REGIFU´GIUM
REGIFU´GIUM an annual festival at Rome on the 24th
of February. On this day the
REX
SACRORUM offered sacrifice in the Comitium, and
[p. 2.541]after the sacrifice hastily fled from the spot (Plut.
Q.
R. 63;. cf.
Cal. Praen. March 24). That this was
a symbolical flight is plain enough, but of what it was a symbol is not so
certain. The convenient interpretation of some Roman writers, that it
commemorates the expulsion of Tarquin (
Ov. Fast.
2.685; Fest. s. v.), we should probably reject, as an idea
started by the apparent meaning of the word. It is, we think, more correct
to assume that the ceremony is an old one belonging to the times of the
monarchy, and that the offering by the Rex sacrorum is one which was
originally made by the king himself. It is suggested by some, not without
probability, that the offering was an atonement and purification for the
city; that the victim received, like a scapegoat, the guilt upon itself; and
that the officiating minister therefore fled from it, as from something
polluted (Hartung,
Rel. d. Römer, 2.35; Marquardt,
Staatsverw. 3.324). If so, there may be a reason for this
sin offering near the end of February, as the month of purification, and
perhaps as marking the close of the most ancient year. Mr. Warde Fowler has
suggested that we should seek for the origin of this custom in the connexion
of Mars with Apollo (see Roscher,
Lexicon), and the flight of
Apollo as one guilty of bloodshed [see DAPHNEPHORIA;
THEOPHANIA]. In two other months, March and May, the 24th was
marked by an offering of the Rex in the Comitium. These days are indicated
by the letters Q. R. C. F. =
quando
rex comitiavit fas (Varro,
L. L.
6.31; Ovid's first conjecture in
Fast. 5.727 is
more correct than his second). They were probably, as Marquardt says, the
two days for making wills at the Comitia Calata under the authority of the
king, the day involving
nefas before the
offering and
fas after it (cf.
Gel. 15.27; Mommsen,
Staatsrecht,
ii.3 38;
TESTAMENTUM). It must be observed, however, that the name
Regifugium belongs to the 24th of February alone. (Marquardt,
Staatsverw. iii.2 323 f.; Mommsen,
Staatsrecht, ii.3 4.) L. S.]
[
G.E.M]
