he many other deities originally strange to Rome who,
until the second Punic war, were never allowed to settle within the
sacred precincts.[274] In one sense, however, Mars was actually resident
in the very heart of the city. In a _sacrarium_ or chapel of the
regia,[275] the ancient dwelling of the king, were kept the spears and
shields which the Salii carried in their processions in March and
October; and that the deity was believed to be there too must be
inferred from the fact, if it be correctly stated by Servius, that the
consul who was about to take the field entered the chapel and shook
these spears and shields together, saying, "Mars vigila." I am, however,
rather disposed to think that this practice belongs to a time when Mars
was more distinctly recognised as a god of war, and when the weapons of
the Salii were thought of rather as symbols of his activity than as
objects in which he was immanent.[276]

These are the salient facts in the oldest cult of Mars, and they are
entirely in keeping with all we know of the early history and economy
of the Roman people--a people economically dependent on agriculture, and
especially on cattle-breeding, living in settlements in the midst of a
wilder country, and constantly liable to the attacks of enemies who
might raid their cattle and destroy their crops. I do not see in him
only a deity of agriculture, or only a god of war; in my view he is a
spirit of the wilder regions, where dwell the wolf and woodpecker which
are connected with him in legend: a spirit who dwells on the outskirts
of civilisation, and can with profit be propitiated both for help
against the enemies beyond, and for the protection of the crops and
cattle within, the boundaries of human activity.

Fourth in invocations came Quirinus, and fourth in order of precedence
was his flamen. But of Quirinus I need say little; there is, on the
whole, a consensus of opinion that he was a form of Mars belonging to
the community settled on the hill that still bears his name. The most
convincing proof of his identity with Mars (though identity is doubtless
too strong a word) lies in the well-known fact that there were twelve
Salii Collini, _i.e._ belonging to the Collis Quirinalis, occupied with
the cult of Quirinus, answering to the twelve Salii Palatini of the cult
of Mars. "Quid de ancilibus vestris," Camillus says in Livy's glowing
rhetoric, "Mars Gradive (the particular cult-title of the warlike Mars),
tuque Qui