SURVIVALS OF INITIATORY RITES IN THE LEGEND OF CAECULUS
А story of Caeculus, a founder of ancient Italian town of Praeneste, retold by several ancient authors, represents one of very few surviving fragments of Latin legends. In the author ’s opinion, among many other things, this legend contains a body of evidence showing that the earliest population of Italy probably performed some large-scale rites of initiatory nature providing for separation from mothers, a fire ordeal (supposedly, symbolic death and resurrection) and a period of life ‘in the wild’, within a brotherhood of young ‘robbers’.