valley which separated them--the Forum. In this way was formed the Rome
of the Four Regions, which represents the utmost extent of its
development during the period which gave rise to the genuine Roman
religion. All these stages have left their mark on the customs of
religion. _Roma quadrata_ comes to the fore in the Lupercalia: not
merely is the site of the ceremony a grotto on the Palatine
(_Lupercal_), but when the _Luperci_ run their purificatory course
around the boundaries, it is the circuit of the Palatine hill which
marks its limits. Annually on the 11th of December the festival of the
Septimontium was celebrated, not by the whole people, but by the
_montani_, presumably the inhabitants of those parts of Rome which
were included in the second settlement. Finally, the addition of the
Quirinal settlement is marked by the inclusion among the great
state-gods of Quirinus, who must have been previously the local deity
of the Quirinal community.

But more important for us than the history of the early settlement is
its character. We have spoken of early Rome as an agricultural
community: it would be more exact and more helpful to describe it as a
community of agricultural households. The institutions of Rome, legal
as well as religious, all point to the household (_familia_) as the
original unit of organisation: the individual, as such, counted for
nothing, the community was but the aggregate of families. Domestic
worship then was not merely independent of the religion of the
community: it was prior to it, and is both its historical and logical
origin. Yet the life of the early Roman agriculturalist could not be
confined to the household: in the tilling of the fields and the care of
his cattle he meets his neighbour, and common interests suggest common
prayer and thanksgiving. Thus there sprung up the great series of
agricultural festivals which form the basis of the state-calendar, but