28.8
We must not, therefore, violate nature by sending the bodies of good men with their souls to heaven, but implicitly believe that their virtues and their souls, in accordance with nature and divine justice, ascend from men to heroes, from heroes to demi-gods, and from demi-gods, after they have been made pure and holy, as in the final rites of initiation, and have freed themselves from mortality and sense, to gods, not by civic law, but in very truth and according to right reason, thus achieving the fairest and most blessed consummation.
29.1
To the surname of Quirinus bestowed on Romulus, some give the meaning of Mars, others that of Citizen because the citizens were called Quirites; but others say that the ancients called the spear-head (or the whole spear) quiris, and gave the epithet Quiritis to the Juno whose statue leans upon a spear, and the name Mars to a spear consecrated in the Regia, and a spear as a prize to those who performed great exploits in war; and that Romulus was therefore called Quirinus as a martial, or spear-wielding, god.
29.2
However that may be, a temple in his honour is built on the hill called Quirinalis after him, and the day on which he vanished is called People’s Flight, and Capratine Nones, because they go out of the city and sacrifice at the Goat’s Marsh; and capra is their word for she-goat. And as they go forth to the sacrifice, they shout out many local names, like Marcus, Lucius, and Caius, in imitation of the way in which, on the day when Romulus disappeared, they called upon one another in fear and confusion.
