In ancient Roman religion, the Furrinalia (or Furinalia) was an annual festival held on 25 July to celebrate the rites (sacra) of the goddess Furrina. Varro notes that the festival was a public holiday (feriae publicae dies). Both the festival and the goddess had become obscure[1] even to the Romans of the Late Republic; Varro (mid-1st century BC) notes that few people in his day even know her name.[2] One of the fifteen flamines (high priests of official cult) was assigned to her, indicating her archaic stature,[3] and she had a sacred grove (lucus) on the Janiculum, which may have been the location of the festival.[4] Furrina was associated with water, and the Furrinalia follows the Lucaria (Festival of the Grove) on 19 and 21 July and the Neptunalia on 23 July, a grouping that may reflect a concern for summer drought.[5]

References

  1. ^ Varro, De lingua latina 5.84.
  2. ^ Nunc vix nomen notum paucis: Varro, De lingua latina 6.19.
  3. ^ Varro, De lingua latina 6.19: cuius deae honos apud antiquos, nam ei sacra instituta annua et flamen attributus.
  4. ^ Ken Dowden, European Paganism: The Realities of Cult from Antiquity to the Middle Ages (Routledge, 2000), p. 239.
  5. ^ Robert Schilling, "Neptune," Roman and European Mythologies (University of Chicago Press, 1992, from the French edition of 1981), p. 138. This was the earlier view of Georg Wissowa.

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Roman festivals and games (ludi)
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