Hail Quirinus!
Hail to the twin who protects and comforts both here and hereafter!
May we honour the gifts of life with festive rejoicing!
May we no less remember and honour those who have preceded!
We honour our community and the sustenance provided to us on its behalf.
Salve Quirine!
Salve, sancta parens!
Salve dea Fornax!

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The Quirinalia are the fifth day of the placandis Manibus, the Parentalia to the ancestors. The festival is dedicated to Quirinus – once again the alter ego and shadowy counterpart of the god Mars. The Quirinus constellation includes not only Februus, Lupercus and Faunus but also Consus, Robigus, the hypothetical figure of Agonus and possibly Liber. The god’s priest, the flamen Quirinalis, is active additionally on the Robigalia (April), one if not both Consualia (August if not also December) and the Larentalia (December), but the Quirinalia are the only festival dedicated directly to the deity under the nomen of Quirinus. In essence, Mars and Quirinus are a central instance of the divine twins – the deific equivalent of the legendary Romulus and Remus.

In Rome, each curia or ward celebrated a feriae conceptivae or movable feast to its local baking-oven goddess, the numen Fornax. On the Quirinalia, the Fornacalia culminated in the Forum with a celebration for all thirty curiae. Those individuals who had missed their local rite could perform their sacra in the Forum at this time. Consequently, the Quirinalia became nicknamed the stultorum feriae or ‘feast of fools’. However, as the Quirinalia are also the first full day following the dies nefasti which have covered the month of February until now, the name as well as the occasion are suggestive of the carnival celebrations that are associated with this time of the year.

Quirinus is a complex figure as the ‘twin’ or double of a primary god. His name could conceivably relate to the curis or ‘spear’ often associated with a protecting deity, and as the twin of Mars, he may represent the personification of Mars’ own spear. The divine duality, at least in origin here, would be the hero-god and his weapon. The parallel between the two deities may be further expressed in the two myrtle trees which were to be found before Quirinus’ temple and the two laurels at the Regia’s sacrarium Martis.

But the further associations of Quirinus through such indigitations as Lupercus, Faunus and especially Mamurius suggest the carnival king, the secondary figure who reigns during the critical times of transition. That the Quirinalia fall beyond the restrictive, purificatory nefastus period also indicate the possibility of carnivalesque festivities. The ‘feast of fools’ would be a fitting designation for the occasion.