The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic. W. Warde Fowler

MENSIS DECEMBER

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Fasti antiquissimi.	Additamenta ex fastis.	Additamenta ex scriptoribus.
1	KAL. N		1. Neptuno Pietati ad circ. max.	1. Fortunae muliebri (Dionys.).
2	N
3	N			3. Sacra Bonae Deae (Plutarch, &c.).
4	C
5	NON. F			5. Faunalia rustica (Horace).
6	F
7	C
8	C		8. Tiberino in insula.
9	C
10	C
11	NP	AG[ONIA] IN.		11. Septimontium (Festus; Varro).
12	EN		12. Conso in Aventino.
13	EID. NP		13. Telluri et Cereri in Carinis.
14	F
15	NP	CONSUALIA
16	C
17	NP	SATURNALIA
18	C
19	NP	OPALIA
20	C
21	NP	DIVALIA
22	C			22. Laribus permarinis in porticu Minucia.
23	NP	LARENTALIA
24	C
25	C
26	C
27	C
28	C
29	F

MENSIS IANUARIUS

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Fasti antiquissimi.	Additamenta ex fastis.	Additamenta ex scriptoribus.
1	KAL. F		1. Aesculapio Vediovi in insula
2	F
3	C			3–5 (circa). Compitalia or ludi compitales.
4	C
5	NON. F
6	F
7	C
8	C
9	[NP]	AGONIA
10	EN
11	NP	CARMENTALIA		11. ‘Inturnalia’ Servius.
12	C
13	EID. NP
14	EN
15	NP	CARMENTALIA
16	C
17	C
18	C
19	C
20	C
21	C
22	C
23	C
24	C			24–26. Sementivae or Paganalia (Ovid) (feriae conceptivae).
25	C
26	C
27	C		27. Castori et Polluci (dedication of temple).
28	C
29	F

MENSIS FEBRUARIUS

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Fasti antiquissimi.	Additamenta ex fastis.	Additamenta ex scriptoribus.
1	KAL. N			1. Iunoni Sospitae (Ovid).
2	N
3	N
4	N
5	NON. NP		5. Concordiae in arce (Praen.).
6	N
7	N
8	N
9	N
10	N
11	N
12	N
13	EID. NP		13. Fauno in insula (Esq.).	13–21. Parentalia.
14	N
15	NP	LUPERCALIA
16	EN
17	NP	QUIRINALIA		17. Last day of Fornacalia (feriae conceptivae). ‘Stultorum feriae’ (Paulus, &c.).
18	C
19	C
20	C
21^[60]	FP	FERALIA
22	C
23	NP	TERMINALIA
24	N	REGIFUGIUM
25	C
26	EN
27	NP	EQUIRRIA
28	C

MENSIS MARTIUS.

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      The mensis Martius stands alone among the Roman months. Not only was it the first in matters both civil and religious down to the time of Julius Caesar, but it is more closely associated with a single deity than any other, and that deity the protector and ancestor of the legendary founder of the city. It bears too the name of the god, which is not the case with any other month except January; and it is less certain that January was named after Janus than that March was named after Mars. The cult of Janus is not specially obvious in January except on a single day; but the cult of Mars is paramount all through March, and gives a peculiar character to the month’s worship.

      It follows on a period which we may call one of purification, or the performance of piacular duties towards dead ancestors and towards the gods; and this has itself succeeded a time of general festivity in the homestead, the group of homesteads, the market, and the cross-roads. The rites of December and January are for the most part festive and social, those of February mystic and melancholy—characteristics which have their counterpart in the Christian Christmas, New Year, and Lent. The rites of March are distinct from those of either period, as we shall see. They again are followed by those of April, the opening month, which are gay and apt to be licentious; then comes the mensis Maius or month of growth, which is a time of peril for the crops, and has a certain character of doubt and darkness in its rites; lastly comes June, the month of maturity, when harvest is close at hand, and life begins to brighten up once more. After this the Roman months cease to denote by their names those workings of nature on which the husbandman’s fortune for the year depends.

      By a process of elimination we can make a guess at the kind of ideas which must have been associated with the month which the Romans called Martius, even before examining its rites in detail. It is the time when the spring, whose first breath has been felt in February, begins to show its power upon the land^[61]. Some great numen is at work, quickening vegetation, and calling into life the powers of reproduction in man and the animals. The way in which this quickening Power or Spirit was regarded by primitive man has been very carefully investigated of recent years, and though the variation is endless both in myth and in ritual, we may now safely say that he was looked on as coming to new life after a period of death, or as returning after an absence in the winter, or as conquering the hostile powers that would hinder his activity. Among civilized peoples these ideas only survive in legend or poetry, or in some quaint bit of rural custom, often semi-dramatic, which may or may not have found its way into the organized cults of a city state of Greece or Italy, or even into the calendar of a Christian Church. But when these survivals have been collected in vast numbers