[3] The name of god Quirinus is recorded across Roman sources as Curinus, Corinus, Querinus, Queirinus and QVIRINO, also as fragmented IOVI.

[7][better source needed] Some scholars have interpreted the name as a contraction of *Co-Virīnus (originally the protector of the community, cf.

[14] Historian Angelo Brelich argued that Quirinus and Romulus were originally the same divine entity which was split into a founder hero and a god when Roman religion became demythicised.

To support this, he points to the association of both Romulus and Quirinus with the grain spelt, through the Fornacalia or Stultorum Feriae, according to Ovid's Fasti.

In one version of the legend of Romulus' death cited by Plutarch, he was killed and cut into pieces by the nobles and each of them took a part of his body home and buried it on their land.

[citation needed] Brelich claimed this pattern – a festival involving a staple crop, a god, and a tale of a slain founding hero whose body parts are buried in the soil – is a recognized mytheme that arises when such a split takes place in a culture's mythology (see Dema deity archetype).

[20] Eventually, Romans began to favor personal and mystical cults over the official state belief system.