Part 1
# The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic: An Introduction to the Study of the Religion of the Romans ### By Fowler, W. Warde (William Warde)
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The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic
THE ROMAN FESTIVALS OF THE PERIOD OF THE REPUBLIC
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE RELIGION OF THE ROMANS
BY
W. WARDE FOWLER, M.A.
FELLOW AND SUB-RECTOR OF LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD
London MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1899
_All rights reserved_
OXFORD: HORACE HART
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
FRATRIS FILIIS
I. C. H. F
H. G. C. F
BONAE SPEI ADOLESCENTIBUS
PREFACE
A word of explanation seems needed about the form this book has taken. Many years ago I became specially interested in the old Roman religion, chiefly, I think, through studying Plutarch’s _Quaestiones Romanae_, at a time when bad eyesight was compelling me to abandon a project for an elaborate study of all Plutarch’s works. The ‘scrappy’ character not only of the _Quaestiones_, but of all the material for the study of Roman ritual, suited weak eyes better than the continual reading of Greek text; but I soon found it necessary to discover a thread on which to hang these fragments in some regular order. This I naturally found in the _Fasti_ as edited by Mommsen in the first volume of the _Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_; and it gradually dawned on me that the only scientific way of treating the subject was to follow the calendar throughout the year, and to deal with each festival separately. I had advanced some way in this work, when Roscher’s _Lexicon of Greek and Roman Mythology_ began to appear in parts, and at once convinced me that I should have to do my work all over again in the increased light afforded by the indefatigable industry of the writers of the Roman articles. I therefore dropped my work for several years while the Lexicon was in progress, and should have waited still longer for its completion, had not Messrs. Macmillan invited me to contribute a volume on the Roman religion to their series of _Handbooks of Archaeology and Antiquities_.
Having once set out on the plan of following the _Fasti_, I could not well abandon it, and I still hold it to be the only sound one: especially if, as in this volume, the object is to exhibit the religious side of the native Roman character, without getting entangled to any serious extent in the _colluvies religionum_ of the last age of the Republic and the earlier Empire. The book has thus taken the form of a commentary on the _Fasti_, covering in a compressed form almost all the public worship of the Roman state, and including incidentally here and there certain ceremonies which strictly speaking lay outside that public worship. Compression has been unavoidable; yet it has been impossible to avoid stating and often discussing the conflicting views of eminent scholars; and the result probably is that the book as a whole will not be found very interesting reading. But I hope that British and American students of Roman history and literature, and possibly also anthropologists and historians of religion, may find it useful as a book of reference, or may learn from it where to go for more elaborate investigations.
The task has often been an ungrateful one—one indeed of
Dipping buckets into empty wells And growing old with drawing nothing up.
The more carefully I study any particular festival, the more (at least in many cases) I have been driven into doubt and difficulty both as to reported facts and their interpretation. Had the nature of the series permitted it, I should have wished to print the chief passages quoted from ancient authors in full, as was done by Mr. Farnell in his _Cults of the Greek States_, and so to present to the reader the actual material on which conclusions are rightly or wrongly based. I have only been able to do this where it was indispensable: but I have done my best to verify the correctness of the other references, and have printed in full the entries of the ancient calendars at the head of each section. Professor Gardner, the editor of the series, has helped me by contributing two valuable notes on coins, which will be found at the end of the volume: and I hope he may some day find time to turn his attention more closely to the bearing of numismatic evidence on Roman religious history.
It happens, by a curious coincidence, that I am writing this on the last day of the old Roman year; and the lines which Ovid has attached to that day may fitly express my relief on arriving at the end of a very laborious task:
Venimus in portum, libro cum mense peracto, Naviget hinc alia iam mihi linter aqua.
W. W. F.
Oxford: _Feb. 28, 1899_.
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Calendar 21
Festivals of March 33
Festivals of April 66
Festivals of May 98
Festivals of June 129
Festivals of July 173
Festivals of August 189
Festivals of September 215
Festivals of October 236
Festivals of November 252
Festivals of December 255
Festivals of January 277
Festivals of February 298
Conclusion 332
Notes on Two Coins 350
Indices 353
ABBREVIATIONS.
The following are the most important abbreviations which occur in the notes:
_C. I. L._ stands for _Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_. Where the volume is not indicated the reference is invariably to the _second_ edition of that part of vol. i which contains the _Fasti_ (Berlin, 1893).
Marquardt or Marq. stands for the third volume of Marquardt’s _Römische Staatsverwaltung_, second edition, edited by Wissowa (Berlin, 1885). It is the sixth volume of the complete _Handbuch der Römischen Alterthümer_ of Mommsen and Marquardt.
