The name of god Quirinus is recorded across Roman sources as Curinus, Corinus, Querinus, Queirinus and QVIRINO, also as fragmented IOVI. CYRIN. The name is also attested as a surname to Hercules as Hercules Quirinus.
Etymology
The name Quirīnus probably stems from Latin quirīs, the name of Roman citizens in their peacetime function. Since both quirīs and Quirīnus are connected with Sabellic immigrants into Rome in ancient legends, it may be a loanword. The meaning "wielder of the spear", or a derivation from the Sabine town Cures, have thus been proposed. Some scholars have interpreted the name as a contraction of *Co-Virīnus, descending from an earlier *Co-Wironos, composed of the PIE root*wihₓrós. De Vaan argues that this etymology "is not credible phonetically and not very compelling semantically."
Depiction and worship
In earlier Roman art, Quirinus was portrayed as a bearded man with religious and military clothing. However, he was almost never depicted in later Roman art. Quirinus was often associated with the myrtle. His main festival was the Quirinalia, held on February 17. The priest of Quirinus, the Flamen Quirinalis, was one of the three patrician flamines maiores who had precedence over the Pontifex Maximus.
History
Quirinus most likely was originally a Sabine war god. The Sabines had a settlement near the eventual site of Rome, and erected an altar to Quirinus on the Collis QuirinalisQuirinal Hill, one of the Seven hills of Rome. When the Romans settled in the area, the cult of Quirinus became part of their early belief system. This occurred before the later influences from classical Greek culture.
In Plutarch's Life of Romulus, he writes that shortly after Rome's founder had disappeared under what some considered suspicious circumstances, a Roman noble named Proculus Julius reported that Romulus had come to him while he was travelling. He claimed that the king had instructed him to tell his countrymen that he, Romulus was Quirinus. By the end of the 1st century BCE, Quirinus would be considered to be the deified legendary king.
Brelich's argument for split deification
Historian Angelo Brelich has argued that Quirinus and Romulus were originally the same divine entity which was split into a founder hero and a god when Roman religion became demythicised. To support this, he points to the association of both Romulus and Quirinus with the grainspelt, through the Fornacalia or Stultorum Feriae, according to Ovid's Fasti. The last day of the festival is called the Quirinalia and corresponds with the traditional day of Romulus' death. On that day, the Romans would toast spelt as an offering to the goddessFornax. In one version of the legend of Romulus' death cited by Plutarch, he was killed and cut into pieces by the nobles and each of them took a part of his body home and buried it on their land. Brelich claims that this pattern – a festival involving a staple crop, a god, and a tale of a slain founding hero whose body parts are buried in the soil – is a recognized mytheme that arises when such a split takes place in a culture's mythology. The possible presence of the flamen Quirinalis at the festival of Acca Larentia would corroborate this thesis, given the fact that Romulus is a stepson of hers, and one of the original twelve arval brethren.
The Grabovian pantheon
The association of Quirinus and Romulus is further supported by a connection with Vofionos, the third god in the triad of the Grabovian gods of Iguvium. Vofionos would be the equivalent of Liber or Teutates, in Latium and among the Celts respectively.
His early importance led to Quirinus' inclusion in the Archaic Triad, along with Mars and Jupiter. Over time, however, Quirinus became less significant, and he was absent from the later, more widely known triad. Varro mentions the Capitolium Vetus, an earlier cult site on the Quirinal, devoted to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, among whom Martial makes a distinction between the "old Jupiter" and the "new".
Fade into obscurity
Eventually, Romans began to favor personal and mystical cults over the official state belief system. These included those of Bacchus, Cybele, and Isis, leaving only Quirinus' flamen to worship him.
