rotection of the flocks and herds in honour of the "favourable
god" (-faunus-) by the Quinctian clan and the Fabii who were
associated with them after the admission of the Hill-Romans, in
the month of February--a genuine shepherds' carnival, in which the
"Wolves" (-luperci-) jumped about naked with a girdle of goatskin,
and whipped with thongs those whom they met. In like manner the
community may be conceived as represented and participating in the
case of other gentile worships.

To this earliest worship of the Roman community new rites were
gradually added. The most important of these worships had reference
to the city as newly united and virtually founded afresh by the
construction of the great wall and stronghold. In it the highest
and best lovis of the Capitol--that is, the genius of the Roman
people--was placed at the head of all the Roman divinities, and
his "kindler" thenceforth appointed, the -flamen Dialis-, formed
in conjunction with the two priests of Mars the sacred triad
of high-priests. Contemporaneously began the -cultus- of the new
single city-hearth--Vesta--and the kindred -cultus- of the Penates
of the community.(7) Six chaste virgins, daughters as it were of
the household of the Roman people, attended to that pious service,
and had to maintain the wholesome fire of the common hearth always
blazing as an example(8) and an omen to the burgesses. This
worship, half-domestic, half-public, was the most sacred of all in
Rome, and it accordingly was the latest of all the heathen worships
there to give way before the ban of Christianity. The Aventine,
moreover, was assigned to Diana as the representative of the Latin
confederacy,(9) but for that very reason no special Roman priesthood
was appointed for her; and the community gradually became accustomed
to render definite homage to numerous other deified abstractions
by means of general festivals or by representative priesthoods
specially destined for their service; in particular instances--such
as those of the goddess of flowers (-Flora-) and of fruits (-Pomona-)--it
appointed also special -flamines-, so that the number of these was
at length fifteen. But among them they carefully distinguished
those three "great kindlers" (-flamines maiores-), who down to the
latest times could only be taken from the ranks of the old burgesses,
just as the old incorporations of the Palatine and Quirinal -Salii-
always asserted precedence over all the other colleges