How the festival of Quirinus came to be placed at this time I cannot explain: we know nothing of it, and cannot assume that it was of an expiatory character, like the Lupercalia preceding it, and the Feralia following. Of the temple ‘in colle’ we also know nothing[1448] that can help us. We have already learnt that this day was called ‘stultorum feriae,’ and why; but the conjunction of the last day of the sacra of the curiae with those of Quirinus is probably accidental; we cannot safely assume any connexion through the word ‘curia.’ The name Quirinalia was familiar enough[1449]; but it may be that it only survived through the _stultorum feriae_. The Roman of the later Republic identified Quirinus with Romulus; Virgil, e. g. in the first _Aeneid_ (292) speaks of ‘Remo cum fratre Quirinus[1450].’ We have no clue to the origin of this identification. It may have been suggested by the use of the name Quirites; but neither do we know when or why that name came to signify the Roman people in their civil capacity, and the etymology of these words and their relation to each other still entirely baffles research[1451]. There is, however, a general agreement that Quirinus was another form of Mars, having his abode on the hill which still goes by his name. That Mars and Quirinus were ever the same deities was indeed denied by so acute an inquirer as Ambrosch[1452]; but he denied it partly on the ground that no trace of the worship of Mars had been found on the Quirinal; and since his time two inscriptions have been found there on the same spot, one at least of great antiquity, which indicate votive offerings to Mars and Quirinus respectively[1453]. From these Mommsen concludes that Quirinus was at one time worshipped there under the name of Mars; which involves also the converse, that Mars was once worshipped under the adjectival cult-title Quirinus. Unluckily Mars Quirinus is a combination as yet undiscovered; and as the existence of a patrician Flamen Quirinalis distinct from the Flamen Martialis points at least to a very early differentiation of the two, it may be safer to think of the two, not as identical deities, but rather as equivalent cult-expressions of the same religious conception in two closely allied communities[1454].