134-581: Dea Dia (Latin: "Goddess of Daylight", or "Bright Goddess") was a goddess of fertility and growth in ancient Roman religion . She was sometimes identified with Ceres , and sometimes with her Greek equivalent Demeter . She was worshiped during Ambarvalia , a festival to Ceres. Every May, her priests, the Fratres Arvales , held a three-day festival in her honor. The name Dea Dīa ( Classical Latin : [ˈd̪e.a ˈd̪iː.a] ) means 'Goddess of Daylight' or 'Bright Goddess'. The first element stems from
268-505: 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,
402-512: A reformation of the calendar in 46 BC. This was undertaken by a group of scholars apparently including the Alexandrian Sosigenes and the Roman M. Flavius. Its main lines involved the insertion of ten additional days throughout the calendar and regular intercalation of a single leap day every fourth year to bring the Roman calendar into close agreement with the solar year. The year 46 BC
536-440: A 24-year cycle, there were only three intercalary years, each of 377 days. This refinement brings the calendar back in line with the seasons and averages the length of the year to 365.25 days over 24 years. The Pontifex Maximus determined when an intercalary month was to be inserted. On average, this happened in alternate years. The system of aligning the year through intercalary months broke down at least twice:
670-421: 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
804-405: A decimal division fitting general Roman practice. There were four months of "31" days —March, May, Quintilis, and October—called "full months" ( pleni menses ) and six months of "30" days —April, June, Sextilis, September, November, and December—called "hollow months" ( cavi menses ). These "304" days made up exactly 38 nundinal cycles . The months were kept in alignment with
938-436: A further correction to the calendar method, resulting in the establishment of the modern Gregorian calendar . The original Roman calendar is usually believed to have been an observational lunar calendar whose months ended and began from the new moon . Because a lunar cycle is about 29.5 days long, such months would have varied between 29 and 30 days . Twelve such months would have fallen 10 or 11 days short of
1072-426: 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
1206-399: 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
1340-446: 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
1474-449: 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;
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#17328448487381608-773: 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
1742-617: A rebellion in Hispania. Plutarch believed Numa was responsible for placing January and February first in the calendar; Ovid states January began as the first month and February the last, with its present order owing to the Decemvirs . W. Warde Fowler believed the Roman priests continued to treat January and February as the last months of the calendar throughout the Republican period. According to
1876-415: 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
2010-459: 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
2144-524: 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
2278-503: 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
2412-418: 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
2546-457: 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
2680-439: Is an a priori interpretation by late Republican writers. Other traditions existed alongside this one, however. Plutarch 's Parallel Lives recounts that Romulus 's calendar had been solar but adhered to the general principle that the year should last for 360 days. Months were employed secondarily and haphazardly, with some counted as 20 days and others as 35 or more. Plutarch records that while one tradition
2814-639: Is clear that, for a variety of reasons, the intercalation necessary for the system's accuracy was not always observed. Astronomical events recorded in Livy show the civil calendar had varied from the solar year by an entire season in 190 BC and was still two months off in 168 BC . By the 191 BC Lex Acilia or before, control of intercalation was given to the pontifex maximus but—as these were often active political leaders like Caesar —political considerations continued to interfere with its regular application. Notably, intercalation had to be personally announced by
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#17328448487382948-419: 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
3082-470: Is possible the original calendar was agriculturally based, observational of the seasons and stars rather the moon, with ten months of varying length filling the entire year. If this ever existed, it would have changed to the lunisolar system later credited to Numa during the kingdom or early Republic under the influence of the Etruscans and of Pythagorean Southern Italian Greeks . After the establishment of
3216-426: Is that Numa added two new months to a ten-month calendar, another version is that January and February were originally the last two months of the year and Numa just moved them to the start of the year, so that January (named after a peaceful ruler called Janus ) would come before March (which was named for Mars, the god of war). Rome's 8-day week, the nundinal cycle , was shared with the Etruscans , who used it as
3350-570: The fasti , which designated the religious and legal character of each month's days. The Romans marked each day of such calendars with the letters: Each day was also marked by a letter from A to H to indicate its place within the nundinal cycle of market days. The nundinae were the market days which formed a kind of weekend in Rome , Italy , and some other parts of Roman territory. By Roman inclusive counting , they were reckoned as "ninth days" although they actually occurred every eighth day. Because
