• Feasts
• The Lupercalia
•  The Fornacalia
• The Parentalia
• Places
• Roman Public Works
• The Roman Wall
• Practices
• Tombs & Funerals
• Reminders:
  • Why have some of you failed to send me an email about discussion groups?
  • Students whose last names begin A-H will hand in their first book reports tomorrow.
  • Grovel about Tuesday's class.
  • Have you read this yet?

   

  I. The Lupercalia

 The Lupercalia (NP) (the "feast of the she-wolf" or "the feast of purification by means of a goat") was celebrated on February 15. [remember: "NP" -> dies nefasti publici; see the Roman Calendar lecture).

• The Lupercalia was a festival about which both we and the Romans know much and understand little. It was a wildly popular holiday, very old and very rowdy.
• What we know:
• The holiday was not dedicated to a particular god. Augustan writers speculated it might belong to a number of gods: Faunus (the Roman Pan), Inuus (the "Goer-in") and Augustus, in a fit of reform, decided it was meant to honor the god "Lupercus". In 494, Pope Gelasius I, finally suppressed the feast (you'll see why it wasn't the kind of thing you'd expect the Church to like) and announced hence forth it would be the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary. Some folks, however, believed that the celebration of St. Valentine's day is a survival of the Lupercalia.
• The celebration was under the supervision of two colleges of priests (very unusual): the Luperci Quintilii (founded by Romulus) and the Luperci Fabii (founded by Remus).
• On the 15th, the two colleges of priests met at a cave called the Lupercal at the foot of the Palatine hill. It was here that the she wolf suckled Romulus and Remus after the uncle had ordered them tossed into the Tiber. The cave was preserved until the late republic.
• The priests sacrificed goats and a dog (very unusual) and cakes prepared by the Vestal Virgins. Then, some of the priests smeared the foreheads of two youths (from society families) with a knife stained with the blood of the goats and dog. Other priests then wiped the blood away with wool that had been soaked in milk. Then the youths laughed uproariously.
• Then the priests cut the skins of the goats into strips with which the young men (who apparently were buck naked) girded their loins. Then everyone had a wild party [alright, they liked goat meat].
• After the feast, the priests stripped down and covered their privates in strips of goat skin (reserving one to carry in the hand). They then ran a route through the city striking bystanders with their strips of goat skin. Women, especially newly wed women, liked to get slapped with the goat skin. They thought it would help them have lots of kids and easy births. In general, the Romans thought the running of the Luperci was great good fun and not to be missed.
• The route the priests ran changed over time, but originally, appears to have been around the Palatine hill (which the Romans believed was one of their earliest settlements and the site of Romulus' hut [which they took care to preserve for centuries].
• What we think it was about:
• a celebration marking the boundries of the early Roman settlement
• a ritual reflecting Rome's origins as a community of shepherds
• a way of propriating the dead (who showed themselves as wolves - the root of the modern notion of "wolf-men")
• a purification ritual
• a fertility ritual
• Based on what you know about the Lupercalia, justify these interpretations.
• During the feast of the Lupercalia in the year 44, Mark Antony, a Luperci, offered a crown to Julius Caesar, saying folks were sick of this dictator nonsense, and why didn't he just declare himself king? Caesar modestly declined the crown, but a lot of Romans thought he had been testing the waters, and some decided, because of this, to kill him one month later. Shakespeare's version of this historical scene is great.
• Romulus himself used the feast of the Lupercalia to cover the movement of his men when he usurped his usurping uncle and gave the throne back to his grandfather.

Shakespeare's version / Plutarch's account in the life of Romulus (section 21 ff.) / Livy's account / Relationship to the modern St. Valentine's day /
 
 

• History Channel
• The Origins of Valentine's Day
• St. Valentine and Valentine's Day
• Gander Academy's Valetine's Day page

II.  The Fornacalia
 
 

 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 [dies nefasti publici]
• 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."

