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Parentalia was a Roman festival for the cult honour of the di/divi parentes (the deified ancestors).^[1]^[2] On the first day of the festival, the Ides of February (the 13th), a Vestal Virgin performed the opening public rites for the collective Roman di parentes at the "tomb of the Vestal Tarpeia".^[3]. According to Beard et al, the remainder of the Parentalia was essentially domestic and familial.^[4] Ovid describes sacred offerings (sacrificia) of flower-garlands, wheat, salt, wine-soaked bread and violets to the "shades of the dead" (manes or in Festus, di manes - "the good ones") at the family tombs of the extra-mural necropolis, to strengthen the mutual obligations and protective ties between the living and the dead. This was a lawful duty of the paterfamilias (head of the family).^[5]^[6] Parentalia terminated on February 22 in the midnight rites of Feralia, when the paterfamilias addressed the malevolent, destructive aspects of his manes. Feralia was a placation and exorcism: Ovid thought it a more rustic, primitive and ancient affair than the Parentalia itself. It appears to have functioned as a cleansing ritual for Caristia on the following day, when the family held an informal banquet to celebrate the amity between themselves and their benevolent ancestral dead (lares).^[7]^[8] The emphasis on collective cult for the manes and early di parentes implies their afterlife as vague and lacking individuation. In later cult they are vested with personal qualities, and in the Imperial cult, they acquire divine numen and become the divi.^[9]

From Parentalia to Caristia all temples were closed, marriages were forbidden, and "magistrates appeared without their insignia" (implying that no official business was done). W. Warde Fowler describes the Parentalia as " practically a yearly renewal of the rite of burial". ^[10]

^ Beard, North, Price, Religions of Rome, volume 1, a History, Cambridge University Press, 1998, 31.
^ Weinstock, Divus Julius, Oxford, 1971, 291-6.
^ W. Warde Fowler, The Roman festivals of the period of the Republic, Macmillan, 1899: 306. Online at the Internet Archive: [1]
^ Beard, North, Price, Religions of Rome, volume 1, a History, Cambridge University Press, 1998, 50.
^ Ovid, Fasti, 2.537-539. Ibid 2.534 for manes.
^ W. Warde Fowler, The Roman festivals of the period of the Republic, 306; citing Festus' di manes as an apparently placatory euphemism: some manes were to be feared.
^ Ovid, Fasti, 2.677.
^ W. Warde Fowler, The Roman festivals of the period of the Republic, 309, has ritualistically clothed statues of the Lares at this "sacred meal"
^ Fishwick , D. The Imperial Cult in the Latin West: Studies in the Ruler Cult of the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire, vol 1, 1991, 1, 51.
^ W. Warde Fowler, The Roman festivals of the period of the Republic, 308.

Religion in ancient Rome series

Festivals

[0] Beard, North, Price, Religions of Rome, volume 1, a History, Cambridge University Press, 1998, 31.

[1] Weinstock, Divus Julius, Oxford, 1971, 291-6.

[2] W. Warde Fowler, The Roman festivals of the period of the Republic, Macmillan, 1899: 306. Online at the Internet Archive: [1]

[3] Beard, North, Price, Religions of Rome, volume 1, a History, Cambridge University Press, 1998, 50.

[4] Ovid, Fasti, 2.537-539. Ibid 2.534 for manes.

[5] W. Warde Fowler, The Roman festivals of the period of the Republic, 306; citing Festus' di manes as an apparently placatory euphemism: some manes were to be feared.

[6] Ovid, Fasti, 2.677.

[7] W. Warde Fowler, The Roman festivals of the period of the Republic, 309, has ritualistically clothed statues of the Lares at this "sacred meal"

[8] Fishwick , D. The Imperial Cult in the Latin West: Studies in the Ruler Cult of the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire, vol 1, 1991, 1, 51.

[9] W. Warde Fowler, The Roman festivals of the period of the Republic, 308.

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