3484-490: 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
3618-463: The Byzantine Empire in its calendar . Roman dates were counted inclusively forward to the next one of three principal days within each month: These are thought to reflect a prehistoric lunar calendar, with the kalends proclaimed after the sighting of the first sliver of the new crescent moon a day or two after the new moon , the nones occurring on the day of the first-quarter moon , and
3752-544: The Christian Lord's Day . The system was originally used for private worship and astrology but had replaced the nundinal week by the time Constantine made Sunday ( dies Solis ) an official day of rest in AD ;321. The hebdomadal week was also reckoned as a cycle of letters from A to G; these were adapted for Christian use as the dominical letters . The names of Roman months originally functioned as adjectives (e.g.,
3886-571: 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
4020-587: 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,
4154-515: 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
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4288-529: The Metonic cycle centuries before its development by Babylonian and Greek astronomers . Plutarch 's account claims he ended the former chaos of the calendar by employing 12 months totalling 354 days—the length of the lunar and Greek years —and a biennial intercalary month of 22 days called Mercedonius . According to Livy's Periochae , the beginning of the consular year changed from March to 1 January in 153 BC to respond to
4422-560: 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
4556-511: The Roman Empire . ( Egyptians used the related Alexandrian calendar , which Augustus had adapted from their wandering ancient calendar to maintain its alignment with Rome's.) A few emperors altered the names of the months after themselves or their family, but such changes were abandoned by their successors. Diocletian began the 15-year indiction cycles beginning from the AD 297 census; these became
4690-562: 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
4824-498: The bissextile ( bis sextum ) leap day every three years due to their inclusive counting. In order to bring the calendar back to its proper place, Augustus was obliged to suspend intercalation for one or two decades. At 365.25 days, the Julian calendar remained slightly longer than the solar year (365.24 days). By the 16th century, the date of Easter had shifted so far away from the vernal equinox that Pope Gregory XIII ordered
4958-686: 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
5092-532: 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
5226-421: 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
5360-470: The later calendar , there remained several moveable feasts ( feriae conceptivae , "proclaimed festivals") like the Sementivae that were dependent on local conditions. Michels suggests this was the original state of all ancient festivals, marking divisions between the seasons and occasions within them. The Romans themselves usually described their first organized year as one with ten fixed months,
5494-605: The new moon , the first-quarter moon , and the full moon respectively. To a late date, the College of Pontiffs formally proclaimed each of these days on the Capitoline Hill and Roman dating counted down inclusively towards the next such day in any month. (For example, the year-end festival of Terminalia on 23 February was called VII. Kal. Mart. , the 6th day before the March kalends.) Romulus's successor Numa Pompilius
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5628-673: The ordinal numbers from 5 to 10 , their position in the calendar when it began around the spring equinox in March. Others are uncertain. February may derive from the Februa festival or its eponymous februa ("purifications, expiatory offerings"), whose name may be either Sabine or preserve an archaic word for sulphuric . April may relate to the Etruscan goddess Apru or the verb aperire ("to open"). May and June may honor Maia and Juno or derive from archaic terms for "senior" and "junior". A few emperors attempted to add themselves to
5762-404: The rising of stars , with only occasional supplementary mention of the civil calendar of their times until the 4th or 5th century author Palladius . Augury , formal Roman ornithomancy , continued to be the focus of a prestigious dedicated priesthood until at least the end of the 4th century. Although most Roman festivals in the historical record were closely tied to the nundinal cycle of
5896-478: The solar year and, without adjustment, such a year would have quickly rotated out of alignment with the seasons in the manner of the Islamic calendar . Given the seasonal aspects of the calendar and its associated religious festivals , this was presumably avoided through some form of arbitrary curtailment or intercalation or through the suspension of the calendar during winter. Against this, Michels has argued that
6030-488: 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 ,
6164-544: 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
6298-561: 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
6432-647: 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
6566-641: The February ides are attested as sometimes counting down towards the Quirinalia (February 17), the Feralia (February 21), or the Terminalia (February 23) rather than the intercalary or March kalends. The third-century writer Censorinus says: When it was thought necessary to add (every two years) an intercalary month of 22 or 23 days , so that the civil year should correspond to the natural (solar) year, this intercalation
