Anna Perenna was an old Roman deity of the circle or "ring" of the year, as indicated by the name ( per annum ).
88-555: Anna Perenna's festival fell on the Ides of March (March 15), which would have marked the first full moon in the year in the old lunar Roman calendar when March was recognized as the first month of the year, and was held at the goddess' grove at the first milestone on the Via Flaminia . It was much frequented by the city plebs . Macrobius records that offerings were made to her ut annare perannareque commode liceat , i.e., "that
176-505: A piaculum before entering their sacred grove with an iron implement, which was forbidden, as well as after. The pig was a common victim for a piaculum . The same divine agencies who caused disease or harm also had the power to avert it, and so might be placated in advance. Divine consideration might be sought to avoid the inconvenient delays of a journey, or encounters with banditry, piracy and shipwreck, with due gratitude to be rendered on safe arrival or return. In times of great crisis,
264-421: A broad, inclusive and flexible network of lawful cults. At different times and in different places, the sphere of influence, character and functions of a divine being could expand, overlap with those of others, and be redefined as Roman. Change was embedded within existing traditions. Several versions of a semi-official, structured pantheon were developed during the political, social and religious instability of
352-426: A lawful oath ( sacramentum ) and breaking a sworn oath carried much the same penalty: both repudiated the fundamental bonds between the human and divine. A votum or vow was a promise made to a deity, usually an offer of sacrifices or a votive offering in exchange for benefits received. In Latin, the word sacrificium means the performance of an act that renders something sacer , sacred. Sacrifice reinforced
440-399: A long-form poem covering Roman holidays from January to June, Ovid presents a unique look at Roman antiquarian lore, popular customs, and religious practice that is by turns imaginative, entertaining, high-minded, and scurrilous; not a priestly account, despite the speaker's pose as a vates or inspired poet-prophet, but a work of description, imagination and poetic etymology that reflects
528-661: A month from the first to the last day. Instead, they counted back from three fixed points of the month: the Nones (the 5th or 7th, eight days before the Ides), the Ides (the 13th for most months, but the 15th in March, May, July, and October), and the Kalends (1st of the following month). Originally the Ides were supposed to be determined by the full moon , reflecting the lunar origin of
616-446: A pig on behalf of the community. Their supposed underworld relatives, the malicious and vagrant Lemures , might be placated with midnight offerings of black beans and spring water. The most potent offering was animal sacrifice , typically of domesticated animals such as cattle, sheep and pigs. Each was the best specimen of its kind, cleansed, clad in sacrificial regalia and garlanded; the horns of oxen might be gilded. Sacrifice sought
704-453: A priest on behalf of the community. Public religious ritual had to be enacted by specialists and professionals faultlessly; a mistake might require that the action, or even the entire festival, be repeated from the start. The historian Livy reports an occasion when the presiding magistrate at the Latin festival forgot to include the "Roman people" among the list of beneficiaries in his prayer;
792-781: A provincial Roman citizen who made the long journey from Bordeaux to Italy to consult the Sibyl at Tibur did not neglect his devotion to his own goddess from home: I wander, never ceasing to pass through the whole world, but I am first and foremost a faithful worshiper of Onuava . I am at the ends of the earth, but the distance cannot tempt me to make my vows to another goddess. Love of the truth brought me to Tibur, but Onuava's favourable powers came with me. Thus, divine mother, far from my home-land, exiled in Italy, I address my vows and prayers to you no less. Roman calendars show roughly forty annual religious festivals. Some lasted several days, others
880-415: A sacred duty and privilege of office. Additional festivals and games celebrated Imperial accessions and anniversaries. Others, such as the traditional Republican Secular Games to mark a new era ( saeculum ), became imperially funded to maintain traditional values and a common Roman identity. That the spectacles retained something of their sacral aura even in late antiquity is indicated by the admonitions of
968-418: A series of actions taken by Octavian to avenge Caesar's death. Suetonius and the historian Cassius Dio characterised the slaughter as a religious sacrifice , noting that it occurred on the Ides of March at the new altar to the deified Julius . Religion in ancient Rome Religion in ancient Rome consisted of varying imperial and provincial religious practices, which were followed both by
