3. With regard, indeed, to
your bringing forward to us other bands of unknown4089
| 4089
The ms. and both Roman edd. read
signatorum—“sealed;” the others, except Hild.,
ignotorum, as above. |
gods, we cannot determine whether you
do that seriously, and from a belief in its certainty; or,
merely playing with empty fictions, abandon yourselves to an
unbridled
imagination. The
goddess Luperca, you tell us on the
authority of Varro, was named because the
fierce wolf spared the
exposed
children. Was that
goddess, then, disclosed, not by her
own
power,
but by the course of events? and was it
only
after the
wild beast restrained its cruel teeth, that she both began to
be herself and was marked by
4090
| 4090 Lit.,
“drew the meaning of her name.” |
her name? or if she was already a
goddess long before the
birth of
Romulus and his
brother, show us what was her name and title.
Præstana was named, according to you, because, in throwing the
javelin, Quirinus
excelled all in
strength;
4091
and the goddess Panda, or Pantica, was
named because Titus Tatius was allowed to open up and make passable
a road, that he might
take the Capitoline. Before these events, then, had the deities
never existed? and if Romulus had not held the first place in casting
the javelin, and if the Sabine king had been unable to take the
Tarpeian rock, would there be no Pantica, no Præstana? And
if you say that they
4092
| 4092
ms., “that these, too,” i.e., as
well as Luperca. |
existed before that which gave rise to
their name, a question which has been discussed in a preceding
section,
4093
| 4093 No
such discussion occurs in the preceding part of the work, but the
subject is brought forward in the end of chap. 8, p. 478,
infra. |
tell us also
what they were called.
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