[1425]. See his eminently modest and sensible remarks at the end of his 5th section, p. 113.
[1426]. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, 416 foll.; Encycl. Brit. art. ‘Sacrifice’; and for the Lupercalia, Academy, Feb. 11, 1888, where a totemistic origin is suggested.
[1427]. See also Lobeck, Aglaoph. pp. 183-6; Lang, Myth, Ritual and Religion, vol. ii. 177 (cp. 106) and reff., 213; Dict. of Antiquities, art. ‘Sacrificium,’ p. 584.
[1428]. Festus, p. 57 ‘Creppos, id est lupercos, dicebant a crepitu pellicularum,’ &c.
[1429]. Preller, i. 389. On this Jordan has added no comment.
[1430]. Ann. 12. 24; Jordan, Topogr. i. 163 foll., has examined Tacitus’s account with great care. Tacitus starts the pomoerium from the Forum boarium, while Dionysius and Plutarch start the runners from the Lupercal; but the two are close together.
[1431]. The reading is not quite certain; the MSS. have ‘Larum de forumque.’
[1432]. The Sacellum Larum has generally been supposed to be that in summa sacra via (Jordan, op. cit. ii. 269). Kiepert and Huelsen make it the sacellum or ara Larum praestitum at the head of the Vicus Tuscus.
[1433]. L. L. 6. 34. Mommsen proposed ‘a regibus Romanis moenibus cinctum.’ But it is safer to keep to the MS. reading and make the best of it. Jordan sees in the words a ‘scurrilous’ allusion to the luperci.
[1434]. For modern practices of the kind in England see Brand, Popular Antiquities, ch. 36; and for Oxford, p. 209. As Brand puts it, the beaters (i. e. ministers, churchwardens, &c.), ‘beg a blessing on the fruits of the earth, and preserve the rights and boundaries of their parish.’ The analogy with the old Italian processions is very close.