Poplifugia July 5

The poplifugia was a festival commemorating the flight of the Romans, when the inhabitants of Ficuleae and Fidenae appeared in arms against them, shortly after the burning of the city by the Gallic (see Battle of the Allia); the traditional Roman victory which followed was commemorated on July 7 (called the Nonae Caprotinae as a feast of Juno Caprotina), and the following day was the Vitulatio, meant to mark the pontifices' thank-offering for the event.

Macrobius, who wrongly places the Poplifugia on the nuns, says that it commemorated a flight from the Tuscans, while Dionysius refers to its origin at the time when the patricians murdered Romulus after the people fled a public assembly because of rain and darkness.

Livy, after recalling that "Romulus had more supporters among the people than among the patricians", reports a more sordid rumor according to which Romulus was simply massacred by the patricians, and supposes that his apotheosis under the name of Quirinus was a political stratagem intended to appease the good people.

In a context which foreshadows the conflicts between the plebs and the patricians, the story of the divine appearance of Romulus to Proculus Julius, seems, despite its improbability, to have calmed minds:

"Romans," he said, "Romulus, the father of our city, came down suddenly from heaven this morning at daybreak and presented himself to my eyes; and as I stood before him, full of fear and respect, and earnestly begged him to look him in the face, he said to me, 'Go and announce to the Romans that it is the will of heaven to make my Rome the capital of the world. Let them therefore practice the art of war. Let them know and offer to their children that no human power can resist the Roman arms.' With these words, he said, he rose into the air and departed."

— Titus Livius, Roman History, Book I, 16

"What is extraordinary," concluded Titus Livius, "is that this story was believed and that the belief in the immortality of Romulus consoled the people and the army."