TIGILLUM SORORIUM
a wooden crossbar supported by two vertical posts
beneath which tradition said the surviving Horatius was compelled to
pass in expiation of the murder of his sister (
Liv. i. 26. 4; Fcst. 297;
Dionys. iii. 22; de vir. ill. g; HJ 322). It stood ad compitum (Hem.
Arv. ad Kal. Oct.,
CIL vi. 32482), perhaps on the
VICUS CUPRIUS (q.v.),
but in any case somewhere on the south-west slope of the Oppius. It
is mentioned last in the fourth century (Not. Reg. IV). Various explanations of this yoke have been suggested, among them that it represented
a gate in the enclosure of the original Esquiline village (
BC 1898, 94),
or a gate through which the army passed for purification on returning
from battle (
AR 1909, 73), or a gate in the Septimontium, sacred to
Ianus Quirinus (Pais, Storia di
Roma i. 458), or a true ianus or street
gate which, with the two adjacent altars of Ianus Curiatius and Iuno
Sororia, was connected with the common cult of Janus and Juno at the
beginning of the month (WR 104; see also Revue de l'Hist. des
Religions
1906, 316 sqq.;
BC 1914, 104;
Rosch. ii. 21), or that it was simply a
fetish (
RE viii. 3525 ;
Suppl. iii. 1678; iii. A. 1139).