Preller, or Preller-Jordan, stands for the third edition of Preller’s _Römische Mythologie_ by H. Jordan (Berlin, 1881).
_Myth. Lex._ or _Lex._ stands for the _Ausführliches Lexicon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie_, edited by W. H. Roscher, which as yet has only been completed to the letter N.
Festus, or Paulus, stands for K. O. Müller’s edition of the fragments of Festus, _De Significatione Verborum_, and the _Excerpta ex Festo_ of Paulus Diaconus; quoted by the page.
INTRODUCTION
I. The Roman Method of Reckoning the Year.[1]
There are three ways in which the course of the year may be calculated. It can be reckoned—
1. By the revolution of the moon round the earth, twelve of which = 354 days, or a ring (_annus_), sufficiently near to the solar year to be a practicable system with modifications.
2. By the revolution of the earth round the sun i. e. 365-1/4 days; a system which needs periodical adjustments, as the odd quarter (or, more strictly, 5 hours 48 minutes 48 seconds) cannot of course be counted in each year. In this purely solar year the months are only artificial divisions of time, and not reckoned according to the revolutions of the moon. This is our modern system.
3. By combining in a single system the solar and lunar years as described above. This has been done in various ways by different peoples, by adopting a cycle of years of varying length, in which the resultants of the two bases of calculation should be brought into harmony as nearly as possible. In other words, though the difference between a single solar year and a single lunar year is more than 11 days, it is possible, by taking a number of years together and reckoning them as lunar years, one or more of them being lengthened by an additional month, to make the whole period very nearly coincide with the same number of solar years. Thus the Athenians adopted for this purpose at different times groups or cycles of 8 and 19 years. In the Octaeteris or 8-year cycle there were 99 lunar months, 3 months of 30 days being added in 3 of the 8 years—a plan which falls short of accuracy by about 36 hours. Later on a cycle of 19 years was substituted for this, in which the discrepancy was greatly reduced. The Roman year in historical times was calculated on a system of this kind, though with such inaccuracy and carelessness as to lose all real relation to the revolutions both of earth and moon.
But there was a tradition that before this historical calendar came into use there had been another system, which the Romans connected with the name of Romulus. This year was supposed to have consisted of 10 months, of which 4—March, May, July, October—had 31 days, and the rest 30; in all 304. But this was neither a solar nor a lunar year; for a lunar year of 10 months = 295 days 7 hours 20 minutes, while a solar year = 365-1/4. Nor can it possibly be explained as an attempt to combine the two systems. Mommsen has therefore conjectured that it was an artificial year of 10 months, used in business transactions, and in periods of mourning, truces[2], &c., to remedy the uncertainty of the primitive calculation of time; and that it never really was the basis of a state calendar. This view has of course been the subject of much criticism[3]. But no better solution has been found; the hypothesis that the year of 10 months was a real lunar year, to which an undivided period of time was added at each year’s end, to make it correspond with the solar year and the seasons, has not much to recommend it or any analogy among other peoples. It was not, then, the so-called year of Romulus which was the basis of the earliest state-calendar, but another system which the Romans themselves usually ascribed to Numa. This was originally perhaps a lunar year; at any rate the number of days in it is very nearly that of a true lunar year (354 days 8 hours 48 minutes)[4]. It consisted of 12 months, of which March, May, July, October had 31 days, and the rest 29, except February, which had 28. All the months therefore had an odd number of days, except the one which was specially devoted to purification and the cult of the dead; according to an old superstition, probably adopted from the Greeks of Southern Italy[5], that odd numbers were of good omen, even numbers of ill omen. This principle, as we shall see, holds good throughout the Roman calendar.
