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The supplicia canum ("punishment of the dogs") was an annual sacrifice of ancient Roman religion in which live dogs were suspended from a furca ("fork") or cross (crux) and paraded. It appears on none of the extant Roman calendars, but a late sourceJohannes Lydus, De mensibus 4.114. places it on August 3 (III Non. Aug.).
In the same procession, geese were decorated in gold and purple and carried in honor. Ancient sources who explain the origin of the supplicia say that the geese were honored for saving the city during the Gallic siege of Rome. When the Gauls launched a nocturnal assault by stealth on the citadel, the geese raised a noisy alarm. The failure of the Guard dog to bark was thereafter ritually punished each year.
The punishment de more maiorum was distinct from crucifixion, which was reserved for slaves in the Roman Republic.Elizabeth Rawson, "Sallust on the Eighties?" Classical Quarterly 37.1 (1987), p. 175. Scourging at the stake was a sentence for treason (perduellio) and for committing a sex crime (stuprum) against or with one of the Vestal Virgins, who were the only women subject to this punishment.Oldfather, "Livy and the Supplicium," pp. 66–69. It lapsed into disuse during the late Republic of the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, but was revived during the Roman Empire, when people of higher social status were exempt from it.Oldfather, "Livy and the Supplicium," p. 68.
defixio and striking probably had a religious dimension, present also in other Roman rituals such as the Lupercalia, when youths clad in goatskins ran through the streets flailing bystanders with leather thongs from sacrificed goats and dogs, and the Mamuralia, for which a scapegoat figure was beaten with sticks. Although the dogs are not said to have been beaten, the supplicia canum shares some elements with the traditional punishment at the stake, and with the punishment Tiberius administered in the province of Africa to priests of the Carthaginian god identified with the Roman Saturn, usually regarded as Baal-hamon. In retribution for their ancestral custom of child sacrifice (whether or not such sacrifices actually occurred), Tiberius had them crucified on trees in their own temple precinct as offerings.Tertullian, Apologeticum 9.2; Oldfather, "Livy and the Supplicium," p. 69.
In some stories, Marcus Manlius Capitolinus led the way in responding to the alarm, warding off the first Gaul to reach the top of the Capitoline cliff, or alternatively expelling them from the Temple of Jupiter, which they had entered through tunnels. Manlius is described once as a custos, "guard" of the citadel, perhaps in command of the iuventus, the young warriors as a collective.T.P. Wiseman, "Topography and Rhetoric: The Trial of Manlius," Historia 28.1 (1979), pp. 40 and 48, citing Florus 1.7.13, and De viris illustribus 23.9 and 24.3. Two or three years later, however, Manlius had attempted to capitalize on his reputation for heroism and to establish himself as a king or tyrannos, a much-despised role in Republican Rome. He was accused of treason,Wiseman, pp. 45–46, 48. and in one source, was sentenced to be beaten to death de more maiorum.Oldfather, "Livy and the Supplicium," p. 68, citing the version of Nepos, frg. 5, as preserved by Aulus Gellius 17.21.24, in contrast to the version given by Livy 6.20.12. See also Wiseman, pp. 48–49. Roman narrative traditions regarding the Gallic siege are complex, "a hopeless jumble of aetiological tales, family , doublets, and transferences from Greek history",Horsfall, "From History to Legend," p. 298. including an improbable last-minute victory or at least the holding of the citadel itself, thanks to the geese. Some scholars have suspected that the citadel was breached and that the Romans ameliorated the disaster with layers of legend over time. The incongruity of Manlius's legendary heroism and his execution for treason a relatively short time later could conceal a military disgrace.Horsfall, "From History to Legend," pp. 298, 306ff. The crucified dogs may originally have been intended to serve as a pharmakos or scapegoat.Eli Edward Burriss, "The Place of the Dog in Superstition as Revealed in Latin Literature," Classical Philology 30.1 (1935), pp. 36, 41. The Christian writers Arnobius and Ambrose indicate that geese and dogs were kept on the Capitoline well into the 4th century.Horsfall, "From History to Legend," p. 308. Arnobius ( Adversus nationes 6.20) says that geese and dogs are still kept on the Capitoline, without referring to a specific ceremony; Ambrose ( Hexameron 5.13.44) says that geese are kept in state and receive sacrifices, without specific reference to the dogs.
Dog sacrifices were carried out in Rome also for the Robigalia, a Roman festival aimed at warding off crop diseases. The augurium canarium ("dog augury"), which involved both and the state priests,Jerzy Linderski, "The Augural Law", Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.16 (1986), p. 2222. was a moveable feast in response to the rising of the Dogstar, Sirius.Elaine Fantham, Ovid: Fasti, Book IV (Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 271. Festivals in August following the supplicia canum deal with themes of agricultural bounty ensured by sun and water, centering on the Volcanalia of Volcanus (Vulcan) August 23.Douglas Boin, Ostia in Late Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 211.
Dog sacrifice is found among other Italic peoples. According to the Iguvine Tablets, Oscans sacrificed an unblemished dog or puppy to the chthonic Hondus Jovius: it was butchered, and certain parts roasted on spits, with remains left after the sacrifice buried at the altar.Frederick J. Simoons, Eat Not this Flesh: Food Avoidances from Prehistory to the Present (University of Wisconsin Press, 1994, 2nd ed.), p. 410. No mention is made of disposal after the supplicia canum. The Romans typically sacrificed domestic animals that were a normal part of their diet, and shared the meat in a communal meal. Victims such as dogs were food taboo, as was the October Horse offered to Mars, and were usually consumed in a holocaust for deities whose spheres of influence pertained to the cycle of birth and death, such as Hecate and Mana Genita.C. Bennett Pascal, "October Horse," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 85 (1981), p. 277; John Scheid, "Sacrifices for Gods and Ancestors," in A Companion to Roman Religion, pp. 267–268; Robert Parker, On Greek Religion (Cornell University Press, 2011), pp. 158–159.
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