As its obvious ordinal name indicates, since the time of Romulus this is how the seventh month of the Roman calendar was known.
Little prolific month in activities, it was consecrated to Vulcano , god of the underworld, fire and metals. He was represented with his forge and corresponded to Hephaestus Greek.
In the Kalendas of the month, Jupiter was worshiped in his temple in the Capitol, requesting a mild winter and his intervention in the correct germination of the crops.
On the 3rd the Epidaura was celebrated , a festival in honor of Aesculapius , Asclepius in Greek, god of medicine. It was a rite imported from the eastern Mediterranean, basically since the incorporation of the Aegean world into the Roman orbit. The sick were taken to the sanctuary of Aesculapius, where they spent the night. Many of them saw in dreams the god Aesculapius busy in curing him. Some woke up cured of their ailments, perhaps because of the poppy with milk that the priests gave them before going to bed or because of simple and pure superstition. The god's symbol was the serpent coiled around the staff, our current pharmaceutical symbol.
On the eve of nones, the 4th, after the grape harvest and other agricultural tasks, the Ludi Romani began, the popular chariot races, one of the great games of the Roman world in honor of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Well, let it be a coincidence, but the number of patron saint festivities that take place on these same dates even today is remarkable in Valencian lands.
On the nones of the month began the Eleusinians, the mysteries of Dionysus, the Roman Bacchus; On the night of the 6th, the purifying bath was performed and the main ceremony took place the following day. After fasting all day, at sunset the mystical ritual began. The faithful flocked to the sacred chamber of the god. After a theatrical copulation between the priestess and the hierophant, the high priest, after leaving the darkness, recited “The omnipotent has given birth to the omnipotent” .
The ritual concluded with a sacred and probably psychotropic concoction made from barley and pennyroyal called ciceón. The commitment of the initiates demanded not to reveal what was contemplated in the sacred precinct. On the 10th a bull was sacrificed and the pannychis took place, a great banquet with music and dances to conclude the celebrations that lasted until dawn. The Christian emperor Theodosius I prohibited these celebrations in a decree of the year 392 during his particular persecution of paganism.
On the Ides, on the 13th, the great banquet took place in honor of Jupiter framed within the Ludi Romani.
On September 17, 14 A.D. Augustus was granted his divinity... The princeps was born on the 23rd.
On the 20th, the birth of Rómulo was celebrated.
This month concludes the review of the Roman calendar and its profusion of religious ceremonies. We have seen many curiosities, agrarian rites turned into festivities and Christian adaptations of pagan customs deeply rooted in the town whose beginning is lost in the mists of time. I hope you liked it.
Next month we will start a new series of articles, delving deeper into the way of life of our ancestors…
What would a visit to the hot springs be like?
Collaboration of Gabriel Castelló author of Bravery