6700-565: The January kalends occur in the January month) before being treated as substantive nouns in their own right (e.g., the kalends of January occur in January). Some of their etymologies are well-established: January and March honor the gods Janus and Mars ; July and August honor Julius Caesar and his successor, the emperor Augustus ; and the months Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December are archaic adjectives formed from
6834-600: 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
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#17328448487386968-590: The Latin dea ('goddess'), while the second is related to diēs ('day'), probably in reference to the ritual prescription to announce in January the May ceremonies sub divo culmine ('under the celestial vault'). This article relating to an Ancient Roman myth or legend is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Religion in ancient Rome Religion in ancient Rome consisted of varying imperial and provincial religious practices, which were followed both by
7102-528: The Republic , years began to be dated by consulships but the calendar and its rituals were otherwise very conservatively maintained until the Late Republic . Even when the nundinal cycles had completely departed from correlation with the moon's phases, a pontiff was obliged to meet the sacred king , to claim that he had observed the new moon, and to offer a sacrifice to Juno to solemnize each kalends. It
7236-465: The Roman calendar were generally credited by the Romans to Numa Pompilius , Romulus 's successor and the second of Rome's seven kings , as were the two new months of the calendar. Most sources thought he had established intercalation with the rest of his calendar. Although Livy 's Numa instituted a lunar calendar, the author claimed the king had instituted a 19-year system of intercalation equivalent to
7370-416: The Roman superstition about even numbers, an additional day was added to January to make the calendar 355 days long. Auspiciously, each month now had an odd number of days: Martius (March), Maius (May), Quinctilis (July), and October continued to have 31; the other months, 29, except for February, which had 28 days. Considered unlucky, it was devoted to rites of purification (februa) and expiation appropriate to
7504-531: The Romans to date their years began in 509 BC. Gnaeus Flavius , a secretary ( scriba ) to censor App. Claudius Caecus , introduced a series of reforms in 304 BC. Their exact nature is uncertain, although he is thought to have begun the custom of publishing the calendar in advance of the month, depriving the priests of some of their power but allowing for a more consistent calendar for official business. Julius Caesar , following his victory in his civil war and in his role as pontifex maximus , ordered
7638-600: 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
7772-504: 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
7906-424: The Terminalia, where they placed the intercalary month". This appears to have been generally correct. In 170 BC, Intercalaris began on the second day after February 23 and, in 167 BC, it began on the day after February 23. Varro , writing in the first century BC, says "the twelfth month was February, and when intercalations take place the five last days of this month are removed." Since all
8040-506: 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
8174-540: The bad luck that followed a nundinae on the nones of a month or, later, on the first day of January . Intercalation was supposedly used to avoid such coincidences, even after the Julian reform of the calendar. The 7-day week began to be observed in Italy in the early imperial period, as practitioners and converts to eastern religions introduced Hellenistic and Babylonian astrology , the Jewish Saturday sabbath , and
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#17328448487388308-529: 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
8442-466: The calendar after Augustus, but without enduring success. In classical Latin, the days of each month were usually reckoned as: Dates after the ides count forward to the kalends of the next month and are expressed as such. For example, March 19 was expressed as "the 14th day before the April Kalends" ( a.d. XIV Kal. Apr. ), without a mention of March itself. The day after a kalends, nones, or ides
8576-400: The calendar in the second year of the four-year cycle and 23 days in the fourth. This produced an excess of four days over the four years in line with the normal one day excess over one year. The method of correction was to truncate February by five days and follow it with the intercalary month which thus commenced (normally) on the day after February 23 and had either 27 or 28 days. February 23
8710-461: The calendar until it seemed things were restored to their proper place. Licinius Macer 's lost history apparently similarly stated that even the earliest Roman calendar employed intercalation. Later Roman writers usually credited this calendar to Romulus , their legendary first king and culture hero , although this was common with other practices and traditions whose origin had been lost to them. Censorinus considered him to have borrowed
8844-427: The change. This created confusion with regard to certain anniversaries. For instance, Augustus 's birthday on the 23rd day of September was a.d. VIII Kal. Oct. in the old calendar but a.d. IX Kal. Oct. under the new system. The ambiguity caused honorary festivals to be held on either or both dates. The Republican calendar only had 355 days, which meant that it would quickly unsynchronize from
