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From Ten Great Religions, by James Freeman Clarke

Roman Festivals

The Roman year was full of festivals (feriæ) set apart for religious uses. It was declared by the pontiffs a sin to do any common work on these days, but works of necessity were allowed. These festivals were for particular gods, in honor of great events in the history of Rome, or of rural occurrences, days of purification and atonement, family feasts, or feasts in honor of the dead. The old Roman calendar* was as carefully arranged as that of modern Rome. The day began at midnight. The following is a view of the Roman year in its relation to festivals:—

*The word "calendar" is itself derived from the Roman "Kalends," the first day of the month.

January.

• 1. Feast of Janus, the god of beginnings.
• 9. Agonalia.
• 11. Carmentalia. In honor of the nymph Carmenta, a woman's festival.
• 16. Dedication of the Temple of Concord.
• 31. Feast of the Penates.

February.

• 1. Feast of Juno Sospita, the Savior: an old goddess.
• 13. Faunalia, dedicated to Faunus and the rural gods.
• 15. Lupercalia. Feast of fruitfulness.
• 17. Fornacalia. Feast of the oven goddess Fornax.
• 18 to 28. The Februatio, or feast of purification and atonement, and the Feralia, or feast of the dead. Februus was an old Etrurian god of the under-world. Also, the Charistia, a family festival for putting an end to quarrels among relations.
• 23. Feast of Terminus, god of boundaries. Boundary-stones anointed and crowned.

March.

• 1. Feast of Mars. Also, the Matronalia. The Salii, priests of Mars, go their rounds, singing old hymns.
• 6. Feast of Vesta.
• 7. Feast of Vejovis or Vedius, i.e. the boy Jupiter.
• 14. Equiria, or horse-races in honor of Mars.
• 15. Feast of Anna-Perenna, goddess of health.
• 17. Liberalia, Feast of Bacchus. Young men invested with the Toga-Virilis on this day.
• 19 to 23. Feast of Minerva, for five days. Offerings made to her by all mechanics, artists, and scholars.

April.

• 1. Feast of Venus, to whom the month is sacred.
• 4. Megalesia. Feast of Cybele and Altys. It lasted six days, and was the Roman analogue of the feast of Ceres in Greece and of Isis in Egypt.
• 12. Cerealia. Feast of Ceres. Games in the circus.
• 15. Fordicicia. Feast of cows.
• 21. Palililia. Feast of Pales, and of the founding of Rome.
• 23. Vinalia. Feast of new wine.
• 25. Robigalia. Feast of the goddess of blight, Robigo.
• 28. Floralia. Feast of the goddess Flora; very licentious.

May.

• 1. Feast of the Bona Dea, the good goddess; otherwise Maia, Ops, Tellus, or the Earth. This was the feast held by women secretly in the house of the pontiff.
• 9. Lemuralia. Feast of the departed spirits or ghosts.
• 12. Games to Mars.
• 23. Tubilustria, to consecrate wind instruments.

June.

• 1. Feast of Carna, goddess of the internal organs of the body, and of Juno Moneta.
• 4. Feast of Bellona.
• 5. Feast of Deus Fidius.
• 7 to 15. Feast of Vesta.
• 19. Matralia. Feast of Mater Matuta.

Other lesser festivals in this month to Summanus, Fortuna, Fortis, Jupiter Stator, etc.

July.

• 1. Day devoted to changing residences, like the 1st of May in New York. 4. Fortuna Muliebris.
• 5. Populifuga. In memory of the people's flight, on some occasion, afterward forgotten.
• 7. Feast of Juno Caprotina.
• 15. Feast of Castor and Pollux.

Other festivals in this month were the Lucaria, Neptunalia, and Furinalia.

August.

• 1. Games to Mars.
• 17. Feast of the god Portumnus.
• 18. Consualia, feast of Consus. Rape of the Sabines.
• 23. Vulcanalia, to avert fires.
• 25. Opeconsivia. Feast of Ops Consiva.

September.

The chief feasts in this month were the games (Ludi Magni or Romani) in honor of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva.

October.

• 13. Fontinalia. Feast of fountains, when the springs were strewed with flowers.
• 15. Sacrifice of a horse to Mars.

The feasts in November are unimportant.

December.

• 5. Faunalia, in honor of Faunus.
• 19. Saturnalia, sacred to Saturn. A Roman thanksgiving for the harvest. It lasted seven days, during which the slaves had their liberty, in memory of the age of Saturn, when all were equal. The rich kept open table to all comers, and themselves waited on the slaves. Presents were interchanged, schools were closed. The Senate did not sit.

Thus religion everywhere met the public life of the Roman by its festivals, and laid an equal yoke on his private life by its requisition of sacrifices, prayers, and auguries. All pursuits must be conducted according to a system, carefully laid down by the College of Pontiffs. Sacrifices and prayers of one or another kind were demanded during most of the occasions of life. Hidden in our word "inaugurate" is the record of the fact that nothing could be properly begun without the assistance of the augurs. Sacrifices of lustration and expiation were very common, not so much for moral offences as for ceremonial mistakes. The doctrine of the opus operatum was supreme in Roman religion. The intention was of little importance; the question was whether the ceremony had been performed exactly in accordance with rule. If not, it must be done again. Sometimes fifty or a hundred victims were killed before the priestly etiquette was contented. Sometimes magistrates must resign because the college of augurs suspected some informality in the ceremonies of their election. Laws were annulled and judicial proceedings revoked for the same reason. If the augurs declared the signs unfavorable, a public meeting must be adjourned and no business done. A single mistake in the form of a prayer would make it ineffectual. If a man went out to walk, there was a form to be recited; if he mounted his chariot, another. All these religious acts were of the nature of charms, which acted on the gods by an inherent power, and compelled them to be favorable, whatever their own wishes might be. The gods were, therefore, as much the slaves of external mechanical laws as the Romans themselves. In reality, the supreme god of Rome was law, in the form of rule. But these rules afterward expanded, as the Roman civilization increased, into a more generous jurisprudence. Regularity broadened into justice.

But for a long period the whole of the Roman organic law was a system of hard external method. And the rise of law as justice and reason was the decline of religion as mere prescription and rule. This one change is the key to the dissolution of the Roman system of religious practices.