Editing Religion in ancient Rome (section)

== Holidays and festivals ==
{{See also|Roman festivals|Fasti|Roman calendar|Ludi|Roman triumph}}
Roman calendars show roughly forty annual religious festivals. Some lasted several days, others a single day or less: sacred days (''dies [[fasti]]'') outnumbered "non-sacred" days (''dies [[nefasti]]'').<ref>Beard et al., 6–7; those titled in capital letters on Roman calendars were probably more important and ancient than those titled in small letters: it is not known how ancient they were, nor to whom they were important. Their attribution to Numa or Romulus is doubtful. The oldest surviving religious calendars date to the late Republic; the most detailed are Augustan and later. Beard et al., Vol. 1, 6: a selection of festivals is given in Vol. 2, 3.1–3. For a list of Fasti, with bibliography and sources, see Degrassi, ''Inscriptiones Italiae, Vol. XIII – Fasti et elogia, fasc. II – Fasti anni Numani et Iuliani,'' Rome, 1963. See also Scullard, 1981.</ref> A comparison of surviving Roman religious calendars suggests that official festivals were organized according to broad seasonal groups that allowed for different local traditions. Some of the most ancient and popular festivals incorporated ''[[ludi]]'' ("games", such as [[chariot races]] and [[Theatre of ancient Rome|theatrical performances]]), with examples including those held at [[Palestrina#Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia|Palestrina in honour of Fortuna Primigenia]] during [[Compitalia]], and the [[Ludi Romani]] in honour of [[Liber]].<ref>Beard et al., Vol. 1, 134–135, 64–67: citing Cicero.</ref> Other festivals may have required only the presence and rites of their priests and acolytes,<ref>Rüpke, in Rüpke (ed.), 4.</ref> or particular groups, such as women at the [[Bona Dea]] rites.<ref>Beard et al., Vol. 1, 47–49, 296.</ref>

[[File:Compitalia fresco.jpg|right|300px|thumb|This [[fresco]] from outside [[Pompeii]] shows Roman men celebrating a religious festival, probably the [[Compitalia]].]]

Other public festivals were not required by the calendar, but occasioned by events. The [[Roman triumph|triumph]] of a Roman general was celebrated as the fulfillment of [[votum|religious vows]], though these tended to be overshadowed by the political and social significance of the event. During the late Republic, the political elite competed to outdo each other in public display, and the ''ludi'' attendant on a triumph were expanded to include [[Gladiator#Origins|gladiator]] contests. Under the [[Principate]], all such spectacular displays came under Imperial control: the most lavish were subsidised by emperors, and lesser events were provided by magistrates as a sacred duty and privilege of office. Additional festivals and games celebrated Imperial accessions and anniversaries. Others, such as the traditional Republican [[Secular Games]] to mark a new era (''saeculum''), became imperially funded to maintain traditional values and a common Roman identity. That the spectacles retained something of their sacral aura even in [[late antiquity]] is indicated by the admonitions of the Church Fathers that Christians should not take part.<ref>Beard et al., ''Religions of Rome'', p. 262.</ref>

The meaning and origin of many archaic festivals baffled even Rome's intellectual elite, but the more obscure they were, the greater the opportunity for reinvention and reinterpretation – a fact lost neither on Augustus in his program of religious reform, which often cloaked autocratic innovation, nor on his only rival as mythmaker of the era, [[Ovid]]. In his ''[[Fasti (poem)|Fasti]]'', a long-form poem covering Roman holidays from January to June, Ovid presents a unique look at Roman [[antiquarian]] lore, popular customs, and religious practice that is by turns imaginative, entertaining, high-minded, and scurrilous;<ref>Beard et al., Vol. 2, 6.4a; Vol. 1, 174–176 & 207–208.</ref> not a priestly account, despite the speaker's pose as a ''[[vates]]'' or inspired poet-prophet, but a work of description, imagination and poetic etymology that reflects the broad humor and burlesque spirit of such venerable festivals as the [[Saturnalia]], [[Consualia]], and feast of [[Anna Perenna]] on the [[Ides of March]], where Ovid treats the assassination of the newly deified Julius Caesar as utterly incidental to the festivities among the Roman people.<ref>Carole E. Newlands, ''Playing with Time: Ovid and the Fasti'' (Cornell University Press, 1995), ''passim''; "Transgressive Acts: Ovid's Treatment of the Ides of March", ''Classical Philology'' 91.4 (1996) 320–338.</ref> But official calendars preserved from different times and places also show a flexibility in omitting or expanding events, indicating that there was no single static and authoritative calendar of required observances. In the later Empire under Christian rule, the new Christian festivals were incorporated into the existing framework of the Roman calendar, alongside at least some of the traditional festivals.<ref>See the [[Calendar of Filocalus]] (AD 354), cited in Beard et al., Vol. 1, 250, and that of [[Polemius Silvius]]. See also early and later Christian festivals in Beard et al., Vol. 1, 378–380, 382–383.</ref>