8978-566: The chief pontiff in Rome so, when his war in Gaul and civil war against Pompey kept Caesar out of the city for years at a time, the calendar was repeatedly left unadjusted. Victorious in civil war, Caesar reformed the calendar in 46 BC, coincidentally making the year of his third consulship last for 446 days. This new Julian calendar was an entirely solar one , influenced by Egypt's . In order to avoid interfering with Rome's religious ceremonies,
9112-465: 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
9246-531: The days after the Ides of Intercalaris were counted down to the beginning of March, the month had either 27 days (making 377 for the year) or 28 (making 378 for the year). There is another theory which says that in intercalary years February had 23 or 24 days and Intercalaris had 27. No date is offered for the Regifugium in 378-day years. Macrobius describes a further refinement whereby, in one 8-year period within
9380-542: 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
9514-745: The early calendars used by Rome and its neighbors were more probably observational of seasonal markers in nature (the leafing of trees), animal behavior (the migration of birds), and the agricultural cycle (the ripening of grain ) combined with observation of stars in the night sky . She considers that this more sensibly accounts for later legends of Romulus 's decimal year and the great irregularity in Italian month lengths recorded in Censorinus . Roman works on agriculture including those of Cato , Varro , Vergil , Columella , and Pliny invariably date their practices based on suitable conditions or upon
9648-447: 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
9782-399: 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,
9916-404: 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
10050-465: 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
10184-418: The first 16 years of a 24-year cycle. In the last 8 years, the intercalation took place with the month of Mercedonius only 27 days, except the last intercalation which did not happen. Hence, there would be a typical common year followed by a leap year of 377 days for the next 6 years and the remaining 2 years would sequentially be common years. The result of this twenty-four-year pattern was of great precision for
10318-411: The first time was during and after the Second Punic War . It led to the reform of the 191 BC Acilian Law on Intercalation , the details of which are unclear, but it appears to have successfully regulated intercalation for over a century. The second breakdown was in the middle of the first century BC and may have been related to the increasingly chaotic and adversarial nature of Roman politics at
10452-514: The five remaining days beginning with the Regifugium on the 24th ( a.d. VI Kal. Mart. ) formed the second part; and the intercalary month Mercedonius was inserted between them. In such years, the days between the ides and the Regifugium were counted down to either the Intercalary Kalends or to the Terminalia. The intercalary month counted down to nones and ides on its 5th and 13th day in
10586-452: 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
10720-483: 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
10854-519: 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
10988-506: 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
11122-475: 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
11256-480: 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
11390-403: 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
11524-438: 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
11658-493: The ides on the day of the full moon . The kalends of each month were sacred to Juno and the ides to Jupiter . The day before each was known as its eve ( pridie ); the day after each ( postridie ) was considered particularly unlucky. The days of the month were expressed in early Latin using the ablative of time , denoting points in time, in the contracted form "the 6th December Kalends" ( VI Kalendis Decembribus ). In classical Latin, this use continued for
11792-660: The last month of the year. (Although these legendary beginnings attest to the venerability of the lunar calendar of the Roman Republic, its historical origin probably was the publication of a revised calendar by the Decemviri in 450 BC as part of the Twelve Tables , Rome's first code of law.) The inequality between the lunar year of 355 days and the tropical year of 365.25 days led to a shortfall over four years of (10.25 × 4) = 41 days. Theoretically, 22 days were interpolated into
11926-567: 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
12060-471: The later writers Censorinus and Macrobius, to correct the mismatch of the correspondence between months and seasons due to the excess of one day of the Roman average year over the tropical year, the insertion of the intercalary month was modified according to the scheme: common year (355 days), leap year with 23-day February followed by 27-day Mercedonius (377 days), common year, leap year with 23-day February followed by 28-day Mercedonius (378 days), and so on for
12194-544: The manner of the other short months. The remaining days of the month counted down towards the March Kalends, so that the end of Mercedonius and the second part of February were indistinguishable to the Romans, one ending on a.d. VII Kal. Mart. and the other picking up at a.d. VI Kal. Mart. and bearing the normal festivals of such dates. Apparently because of the confusion of these changes or uncertainty as to whether an intercalary month would be ordered, dates after
