Romans used to hold an annual event, which they called Supplicia Canum or punishment of dogs in which they suspended dogs on a fork or a cross and then paraded them around the city. At the same time, geese were carried around in a triumphal procession through the streets of the city. The event was held on August 3rd every year.
So, why did the Romans do this? Well, in 390 BC Rome was at war with the gauls who routed the Roman soldiers just 10 miles north of Rome. Romans had to retreat to the Capitoline Hill, while the gauls besieged it. One night, the Gauls launched a nocturnal assault by stealth on the citadel but the geese raised a noisy alarm. A Roman consul named Marcus Manlius Capitolinus heard the alarm and was the first one to reach the endangered spot. He threw the first gaul that scaled the Capitoline Hill and killed several others during the fight.
The attack was repulsed but because the watch dogs failed to bark, they were ritually punished each year for hundreds of years to come.
Some later historians dispute the authenticity of the story. They say that the custom of punishing the dogs and honoring the geese was going on long before the siege of Rome by the gauls.
Interestingly, Marcus Manlius, the hero of the story, was later accused of using his reputation as a hero and a savior in order to establish himself as a king or tyrannos, which was something the Romans deeply despised. A trial was held outside the city gates where the assembly could not see the hill which he had saved. He was sentenced to death and thrown off the same hill he had saved just three years ago.
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