• Parentalia - (the feast for dead parents) - NP [dies nefasti publici]
• The first of three related festivals in February for appeasing the dead which started on the Ides and lasted until the 22nd. From February 13 through the 21st (the Feralia, FP or F, the feast of infernal powers)all temples were closed, marriages were forbidden, and public officials lay down their insignia of office. On the 22nd, Romans celebrated the Carista, C (the feast of the dear kindred).
• Although the Parentalia always began with the performance of ceremonies in honor of dead parents by a Vestal Virgin, Romans basically celebrated the Parentalia at the family level. Families walked outside the city to visit the family tombs and performed private sacrifices in honor of dead kin (especially parents). The sacrifices were simple, a little wine, a little corn or bread, perhaps some votive garlands. It was a quiet, personal, reflective day, followed by a quiet reflective week or so to think about loved ones and the importance of the family.
• The Feralia, was a much darker, scarier rite which in Ovid's description has overtones of witchcraft and magic and at which sheep were sacrificed to the spirits of the dead. The republican festival was a public holiday, but Augustan calendars record it as one of the dies fasti. We don't know much about what the public ritual was, but some scholars compare it to Halloween.
• The Carista, on the other hand, was literally a family renunion, where the living, now that they had paid respect to the dead, gathered to celebrate their own family (and resolve any outstanding quarrels). It was a potluck dinner and sacrifices were made to the Lares (every family had personal gods which Romans referred to as their "Lares and Penates." If your family didn't invite you to the Carista it meant that they thought you were unkind or guilty of something pretty nasty.

•  How did Rome create, maintain and expand its infrastructure (roads, bridges, aqueducts, postal service) under the Empire.
• What is our evidence for this? Does our evidence present any problems.
• Consider the following inscription, found on the right bank of the Danube, engraved around 100 CE, tell us about the activity of public works in the Empire?
• The Emperor Caesar Nerva Trajan Augustus Germanicus, son of the deified Nerva, pontifex maximus, holding the tribunician power for the fourth year, father of his country, consul three times, built this road by cutting through mountains and eliminating curves [CIL, v.III, no. 8,267].
• During the Republic, the censores were charged with the adminsitration of public works (see, RCiv, v.1, #36, p. 120-122; #149. [p.413-417, esp. 417).
  • Livy on the origins of the Censorship:
  • Cicero's idealized Censors:
  • Livy on the Censors Quintus Fulvius Flaccus and Aulus Postumius Albinus:

• Roman historical tradition links fraternal conflict, the creation of the state and the wall. The story is recounted in Livy (1.6-7).
• Why did Romulus build the wall?
• What functions did the wall serve?
• What is the pomerium?
• How does the pomerium help us understand the political, legal and social functions of the wall.
• Why does Livy link the Roman wall to fratricide?
• How did the Romans imagine the relationship of family and state?

John Hauser of Berkeley has pictures of sections of the Roman walls that are still part of the modern urban landscape in Rome. Leo Curran's Maecenas project, in addition to great pictures of Rome and provinicial cities, now has reconstructions of the city under the emperors, in which the walls are clearly marked. You can also find pictures of the surviving remnants of one of the greatest walls the Romans ever built (Hadrian's Wall in Great Britain, at the Maecenas site).
 
  The essay "Antiquity" has useful discussions of infrastructure issues in Roman history.

• The archeological evidence indicates that the Romans practiced both cremation and inhumation (what we'd call "burial"). From the mid 3rd century B.C.E. on, burial became increasingly more popular.
• Cremations took place either in a section of the cemetary set aside for the event (ustrinum), or at the bustum (the grave site where the ashes would be buried). In addtion to the body, survivors burned gifts to and personal belongings of the dead. The ashes were gathered and buried in a container which could be anything from a cloth bag to a marble chest. Alternatively, especially for poorer citizens, the containers would be placed in a family's personal niche (nidus) in a dovecote (columbarium) erected and maintained by a neighborhood funeral club (collegia funeraticia). Neighbors pooled their resources to create a burial insurance fund that guaranteed all its members could afford a decent funeral. The practice of cremation, which Jews and Christians objected to on theological grounds, did not die out until the 5th century, C.E.
• The Etruscans made elaborate tombs in which they buried their dead (at least their wealthy dead). Wealthy Romans similarly had elaborate and monumental tombs (sometimes oddly shaped, e.g. a pyramid, or a cylinder, like that of Caecilia Metella). The tomb of Augustus and the mausoleum of Hadrian are good examples of how monumental a Roman Emperor's tomb could get.. Some burial sites were called "necropoleis" [cities of the dead], and located outside the city walls. [A good example is the necropolis at Pompeii. These cemetaries (which seem almost identical to modern ones) were laid out like minature cities with narrow lanes along side of which lay graves, tombs and tombstones. Alternatively, as in Rome, the roads leading from the city, could become burial sites. The Scipiones, one of the most important and powerful families in Rome, for example, maintained their family tombs on a side street leading off the Via Appia. You can also read translations of the inscriptions from the tombs. ( Modern Romans love to picnic among these tombs.) An interesting exercise is to compare these inscriptions to translations of inscriptions from the tombs of Roman women.
• Initial funerary procedures were the same for rich and poor:
  