SECTION 10
#17327768396051056-459: A series of miraculous events. Romulus and Remus regained their grandfather's throne and set out to build a new city, consulting with the gods through augury , a characteristic religious institution of Rome that is portrayed as existing from earliest times. The brothers quarrel while building the city walls, and Romulus kills Remus, an act that is sometimes seen as sacrificial. Fratricide thus became an integral part of Rome's founding myth. Romulus
1144-524: A single day or less: sacred days ( dies fasti ) outnumbered "non-sacred" days ( dies nefasti ). A comparison of surviving Roman religious calendars suggests that official festivals were organized according to broad seasonal groups that allowed for different local traditions. Some of the most ancient and popular festivals incorporated ludi ("games", such as chariot races and theatrical performances ), with examples including those held at Palestrina in honour of Fortuna Primigenia during Compitalia , and
1232-503: A small altar for incense or libations . It might also display art works looted in war and rededicated to the gods. It is not clear how accessible the interiors of temples were to the general public. The Latin word templum originally referred not to the temple building itself, but to a sacred space surveyed and plotted ritually through augury: "The architecture of the ancient Romans was, from first to last, an art of shaping space around ritual." The Roman architect Vitruvius always uses
1320-418: A temple or shrine, where a ritual object might be stored and brought out for use, or where an offering would be deposited. Sacrifices , chiefly of animals , would take place at an open-air altar within the templum or precinct, often to the side of the steps leading up to the raised portico. The main room (cella) inside a temple housed the cult image of the deity to whom the temple was dedicated, and often
1408-462: A white cow); Jupiter a white, castrated ox ( bos mas ) for the annual oath-taking by the consuls . Di superi with strong connections to the earth, such as Mars, Janus, Neptune and various genii – including the Emperor's – were offered fertile victims. After the sacrifice, a banquet was held; in state cults, the images of honoured deities took pride of place on banqueting couches and by means of
1496-419: Is exceptionally detailed. All due care would be taken of the animals. If any died or were stolen before the scheduled sacrifice, they would count as already sacrificed, since they had already been consecrated. Normally, if the gods failed to keep their side of the bargain, the offered sacrifice would be withheld. In the imperial period, sacrifice was withheld following Trajan 's death because the gods had not kept
1584-611: Is the day on the Roman calendar marked as the Idus , roughly the midpoint of a month, of Martius , corresponding to 15 March on the Gregorian calendar . It was marked by several major religious observances . In 44 BC, it became notorious as the date of the assassination of Julius Caesar , which made the Ides of March a turning point in Roman history. The Romans did not number each day of
1672-421: Is why coarse jokes and coarse songs are used at Anna Perenna's festivities, and remarks that since the festival of Anna Perenna is in the month dedicated to Mars, it is reasonable that Mars and Anna Perenna should be associated as cult partners. In the 1930s Franz Altheim , an authority on Roman religion, suggested that Anna Perenna was originally an Etruscan mother goddess , and that her relationship with Aeneas
1760-494: The spolia opima , the prime spoils taken in war, in the celebration of the first Roman triumph . Spared a mortal's death, Romulus was mysteriously spirited away and deified. His Sabine successor Numa was pious and peaceable, and credited with numerous political and religious foundations, including the first Roman calendar ; the priesthoods of the Salii , flamines , and Vestals; the cults of Jupiter , Mars, and Quirinus ; and
1848-582: The First Jewish–Roman War and the Bar Kokhba revolt . In the wake of the Republic's collapse , state religion had adapted to support the new regime of the emperors . Augustus , the first Roman emperor, justified the novelty of one-man rule with a vast program of religious revivalism and reform. Public vows formerly made for the security of the republic now were directed at the well-being of
SECTION 20
#17327768396051936-594: The Greek Olympians , and promoted a sense that the two cultures had a shared heritage. The impressive, costly, and centralised rites to the deities of the Roman state were vastly outnumbered in everyday life by commonplace religious observances pertaining to an individual's domestic and personal deities, the patron divinities of Rome's various neighbourhoods and communities, and the often idiosyncratic blends of official, unofficial, local and personal cults that characterised lawful Roman religion. In this spirit,
