FICUS RUMINALIS
the fig tree that stood close to the Lupercal, where
Romulus and Remus were washed ashore and suckled by the she-wolf
(Varro,
LL v. 54; Serv.
Aen. viii. 90; Fest. 270, 27 ; Plin.
NH xv. 77;
Plut. Rom. 4). Tradition said (see above) that this tree was removed
by the augur Attus Navius and thenceforth stood on the Comitium.
Ovid (
Fast. ii. 411 ff.) states that only vestigia remained on the original
spot in his day, but Livy, in telling the story of the twins, writes
(i. 4):
ubi nunc ficus Ruminalis est. Elsewhere (x. 23. 12) he says
that the Ogulnii, aediles in 296 B.C., erected a monument that represented
the twins and wolf, ad ficum ruminalem. It is possible that the site
continued to be called ficus Ruminalis, after the tree itself had disappeared (HJ 38;
RE vi. 2147-2148). Ruminalis, according to one view,
is to be connected with Ruma,
1 the Etruscan gentile name from which
Rome and Romulus are derived
(Schulze, Lat. Eigenn. 580-581 ; WR 242;
RE i. A. 1225). The Romans themselves, however, derived it from
ruma, rumis, breast (Fest. loc. cit.; cf. Rumina, the goddess of nursing,
and Varro, RR ii. ii. 5:
mamma enim rumis sive ruminare); and
Ilerbig has put forward the view that Roma is the Latinised form, and
as a proper name means 'large-breasted,' i.e. strong or powerful (
BPW
1916, 1440 ff., 1472 ff.; summarised by Nogara in DAP 2. xiii. 279 and
BC 1916, 141).