  
1. collect the last breath of the beloved with a kiss
2. close the eyes
3. conclamatio ­ ritualize wailing in a high voice
4. preparation of the corpse ­ wash in warm water, grease with ointments, use a temporary embalment procedure
5. dress according to station (e.g. toga for citizens)
6. Lay the body on the funeral couch in the main part of the house and put a coin under its tongue to give Charon (the ferryman who carried souls across the River Styx)
7. Surround the funeral couch with candles and strew flowers on the body
8. Women begin ritual mourning: wailing, tearing at cheeks with finger nails, pulling hair, covering self in ashes from hearth, beat the chest
9. funeral procession depending on station of the dead


 
• Just like today, professional undertakers organized Roman funerals. Among the poorer classes, expenses were paid for by the collegia funeraticia. Family and friends would lead the bier by the shortest route out of the city to the tomb site. Rituals were performed at the grave in which offerings of food and drink were made for the dead. Then, a "funeral lunch" was held for the mourners at the grave site. Nine days later, the family held another feast to honor the departed (cena novendialis) and particularly in the year of the death, but generally for years to come, would honor the deceased on feast days for the dead (like the Parentalia).
  
  
• The rich had much more elaborate funerals. The dead, particularly those who had been famous or politically prominent, might lie in state for days before the funeral. The funeral procession itself was a virtual parade. The undertakers supplied mourning women, musicians, dancers and mimes. Members of the family (if their number had included members who had won prominent political office [curile magistracies] would dress up like deceased ancestors, wearing their imagines (death masks that were prominently displayed in the family home until the next funeral) and riding in chariots. The procession moved from the family home, through the main streets of the city to the Forum. At the Forum, a member of the family gave a speech in praise of the deceased (a laudatio funebris or funeral oration) whose bier was propped into an upright position. Polybius thought the Roman funeral was one of the most fundamental ways that Romans educated their children (RCiv, v.I, #182, p. 518).
  
  
• Grave sites, whether the deceased had been buried or cremated, typically were marked by inscribed tombstones and wooden grave markers. Thousands of thousands of these tombstones, from all over the Roman Empire, have survived (althought the wooden grave markers of the poorest classes have not). The tombstones could contain a sculpture of the dead person, demographic information, a list of the public offices held and public services performed by the deceased, and a dedicatory inscription by the family member who paid for the tombstone. It was not uncommon at all for slaves or freedmen of a childless person to raise the tombstone.
  
  
• Although tombstone inscriptions were often formulaic, they also could be intensely personal (e.g., the Laudatio Turiae, RCiv, v.1, #183, p. 519). Consider the dedicatory inscription to a woman named Claudia (RCiv, v.1, #184, p.524):
  
  
• Stranger, my message is short. Stand by and read it through. Here is the unlovely tomb of a lovely woman. Her parents called her Claudia by name. She loved her husband with all her heart. She bore two sons; of these she leaves one on earth; under the earth she has placed the other. She was charming in converse, yet gentle in bearing. She kept house, she made woool. That's my last word. Go your way.
  
  
• Questions to think about:
• What do you think the choice between the burial practices of cremation and inhumation can tell us about a society and its beliefs?
• Why did Polybius think that the Roman funeral was a means of education.
• What sorts of information can historians get from funerary inscriptions? What kinds of questions should we be asking these stones?

DEREK B. COUNTS, "Regum Externorum Consuetudine: The Nature and Function of Embalming in Rome" - (note, link is to abstract, you have to download article if you're interested)

Etruscan Death Rituals

The International Catacomb Society