CHAPTER VI, WORSHIP OF THE FIELDS
The life of the early Roman in the fields, his activities, his hopes
and fears, are reflected in the long list of agricultural festivals
which constitute the greater part of the celebrations in the Calendar,
and follow closely the seasons and occupations of the agricultural
year. We are, of course, in the Calendar dealing, to speak strictly,
with the worship of the state, and not with the semi-private festivals
of groups of farmers, but in many instances, such as the Robigalia,
the state seems only to have taken over the cult of the farmers,
preserving carefully the site on which the celebration took place; in
others, such as the Terminalia and the Parilia, it seems to have
established, as it were, a state-counterpart of a rite performed
independently at many rustic centres: in both cases we are justified
in inferring the practice of the early Roman agriculturalist. We shall
see that in most cases these festivals are associated—though often
loosely enough—with the worship of a particular divinity. Sometimes,
however,—as in the case of the Lupercalia—it is very difficult to
discover who this divinity was; in other festivals, such as the
Robigalia, it looks as if the eponymous deity was a comparatively late
development. We may, therefore, suppose, on the analogy of what we
have already seen to be the general lines of development in Roman
religion, that the festivals in origin centred round a purpose rather
than a personality, and were addressed 'to all spirits whom it might
concern'; and that later, when the deus notion was on the increase,
they either attached themselves to some god whose personality was
already distinct, as the Vinalia were attached to Iuppiter, or
'developed' a deity of their own. Among these deities, strictly
functional as a rule and existing only in connection with their
special festival, we shall notice the frequent recurrence of a
divinity pair, not, of course, mythologically related as husband and
wife, but representing, perhaps, the male and female aspects of the
same process of development.
The festivals divide themselves naturally into three groups: those of
Spring, expressive of the hopes and fears for the growing crops and
herds; those of Summer, the festivals of fulfilment, including the
celebration of harvest; and those of Winter, the festivals of sowing,
of social rejoicing, and in the later months of purificatory
anticipation of the coming year.
1. Festivals of Spring.—The old Roman year—as may be seen clearly
enough from the names of the months still known by numbers, September,
October, etc.—began in March: according to tradition Romulus reckoned
a year of ten months altogether, and Numa added January and February.
The Spring months properly speaking may be reckoned as March, April,
and May. In March there were in the developed Calendar no festivals of
an immediately recognisable agricultural character, but the whole
month was practically consecrated to its eponymous deity, Mars. Now,
to the Roman of the Republic, Mars was undoubtedly the deity
associated with war, and his special festivals in this month are of a
warlike character: on the 9th the priests (Salii) began the ancient
custom of carrying his sacred shields (ancilia) round the town from
one ordained resting-place to another: on the 19th, Quinquatrus, the
shields were solemnly purified, and on the 23rd the same ceremony was
performed with the war-trumpets: the Equirria (horse-races) of March
14 may have had an agricultural origin—we shall meet with races later
on as a feature of rustic festivals—but they were certainly
celebrated in a military manner. Yet there is good reason for
believing that Mars was in origin associated not with war, but with
the growth of vegetation: he was, as we shall see, the chief deity
addressed in the solemn lustration of the fields (Ambarvalia), and
if our general notion of the development of religion with the growing
needs of the agricultural community crystallising into a state be
correct, it may well be that a deity originally concerned with the
interests of the farmer took on himself the protection of the soldier,
when the fully developed state came into collision with its
neighbours. If so, we may well have in these recurring festivals of
Mars the sense, as Mr. Warde Fowler has put it, of 'some great numen
at work, quickening vegetation, and calling into life the powers of
reproduction in man and the animals.' Possibly another agricultural
note is struck in the Liberalia of the 17th: though the cult of Liber
was almost entirely overlaid by his subsequent identification with
Dionysus, it seems right to recognise in him and his female
counterpart, Libera, a general spirit of creativeness.
