Festivals

Question 1

Calendar

Answer 1

8 days
Labelled A to H
A was a market day -> nundinae
159 days marked as holidays (40 were religious festivals-> reflected the cycle of the seasons)

Question 2

‘Campaigning season’

Answer 2

March -> September

Soldiers only fought in this time because the winter months were too harsh to keep an army away from home

Question 3

1st March

Answer 3

Festival to Mars

Question 4

When a farmer had completed all his sowing for the following year

Answer 4

Festival to Saturn (god of sowing)

Question 5

Lupercalia general

Answer 5

• 15th February
• purified the city, promoted fertility
• in honour of Lupercus, god of shepherds
• associated with Romulus and Remus

Question 6

Lupercalia proper

Answer 6

• Luperci divides into 2 teams
• In the Lupercal, goats and a dog were sacrificed (believed to be very fertile)
• two captains smeared with blood, washed off with wool drilled in milk, laughed loudly
• feast held - Luperci drank lots of wine
• the Luperci (wearing loin-cloths) ran a race around the foot of the Palatine Hill, carrying strips of skins from the sacrificed goats which they used to whip anything in their way to drive out Evil

Question 7

Luperci

Answer 7

Group of noble young men selected as priests specifically appointed for the Lupercalia

Question 8

Lupercal

Answer 8

Cave on the west side of the Palatine hill

Where Romulus and Remus were suckled by the she-wolf

Question 9

Februa

Answer 9

Goat hide used to whip people in Lupercalia

Februare -> to purify

Question 10

Saturnalia general

Answer 10

• around winter solstice
• 17th December
• originally honoured Saturn (agriculture and sowing), later associated with Cronos (Greek- father of Zeus, ruled during ‘Golden Age’)
• celebrated the rebirth of the sun after the winter solstice, the completion of sowing the following year’s crops, the hope that one day people would again live in peace with one another in a second golden age
• ‘peace and goodwill’

Question 11

Saturnalia proper

Answer 11

• sacrifice in the temple of Saturn in the forum
• free public banquet
• shops were shut, schools were closed, law-courts deserted, break from politics
• ‘Io Saturnalia’
• could gamble in public
• masters treated their spaces as equals, waited on them at the table
• discarded the formal yoga for part clothed and the pileus
• gift-giving -> wax candles, doll-like clay figures, dice, combs, moneyboxes, toothpicks, balls, perfumes, a parrot, tables, cups, spoons, books, pets

Question 12

Pileus

Answer 12

Soft cap normally worn by freedmen which symbolised freedom

Question 13

Personifications

Answer 13

‘Good Cheer’
‘Joviality’

Seen as characters or even minor gods