12328-498: The moon, however, by counting the new moon as the last day of the first month and simultaneously the first day of the next month. The system is usually said to have left the remaining two to three months of the year as an unorganized "winter", since they were irrelevant to the farming cycle. Macrobius claims the 10-month calendar was fixed and allowed to shift until the summer months were completely misplaced, at which time additional days belonging to no month were simply inserted into
12462-430: The next year. These months each had 30 or 31 days and ran for 38 nundinal cycles , each forming a kind of eight-day week —nine days counted inclusively in the Roman manner —and ending with religious rituals and a public market . This fixed calendar bore traces of its origin as an observational lunar one . In particular, the most important days of each month—its kalends , nones , and ides —seem to have derived from
12596-449: The object of another preposition, or simply originated in a mistaken agreement of dies with the preposition ante once it moved to the beginning of the expression. In late Latin , this idiom was sometimes abandoned in favor of again using the ablative of time. The kalends were the day for payment of debts and the account books ( kalendaria ) kept for them gave English its word calendar . The public Roman calendars were
12730-408: 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
12864-460: 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
12998-431: 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
13132-498: 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
13266-448: The priests had (owing to their inclusive counting) been intercalating every third year instead of every fourth, suspended the addition of leap days to the calendar for one or two decades until its proper position had been restored. See Julian calendar: Leap year error . In 8 BC, the plebiscite Lex Pacuvia de Mense Augusto renamed Sextilis August ( Augustus ) in his honor. In large part, this calendar continued unchanged under
13400-421: The reform distributed the unassigned days among the months (towards their ends) and did not adjust any nones or ides, even in months which came to have 31 days. The Julian calendar was designed to have a single leap day every fourth year by repeating February 24 (a doubled VI. Kal. Mart. or ante diem bis sextum Kalendas Martias ) but, following Caesar's assassination , the priests mistakenly added
13534-460: The republican and Julian years were not evenly divisible into eight-day periods, Roman calendars included a column giving every day of the year a nundinal letter from A to H marking its place in the cycle of market days. Each year, the letter used for the markets would shift 2–5 letters along the cycle. As a day when the city swelled with rural plebeians , they were overseen by the aediles and took on an important role in Roman legislation, which
13668-459: The required format for official dating under Justinian . Constantine formally established the 7-day week by making Sunday an official holiday in 321. Consular dating became obsolete following the abandonment of appointing nonimperial consuls in AD 541. The Roman method of numbering the days of the month never became widespread in the Hellenized eastern provinces and was eventually abandoned by
13802-431: 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
13936-668: The schedule of royal audiences. It was presumably a part of the early calendar and was credited in Roman legend variously to Romulus and Servius Tullius . The attested calendar of the Roman Republic was quite different. It had twelve months, already including January and February during the winter. It also followed Greek calendars in assuming a lunar cycle of 29.5 days and a solar year of 12.5 synodic months (368.75 days), which align every fourth year after two additions of an intercalary month ( mensis intercalaris ), sometimes known as Mercedonius . According to Livy, it
14070-556: 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
14204-455: The solar year, causing, for example, agricultural festivals to occur out of season. The Roman solution to this problem was to periodically lengthen the calendar by adding extra days within February. February was broken into two parts, each with an odd number of days. The first part ended with the Terminalia on the 23rd ( a.d. VII Kal. Mart. ), which was considered the end of the religious year;
14338-434: The start of the mensis intercalaris ) for the purpose of avoiding a clash between a particular festival and a particular day of the week (see Hebrew calendar § Rosh Hashanah postponement rules for another example). The Roman superstitions concerning the numbering and order of the months seem to have arisen from Pythagorean superstitions concerning the luckiness of odd numbers . These Pythagorean-based changes to
14472-551: 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
14606-425: The system from Alba Longa , his supposed birthplace. Some scholars doubt the existence of this calendar at all, as it is only attested in late Republican and Imperial sources and supported only by the misplaced names of the months from September to December. Rüpke also finds the coincidence of the length of the supposed "Romulan" year with the length of the first ten months of the Julian calendar to indicate that it
14740-517: The three principal days of the month but other days were idiomatically expressed in the accusative case , which usually expressed a duration of time , and took the form "6th day before the December Kalends" ( ante diem VI Kalendas Decembres ). This anomaly may have followed the treatment of days in Greek , reflecting the increasing use of such date phrases as an absolute phrase able to function as