The character of April is much more clearly marked: the month is
filled with a series of festivals—all of a clearly agricultural
nature—prayers for the crops now in the earth, and the purification
of the men and animals on the farm. The series opens with the
Fordicidia on the 15th, when pregnant cows were sacrificed: their
unborn calves were torn from them and burnt, the ashes being kept by
the Vestal Virgin in Vesta's storehouse (penus Vestæ) for use at the
Parilia. The general symbolism of fertility is very clear; the goddess
associated with the festival is Tellus, the earth herself, and the
local origin of these festivals is shown in the fact that not only was
the sacrifice made for the whole people on the Capitol, but separately
in each one of the curiae. The Fordicidia is closely followed by the
Cerealia on the 19th—the festival of another earth-goddess (Ceres,
creare)—more especially connected with the growth of corn. A very
curious feature of the ritual was the fastening of fire-brands to the
tails of foxes, which were then let loose in what was afterwards the
Circus Maximus: a symbol possibly, as Wissowa thinks, of sunlight,
possibly of the vegetation-spirit. But the most important of the April
ceremonies is undoubtedly the Parilia of the 21st, the festival of the
very ancient rustic numen, Pales. Ovid's description of the
celebration is so interesting and so full of the characteristic colour
of the Roman rustic festivals that I may perhaps be pardoned for
reproducing it at greater length. 'Shepherd,' he says, addressing the
rustic worshipper, 'at the first streak of dawn purify thy well-fed
flocks: let water first besprinkle them, and a branch sweep clean the
ground. Let the folds be adorned with leaves and branches fastened to
them, while a trailing wreath covers the gay-decked gates. Let blue
flames rise from the living sulphur and the sheep bleat loud as she
feels the touch of the smoking sulphur. Burn the male olive-branch and
the pine twig and juniper, and let the blazing laurel crackle amid the
hearth. A basket full of millet must go with the millet cakes: this is
the food wherein the country goddess finds pleasure most of all. Give
her too her own share of the feast and her pail of milk, and when her
share has been set aside, then with milk warm from the cow make prayer
to Pales, guardian of the woods.' The poet then recites a long prayer,
in which the farmer first begs forgiveness for any unwitting sins he
may have committed against the rustic deities, such as trespassing on
their groves or sheltering his flocks beneath their altar, and then
prays for the aversion of disease and the prosperity of crops, flocks,
and herds. 'Thus must the goddess be won, this prayer say four times
turning to the sunrise, and wash thy hands in the running stream. Then
set the rustic bowl upon the table in place of the wine-bowl, and
drink the snowy milk and dark must, and soon through the heaps of
crackling straw leap in swift course with eager limbs.' All the
worshippers then set to leaping through the blazing fires, even the
flocks and herds were driven through, and general hilarity reigned.
Many points of detail might be noticed, such as that in the urban
counterpart of the festival, which Ovid carefully distinguishes from
the country celebrations, the fire was sprinkled with the ashes from
the calves of the Fordicidia and the blood of Mars' October
horse—another link between Mars and agriculture. But it is most
interesting to note the double character of the ceremony—as a
purification of man and beast on the one hand, and on the other a
prayer for the prosperity of the season to come. Three special
festivals remain in April. At the Vinalia (priora) of the 23rd, the
wine-skins of the previous year were opened and the wine tasted, and,
we may suppose, supplication was made for the vintage to come, the
festival being dedicated to the sky-god, Iuppiter. At the Robigalia of
the 25th the offering of a dog was made for the aversion of mildew
(robigo), to Robigus (who looks like a developed eponymous deity) at
the fifth milestone on the Via Claudia—the ancient boundary of Roman
territory. The Floralia of the 28th does not occur in the old
Calendars, probably because it was a moveable feast (feriae
conceptivae), but it is an unmistakeable petition to the numen
Flora for the blossoming of the season's flowers.