2024-526: The Ludi Romani in honour of Liber . Other festivals may have required only the presence and rites of their priests and acolytes, or particular groups, such as women at the Bona Dea rites. Other public festivals were not required by the calendar, but occasioned by events. The triumph of a Roman general was celebrated as the fulfillment of religious vows , though these tended to be overshadowed by
2112-576: The Palladium , Lares and Penates from Troy to Italy. These objects were believed in historical times to remain in the keeping of the Vestals , Rome's female priesthood. Aeneas, according to classical authors, had been given refuge by King Evander , a Greek exile from Arcadia , to whom were attributed other religious foundations: he established the Ara Maxima , "Greatest Altar", to Hercules at
2200-572: The Senate 's efforts to restrict the Bacchanals in 186 BC. Because Romans had never been obligated to cultivate one god or one cult only, religious tolerance was not an issue in the sense that it is for monotheistic systems. The monotheistic rigor of Judaism posed difficulties for Roman policy that led at times to compromise and the granting of special exemptions, but sometimes to intractable conflict. For example, religious disputes helped cause
2288-513: The Via Sacra to the arx , where it was sacrificed . March retained many of its new-year ceremonies even when it was preceded on the calendar by January and February. In addition to the monthly sacrifice, the Ides of March was also the occasion of the Feast of Anna Perenna , a goddess of the year (Latin annus ) whose festival originally concluded the ceremonies of the new year. The day
2376-692: The druids as a positive consequence of the conquest of Gaul and Britain. Despite an empire-wide ban under Hadrian , human sacrifice may have continued covertly in North Africa and elsewhere. The mos maiorum established the dynastic authority and obligations of the citizen- paterfamilias ("the father of the family" or the "owner of the family estate"). He had priestly duties to his lares , domestic penates , ancestral Genius and any other deities with whom he or his family held an interdependent relationship. His own dependents, who included his slaves and freedmen, owed cult to his Genius . Genius
2464-544: The fetial priests. The first "outsider" Etruscan king, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus , founded a Capitoline temple to the triad Jupiter, Juno and Minerva which served as the model for the highest official cult throughout the Roman world. The benevolent, divinely fathered Servius Tullius established the Latin League , its Aventine Temple to Diana , and the Compitalia to mark his social reforms. Servius Tullius
2552-421: The harmonisation of the earthly and divine , so the victim must seem willing to offer its own life on behalf of the community; it must remain calm and be quickly and cleanly dispatched. Sacrifice to deities of the heavens ( di superi , "gods above") was performed in daylight, and under the public gaze. Deities of the upper heavens required white, infertile victims of their own sex: Juno a white heifer (possibly
2640-495: The Church Fathers that Christians should not take part. The meaning and origin of many archaic festivals baffled even Rome's intellectual elite, but the more obscure they were, the greater the opportunity for reinvention and reinterpretation – a fact lost neither on Augustus in his program of religious reform, which often cloaked autocratic innovation, nor on his only rival as mythmaker of the era, Ovid . In his Fasti ,
2728-554: The Compitalia shrines, were thought a symbolic replacement for child-sacrifice to Mania, as Mother of the Lares . The Junii took credit for its abolition by their ancestor L. Junius Brutus , traditionally Rome's Republican founder and first consul. Political or military executions were sometimes conducted in such a way that they evoked human sacrifice, whether deliberately or in the perception of witnesses; Marcus Marius Gratidianus
Anna Perenna - Misplaced Pages Continue
2816-565: The Elder declared that "a sacrifice without prayer is thought to be useless and not a proper consultation of the gods." Prayer by itself, however, had independent power. The spoken word was thus the single most potent religious action, and knowledge of the correct verbal formulas the key to efficacy. Accurate naming was vital for tapping into the desired powers of the deity invoked, hence the proliferation of cult epithets among Roman deities. Public prayers ( prex ) were offered loudly and clearly by
