This over, bonfires of hay and straw were lighted, music was
made with cymbal and flute, and shepherds and sheep were purified by
passing through the flames. A feast followed, the simple folk lying on
benches of turf, and indulging in generous draughts of their homely
wines, such, probably, as the visitor to-day may regale himself with in
the same region. Towards evening, the flocks were fed, the stables were
cleansed and sprinkled with water with laurel brooms, and laurel boughs
were hung about them as adornments. Sulphur, incense, rosemary, and
fir-wood were burned, and the smoke made to pass through the stalls to
purify them, and even the flocks themselves were submitted to the same
cleansing fumes.
The beginning of a city in the olden time was a serious matter, and
Romulus felt the solemnity of the acts in which he was about to engage.
He sent men to Etruria, from which land the religious customs of the
Romans largely came, to obtain for him the minute details of the rites
suitable for the occasion.
At the proper moment he began the Etrurian ceremonies, by digging a
circular pit down to the hard clay, into which were cast with great
solemnity some of the first-fruits of the season, and also handfuls of
earth, each man throwing in a little from the country from which he had
come.
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