May was a month of more critical importance for the welfare of the
crops, and therefore its festivals were mostly of a more sombre
character. The 9th, 11th, and 13th were the days set apart for the
Lemuria, the aversion of the hostile spirits of the dead, of which we
have already spoken, and a similarly gloomy character probably
attached to the Agonia of Vediovis on the 21st. But of far the
greatest interest is the moveable feast of the Ambarvalia, the great
lustration of the fields, which took place towards the end of the
month: the date of its occurrence was no doubt fixed according to the
state of the crops in any given year. As the individual farmer
purified his own fields for the aversion of evil, so a solemn lustration of the boundaries of the state was performed by special
priests, known as the Arval brethren (fratres Arvales). With
ceremonial dancing (tripudium) they moved along the boundary-marks
and made the farmer's most complete offering of the pig, sheep, and ox
(suovetaurilia): the fruits of the last year and the new harvest
(aridae et virides) played a large part in the ceremonial, and a
solemn litany was recited for the aversion of every kind of pest from
the crops. In Virgil's account the prayer is made to Ceres, and we
know that in imperial times, when the Ambarvalia became very closely
connected with the worship of the imperial house, the centre of the
cult was the earth-goddess, Dea Dia; but in the earliest account of
the rustic ceremony which we possess in Cato, Mars is addressed in the
unmistakeable character of an agricultural deity. 'Father Mars, I pray
and beseech thee that thou mayest be gracious and favourable to me, to
my home, and my household, for which cause I have ordained that the
offering of pig, sheep, and ox be carried round my fields, my land,
and my farm: that thou mayest avert, ward off, and keep afar all
disease, visible and invisible, all barrenness, waste, misfortune, and
ill weather: that thou mayest suffer our crops, our corn, our vines
and bushes to grow and come to prosperity: that thou mayest preserve
the shepherds and the flocks in safety, and grant health and strength
to me, to my home, and my household.' We have perhaps here another
rustic ceremony addressed in origin to all numina, whom it might
concern, and, as it were, specialising itself from time to time in an
appeal to one definite deity or another, but it is also clear evidence
of an early agricultural association of Mars. The Ambarvalia is one of
the most picturesque of the field ceremonies, and a peculiarly
beautiful and imaginative description of it may be found in the first
chapter of Pater's Marius the Epicurean.
In June and July the farmer was waiting for the completion of the
harvest, and the great state-festivals of the period are not
agricultural.
2. Festivals of the Harvest.—In August the farmer's hopes are at
last realised, and the harvest is brought in. The season is marked by
two closely connected festivals on the 21st and 25th in honour of the
old divinity-pair, Consus (condere), the god of the storehouse and
Ops, the deity of the wealth of harvest. At the Consualia, an offering
is made by the flamen Quirinalis, assisted by the Vestal virgins, at
an underground altar in the Circus Maximus, specially uncovered for
the occasion: here we have probably not so much the notion of a
chthonic deity, as a relic of the simple practices of an early
agricultural age, when the crops were stored underground. The beasts
who had taken part in the harvest were released from their labours
during the day, and were decorated with flowers: the festival included
a race of mules, the regular Italian beasts of burden. Four days after
this general festivity occurred the second harvest-ceremony of the
Opiconsivia, held in the shrine (sacrarium) of the Regia, and
attended only by the pontifex maximus and the Vestal virgins. This
is clearly the state-harvest of the regal period, the symbolic storing
of the state-crops in the sacred storehouse of the palace by the king
and his daughters. Both festivals are significant, and we shall meet
with Consus and Ops again in close connection in December. The
Portunalia of the 17th may have been another harvest-home, if we can
believe the old authorities, who tell us that Portunus was a 'god of
doors' (portae).
The Vinalia Rustica of August 19 we cannot sufficiently interpret
through lack of information: it cannot, of course, have been the
festival of the vintage, for it is too early: it may have been a
propitiatory ceremony for the ripening grapes, in which case it was
probably connected with the auspicatio vindemiae, in which the
flamen Dialis (note again the association of Iuppiter and the vine)
solemnly plucked the first grapes; or it may be a festival of wine,
not vines, in which case its main feature would most likely be the
opening of the last year's vintage.
September contains no great festival, and the harvest-season closes on
October 11 with the Meditrinalia—the nearest approach to a
thanksgiving for the vintage. On that day the first must of the new
vintage and the wine of the old were solemnly tasted, apparently as a
spell against disease, the worshipper using the strange formula, 'I
drink the new and the old wine, with new wine and old I heal
(medeor) disease.' This ceremony gave its name to the festival and
was the cause of the subsequent evolution of an eponymous deity,
Meditrina, but there is little doubt that in origin here, as in the
other wine-festivals, the deity concerned was at first Iuppiter. Among
the other rustic ceremonies of the month we may notice the festival of
springs (Fontinalia) on October 13: wells were decorated with
garlands and flowers flung into the waters.