2904-660: The Emperor safe for the stipulated period. In Pompeii , the Genius of the living emperor was offered a bull: presumably a standard practise in Imperial cult, though minor offerings (incense and wine) were also made. The exta were the entrails of a sacrificed animal , comprising in Cicero 's enumeration the gall bladder ( fel ), liver ( iecur ), heart ( cor ), and lungs ( pulmones ). The exta were exposed for litatio (divine approval) as part of Roman liturgy, but were "read" in
2992-546: The Ides of March. On his way to the Theatre of Pompey , where he would be assassinated, Caesar passed the seer and joked, "Well, the Ides of March are come", implying that the prophecy had not been fulfilled, to which the seer replied "Aye, they are come, but they are not gone." This meeting is famously dramatised in William Shakespeare 's play Julius Caesar , when Caesar is warned by the soothsayer to "beware
3080-575: The Ides of March." The Roman biographer Suetonius identifies the "seer" as a haruspex named Spurinna. Caesar's assassination opened the final chapter in the crisis of the Roman Republic . After his victory in Caesar's civil war , his death triggered a series of further Roman civil wars that would finally result in the rise to sole power of his adopted heir Octavian. In 27 BC, Octavian became emperor Augustus , and thus he finally terminated
3168-607: The Late Republican era. Jupiter , the most powerful of all gods and "the fount of the auspices upon which the relationship of the city with the gods rested", consistently personified the divine authority of Rome's highest offices, internal organization and external relations. During the archaic and early Republican eras, he shared his temple , some aspects of cult and several divine characteristics with Mars and Quirinus , who were later replaced by Juno and Minerva . A conceptual tendency toward triads may be indicated by
3256-480: The Moon, with Themis , with Io or with Amaltheia , but prefers the report that during the secessio plebis an old woman of Bovillae named Anna baked cakes every morning and brought them to the hungry rebels, in gratitude for which the plebeians worshipped her as a goddess. Ovid goes on to report that after old Anna had become a goddess, she impersonated Minerva to gain admission to the god Mars ' bedchamber, which
3344-437: The Roman Republic. Writing under Augustus , Ovid portrays the murder as a sacrilege, since Caesar was also the pontifex maximus of Rome and a priest of Vesta . On the fourth anniversary of Caesar's death in 40 BC, after achieving a victory at the siege of Perugia , Octavian executed 300 senators and equites who had fought against him under Lucius Antonius , the brother of Mark Antony . The executions were one of
3432-457: The Roman calendar. Martius (March) was the first month of the Roman year until as late as the mid-2nd century BC, an order reflected in the numerical names of the months of September (the seventh month) through December (the tenth month) not corresponding to their current position on the Gregorian calendar. In the earliest Roman calendar, the Ides of March would have been the first full moon of
3520-612: The Senate could decree collective public rites, in which Rome's citizens, including women and children, moved in procession from one temple to the next, supplicating the gods. Extraordinary circumstances called for extraordinary sacrifice: in one of the many crises of the Second Punic War , Jupiter Capitolinus was promised every animal born that spring (see ver sacrum ), to be rendered after five more years of protection from Hannibal and his allies. The "contract" with Jupiter
3608-512: The Temple of Janus , whose doors stayed open in times of war but in Numa's time remained closed. After Numa's death, the doors to the Temple of Janus were supposed to have remained open until the reign of Augustus. Each of Rome's legendary or semi-legendary kings was associated with one or more religious institutions still known to the later Republic. Tullus Hostilius and Ancus Marcius instituted
Anna Perenna - Misplaced Pages Continue
3696-506: The afterlife, were a matter of personal choice for an individual, practiced in addition to carrying on one's family rites and participating in public religion. The mysteries, however, involved exclusive oaths and secrecy, conditions that conservative Romans viewed with suspicion as characteristic of " magic ", conspiratorial ( coniuratio ), or subversive activity. Sporadic and sometimes brutal attempts were made to suppress religionists who seemed to threaten traditional morality and unity, as with
3784-489: The broad humor and burlesque spirit of such venerable festivals as the Saturnalia , Consualia , and feast of Anna Perenna on the Ides of March , where Ovid treats the assassination of the newly deified Julius Caesar as utterly incidental to the festivities among the Roman people. But official calendars preserved from different times and places also show a flexibility in omitting or expanding events, indicating that there
