HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE, - Horntip

24
Romans called the Luperci Crepi, from the Crepitus
or noife which they gave in the a6tion of ftriking ; for
it was their cuftom, at that feaft, to run about naked,
and ftrike all the women they met with a fenila.
Now this ferula was made, as Dempfler conjeEtures,
of a cover of fkin or hide, and that either of a dog or
goat, either to increafe the found or the pain. Plu-
tarch calls that kind of ftriking a purgation, and I
remember I have read thefe verfes in Ovid-
Exe0e facundo patientur verbera dextrce,
Yam Pater optati nomen luzbebit avi.
Of the right hand the fruitful lathes bear,
And glad your houfe and father with an heir.
Juvenal, in the paffage before recited, ridicules thefe
ftrokes and Prudentius, in his Roman martyr,
fatyrizes it as a foolifh cuflom.
Quid turpis pompaf nempe ignabiles
Vos effe moVirat, CUM Luperci curritis,
Quern fervulorum non rear vilijimum?
Nudus plateas ft per omnes curfitans
Pullet Fuel/as verbere it7as ludicro.
What