Quirinus
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(European mythology)
In Roman mythology, a war god associated with Jupiter and Mars. Quirinus was originally worshipped by the Sabines, who occupied the highest part of the Central Apennines. A colony of these people dwelt on the Quirinal Hill, and several great families at Rome were proud to recall their Sabine lineage. According to the historian Livy, writing in the first century BC, the successor of Romulus, the founder hero, was the Sabine Numa Pompilius, whom the Romans invited to become king owing to the fame of his piety. Though Numa was allotted, in retrospect, a house on the Quirinal Hill, an attraction for tourists still in Livy's time, it is unlikely that any of the historical kings of early Rome were other than Etruscans, then the dominant people in Italy.
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Quirinus
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:
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Quirinus
Major Roman deity ranking close to Jupiter and Mars. The flamines ( flamen) of these three gods were the three major priests of Rome. Despite his importance, little is known about Quirinus, who was originally a god of the Sabines. He may have been another form of Mars. By the late republic he was identified with Romulus. His festival, the Quirinalia, was celebrated on February 17, and his temple was one of the oldest in Rome.
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Quirīnus, in Roman religion, originally the local deity (perhaps the war god) of the Sabine community settled on the Quirinal hill before the foundation of Rome. When this community came to be incorporated into Rome, Quirinus was included among the state gods of the city with Jupiter and Mars. His festival, the Quirinalia, was celebrated on 17 February, but nothing is known of his ritual. Quirinus was identified with the deified Romulus by the Romans of the late republic (but not by Livy). He had his own flamen, the flamen Quirinalis.
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Quirīnus
Quirinus (kwĭr'ĭnəs), in Roman religion, an early god, possibly of war. Worshiped originally by the Sabines, he was one of the chief gods of ancient Rome, associated with Jupiter and Mars. In the late republic he was identified with Romulus, legendary founder of Rome.
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Quirinus
This article is about the Roman god. For other uses, see Quirinus (disambiguation).
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In Roman mythology and religion, Quirinus is an early god of the Roman state. In Augustan Rome, Quirinus was also an epithet of Janus, as Janus Quirinus.[1] His name is derived from the word quiris meaning "spear."
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Etymology
Quirinus is probably an adjective meaning "wielder of the spear" (Quiris, cf. Janus Quirinus). Other suggested etymologies are: (i) from the Sabine town Cures; (2) from curia, i.e. he was the god of the Roman state as represented by the thirty curies. A. B. Cook (Class. Rev. xviii., p. 368) explains Quirinus as the oak-god (quercus), and Quirites as the men of the oaken spear.[2]
History
Quirinus was originally most likely a Sabine god of war. The Sabines had a settlement near the eventual site of Rome, and erected an altar to Quirinus on the Collis Quirinalis, the Quirinal Hill, one of the Seven Hills of Rome. When the Romans settled there, they absorbed the cult of Quirinus into their early belief system — previous to direct Greek influence — and by the end of the first century BC Quirinus was considered to be the deified Romulus.[3][4]
He soon became an important god of the Roman state, being included in the earliest precursor of the Capitoline Triad, along with Mars (then an agriculture god) and Jupiter.[5] Varro notes the Capitolium Vetus an earlier cult sited on the Quirinal, devoted to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva,[6] among whom Martial makes a distinction between the "old Jupiter" and the "new".[7]
In later times, however, Quirinus became far less important, losing his place to the later, more widely known Capitoline Triad (Juno and Minerva took his and Mars' place). Later still, Romans began to drift away from the state belief system in favor of more personal and mystical cults (such as those of Bacchus, Cybele, and Isis). In the end, he was worshiped almost exclusively by his flamen, the Flamen Quirinalis, who remained, however, one of the patrician flamines maiores, the "greater flamens" who preceded the Pontifex Maximus in precedence.[8]
Depiction
In earlier Roman art, he was portrayed as a bearded man with religious and military clothing. However, he was almost never depicted in later Roman belief systems. He was also often associated with the myrtle.
Festivals
His festival was the Quirinalia, held on February 17.
Legacy
Even centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, the Quirinal hill in Rome, originally named from the deified Romulus, was still associated with power – it was chosen as the seat of the royal house after the taking of Rome by the Savoia and later it became the residence of the Presidents of the Italian Republic.
Notes
- ^ In the prayer of the fetiales quoted by Livy (I.32.10); Macrobius (Sat. I.9.15);
- ^ "Quirinus". Encyclopædia Britannica 1911. http://www.theodora.com/encyclopedia/q/quirinus.html. Retrieved 2011-04-05..
- ^ Fishwich, Duncan The Imperial Cult in the Latin West Brill, 2nd edition, 1993 ISBN 978-90-04-07179-7 [1]
- ^ Evans, Jane DeRose The Art of Persuasion University of Michigan Press 1992 ISBN 0-472-10282-6 [2]
- ^ Inez Scott Ryberg, "Was the Capitoline Triad Etruscan or Italic?" The American Journal of Philology 52.2 (1931), pp. 145-156.
- ^ Varro, De lingua latina V.158.
- ^ Martial, (V, 22.4) remarks on a position on the Esquiline from which one might see hinc novum Iovem, inde veterem, "here the new Jupiter, there the old."
- ^ Festus, 198, L: "Quirinalis, socio imperii Romani Curibus ascito Quirino".
References
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Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Quirinus. |
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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