3872-465: The circle of the year may be completed happily" and that people sacrificed to her both publicly and privately. Johannes Lydus says that public sacrifice and prayers were offered to her to secure a healthy year. Ovid in his Fasti (3.523) provides a vivid description of her outdoor festival: On the Ides is held the jovial feast of Anna Perenna not far from the banks, O Tiber, who comest from afar. The common folk come, and scattered here and there over
3960-465: The context of the disciplina Etrusca . As a product of Roman sacrifice, the exta and blood are reserved for the gods, while the meat (viscera) is shared among human beings in a communal meal. The exta of bovine victims were usually stewed in a pot ( olla or aula ), while those of sheep or pigs were grilled on skewers. When the deity's portion was cooked, it was sprinkled with mola salsa (ritually prepared salted flour) and wine, then placed in
4048-546: The deities and cults of other peoples rather than try to eradicate them, since they believed that preserving tradition promoted social stability. One way that Rome incorporated diverse peoples was by supporting their religious heritage, building temples to local deities that framed their theology within the hierarchy of Roman religion. Inscriptions throughout the Empire record the side-by-side worship of local and Roman deities, including dedications made by Romans to local gods. By
4136-451: The emperor. So-called "emperor worship" expanded on a grand scale the traditional Roman veneration of the ancestral dead and of the Genius , the divine tutelary of every individual. The Imperial cult became one of the major ways in which Rome advertised its presence in the provinces and cultivated shared cultural identity and loyalty throughout the Empire. Rejection of the state religion
4224-492: The expulsion of the old year . In the later Imperial period , the Ides began a "holy week" of festivals celebrating Cybele and Attis , being the day Canna intrat ("The Reed enters"), when Attis was born and found among the reeds of a Phrygian river. He was discovered by shepherds or the goddess Cybele, who was also known as the Magna Mater ("Great Mother") (narratives differ). A week later, on 22 March,
4312-399: The family's domestic deities were offered. Neighbourhood shrines and sacred places such as springs and groves dotted the city. The Roman calendar was structured around religious observances. Women , slaves , and children all participated in a range of religious activities. Some public rituals could be conducted only by women, and women formed what is perhaps Rome's most famous priesthood,
4400-404: The festival had to be started over. Even private prayer by an individual was formulaic, a recitation rather than a personal expression, though selected by the individual for a particular purpose or occasion. Oaths—sworn for the purposes of business, clientage and service, patronage and protection , state office, treaty and loyalty—appealed to the witness and sanction of deities. Refusal to swear
4488-472: The fire on the altar for the offering; the technical verb for this action was porricere . Human sacrifice in ancient Rome was rare but documented. After the Roman defeat at Cannae two Gauls and two Greeks were buried under the Forum Boarium , in a stone chamber "which had on a previous occasion [228 BC] also been polluted by human victims, a practice most repulsive to Roman feelings". Livy avoids
SECTION 50
#17327768396054576-458: The form of a holocaust or burnt offering, and there was no shared banquet, as "the living cannot share a meal with the dead". Ceres and other underworld goddesses of fruitfulness were sometimes offered pregnant female animals; Tellus was given a pregnant cow at the Fordicidia festival. Color had a general symbolic value for sacrifices. Demigods and heroes, who belonged to the heavens and
4664-487: The foundation and rise of the city. These narratives focus on human actors, with only occasional intervention from deities but a pervasive sense of divinely ordered destiny. For Rome's earliest period, history and myth are difficult to distinguish. According to mythology, Rome had a semi-divine ancestor in the Trojan refugee Aeneas , son of Venus , who was said to have established the basis of Roman religion when he brought
4752-589: The founding of the Latin League under Servius Tullius. Many temples in the Republican era were built as the fulfillment of a vow made by a general in exchange for a victory: Rome's first known temple to Venus was vowed by the consul Q. Fabius Gurges in the heat of battle against the Samnites , and dedicated in 295 BC. All sacrifices and offerings required an accompanying prayer to be effective. Pliny
