The Roman religious year

Roman festivals of the gods: dates and sources

Roman religion was organised by a calendar, and many of the gods in this archive have a festival attached to them. The table below gives nine of the best-known festivals with their traditional dates, the deity honoured, and the ancient source to read for each. The dates follow the traditional calendar as presented in H.H. Scullard's Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic and summarised in standard references; a few festivals are listed with slightly different ranges in different sources, and those cases are marked.

Calendar at a glance

Festival	Traditional date	Honours	Where to read about it
Lupercalia	15 February	No single god named	Ovid, Fasti 2.267–452
Parentalia	13 to 21 February	The dead and ancestors	Ovid, Fasti 2.533–570
Terminalia	23 February	Terminus	Ovid, Fasti 2.639–684
Matronalia	1 March	Juno Lucina	Ovid, Fasti 3.167–258
Quinquatrus	19 March (5 days in Ovid)	Minerva and Mars	Ovid, Fasti 3.809–848
Cerealia	12 to 19 April	Ceres	Ovid, Fasti 4.393–620
Parilia	21 April	Pales, a pastoral deity	Ovid, Fasti 4.721–862
Vestalia	7 to 15 June	Vesta	Ovid, Fasti 6.249–460
Saturnalia	17 to 23 December	Saturn	Livy 2.21.2

What the ancient sources say

Lupercalia. Ovid asks why a place called the Lupercal exists and why the day has that name, and answers with the story of Rhea Silvia's twins, Romulus and Remus, who were ordered to be drowned in the river (Fasti 2.381–386). Standard reference tables do not name a single god for this festival.
Parentalia. Ovid says that Rome once neglected the Parentales during long wars, and that the dead were said to have left their tombs and wailed through the streets and fields at night (Fasti 2.547–554).
Terminalia. Neighbours meet at the boundary stone, a lamb is sacrificed to Terminus, and they feast and sing his praises (Fasti 2.655–660).
Matronalia. Ovid asks Mars why Roman matrons celebrate his festival at the start of March, and the god answers in his own voice (Fasti 3.167–200). Modern calendars list Juno Lucina as the honoured goddess.
Quinquatrus. Ovid describes a five-day festival of Minerva: the first day is free of bloodshed, and on the next days gladiators fight with drawn swords. He lists the trades under her protection (Fasti 3.809–834). Modern calendars list the festival as 19 March and link it to Mars, with the connection to Minerva possibly explained by the dedication of her Aventine temple on that day. Sources therefore disagree on both its length and its deity; see the Athena vs Minerva comparison.
Cerealia. Ovid introduces the games of Ceres by explaining the goddess's gift of grain, which replaced the green herbs that early people ate (Fasti 4.393–396).
Parilia. Ovid's narrator asks the nurturing goddess Pales to favour his poem and describes carrying ashes of a calf and bean straw as part of the cleansing ritual (Fasti 4.721–726). Legend dates the founding of Rome to this day, 21 April.
Vestalia. The festival of Vesta, whose temple and Vestal Virgins tended the sacred fire. Ovid treats it in book 6 of the Fasti.
Saturnalia. Livy records that a temple of Saturn was dedicated and the Saturnalia established as a festal day (Livy 2.21.2). For the god himself, see Cronus vs Saturn.

Notes on the dates

Roman festivals are fixed to days of the Roman calendar, and the calendar was reformed by Julius Caesar, so a date such as 21 April refers to that calendar rather than to any fixed season today. The date ranges here are the traditional ones. Parentalia is often given as 13 to 21 February, ending with the Feralia, while some lists run it to 22 February. For most of these festivals the surviving descriptions are literary, so they tell us how a poet or historian presented the day, not a complete picture of the ritual.

Sources

Ovid, Fasti, book 2: read the book (Latin); book 3: read the book (Latin); book 4: read the book (Latin); book 6: read the book (Latin)
Livy 2.21: read the passage
Dates: Roman festivals (Wikipedia), following Scullard's calendar