But this reckoning of the year, if it ever existed at all, could not have lasted long as it stood. As we know it in historical times, it has become modified by applying to it the principle of the solar year. The reason for this should be noted carefully. A lunar year, being about 11 days short of the solar year, would in a very short time become out of harmony with the seasons. Now if there is one thing certain about the Roman religious calendar, it is that many at least of its oldest festivals mark those operations of husbandry on which the population depended for its subsistence, and for the prosperous result of which divine agencies must be propitiated. These festivals, when fixed in the calendar, must of course occur at the right seasons, which could not be the case if the calendar were that of a purely lunar year. It was therefore necessary to work in the solar principle; and this was done[6] by a somewhat rude expedient, not unlike that of the Athenian Octaeteris, and probably derived from it[7]. A cycle of 4 years was devised, of which the first had the 355 days of the lunar year, the second 355 + 22, the third 355 again, and the fourth 355 + 23. The extra periods of 22 and 23 days were inserted in February, not at the end, but after the 23rd (_Terminalia_)[8]. The total number of days in the cycle was 1465, or about 1 day too much in each year; and in course of time even this system got out of harmony with the seasons and had to be rectified from time to time by the Pontifices, who had charge of the calendar. Owing to ignorance on their part, misuse or neglect of intercalation had put the whole system out of gear before the last century of the Republic. All relation to sun and moon was lost; the calendar, as Mommsen says, ‘went on its own way tolerably unconcerned about moon and sun.’ When Caesar took the reform of the calendar in hand the discrepancy between it and the seasons was very serious; the former being in advance of the latter probably by some weeks. Caesar, aided by the mathematician Sosigenes, put an end to this confusion by extending the year 46 B.C. to 445 days, and starting afresh on Jan. 1, 45 B.C.[9]—a day henceforward to be that of the new year—with a cycle of 4 years of 365 days[10]; in the last of which a single day was added, after the _Terminalia_. This cycle produced a true solar year with a slight adjustment at short intervals; and after a few preliminary blunders on the part of the Pontifices, lasted without change until A.D. 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII set right a slight discrepancy by a fresh regulation. This regulation was only adopted in England in 1752, and is still rejected in Russia and by the Greek Church generally.
II. Order of Months in the Year.
That the Roman year originally began with March is certain[11], not only from the evidence of the names of the months, which after June are reckoned as 5th (Quinctilis), 6th (Sextilis), and so on, but from the nature of the March festivals, as will be shown in treating of that month. In the character of the religious festivals there is a distinct break between February and March, and the operations both of nature and of man take a fresh turn at that point. Between the festivals of December and those of January there is no such break. No doubt January 1, just after the winter solstice, was even at an early time considered in some sense as a beginning; but it is going too far to assume, as some have done, that an ancient religious or priestly year began at that point[12]. It was not on January 1, but on March 1, that the sacred fire in the Aedes Vestae was renewed and fresh laurels fixed up on the Regia, the two buildings which were the central points of the oldest Roman religion[13]. March 1, which in later times at least was considered the birthday of the special protecting deity of the Romans, continued to be the Roman New Year’s Day long after the official beginning of the year had been changed to January 1[14]. It was probably not till 153 B.C., when the consuls began to enter on office on January 1, that this official change took place; and the date was then adopted, not so much for religious reasons as because it was convenient, when the business of administration was increasing, to have the consuls in Rome for some time before they left for their provinces at the opening of the war season in March.
No rational account can in my opinion be given of the Roman religious calendar of the Republic unless it be taken as beginning with March; and in this work I have therefore restored the old order of months. With the Julian calendar I am not concerned; though it is unfortunate that all the Roman calendars we possess, including the _Fasti_ of Ovid, date from after the Julian era, and therefore present us with a distorted view of the true course of the old Roman worship.
Next after March came Aprilis, the month of opening or unfolding vegetation; then Maius, the month of growing, and Junius, that of ripening and perfecting. After this the names cease to be descriptive of the operations of nature; the six months that follow were called, as four of them still are, only by their positions relative to March, on which the whole system of the year thus turned as on a pivot.
The last two months of the twelve were January and February. They stand alone among the later months in bearing names instead of mere numbers, and this is sufficient to suggest their religious importance. That they were not mere appendages to a year of ten months is almost certain from the antique character of the rites and festivals which occur in them—Agonia, Carmentalia, Lupercalia, &c.; and it is safer to consider them as marking an ancient period of religious importance preparatory to the beginning of the year, and itself coinciding with the opening of the natural year after the winter solstice. This latter point seems to be indicated in the name Januarius, which, whether derived from janua, ‘a gate,’ or Janus, ‘the god of entrances,’ is appropriate to the first lengthening of the days, or the entrance of the sun on a new course; while February, the month of purifying or regenerative agencies (februa), was, like the Lent of the Christian calendar, the period in which the living were made ready for the civil and religious work of the coming year, and in which also the yearly duties to the dead were paid.
It is as well here to refer to a passage of Ovid (_Fasti_, ii. 47 foll.), itself probably based on a statement of Varro, which has led to a controversy about the relative position of these two months:
Sed tamen antiqui ne nescius ordinis erres, Primus, ut est, Iani mensis et ante fuit. Qui sequitur Ianum, veteris fuit ultimus anni, Tu quoque sacrorum, Termine, finis eras. Primus enim Iani mensis, quia ianua prima est; Qui sacer est imis manibus, imus erat. Postmodo creduntur spatio distantia longo Tempora bis quini continuasse viri.
