Ver Sacrum - The Roman ver Sacrum

The Roman ver Sacrum

Dumézil argues that of the two major traditions of the founding of Rome, one seems to make reference to a ver sacrum and the other makes an explicit identification. This last one says that sacrani who had come from the town of Reate, today Rieti, expelled the indigenous Ligures and Siculi from the place that would later become the Septimontium. In the version accepted as canonic by Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus Rome was founded by two twins, sons of Mars, who were nurtured by a she-wolf and who had left the town of Alba of their own accord. Dumézil's interpretation is not universally shared by scholars: in the Cambridge Ancient History, Arnaldo Momigliano states flatly that "Romulus did not lead a ver sacrum."

The last ver sacrum recorded in history occurred at Rome during the Second Punic War after the defeats at Trasimene and Cannae and concerned only cattle.Livy's narrative of the event provides information on two important points of pontifical jurisprudence. Firstly pontifex maximus Lucius Cornelius Lentulus Caudinus made it clear the votum would be valid only after a vote of the Roman people (iussu populi), then he specified a long series of unfavourable events and circumstances that were commonly regarded as invalidating but should they happen would not invalidate the votum as long as they were fortuitous.