Note 475 — ROMAN PEOPLE (continued 5)

The cult was Greek in detail; Graeco ritu, according to Varro as quoted by Macrobius iii. 6. 17; see also references in Wissowa, R.K. 222, note 2. Following R. Peter in the articles in Roscher, I assumed, in R.F. p. 194, that this might be a later reconstruction of an originally Italian cult; but for the present it is safer to look on the Graecus ritus as primitive, and on the presence of Salii, a genuine Italian institution, as brought from Tibur by the gens Pinaria, of which there is a trace in that city (C.I.L. xiv. 3541). There also Salii were engaged in the cult of Hercules Victor, to whom tithes were also offered (C.I.L. xiv. 3541). The evidence for the theory that the cult came to Rome from Tibur is summarised by Wissowa, R.K. p. 220.