4840-572: The gods, especially Jupiter , who embodied just rule. As a result of the Punic Wars (264–146 BC), when Rome struggled to establish itself as a dominant power, many new temples were built by magistrates in fulfillment of a vow to a deity for assuring their military success. As the Romans extended their dominance throughout the Mediterranean world, their policy in general was to absorb
4928-433: The green grass they drink, every lad reclining beside his lass. Some camp under the open sky; a few pitch tents; some make a leafy hut of boughs. Others set up reeds in place of rigid pillars, and stretching out their robes place them upon the reeds. But they grow warm with sun and wine, and they pray for as many years as they take cups, and they count the cups they drink. Ovid reports a legend that identifies Anna Perenna with
5016-475: The height of the Empire, numerous international deities were cultivated at Rome and had been carried to even the most remote provinces , among them Cybele , Isis , Epona , and gods of solar monism such as Mithras and Sol Invictus , found as far north as Roman Britain . Foreign religions increasingly attracted devotees among Romans, who increasingly had ancestry from elsewhere in the Empire. Imported mystery religions , which offered initiates salvation in
5104-540: The historical period influenced Roman culture , introducing some religious practices that became fundamental, such as the cultus of Apollo . The Romans looked for common ground between their major gods and those of the Greeks ( interpretatio graeca ), adapting Greek myths and iconography for Latin literature and Roman art , as the Etruscans had. Etruscan religion was also a major influence, particularly on
5192-403: The histories of Rome's leading families , and oral and ritual traditions. According to Cicero, the Romans considered themselves the most religious of all peoples, and their rise to dominance was proof they received divine favor in return. Rome offers no native creation myth , and little mythography to explain the character of its deities, their mutual relationships or their interactions with
5280-438: The human world, but Roman theology acknowledged that di immortales (immortal gods) ruled all realms of the heavens and earth. There were gods of the upper heavens, gods of the underworld and a myriad of lesser deities between. Some evidently favoured Rome because Rome honoured them, but none were intrinsically, irredeemably foreign or alien. The political, cultural and religious coherence of an emergent Roman super-state required
5368-567: The later agricultural or plebeian triad of Ceres , Liber and Libera , and by some of the complementary threefold deity-groupings of Imperial cult. Other major and minor deities could be single, coupled, or linked retrospectively through myths of divine marriage and sexual adventure. These later Roman pantheistic hierarchies are part literary and mythographic, part philosophical creations, and often Greek in origin. The Hellenization of Latin literature and culture supplied literary and artistic models for reinterpreting Roman deities in light of
SECTION 60
#17327768396055456-442: The new year. As a fixed point in the month, the Ides accumulated functions set to occur every month, and was the day when debt payments and rents were due. The month of Martius was named for the god Mars , whose " birthday " was celebrated on the 1st, but the Ides of each month were sacred to Jupiter , the Romans' supreme deity. The Flamen Dialis , Jupiter's high priest, led the "Ides sheep" ( ovis Idulis ) in procession along
5544-463: The people of Rome as well as those who were brought under its rule. The Romans thought of themselves as highly religious, and attributed their success as a world power to their collective piety ( pietas ) in maintaining good relations with the gods . Their polytheistic religion is known for having honoured many deities . The presence of Greeks on the Italian peninsula from the beginning of
5632-466: The political and social significance of the event. During the late Republic, the political elite competed to outdo each other in public display, and the ludi attendant on a triumph were expanded to include gladiator contests. Under the Principate , all such spectacular displays came under Imperial control: the most lavish were subsidised by emperors, and lesser events were provided by magistrates as
5720-431: The powers and attributes of divine beings, and inclined them to render benefits in return (the principle of do ut des ). Offerings to household deities were part of daily life. Lares might be offered spelt wheat and grain-garlands, grapes and first fruits in due season, honey cakes and honeycombs, wine and incense, food that fell to the floor during any family meal, or at their Compitalia festival, honey-cakes and
