Laudator Temporis Acti

Robert E.A. Palmer, "On Mutinus Titinus: A Study in Etruscan-Roman Religion and Topography,", in his Roman Religion and Roman Empire: Five Essays (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1974), pp. 187-206 (at 191-192, with notes on 271):

The second of the god's names, titinus, has also been brought into connection with an Italic cult of fertility by function of the phallus.²¹ The nearly unique evidence stems from the scholiast on a word in Persius' first Satire:

tunc neque more probo videas nec voce serena
ingentis trepidare Titos, cum carmina lumbum
intrant et tremulo scalpuntur ubi intima versu.²²

The comment runs: "ingentes Titos dicit Romanos senatores aut a Tito Tatio rege Sabinorum aut certe a membri virilis magnitudine dicti titi. titos scholasticos quod sint vagi neque uno magistro contenti et in libidinem proni sicut aves quibus comparantur, nam titi columbae sunt agrestes." The first explanation can be attributed to the fact that in some way the three ancient tribes of the Ramnes, Luceres, and Titienses still served as senatorial divisions,²³ and that this division was thought to have descended from the followers of Tatius. The second explanation, appropriate to Persius' intent, uniquely provides knowledge of the word titus "penis." The afterthought on the wandering scholars and the wild dove is not applied to Persius' words. Nevertheless, the bird called titus is more important than all the lexical items because it is the oldest from the viewpoint of semantics and of the surviving evidence. In etymologizing the names of various priesthoods, Varro wrote: "sodales Titii <ab avibus titis> dicti quas in auguriis certis observare soient."²⁴ Elsewhere the writer has argued that the Sodales Titii took their name from the Curia Titia and that the Curia Titia took its name from the wild dove.²⁵ In a word, both the priests and the political division derive their names from the dove. Certain authors would combine Titinus with titus "penis," and thus extend the phallic cult. Moreover, the Sodales Titii are brought into the same combination in order to provide a priesthood for Mutinus Titinus and, not so incidentally, to recreate the history of the obscure priesthood.²⁶ The premisses of the arguments are slight. As Poucet points out, several animals in many languages yield names for genital parts, and not all such genital names yield the titles of priesthoods.²⁷ It is quite possible that Titinus is derived directly from titus "dove."

The name of the bird precedes the name of the penis. Italian offers the best parallel with uccello, defined even in dictionaries for Italian high school students as "penis" after the original "bird" (a diminutive of L. avis).<sup>28

21</sup> The principal discussions of the deity, besides Poucet's (above, n. 14) are K. Vahlert RE 16 (1933), cols. 979-87, G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer² (Munich, 1912), pp. 169 and 243-44, Κ. Latte, Römische Religionsgeschichte (Munich, 1960), p. 69, G. Radke, Die Götter Altitaliens = Fontes et Commentationes 3 (1965), pp. 225-26 and 305. Also, see S. Weinstock RE 6A2 (1937), cols. 1538-40 on the Sodales Titii.
²² Pers. Sat. 1.19-21.
²³ Palmer, op. cit., p. 217.
²⁴ LI. 5.85. The restoration of the text is as certain as can be. Cf, Serv. on Verg. Ecl. 1.57 (and Philarg. ad loc.): "palumbes" columbae quas vulgus tetas vocat.
²⁵ Palmer, op. cit., pp. 93-95.
²⁶ See the works cited in note 21.
²⁷ Poucet, op. cit., pp. 386-87; see below.
²⁸ Poucet amusingly lists a few modern usages. Without attempting to grace them with such lexical citation as Poucet gives, I can add the English "cock" and "pussy."

Poucet = Jacques Poucet, Recherches sur la légende sabine des origines de Rome (Louvain: Publications Universitaires, 1967 = Université de Louvain. Recueil de Travaux d'Histoire et de Philologie, ser. 4, fasc. 37).

Palmer might have cited Hans Herter, "De Mutino Titino," Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 76.4 (1927) 418-432 (at 426-427). On titus = penis see also J.N. Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982; rpt. 1993), pp. 32, 44, 214.