Nowhere perhaps is antiquarianism more fascinating than in the sphere of religion. The _Lupercalia_ had once a real meaning. The sacrifice of goats and young dogs, and of sacred cakes that the Vestals made of the first ears of the last year's harvest; the _Luperci_, with blood on their brows, naked but for the skins of the slaughtered goats; the _februa_ of goatskin, the touch of which would take sterility from a woman--all this is intelligible to the student of primitive religion; but when Mark Antony, Consul though he was, was one of the runners at the Lupercalia, it was not in the spirit of the ancient Latin. It was an antiquarian revival of an old festival of the countryside, which had perhaps never died out. At all events it was celebrated as late as the fifth century A.D., and it was only then abolished by the substitution of a Christian feast by Pope Gelasius.[21] Augustus took pains to revive such ceremonies. Suetonius mentions the "augury of safety," the "flaminate of Juppiter," the "Lupercal rite," and various sacred games.[22] Varro in one of his books, speaks of the Arval Brothers; and Archaeology and the spade have recovered for us the _acta_ of ninety-six of the annual meetings which this curious old college held at the end of May in the grove of Dea Dia. It is significant that the oldest of these _acta_ refer to the meeting in 14 A.D., the year of Augustus' death. The hymn which they sang runs as follows:-- _Enos Lases iuvate Neve lue rue Marmar sins incurrere in pleores Satur fu fere Mars limen sali sta berber Semunis Alternis advocapit conctos Enos Marmor iuvato Triumpe._ The first five lines were repeated thrice, and _Triumpe_ five times.[23] Quintilian tells us that "the hymns of the Salii were hardly intelligible to the priests themselves,"[24] yet they found admirers who amused Horace with their zeal for mere age and obscurity.[25] {10}