5808-502: The practice of augury , used by the state to seek the will of the gods. According to legends , most of Rome's religious institutions could be traced to its founders , particularly Numa Pompilius , the Sabine second king of Rome , who negotiated directly with the gods . This archaic religion was the foundation of the mos maiorum , "the way of the ancestors" or simply "tradition", viewed as central to Roman identity. Roman religion
5896-470: The rebirth of Attis on 25 March, the date of the vernal equinox on the Julian calendar . In modern times, the Ides of March is best known as the date on which Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC. Caesar was stabbed to death at a meeting of the Senate . As many as 60 conspirators, led by Brutus and Cassius , were involved. According to Plutarch , a seer had warned that harm would come to Caesar on
5984-431: The sacrificial fire consumed their proper portion ( exta , the innards). Rome's officials and priests reclined in order of precedence alongside and ate the meat; lesser citizens may have had to provide their own. Chthonic gods such as Dis pater , the di inferi ("gods below"), and the collective shades of the departed ( di Manes ) were given dark, fertile victims in nighttime rituals. Animal sacrifice usually took
6072-525: The sister of Dido , the Carthaginian founder in Virgil 's Aeneid . After Dido's tragic death, Anna finds refuge from her brother Pygmalion on Malta , with Battus , the king of the island and a wealthy host. Upon protecting Anna for three years, Battus counselled her to flee for her safety and find a fresh place of exile as her brother was seeking war. Forced again to flee over the seas, Anna Perenna
6160-623: The site that would become the Forum Boarium , and, so the legend went, he was the first to celebrate the Lupercalia , an archaic festival in February that was celebrated as late as the 5th century of the Christian era. The myth of a Trojan founding with Greek influence was reconciled through an elaborate genealogy (the Latin kings of Alba Longa ) with the well-known legend of Rome's founding by Romulus and Remus . The most common version of
6248-476: The solemn commemoration of Arbor intrat ("The Tree enters") commemorated the death of Attis under a pine tree. A college of priests, the dendrophoroi ("tree bearers") annually cut down a tree, hung from it an image of Attis, and carried it to the temple of the Magna Mater with lamentations. The day was formalized as part of the official Roman calendar under Claudius ( d. 54 AD). A three-day period of mourning followed, culminating with celebrating
6336-614: The state-supported Vestals , who tended Rome's sacred hearth for centuries, until disbanded under Christian domination. The priesthoods of most state religions were held by members of the elite classes . There was no principle analogous to separation of church and state in ancient Rome. During the Roman Republic (509–27 BC), the same men who were elected public officials might also serve as augurs and pontiffs . Priests married, raised families, and led politically active lives. Julius Caesar became pontifex maximus before he
6424-407: The twins' story displays several aspects of hero myth. Their mother, Rhea Silvia , had been ordered by her uncle the king to remain a virgin, in order to preserve the throne he had usurped from her father. Through divine intervention, the rightful line was restored when Rhea Silvia was impregnated by the god Mars . She gave birth to twins, who were duly exposed by order of the king but saved through
6512-555: The underworld, were sometimes given black-and-white victims. Robigo (or Robigus ) was given red dogs and libations of red wine at the Robigalia for the protection of crops from blight and red mildew. A sacrifice might be made in thanksgiving or as an expiation of a sacrilege or potential sacrilege ( piaculum ); a piaculum might also be offered as a sort of advance payment; the Arval Brethren , for instance, offered
6600-470: The word templum to refer to this sacred precinct, and the more common Latin words aedes , delubrum , or fanum for a temple or shrine as a building. The ruins of temples are among the most visible monuments of ancient Roman culture. Temple buildings and shrines within the city commemorated significant political settlements in its development: the Aventine Temple of Diana supposedly marked
6688-510: The word "sacrifice" in connection with this bloodless human life-offering; Plutarch does not. The rite was apparently repeated in 113 BC, preparatory to an invasion of Gaul. Its religious dimensions and purpose remain uncertain. In the early stages of the First Punic War (264 BC) the first known Roman gladiatorial munus was held, described as a funeral blood-rite to the manes of a Roman military aristocrat. The gladiator munus
6776-492: Was a gruesome example. Officially, human sacrifice was obnoxious "to the laws of gods and men". The practice was a mark of the barbarians , attributed to Rome's traditional enemies such as the Carthaginians and Gauls. Rome banned it on several occasions under extreme penalty. A law passed in 81 BC characterised human sacrifice as murder committed for magical purposes. Pliny saw the ending of human sacrifice conducted by