3. Festivals of the Winter.—The winter-festivals cannot be summed
up under one general notion so easily as those of spring or summer,
but they fall fairly naturally into two groups—the festivals
immediately connected with agricultural life and those associated with
the dead and the underworld or with solemn purification. The main
action of the farmer's life during the winter is, of course, the
sowing of the next year's crop, which was commemorated in the ancient
festival of the Saturnalia on December 17. Though the Saturnalia is
perhaps the most familiar to us of all the Roman festivals, partly
from the allusions in the classics, especially in Horace, partly
because it is no doubt the source of many of our own Christmas
festivities, it is yet almost impossible now to recover anything of
its original Roman character. Greek influence set to work on it very
early, identifying Saturnus with Cronos and establishing him in a
Greek temple with all the accompaniments of Greek ritual. All the
familiar features of the festival—the freedom and license of the
slaves, the giving of presents, even the wax-candles, which are the
prototype of those on our own Christmas-tree—are almost certainly due
to Greek origin. We are left with nothing but the name Saturnus
(connected with the root of semen, serere) and the date to assure
us that we have here in reality a genuine Roman festival of the sowing
of the crops. Of a similar nature—marking, as Ovid tells us, the
completion of the sowing—was the feriae sementivae or Paganalia,
associated with the earth-goddesses, Ceres and Tellus. Meal-cakes and
a pregnant sow were the offerings, the beasts who had helped in the
ploughing were garlanded, and prayer was made for the seed resting in
the ground. A curious feature of the winter worship is the repetition
of festivals to the harvest deities, Consus and Ops, separated by the
same interval of three days, on December 15 and 19: it may be that we
have here an indication of the final completion of the harvest, or, as
Mr. Warde Fowler has suggested, a ceremonial opening of the
storehouses, to see that the harvest is not rotting. Among the other
country festivals of the period we may notice that of Carmenta, on the
11th and 15th of January: she seems to have been in origin a
water-numen, but was early associated with childbirth: hence the
rigid exclusion of men from her ceremonies and possibly the taboo on
leathern thongs, on the ground that nothing involving death must be
used in the worship of a deity of birth. The repetition of her
festival may possibly point to separate celebrations of the
communities of Palatine and Quirinal. At this time, too, occurred the
rustic ceremonies at the boundaries (Terminalia) and the offering
to the Lares at the 'marches' (Compitalia), of which we have spoken
in treating of the worship of the house.
The other group of winter-festivals is of a much more gloomy and less
definitely rustic type, though they clearly date from the period of
the agricultural community. Of the Feralia of February 21, the
culmination of the festival of the kindred dead (Parentalia), we
have already spoken. The Larentalia is a very mysterious occasion, and
was supposed by the Romans themselves to be an offering 'at the tomb'
of a legendary Acca Larentia, mistress of Hercules. But we have seen
reason to think that Larentia was in reality a deity of the dead, and
the 'tomb' a mundus: if so, we have another link between the winter
season and the worship of the underworld. There remains the weird
festival of the Lupercalia on February 15, to which we have had
occasion to refer several times, and which has become more familiar to
most of us than other Roman festivals owing to its political use by
Mark Antony in 44 B.C. As we have argued already, it seems to
belong to the very oldest stratum of the Palatine settlement, and we
may therefore appropriately close this account of the early festivals
with a somewhat fuller description of it. The worshippers assembled
at the Lupercal, a cave on the Palatine hill: there goats and a dog
were sacrificed, and two youths belonging to the two colleges of
Fabian and Quintian (or Quintilian) Luperci had their foreheads
smeared with the knife used for the sacrifice and wiped with wool
dipped in milk—at which point it was ordained that they should laugh.
Then they girt on the skins of the slain goats and, after feasting,
ran their course round the boundaries of the Palatine hill, followed
each by his own company of youths, and striking women on their way
with strips, known as februae or Iunonis amicula, cut from the
goats' hides. Here we have a summary of many of the important points
which we have noticed in the rustic festivals: from the pre-Roman
stratum comes the idea of communion with the sacrificed animal in the
smearing of the blood and the wearing of the skin, and also the magic
charm involved in the striking of the women to procure fertility: it
is typical of the true feeling of Roman religion that we cannot with
any certainty tell what deity was associated with the rite, though
probably it was Faunus: the rustic character of the ceremony is
indicated by the bowl of milk in which the wool was dipped and the
sacrifice of goats: the idea of lustration is clearly marked in the
course round the boundaries: the original Palatine settlement stands
out in the limits of that course and the site of the Lupercal, and the
later synœcismus is seen in the, presumably subsequent, addition of
the second college of Luperci. A careful study of the Lupercalia as an
epitome of the character and development of the Roman agricultural
festivals, though it would not show the brighter aspect of some of the
spring and summer celebrations, would yet give a true notion of the
history and spirit of the whole.
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