In ancient Roman religion, the Furrinalia (or Furinalia) was an annual

festival A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival ...

held on 25 July to celebrate the rites ''( sacra)'' of the goddess

Furrina Furrina, also spelled Furina, was an ancient Roman goddess whose function had become obscure by the 1st century BC. Her cult dated to the earliest period of Roman religious history, since she was one of the fifteen deities who had their own flame ...

Varro Marcus Terentius Varro (; 116–27 BC) was a Roman polymath and a prolific author. He is regarded as ancient Rome's greatest scholar, and was described by Petrarch as "the third great light of Rome" (after Vergil and Cicero). He is sometimes calle ...

notes that the festival was a public holiday ''( feriae publicae dies)''. Both the festival and the goddess had become obscure even to the Romans of the Late Republic; Varro (mid-1st century BC) notes that few people in his day even know her name. One of the fifteen '' flamines'' (high priests of official cult) was assigned to her, indicating her archaic stature, and she had a

sacred grove Sacred groves or sacred woods are groves of trees and have special religious importance within a particular culture. Sacred groves feature in various cultures throughout the world. They were important features of the mythological landscape and ...

''( lucus)'' on the

Janiculum The Janiculum (; it, Gianicolo ), occasionally the Janiculan Hill, is a hill in western Rome, Italy. Although it is the second-tallest hill (the tallest being Monte Mario) in the contemporary city of Rome, the Janiculum does not figure among t ...

, which may have been the location of the festival. Furrina was associated with water, and the Furrinalia follows the Lucaria (Festival of the Grove) on 19 and 21 July and the

Neptunalia The Neptunalia was an obscure archaic two-day festival in honor of Neptune as god of waters, celebrated at Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map ...

on 23 July, a grouping that may reflect a concern for summer drought.Robert Schilling, "Neptune," ''Roman and European Mythologies'' (University of Chicago Press, 1992, from the French edition of 1981), p. 138. This was the earlier view of

Georg Wissowa Georg Otto August Wissowa (17 June 1859 – 11 May 1931) was a German classical philologist born in Neudorf, near Breslau. Education and career Wissowa studied classical philology under August Reifferscheid at the University of Bresla ...

References

External links

Lucus Furrinae
entry in ''

Platner's Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome ''A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome'' is a reference work written by Samuel Ball Platner (1863–1921). The first edition was published in 1904; the second edition ('revised and enlarged') was published in 1911 (both: Allyn and Bacon, B ...

'' Ancient Roman festivals July observances Summer holidays (Northern Hemisphere) {{Reli-festival-stub