6864-490: Was an augur, saw religion as a source of social order. As the Roman Empire expanded, migrants to the capital brought their local cults , many of which became popular among Italians. Christianity was eventually the most successful of these beliefs, and in 380 became the official state religion . For ordinary Romans, religion was a part of daily life. Each home had a household shrine at which prayers and libations to
6952-559: Was credited with several religious institutions. He founded the Consualia festival, inviting the neighbouring Sabines to participate; the ensuing rape of the Sabine women by Romulus's men further embedded both violence and cultural assimilation in Rome's myth of origins. As a successful general, Romulus is also supposed to have founded Rome's first temple to Jupiter Feretrius and offered
7040-468: Was developed to strengthen her association with Rome. Two places of worship of Anna Perenna are attested. One in Buscemi , Sicily , where in 1899 some inscriptions to Anna and Apollo were found, and in Rome, where a fountain devoted to Anna Perenna rites was unearthed in 1999. Ides of March The Ides of March ( / aɪ d z / ; Latin : Idus Martiae , Medieval Latin : Idus Martii )
7128-421: Was elected consul . The augurs read the will of the gods and supervised the marking of boundaries as a reflection of universal order, thus sanctioning Roman expansionism and foreign wars as a matter of divine destiny. The Roman triumph was at its core a religious procession in which the victorious general displayed his piety and his willingness to serve the public good by dedicating a portion of his spoils to
7216-474: Was enthusiastically celebrated among the common people with picnics, drinking, and revelry. One source from late antiquity also places the Mamuralia on the Ides of March. This observance, which has aspects of scapegoat or ancient Greek pharmakos ritual , involved beating an old man dressed in animal skins and perhaps driving him from the city. The ritual may have been a new year festival representing
7304-434: Was murdered and succeeded by the arrogant Tarquinius Superbus , whose expulsion marked the end of Roman kingship and the beginning of the Roman republic, governed by elected magistrates . Roman historians regarded the essentials of Republican religion as complete by the end of Numa's reign, and confirmed as right and lawful by the Senate and people of Rome : the sacred topography of the city , its monuments and temples,
7392-527: Was never explicitly acknowledged as a human sacrifice, probably because death was not its inevitable outcome or purpose. Even so, the gladiators swore their lives to the gods, and the combat was dedicated as an offering to the Di Manes or the revered souls of deceased human beings. The event was therefore a sacrificium in the strict sense of the term, and Christian writers later condemned it as human sacrifice. The small woollen dolls called Maniae , hung on
7480-457: Was no single static and authoritative calendar of required observances. In the later Empire under Christian rule, the new Christian festivals were incorporated into the existing framework of the Roman calendar, alongside at least some of the traditional festivals. Public religious ceremonies of the official Roman religion took place outdoors, and not within the temple building. Some ceremonies were processions that started at, visited, or ended with
7568-416: Was practical and contractual, based on the principle of do ut des , "I give that you might give". Religion depended on knowledge and the correct practice of prayer, rite, and sacrifice, not on faith or dogma, although Latin literature preserves learned speculation on the nature of the divine and its relation to human affairs. Even the most skeptical among Rome's intellectual elite such as Cicero , who
7656-505: Was shipwrecked on the coasts of Latium where she was hosted by Aeneas 's settlement of Lavinium . Anna's presence there made Lavinia increasingly jealous. Dido appeared in Anna's dream, exhorting her to abandon her latest refuge, from where she was swept away by the river-god Numicus and transformed into a river nymph hidden in the "perennial stream" ( amnis perennis ), and renamed Anna Perenna. Ovid adds that some equate Anna Perenna with
7744-459: Was tantamount to treason. This was the context for Rome's conflict with Christianity , which Romans variously regarded as a form of atheism and novel superstitio , while Christians considered Roman religion to be paganism . Ultimately, Roman polytheism was brought to an end with the adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the empire. The Roman mythological tradition is particularly rich in historical myths, or legends , concerning
#604395