Naturalis Historia

C. Plinius Caecilius

Colitur ficus arbor in foro ipso ac comitio Romae nata sacra fulguribus ibi conditis magisque ob memoriam eius qua nutrix Romuli ac Remi conditores imperii in Lupercali prima protexit, ruminalis appellata quoniam sub ea inventa est lupa infantibus praebens rumin (ita vocabant mammam)-- miraculo ex aere iuxta dicato, tamquam comitium sponte transisset Atto Navio augurante. Nec sine praesagio aliquo arescit rursusque cura sacerdotum seritur.

A fig-tree growing in the actual forum and meeting-place of Rome is worshipped as sacred because things struck by lightning are buried there, and still more as a memorial of the fig-tree under which the nurse of Romulus and Remus first sheltered those founders of the empire on the Lupercal Hill-- the tree that has been given the name of Ruminalis, because it was beneath it that the wolf was discovered giving her rumis (that was the old word for breast) to the infants-- a marvelous occurrence commemorated in bronze close by, as though the wolf had of her own accord passed across the meeting-place while Attus Naevius was taking the omens. And it is also a portent of some future event when it withers away and then by the good offices of the priests is replanted.

Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of the Loeb Classical Library from C. Plinius Caecilius: Natural History (Volume IV. Books 12-16), Loeb Classical Library Vol. 370, translated by H. Rackham, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, © 1945, by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. The Loeb Classical Library ® is a registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

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