14874-401: The time. The position of Pontifex Maximus was not a full-time job; it was held by a member of the Roman elite, who would almost invariably be involved in the machinations of Roman politics. Because the term of office of elected Roman magistrates was defined in terms of a Roman calendar year, a Pontifex Maximus had an incentive to lengthen a year in which he or his allies were in power or shorten
15008-498: The time: 365.25 days, as shown by the following calculation: 355 ⋅ 13 + 377 ⋅ 7 + 378 ⋅ 4 24 = 8766 24 = 365.25 {\displaystyle {\frac {355\cdot 13+377\cdot 7+378\cdot 4}{24}}={\frac {8766}{24}}=365.25} The consuls' terms of office were not always a modern calendar year, but ordinary consuls were elected or appointed annually. The traditional list of Roman consuls used by
15142-407: 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
15276-543: 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
15410-463: 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
15544-503: 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
15678-415: Was Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome (715–673 BC), who divided the year into twelve lunar months (History of Rome, I.19). Fifty days, says Censorinus, were added to the calendar and a day taken from each month of thirty days to provide for the two winter months: Januarius (January) and Februarius (February), both of which had 28 days (The Natal Day, XX). This was a lunar year of 354 days but, because of
15812-485: 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
15946-455: Was also often expressed as the "day after" ( postridie ) owing to their special status as particularly unlucky "black days". The anomalous status of the new 31-day months under the Julian calendar was an effect of Caesar's desire to avoid affecting the festivals tied to the nones and ides of various months. However, because the dates at the ends of the month all counted forward to the next kalends, they were all shifted by one or two days by
16080-430: 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
16214-499: 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
16348-421: 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
16482-404: Was in preference made in February, between the Terminalia [23rd] and Regifugium [24th]. The fifth-century writer Macrobius says that the Romans intercalated 22 and 23 days in alternate years; the intercalation was placed after February 23 and the remaining five days of February followed. To avoid the nones falling on a nundine, where necessary an intercalary day was inserted "in the middle of
16616-434: 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,
16750-522: 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
16884-457: 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
17018-416: 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
17152-412: Was supposed to be announced for three nundinal weeks (between 17 and 24 days ) in advance of its coming to a vote. The patricians and their clients sometimes exploited this fact as a kind of filibuster , since the tribunes of the plebs were required to wait another three-week period if their proposals could not receive a vote before dusk on the day they were introduced. Superstitions arose concerning
17286-459: 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
17420-485: Was the Terminalia and in a normal year it was a.d. VII Kal. Mart. Thus the dates of the festivals of the last five days of February were preserved on account of them being actually named and counted inclusively in days before the calends of March; they were traditionally part of the celebration for the new year. There was occasionally a delay of one day (a dies intercalaris being inserted between February 23 and
17554-713: Was the calendar used by the Roman Kingdom and Roman Republic . Although the term is primarily used for Rome's pre-Julian calendars, it is often used inclusively of the Julian calendar established by the reforms of the Dictator Julius Caesar and Emperor Augustus in the late 1st century BC. According to most Roman accounts, their original calendar was established by their legendary first king Romulus . It consisted of ten months , beginning in spring with March and leaving winter as an unassigned span of days before
17688-424: Was the essential spirit and generative power – depicted as a serpent or as a perennial youth, often winged – within an individual and their clan ( gens (pl. gentes ). A paterfamilias could confer his name, a measure of his genius and a role in his household rites, obligations and honours upon those he fathered or adopted. His freed slaves owed him similar obligations. Roman calendar The Roman calendar
17822-403: Was the last of the old system and included three intercalary months, the first inserted in February and two more— Intercalaris Prior and Posterior —before the kalends of December. After Caesar's assassination , Mark Antony had Caesar's birth month Quintilis renamed July ( Iulius ) in his honor. After Antony's defeat at Actium , Augustus assumed control of Rome and, finding
17956-487: Was then usually credited with a revised calendar that divided winter between the two months of January and February , shortened most other months accordingly, and brought everything into rough alignment with the solar year by some system of intercalation . This is a typical element of lunisolar calendars and was necessary to keep the Roman religious festivals and other activities in their proper seasons . Modern historians dispute various points of this account. It
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