This plainly means that from the time when March ceased to be the first month, the year always began with January and ended with February; in other words the order was January, March, April, and so on, ending with February; until the time of the Decemvirate, when February became the second month, and December the last, as at present, January still retaining its place. A little consideration of Ovid’s lines will, however, suggest the conclusion that he, and his authority, whoever that may have been, were arguing aetiologically rather than on definite knowledge. January, they thought, must always have been the first month, because janua, ‘a door,’ is the first thing, the entrance, through which you pass into a new year as into a house or a temple. How, they would argue, could a month thus named have ever been the eleventh month? This once supposed impossible, it was necessary to infer that the place of January was the first, from the time of its introduction, and that it was followed by March, April, &c., February coming last of all, immediately after December; and finally that at the time of the Decemvirs, who are known to have made some alterations in the calendar, the positions of January and February were reversed, January remaining the first month, but February becoming the second.
III. The Divisions of the Month.
The Romans, with their usual conservatism, preserved the shell of the lunar system of reckoning long after the reality had disappeared. The month was at all times divided by the real or imaginary phases of the moon, though a week of eight days was introduced at an early period, and though the month was no longer a lunar one.
The two certain points in a lunar month are the first appearance of the crescent[15] and the full moon; between these is the point when the moon reaches the first quarter, which is a less certain one. Owing to this uncertainty of the reckoning of the first days of the month there were no festivals in the calendars on the days before the first quarter (Nones), with a single exception of the obscure _Poplifugia_ on July 5. The day of the new moon was called Kalendae, as Varro tells us, ‘quod his diebus calantur eius mensis nonae a pontificibus, quintanae an septimanae sint futurae, in Capitolio in curia Calabra sic: Dies te quinque calo, Iuno Covella. Septem dies te calo Iuno Covella’[16]. All the Kalends were sacred to Juno, whose connexion with the moon is certain though not easy to explain.
With the Nones, which were sacred to no deity, all uncertainty ceased. The Ides, or day of the full moon, was always the eighth after the first quarter. This day was sacred to Jupiter; a fact which is now generally explained as a recognition of the continuous light of the two great heavenly bodies during the whole twenty-four hours[17]. On the Nones the _Rex sacrorum_ (and therefore before him the king himself) announced the dates of the festivals for the month.
There was another internal division of the month, with which we are not here specially concerned, that of the Roman week or nundinal period of eight days, which is indicated in all the calendars by the letters A to H. The _nundinae_ were market days, on which the rustic population came into Rome; whether they were also feast days (_feriae_) was a disputed question even in antiquity.
IV. The Days.
Every day in the Roman calendar has a certain mark attached to it, viz. the letters F, C, N, NP, EN, Q.R.C.F., Q.St.D.F., or FP. All of these have a religious significance, positive or negative.
F, i. e. _fas_ or _fastus_, means that on the day so marked civil and especially judicial business might be transacted without fear of divine displeasure[18]. Correctness in the time as well as place of all human
## actions was in the mind of the early Roman of the most vital importance;
and the floating traditional ideas which governed his life before the formation of the State were systematized and kept secret by kings and priests, as a part, so to speak, of the science of government. Not till B.C. 304 was the calendar published, with its permissive and prohibitive regulations[19].
C (_comitialis_) means that the day so marked was one on which the _comitia_ might meet[20], and on which also legal business might be transacted, as on the days marked F, if there were no other hindrance. The total number of days thus available for secular business, i.e. days marked F and C, was in the Julian calendar 239 out of 365.
N, i. e. _nefastus_, meant that the day so marked was _religiosus_, _vitiosus_, or _ater_; as Gellius has it[21], ‘tristi omine et infames impeditique, in quibus et res divinas facere et rem quampiam novam exordiri temperandum est.’ Some of these days received the mark in historical times for a special reason, e. g. a disaster to the State; among these were the _postriduani_ or days following the Kalends, Nones and Ides, because two terrible defeats had occurred on such days[22]. But most of them (in all they are 57) were probably so marked as being devoted to lustrations, or worship of the dead or of the powers of the earth, and therefore unsuitable for worldly business. One long series of such _dies nefasti_ occurs Feb. 1-14, the time of purification; another, April 5-22, in the month occupied by the rites of deities of growing vegetation; a third, June 5-14, when the rites of the Vestals preparatory to harvest were taking place; and a fourth, July 1-9, for reasons which are unfortunately by no means clear to us.