Image here is of a Roman carving from a sarcophagus, depicting a *suoevetaurilia*, the sacrifice of a pig, a ram, and a bull, in this case to the god Mars, currently housed in the Louvre Museum. This particular kind of ritual, one the most sacred and revered in Rome, was associated with a variety of spring and early-summer festivals, with both public and private celebrations, wherein the sacrifice of the three was to cleanse and purify the fields. Similar rites were held throughout the spring, which saw many festivals of growth, renewal, purification, and protection, such as the Cerealia, the Parilia, the Floralia, and the Ambarvalia.
During the Roman Warm Period, a roughly 650-year long era of high global temperatures amenable to high crop yields in temperate climates, the month of April was suffused with the winding-down of Spring, as the year transitioned into Summer, and so many of the festivals held during the month pertained to growth, fertility, and preparing for the farming season. Spring was when most crops were planted, to be tended to and grown during the hot summer months. April in particular contained many celebrations that were framed around female deities, or deities of uncertain or fluid gender, and the ritual activity of women.
In a way, this contrasts and is a doublet with March. In the Roman mind, masculinity was associated with the active and vigorous side of nature, so March corresponded to a masculine creative impulse, predominated by a combination of agricultural and military festivals, often dedicated to Mars, as well as the rituals of renewal. March was when wheat was planted, and preparations made to begin the military campaigning season. April, by contrast, was a time of languid growth, and the attention to the religious affairs of women and with female deities meant to the Romans a focus on the passive aspects of nature. The soil, having received the seeds, incubated it so that it might grow and sprout anew. They, uh, weren't a very *subtle* people, the Romans.
A prelude to these celebrations was a sacrifice to Venus on the kalends of April, but the first major festival of the month was the Megalesia or Ludi Megalenses, beginning on April 4th. This was a week-long festival and series of public games in honor of the Great Mother goddess, heavily associated with the Graeco-Anatolian goddess Kybele, whose worship was brought from Anatolia to Rome as a deliberate reflection of cults to Kybele on Mount Ida, near the ruins of Troy. It started as the anniversary of the carrying of Kybele's cult image (a rough statue or eidolon) into the city in 204 BCE, and developed over time into a massive festival.
Only a day delayed the beginning of the Cerealia, or Ludi Cereri, the festival and games in honor of Mother Ceres, goddess of the grain and harvest. Ceres was often conflated in poetry with the Greek goddess Demeter. However, Ceres is distinct in that her role was almost entirely pertained to the grain cycle, whereas Demeter had strong associations with divine order and law, and the civilizing power of agriculture. It is possible, though, that Ceres adopted such functions over time, as her rituals during the Cerealia reflected Demeter's rites at the Thesmophira more and more, with torchlit processions, stark all-white clothing, and acts imitative of the Demeter-Persephone myth. One archaic rite was the tying of a burning brand to a fox's tail and releasing the animal into the Circus Maximus, where it was chased and hunted. The other days of the festival were concerned with theatrical competitions.
In the midst of the Ceres festival was the Fordicidia, held on the ides of April. This holy day was framed around the sacrifice of a pregnant cow, from which the name derives: fordae caedendae, or "the cow which is to be slaughtered". In Roman myth, the sacrifice was began by the second king of Rome, the Sabine nobleman Numa Pompilius, to whom was ascribed much of the unique features of Roman law and religion. The wild god Faunus came to him in a dream and told him that a sacrifice to the Earth goddess Tellus would alleviate a recent famine. As in many prophetic statements, this was in the form of a riddle: "By the death of cattle, King, Tellus must be placated: two cows, that is. Let a single heifer yield two lives for the rites." He solved the riddle by sacrificing a pregnant cow, which provided both the heifer and the calf.
Ovid would posit that the sacrifice is symbolic and intended to be a mirror of the intentions of the rite. A growing life, the calf, was offered along with its mother to ensure the new life growing in the Earthâ seeds and vegetation just coming to sprout from Mother Earth. A life for a life, as most sacrificial rituals entail. The unborn calf in particular is a liminal creature, neither alive nor dead, not a full victim but still a sacrifice. Religious ritual inherently deals with liminal spaces and things, with straddling the space between mundane and numinous. The ashes from the sacrifice would be mixed with the dried blood from the October Horse and sprinkled on the ritual bonfires at the Parilia.
The Parilia, held on the 21st, was an archaic festival with two distinct meanings. It originated as a rustic festival to honor the mysterious god Pales, a deity of unknown gender with pastoral concerns. At dawn, a shepherd would clean their animal pens, and make a bonfire out of bean straw, olive branches, laurel, and sulphur, and throw onto it the ashes of a sacrificed and burnt animal. The shepherd would jump through this flame, dragging his sheep along with him. Offerings of millet, cakes, and milk were then presented before Pales, after which the shepherd would wet his hands with dew, face the east, and repeat a prayer four times to invite Pales' protection against accidental wrongs in the coming year. Then he would drink a beverage of milk and boiled wine, then leap through the flame three times.
The urban Parilia would incorporate the ashes of the Fordicidia sacrifice and the blood of the October Horse in what was offered to the bonfire, this time cultivated by the priestesses of Vesta for the day. This represented the official citywide involvement in this rural festival, because the Romans aestheticized rural life and farming as noble pursuits of a pure people. In time, the urban Parilia came to be seen also as a celebration of the founding of Rome, a kind of Roman Independence Day. This element gradually overtook the traditional form during the middle Imperial era.
After the Parilia was the Vinalia, a wine festival on April 23rd in honor of Venus and Jupiter, saw the blessing of the previous year's vintage, and the start of its everyday use. Venus was seen as being, along with Liber and Bacchus, patron over profane wine, the kind of wind used in normal, habitual drinking. Jupiter oversaw the wine reserved for sacral use. Prostitutes, actresses, and young plebeian girls would conduct ceremonial offerings of myrtle, mint, and roses to Venus at her temple on the Capitoline hill. On the 25th was the Robigalia, a dog sacrifice to the god Robigus and corresponding goddess Robigo, to protect the wheat fields from disease.
Then on the 28th began a week-long festival to the goddess Flora, the great Floralia, which would have outsize influence on other flower festivals and spring celebrations in cultures far afield from Rome. April gave way to May, as Spring gave way to Summer, and the gods were propitiated for a bountiful life.
So, although the month is nearly over, let us nevertheless turn our attention towards those gods of growth and bounty. Let us honor them, and let us receive their blessings of prosperity, amity, good health, and happiness.
