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April's Feasts: Cerialia, Venus Verticordia, Fordicidia and Parilia

Roman sculpture of the goddess Ceres, II century A.D., in the Bardo National Museum, Tunis, Tunisia.
On April 19 were celebrated the Cerialia, feast dedicated to Ceres as goddess of the harvest and of “all that grows”, and to Tellus, the Earth goddess. Ceres had become, during the Republican period, a tutelary divinity of the Plebs and was worshipped in a temple on the Aventine, together with Liber and Libera, ancient Italic divinities of fertility and vegetation, who protected the fields and vineyards. The triad comprising Ceres, Liber and Libera was opposed to the Capitoline triad (Jupiter, Juno and Minerva), which represented the centre of religious power, controlled for the most part by the Patricians.
The month of April was devoted particularly to female sexuality and to the generative power of the entire nature: on the first day of the month was celebrated the feast of Venus Verticordia and of Fortuna Virilis, during which, through a ritual ablution in the male baths, all women, comprising the prostitutes, crowned with myrtle, invoked the goddesses to obtain more seductive power. The generative power was the focus of the celebration of the Fordicidia, on April 15, during which pregnant cows were sacrificed. Since the gestation period in bovines is almost the same than in women, the ritual, dedicated to Tellus, was a propitiation of fecundity in all its forms. The ashes of the fetuses sacrificed in that occasion were later employed during the feast of the Parilia, on April 21, in which the people, the sheep and the sheepfolds were purified to assure their fertility. People jumped thrice over the fire, which had been kindled by the Vestals, and sprinkled themselves with water using a laurel branch. Water and fire had been selected, according to Ovid, because “they deem these two important because they contain the source of life” (Fasti, IV, 790-791). The festival was devoted to the goddess Pales, from whom the name of the Palatine Hill derives, and was a commemoration of the pastoral life conducted by the founders of the city, Romulus and Remus, and for this reason was regarded as the birthday of Rome.

[Image: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerere]




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April's Feasts: Cerialia, Venus Verticordia, Fordicidia and Parilia Roman sculpture of the goddess Ceres, II century A.D., in the Bardo National Museum, Tunis, Tunisia. On April 19 were celebrated the Cerialia, feast dedicated to Ceres as goddess of the harvest and of “all that grows”, and to Tellus, the Earth goddess. Ceres had become, during the Republican period, a tutelary divinity of the Plebs and was worshipped in a temple on the Aventine, together with Liber and Libera, ancient Italic divinities of fertility and vegetation, who protected the fields and vineyards. The triad comprising Ceres, Liber and Libera was opposed to the Capitoline triad (Jupiter, Juno and Minerva), which represented the centre of religious power, controlled for the most part by the Patricians. The month of April was devoted particularly to female sexuality and to the generative power of the entire nature: on the first day of the month was celebrated the feast of Venus Verticordia and of Fortuna Virilis, during which, through a ritual ablution in the male baths, all women, comprising the prostitutes, crowned with myrtle, invoked the goddesses to obtain more seductive power. The generative power was the focus of the celebration of the Fordicidia, on April 15, during which pregnant cows were sacrificed. Since the gestation period in bovines is almost the same than in women, the ritual, dedicated to Tellus, was a propitiation of fecundity in all its forms. The ashes of the fetuses sacrificed in that occasion were later employed during the feast of the Parilia, on April 21, in which the people, the sheep and the sheepfolds were purified to assure their fertility. People jumped thrice over the fire, which had been kindled by the Vestals, and sprinkled themselves with water using a laurel branch. Water and fire had been selected, according to Ovid, because “they deem these two important because they contain the source of life” (Fasti, IV, 790-791). The festival was devoted to the goddess Pales, from whom the name of the Palatine Hill derives, and was a commemoration of the pastoral life conducted by the founders of the city, Romulus and Remus, and for this reason was regarded as the birthday of Rome. [Image: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerere]