Library › Latin: Myth, Hymn & Religion › Carmen Saliare (Fragments)
The surviving fragments of the hymns of the Salii, the leaping priests of Mars who danced through Rome in March and October carrying sacred shields. A few lines are preserved in quotations by Varro and later grammarians: invocations of the gods, an address to the god of light who thunders, and lines naming Janus as the good creator and good god.
Already in antiquity the Salian hymns were nearly incomprehensible; Quintilian remarks that even the priests scarcely understood them. The fragments are among the oldest relics of the Latin language and of Roman religion, and their corrupt and obscure forms continue to challenge linguists and historians.
About this edition. The Latin text comes from Musisque Deoque, the digital archive of Latin poetry (edition: J. Blänsdorf, FPL, 2011), licensed CC BY-SA. Every word has been analyzed with LatinCy, a neural language model for Latin — click or tap any word for its dictionary form, part of speech, and complete morphology, together with the full entry from Lewis & Short’s A Latin Dictionary.