Today in
Ancient RomeHODIE · ROMA

a.d. IX Kal. Mart.

February 21 in Ancient Rome

Feralia

festivalAnnual

Roman calendar date

Public day for appeasing the spirits of the dead (manes), closing the Parentalia.

Parentalia

Background

The Feralia on 21 February closed the nine days of the Parentalia. While the earlier days were for private family visits to tombs, the Feralia was a public festival for the manes, the spirits of the dead, who were thought to wander among the living at this season.

Ovid describes small offerings at the graves and a story that once, when Romans neglected the Feralia during a war, the dead rose from their tombs and howled through the streets until the rites were restored per Ovid; a legend. He also describes an old woman performing a magic rite with girls that day, putting incense under the threshold, sewing up a fish's mouth and roasting it, to "bind hostile tongues" per Ovid.

The ritual shows a world where most people lost children, siblings and parents early, and where fear of the restless dead mixed with love for family. Women, Ovid's account suggests, carried much of the domestic ritual, from lamentation to magic.

Ancient source: Ovid, Fasti 2.569–570 · Reference

Sources
Read moreParentalia begin (Feb 13–21)

Parentalia begin (Feb 13–21)

festivalAnnual

Roman calendar date

Nine days for honouring dead family members, beginning on the Ides of February and ending with the public Feralia.

Parentalia

Background

February was the Roman month of purification and remembrance. The Parentalia, "days of the parents", began at noon on the Ides of February and lasted nine days. A Vestal Virgin opened them with rites for the dead per the calendar inscriptions as reported by modern scholars.

During these days families visited the tombs of their relatives along the roads outside the city, bringing simple offerings. Ovid lists them: a wreath, a sprinkling of grain, a little salt, bread soaked in wine, and loose violets per Ovid. Temples were closed, altar fires were not lit, and marriages were avoided per Ovid. The festival ended with the public Feralia on 21 February.

Tombs lined every road into Rome, from great monuments of the rich to the modest niches of burial clubs, where enslaved people and freedmen pooled small payments to secure a decent burial and remembrance. Not everyone had one: the poorest were dumped in mass pits outside the Esquiline gate. The Parentalia shows how strongly Romans felt that the dead needed care from the living.

Ancient source: Ovid, Fasti 2.533–570 · Reference

Sources

Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 13°/4°C (55°/39°F) · rain 37% of days

Rome in FebruaryFebruary was Rome's month of purification and of the dead.

Columella
A cold day with north-east or north-west wind; sometimes rain. (De Re Rust. 11.2)

Fields & crops

The west wind (Favonius) brought the first signs of spring around 7 February per Columella 11.2: vines were pruned, trees grafted, and meadows cleared and manured.

Courts & law

February was when the Senate traditionally heard foreign embassies late Republic, per the lex Gabinia and Cicero's letters. Ordinary law courts kept sitting except on festival days.

Senate & politics

As the last month of the old year, February was used for the intercalary month when the pre-Julian calendar needed correcting, inserted after the Terminalia (23 Feb.), a source of political manipulation pre-Julian.

Military

Still the closed season; armies prepared for spring, recruits trained, and supplies were gathered at frontier bases.

Festivals & religion

The month's name comes from februa, means of purification. The Lupercalia (15 Feb.), the Parentalia for the family dead (13–21 Feb.) ending with the Feralia, the Caristia family reunion (22 Feb.) and the Terminalia for boundary stones (23 Feb.) filled it per Ovid, Fasti 2.

Daily life

February was Rome's month of purification and of the dead. During the Parentalia (13–21 February) families brought simple offerings—wreaths, grain, salt, bread soaked in wine, violets—to their ancestors' tombs per Ovid, Fasti 2.533–42. Death was close: perhaps a quarter or more of infants died in their first year, and tombstones for young children are common modern demographic estimate; disputed in detail.

On farms Columella says the west wind (Favonius) starts about 7 February, signalling pruning, grafting and the first spring work per Columella 11.2. The Lupercalia (15 February) saw young men run through the streets striking women with goatskin strips, believed to help fertility and childbirth per Ovid and Plutarch.

Sources: Ovid, Fasti 2 · Columella 11.2

All days in February →

← February 20February 22 →
LATIN LINE OF THE DAY

Hoc est vivere bis, vita posse priore frui.

“To be able to enjoy one's past life is to live twice.”

Martial, Epigrams 10.23 · translation ours (literal)