to descend; and the king, when he addressed them, called them "lance-men" (quirites).[1] We have already stated how the army of aggression, the "gathering" (legio), was formed. In the tripartite Koman community it consisted of three "hundreds" (centuriæ) of horsemen (celeres, "the swift," or flexuntes, "the wheelers "), under the three leaders of division of the horsemen (tribuni celerum),[2] and three "thou-
- ↑ Quĭris, quirītis, or quirinus, literally means " lance-bearer," from quĭris or cŭris = lance and ire, and in that respect agrees with samnis, samnitis, and sabinus, which even among the ancients were derived from σαύνιον, spear. Kindred forms are arquites, milites, pedites, equites, velites, those respectively who go with the bow, in bodies of a thousand, on foot, on horseback, without armour in their mere over-garment; only in the latter forms, as in dederĭtis, homĭnis, and numerous other words, the i, originally long, has been shortened. In this way the Juno quiritis, the (Mars) quirinus, the Janus quirinus, are primarily characterized by that epithet as divinities that hurl the spear; and, when used in reference to men, quiris denotes the warrior, that is, the full burgess. With this view the usus loquendi coincides. Where the locality was meant to be referred to, "Quirites," was never used, but always "Rome" and "Romans" (urbs Roma, populus, civis, ager Romanus), because the term quiris had as little of a local meaning as civis or miles. For the same reason these designations could not be combined; they did not say civis quiris, because both denoted, though from different points of view, the same conception inlaw. On the other hand, the solemn announcement of the funeral of a burgess ran in the words "this warrior has departed in death" (ollus quiris leto datus), and in like manner the party aggrieved employed this word in calling the burgesses to aid him (quiritare); the king addressed the assembled community by this name; and, when he sat in judgment, he spake according to the law of the warrior-freemen (ex jure quiritium), quite similar to the later ex jure civili. The phrase populus Romanus, Quirites, thus means "the community and the individual burgesses," and therefore in an old formula (Liv. i. 32) to the populus Romanus are opposed the prisci Latini, to the Quirites the homines prisci Latini (Bekker, Handb. ii. 20 seq.); populus Romanus Quiritium corresponds to the well-known phrases colonia colonorum, municipium municipum.
In the face of these facts it is only ignorance of language and of history that can still adhere to the idea that the Roman community was once confronted by a Quirite community of a similar kind, and that after their incorporation the name of the recently received community supplanted in ritual and legal phraseology that of the receiver.—Comp. note p. 57.
- ↑ Among the eight ritual institutions of Numa, Dionysius (ii. 64), after naming the Curiones and Flamines specifies as the third the leaders of the horsemen (οἱ ἡγεμόνες τῶν Κελερίων). According to the Progestine Calendar a festival was celebrated at the Comitium on the 19th March [adstantibus pon]tificibus et trib(unis) celer(um). Valerius Antias (ap. Dionys. ii. 13, cf. iii. 41) assigns to the earliest Roman cavalry a leader, Celer, and three centurions. Moreover Brutus is affirmed to have been tribunus celerum at the expulsion of the kings (Liv. i. 59), and according to Dionysius (iv. 71) to have even by virtue of this office made the proposal to banish the Tarquins. And, lastly, Pomponius (Dig. i. 2, 15, 19) and Lydus in a similar way, partly perhaps borrowing from him (De Mag. i. 14, 37), identify the tribunus
