The Vinalia were Roman festivals of the wine harvest, wine

vintage Vintage, in winemaking, is the process of picking grapes and creating the finished product—wine (see Harvest (wine)). A vintage wine is one made from grapes that were all, or primarily, grown and harvested in a single specified year. In certa ...

and gardens, held in honour of

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but ...

and

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...

. The ''Vinalia prima'' ("first Vinalia"), also known as the ''Vinalia urbana'' ("Urban Vinalia") was held on 23 April to bless and sample last year's wine and ask for good weather until the next harvest. The ''Vinalia rustica'' ("Rustic Vinalia") was on 19 August, before the harvest and grape-pressing.

Vinalia Urbana

The ''Vinalia Urbana'' was held on 23 April. It was predominantly a wine festival, shared by Venus as patron of " profane" wine (''vinum spurcum'') intended for everyday human use, and

as patron of the strongest, purest, sacrificial grade wine (''temetum''). In honour of Venus, whose powers had provided humankind with ordinary wine, men and women alike sampled the ''vinum spurcum'' of the previous autumn's pressing. As god of the weather on which the wine-harvest depended, Jupiter was offered a special libation of the previous year's sacred wine vintage, blessed by his high priest and poured into a ditch outside Venus' Capitoline temple, probably under the gaze of Rome's higher echelons. Common girls (''vulgares puellae'') and prostitutes (''meretrices'') gathered at Venus Erycina's Colline temple – probably on separate occasions, for propriety's sake – to offer the goddess myrtle, mint, and rushes concealed in rose-bunches. In return, they asked her for "beauty and popular favour", and to be made "charming and witty".

Vinalia Rustica

The ''Vinalia Rustica'' was held on 19 August. It was originally a rustic

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

harvest festival, celebrating the grape harvest, vegetable growth and fertility. At the Roman ''Vinalia Rustica'', kitchen gardens and market-gardens, and presumably vineyards were dedicated to ''Venus Obsequens'', the oldest known form of Venus. In

Roman mythology Roman mythology is the body of myths of ancient Rome as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans. One of a wide variety of genres of Roman folklore, ''Roman mythology'' may also refer to the modern study of these representat ...

, it marked the fulfillment of a vow by the ancient Latin allies of Rome's legendary ancestor

Aeneas In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (, ; from ) was a Trojan hero, the son of the Trojan prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite (equivalent to the Roman Venus). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy (both being grandsons ...

, who promised all wine of the next sacred vintage to

, in return for victory against the Etruscan tyrant

Mezentius In Roman mythology, Mezentius was an Etruscan king, and father of Lausus. Sent into exile because of his cruelty, he moved to Latium. He reveled in bloodshed and was overwhelmingly savage on the battlefield, but more significantly to a Roman aud ...

. According to some sources, the warlike Mezentius had claimed this vintage as his due, not Jupiter's. Roman opinions differ on which deity presided at the ''Vinalia Rustica''; Varro insists that like the ''Vinalia Urbana'', it was sacred to Jupiter, who controlled the weather that governed the growing and ripening of grapes; moreover Jupiter's priest picked the first bunch of grapes, blessed the first sacred pressing and offered a sacrifice; these observations are borne out by Pliny the Elder. In practice, however, the festival had strong popular and cult connections to Venus as patron goddess of ordinary, religiously "impure" wine (''vinum spurcum''). Some of the rites took place at her various temples. The sacrificial victim offered by Jupiter's priest, a female lamb (''agna'') may be evidence if not of Venus herself, then of an ancient, rustic Latin goddess very much like her.Lipka, Michael, ''Roman Gods: A Conceptual Approach'', BRILL, 2009, p. 42; citing Varro, ''Lingua Latina'', 6. 16; Varro's explicit denial that the festival belongs to Venus implies his awareness of the opposite opinion. Lipka offers this apparent contradiction as an example of two Roman cults that offer "complementary functional foci" within a single festival. An account of the origins and rise of this festival is given by

Festus Festus may refer to: People Ancient world *Porcius Festus, Roman governor of Judea from approximately 58 to 62 AD *Sextus Pompeius Festus (later 2nd century), Roman grammarian *Festus (died 305), martyr along with Proculus of Pozzuoli *Festus (h ...

References

External links

* Schmitz, Leonhard, in Smith, William, ''

A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities ''A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities'' is an English language encyclopedia first published in 1842. The second, improved and enlarged, edition appeared in 1848, and there were many revised editions up to 1890. The encyclopedia covered la ...

,'' 1875
p. 1198 (perseus.org)
{{Roman religion (festival) Ancient Roman festivals August observances April observances Venus (mythology)