The History of Rome, Book I: The Period Anterior to the Abolition of the MonarchyMommsen, Theodor
History
The History of Rome, Book I: The Period Anterior to the Abolition of the Monarchy
Mommsen, Theodor
Rome -- History
Domestic and family life in general were represented by the festival
of the goddess of the house and of the spirits of the storechamber,
Vesta and the Penates (-Vestalia-, June 9); the festival of the
goddess of birth(2) (-Matralia-, June 11); the festival of the
blessing of children, dedicated to Liber and Libera (-Liberalia-,
March 17), the festival of departed spirits (-Feralia-, February
21), and the three days' ghost-celebration (-Lemuria- May 9,
11, 13); while those having reference to civil relations were the
two--otherwise to us somewhat obscure--festivals of the king's
flight (-Regifugium-, February 24) and of the people's flight
(-Poplifugia-, July 5), of which at least the last day was devoted
to Jupiter, and the festival of the Seven Mounts (-Agonia- or
-Septimontium-, December 11). A special day (-agonia-, January
9) was also consecrated to Janus, the god of beginning. The real
nature of some other days--that of Furrina (July 25), and that
of the Larentalia devoted to Jupiter and Acca Larentia, perhaps a
feast of the Lares (December 23)--is no longer known.
This table is complete for the immoveable public festivals;
and--although by the side of these standing festal days there
certainly occurred from the earliest times changeable and occasional
festivals--this document, in what it says as well as in what it
omits, opens up to us an insight into a primitive age otherwise
almost wholly lost to us. The union of the Old Roman community and
the Hill-Romans had indeed already taken place when this table of
festivals was formed, for we find in it Quirinus alongside of Mars;
but, when this festival-list was drawn up, the Capitoline temple
was not yet in existence, for Juno and Minerva are absent; nor was
the temple of Diana erected on the Aventine; nor was any notion of
worship borrowed from the Greeks.
Mars and Jupiter
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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