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| Fordicidia | |
|---|---|
| Observed by | Roman Republic, Roman Empire |
| Type | Classical Roman religion |
| Observances | Sacrifice of a pregnant cow |
| Date | April 15 |
| Related to | Tellus, Cerialia, Parilia |
In ancient Roman religion, the Fordicidia was a festival of fertility, held on the Ides of April (April 15), that pertained to farming and animal husbandry. It involved the sacrifice of a pregnant cow to Tellus, the ancient Roman goddess of the Earth, in proximity to the festival of Ceres (Cerealia) on April 19.[1]
On the Roman religious calendar, the month of April (Aprilis) was in general preoccupied with deities who were female or ambiguous in gender, opening with the Feast of Venus on the Kalends.[2] Several other festivals pertaining to farm life were held in April: the Parilia, a feast of shepherds, on April 21; the Robigalia on April 25, to protect crops from blight;[1] and the Vinalia, one of the two wine festivals on the calendar,[3] at the end of the month. Of these, the Fordicidia and Robigalia are likely to have been of greatest antiquity. William Warde Fowler, whose early 20th-century work on Roman festivals remains a standard reference, asserted that the Fordicidia was "beyond doubt one of the oldest sacrificial rites in Roman religion."[4]
- ^ a b Mary Beard, J.A. North, and S.R.F. Price, Religions of Rome: A History (Cambridge University Press, 1998), vol. 1, p. 45.
- ^ William Warde Fowler, The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic (London, 1908), pp. 66–67.
- ^ The other was held August 19.
- ^ Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 71.