Mamurius Veturius

In ancient Roman religion, the Mamuralia or Sacrum Mamurio ("Rite for Mamurius") was a festival held March 14 or 15, named only in sources from late antiquity. According to Joannes Lydus, an old man wearing animal skins was beaten ritually with sticks. The name is connected to Mamurius Veturius, who according to tradition was the craftsman who made the ritual shields (ancilia) that hung in the temple of Mars. Because the Roman calendar originally began in March, the Sacrum Mamurio is usually regarded as a ritual marking the transition from the old year to the new. It shares some characteristics with scapegoat or pharmakos ritual.

According to legend, Mamurius was commissioned by Numa, second king of Rome, to make eleven shields identical to the sacred ancile that fell from the heavens as a pledge of Rome's destiny to rule the world. The ancile was one of the sacred guarantors of the Roman state (pignora imperii), and the replicas were intended to conceal the identity of the original and so prevent its theft; it was thus a kind of "public secret."

The shields were under the care of Mars' priests the Salii, who used them in their rituals. As payment, Mamurius requested that his name be preserved and remembered in the song sung by the Salii, the Carmen Saliare, as they executed movements with the shields and performed their armed dance. Fragments of this archaic hymn survive, including the invocation of Mamurius. Several sources mention the invocation of the hymn and the story of the smith, but only Lydus describes the ritual as the beating of an old man.

Mamurius was also supposed to have made a bronze replacement for a maple statue of Vertumnus, brought to Rome in the time of Romulus. He may have been Oscan and thought to have been buried in his homeland, since at the end of a poem about Vertumnus, Propertius has the god express a wish that the Oscan earth should not wear away Mamurius's skilled hands.Veturius is considered either an Etruscan or Oscan family name.

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