIAE IOVI. (AMIT.)
The note ‘feriae Iovi’ in the calendar of Amiternum is confirmed in a curious way, by a statement of Dio Cassius[[708]], who says that in B.C. 42 the Senate passed a decree that Caesar’s birthday should be celebrated on this day[[709]], and that any one who refused to take part in the celebration should be ‘sacer Iovi et Divo Iulio.’ But we know far too little of the rites of this day to enable us to make even a guess at the meaning of its connexion with Jupiter. It is just worth noting that two days later we find a festival of Juno, the Nonae Caprotinae; the two days may have had some connexion with each other, being separated by an interval of one day, as is the case with the three days of the Lemuria, the two days of the Lucaria in this month, and in other instances[[710]]; and their rites were explained by two parts of the same aetiological story—viz. that the Romans fled before the Fidenates on the 5th, and in turn defeated them on the 7th[[711]]. But we are quite in the dark as to the meaning of such a connexion, if such there was. Nor can we explain the singular fact that this is the only festival in the whole year, marked in large capitals in the calendars, which falls before the Nones[[712]].
There is hardly a word in the whole calendar the meaning of which is so entirely unknown to us as this word Poplifugia. Of the parallel one, the Regifugium in February, something can be made out, as we shall see[[713]]; and it is not unlikely that the ritualistic meaning concealed in both may be much the same. But all attempts to find a definite explanation for Poplifugia have so far been fruitless, with the single exception perhaps of that of Schwegler[[714]], who himself made the serious blunder of confounding this day with the Nonae Caprotinae. It is true that the two days and their rites were confused even in antiquity, but only by late writers[[715]]; the calendars, on the other hand, are perfectly plain and so is Varro[[716]], who proceeds from the one to the other in a way that can leave no doubt that he understood them as distinct.
The simple fact is that the meaning of the word Poplifugia had wholly vanished when the calendar began to be studied. Ingenuity and fancy, as usual, took the place of knowledge, and two legends were the result—the one connecting the word with the flight of the Romans from an army of their neighbours of Fidenae, after the retirement of the Gauls from the city[[717]]; the other interpreting it as a memorial of the flight of the people after the disappearance of Romulus in the darkness of an eclipse or sudden tempest[[718]]. The first of these legends may be dismissed at once; the large capitals in which the name Poplifugia appears in the fragments of the three calendars which preserve it, are sufficient evidence that it must have been far older than the Gallic invasion[[719]]. The second legend might suggest that the story itself of the death of Romulus had grown out of some religious rite performed at this time of year; and it was indeed traditionally connected with the Nones of this month[[720]]. But that day is unluckily not the day of the Poplifugia, which it is hardly possible to connect with the disappearance of Romulus. There may, however, have been a connexion between the rites of the two days, as has been pointed out above; and this being so, it is worth while to notice a suggestion made by Schwegler, in spite of the fact that he confused the two days together. He saw that the disappearance of Romulus was said to have occurred while he was holding a lustratio of the citizens[[721]], and concluded that the Poplifugia may have been an ancient rite of lustration—an idea which other writers have been content to follow without always giving him the credit of it[[722]].
Such a rite may very well be indicated by the following sentence of Varro[[723]]—the only one which gives us any solid information on the question: Aliquot huius diei vestigia fugae in sacris apparent, de quibus rebus antiquitatum libri plura referunt. It seems not unreasonable to guess that the rite was one of those in which the priest, or in this case, as it would seem, the people also, fled from the spot after the sacrifice had been concluded. As the slayer of the ox at the Athenian Bouphonia (which curiously enough took place just at this same time of year) fled as one guilty of blood, so it may possibly have been that priest and people at Rome fled after some similar sacrifice, and for the same reason[[724]]. Or it may have been that they fled from the victim as a scapegoat which was destined to carry away from the city some pollution or pestilence. It is interesting to find at Iguvium in Umbria some ‘vestigia fugae,’ not of the people, indeed, but of victims, at a lustratio populi which seems to have had some object of this kind[[725]]. Heifers were put to flight, then caught and killed, apparently in order to carry off evils from the city[[726]], as well as to represent and secure the defeat of its enemies. Such performances seem especially apt to occur at sickly seasons[[727]]; and as the unhealthy season began at Rome in July[[728]], it is just possible that the Poplifugia was a ceremony of this class.