The Regifugium ("Flight of the King") or Fugalia ("Festival of the Flight") was an annual

religious Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...

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 ...

that took place in

ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...

every February 24 ( la, a.d. VI Kal. Mart.).

History

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 ...

and

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

traced the observance to the flight of the last king of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus, in In his ''

Fasti In ancient Rome, the ''fasti'' (Latin plural) were chronological or calendar-based lists, or other diachronic records or plans of official and religiously sanctioned events. After Rome's decline, the word ''fasti'' continued to be used for simil ...

'', Ovid offers the longest surviving account of the observance:

Now I must tell of the flight of the King, six days from the end of the month. The last of the Tarquins possessed the Roman nation, an unjust man, but nevertheless strong in war.

Plutarch Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for hi ...

holds that the '' rex sacrorum'' played as a substitute for the former king of Rome in various religious rituals. The ''rex'' held no civic or military role, but nevertheless was bound to offer a public sacrifice in the

Comitia The legislative assemblies of the Roman Republic were political institutions in the ancient Roman Republic. According to the contemporary historian Polybius, it was the people (and thus the assemblies) who had the final say regarding the election ...

on this date. The "flight of the king" was the swift exit the proxy king was required to make from that place of public business. It may be that the two versions are to be reconciled by taking the "flight" of the ''rex sacrorum'' as a reenactment of the expulsion of Tarquinius.William Smith, D.C.L., LL.D., "Regifugium" in ''A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities'' (London, 1875)

Notes

References

Ancient Roman festivals February observances Abdication {{reli-festival-stub

History

See also

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References