Note 26 — Chapter II · THE SERPENTINE GOD OF MEDICINE AT ROME.
Reading edition
In his Life of Publicola, Plutarch gives an interesting account of its origin. The sacrifice of corn and trees on a field belonging to the Tarquins, in the Campus Martius, had much to do with it. These being cast into the river, found lodgment at shallows where the island is, which favored alluvial accumulations. See also Livy, ii, 5.