xiii Kal. Mart. (Feb. 17). NP.
QUIR[INALIA]. (CAER. MAFF. FARN. PHILOC.)
QUIRINO IN COLLE. (FARN. CAER.)
How the festival of Quirinus came to be placed at this time I cannot explain: we know nothing of it, and cannot assume that it was of an expiatory character, like the Lupercalia preceding it, and the Feralia following. Of the temple ‘in colle’ we also know nothing[[1448]] that can help us. We have already learnt that this day was called ‘stultorum feriae,’ and why; but the conjunction of the last day of the sacra of the curiae with those of Quirinus is probably accidental; we cannot safely assume any connexion through the word ‘curia.’ The name Quirinalia was familiar enough[[1449]]; but it may be that it only survived through the stultorum feriae.
The Roman of the later Republic identified Quirinus with Romulus; Virgil, e. g. in the first Aeneid (292) speaks of ‘Remo cum fratre Quirinus[[1450]].’ We have no clue to the origin of this identification. It may have been suggested by the use of the name Quirites; but neither do we know when or why that name came to signify the Roman people in their civil capacity, and the etymology of these words and their relation to each other still entirely baffles research[[1451]].
There is, however, a general agreement that Quirinus was another form of Mars, having his abode on the hill which still goes by his name. That Mars and Quirinus were ever the same deities was indeed denied by so acute an inquirer as Ambrosch[[1452]]; but he denied it partly on the ground that no trace of the worship of Mars had been found on the Quirinal; and since his time two inscriptions have been found there on the same spot, one at least of great antiquity, which indicate votive offerings to Mars and Quirinus respectively[[1453]]. From these Mommsen concludes that Quirinus was at one time worshipped there under the name of Mars; which involves also the converse, that Mars was once worshipped under the adjectival cult-title Quirinus. Unluckily Mars Quirinus is a combination as yet undiscovered; and as the existence of a patrician Flamen Quirinalis distinct from the Flamen Martialis points at least to a very early differentiation of the two, it may be safer to think of the two, not as identical deities, but rather as equivalent cult-expressions of the same religious conception in two closely allied communities[[1454]].
That the Quirinal was the seat of the cult of Quirinus admits of no doubt; and the name of the hill, which we are told was originally Agonus or Agonalis[[1455]], arose no doubt from the cult[[1456]]. Here were probably two temples of the god, the one dating from B.C. 293, and having June 29 as its day of dedication; the other of unknown date, which celebrated its birthday on the Quirinalia[[1457]]. A ‘sacellum Quirini in colle’ is also mentioned at the time of the Gallic invasion[[1458]] (this was perhaps the predecessor of the temple of June 29), and also the house of the Flamen Quirinalis which adjoined it. To the Quirinal also belong the Salii Agonenses, Collini, or Quirinales, who correspond to the Salii of the Palatine and of Mars[[1459]]. And here, lastly, seems to belong the mysterious Flora or Horta Quirini, whose temple, according to Plutarch[[1460]], was ‘formerly’ always open. About the cult of Quirinus on his hill we know, however, nothing, except that there were two myrtles growing in front of his temple, one called the patrician and the other the plebeian[[1461]], and to which a curious story is attached. Preller[[1462]] noted that these correspond to the two laurels in the sacrarium Martis in the Regia, and conjectured that each pair symbolized the union of the state in the cults of the two communities.
Of the duties of the Flamen Quirinalis we have already seen something[[1463]]: unluckily they throw little or no new light on the cult of Quirinus. He was concerned in the worship of Robigus, of Consus, and of Acca Larentia, all of them ancient cults of agricultural Rome; and he seems to have been in close connexion with the Vestal Virgins[[1464]]. These are just such duties as we might have expected would fall to the Flamen of Mars; and probably the two cults were much alike in character.