Читать книгу The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic - W. Warde Fowler - Страница 18

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FERIAE^[125] ANNAE PERENNAE VIA FLAM[INIA] AD LAPIDEM PRIM[UM]. (VAT.)

ANNAE PER. (FARN.)

This is a survival of an old popular festival, as is clearly seen from Ovid’s account of it; but the absence of any mention of it in the rustic calendars or in those of Philocalus and Silvius leads us to suppose that it had died out in the early Empire. This may be accounted for by the fact that the people came to be more and more attracted by spectacles and games; and also by the ever-increasing cosmopolitanism of the city populace, which would be continually losing interest in old Roman customs which it could not understand.

On this day, Ovid tells us^[126], the ‘plebs’ streamed out to the ‘festum geniale’ of Anna Perenna, and taking up a position in the Campus Martius, not far from the Tiber^[127], and lying about on the grass in pairs of men and women, passed the day in revelry and drinking^[128]. Some lay in the open; some pitched tents and some constructed rude huts of stakes and branches, stretching their togas over them for shelter. As they drank they prayed for as many years of life as they can swallow cups of wine; meanwhile singing snatches of song with much gesticulation and dancing. The result of these performances was naturally that they returned to the city in a state of intoxication. Ovid tells us that he had seen this spectacle himself^[129].

Whether there was any sacrificial rite in immediate connexion with these revels we do not know. Macrobius indeed tells us^[130] that sacrifice was offered in the month of March to Anna Perenna ‘ut annare perannareque commode liceat’^[131]; and Lydus, that on the Ides there were εὐχαὶ δημόσιαι ὑπὲρ τοῦ ὑγιεινὸν γενέσθαι τὸν ἐνιαυτόν; but we do not know what was the relation between these and the scene described by Ovid.

Who was the Anna Perenna in whose honour these revels, sacrifices, and prayers took place, whatever their relation to each other? Ovid and Silius Italicus^[132] tell legends about her which are hardly genuine Italian, and in which Anna Perenna is confused with the other Anna whom they knew, the sister of Dido. Hidden under such stories may sometimes be found traces of a belief or a cult of which we have no other knowledge; but in this poetical medley there seems to be only one feature that calls on us to pause. After her wanderings Anna disappears in the waters of the river Numicius:

Corniger hanc cupidis rapuisse Numicius undis

Creditur, et stagnis occuluisse suis.

Her companions traced her footsteps to the bank: she seemed to tell them