Mannhardt is not lucid on this point; he was evidently in difficulties (pp. 97-99). He seems clear that the application of the blood produces an _identity_ between victim and youths; but in similar cases it is not through death that victim, god, and priest become identical, but through the life-giving virtue of the blood. The blood-application must surely mean the acquisition of new life; but he makes it symbolic of death. Footnote 1419: Frazer, _G. B._ ii. 242. Footnote 1420: Mannhardt seems to have felt this difficulty (p. 86), and to have tried to overcome it, but without success. Footnote 1421: I here omit the feasting, as it is by no means certain at what point of time it took place. If the victims themselves were eaten, it would be part of the sacrificial act and would precede the running; but this is not common in the case of such _piacula_, and one victim, we must remember, was a dog. It is more likely that Val. Max. is here wrong (see above, p. 311, note 6). Footnote 1422: See Mannhardt, _Antike Wald- und Feldkulte_, 318 foll., and for other examples, Frazer, _G. B._ ii. 1 foll.; Preller-Robert, _Griech. Myth._ i. 144 (Zeus-festival on Pelion). Footnote 1423: After Schwegler, i. 361; rejected by Marq. (439, note 4). Footnote 1424: p. 101. The ‘wolves’ represent of course the Palatine city. Footnote 1425: See his eminently modest and sensible remarks at the end of his 5th section, p. 113. Footnote 1426: Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, 416 foll.; _Encycl. Brit._ art. ‘Sacrifice’; and for the Lupercalia, _Academy_, Feb. 11, 1888, where a totemistic origin is suggested. Footnote 1427: See also Lobeck, _Aglaoph._ pp. 183-6; Lang, _Myth, Ritual and Religion_, vol. ii. 177 (cp. 106) and reff., 213; _Dict. of Antiquities_, art. ‘Sacrificium,’ p. 584. Footnote 1428: Festus, p. 57 ‘Creppos, id est lupercos, dicebant a crepitu pellicularum,’ &c. Footnote 1429: Preller, i. 389. On this Jordan has added no comment. Footnote 1430: _Ann._ 12. 24; Jordan, _Topogr._ i. 163 foll., has examined Tacitus’s account with great care. Tacitus starts the pomoerium from the Forum boarium, while Dionysius and Plutarch start the runners from the Lupercal; but the two are close together. Footnote 1431: The reading is not quite certain; the MSS. have ‘Larum de forumque.’ Footnote 1432: The Sacellum Larum has generally been supposed to be that in summa sacra via (Jordan, op. cit. ii. 269). Kiepert and Huelsen make it the sacellum or ara Larum praestitum at the head of the Vicus Tuscus. Footnote 1433: _L. L._ 6. 34. Mommsen proposed ‘a regibus Romanis moenibus cinctum.’ But it is safer to keep to the MS. reading and make the best of it. Jordan sees in the words a ‘scurrilous’ allusion to the _luperci_. Footnote 1434: