Roman Civilization

CMS 206 /History 206

• February was the last month in the "old" Roman calendar, but strangely enough (from our point of view), the first day of spring was celebrated on February 5 (the Nones). It was a month, accordingly of "spring cleaning," i.e. purifcation and fertility rituals - something akin to the way Christians think of Lent. According to Ovid, the Latin word februa, ("the means of purification") derived from an Etruscan word equivalent for "purgamentum" ["purging"].
• The analogy to Lent is misleading in a crucial respect, however. As we'll see when we talk about Roman religion in detail, Romans didn't think of state sponsored religious activity as a means of fostering individual relationships with one or more deities. Rather, these religious activities were performed for the sake of the community. Individuals participated because they didn't want the gods peeved at Rome (which would ultimately harm individuals in the ciy). So Romans didn't undertake purification activities out of a sense of personal sin and for the sake of personal salvation (cf. Lent), but rather, to give the gods their due, avert future troubles, and rid the private home and public state of evil influence.
• Fornacalia - (the feast of ovens) - NP
  • was a feria conceptiva (movable feast - always celebrated before February 17) celebrated at the level of the curiae (at least originally akin to the modern sense of ward or even neighborhood).
  • Every curia had a leader (the curio - at least 50 years old and elected for life) and a citizen charged with ensuring the observence of curial religious feasts (called the flamen - but not technically a priest). The thirty curiones collectively comprised the college of curiones, the head of which was the curio maximus (the "most important curio" - until the end of the 3rd century B.C.E., always a patrician).
  • Every curia had its own meeting house where members met to celebrate curial feast days. These, even the glory days of Rome, were always simple, homey places - no silver goblets, the offerings were cakes of grain and perhaps some first fruits.
  • Every year the Curio Maximus announced the date of the Fornacalia and posted a separate notice for each curia in the Forum, probably indicating where each curia should gather for the final part of the celebration.
  • We think that every family in the curia brought far (spelt - a kind of grain) to be toasted at the meeting hall and sacrificed to ensure that the household ovens wouldn't be burnt in the coming year. Then the curiae assembled for a collective feast.
  • On February 17th, if anyone had forgotten the feast or didn't remember which curiae he belonged to, he could make a private sacrifice at the Quirinalia, a general assembly of all the curiae. The Romans called the Quirinalia, the "Feast of Fools."
  • Think about why the Curio Maximus had to post 30 notices, why the Quirinalia was called the Feast of Fools and what that tells us about the way curiae changed during the history of Rome.