The Romans held their dead in great respect. They were di manes, the ‘good’ dead, honoured ancestors never to be forgotten. As such, it was customary for living relatives to visit family graves on the deceased’s birthday, to celebrate the day and remember the life of the departed loved one. However, Roman society as a whole also honoured the dead publicly, during two months of the year. In May, Romans celebrated the Lemuria. However, February was the month of the Parentalia, a festival dedicated todi parentes or dies parentales – the family dead.

During this eight-day festival, which was closed by a one-day festival known as the Feralia, life paused while families observed the rites of remembrance for their ancestors.  Although every Roman marked the Parentalia, eachfamily’s ceremonials were held in private, as clans gathered to keep the memories of their dearly departed alive. However, the Parentalia was much more thana annual family memorial.

The Rites of the Parentalia

The Parentalia began on the 13th February, when, according to the calendar of Philocalus, a vestal virgin performed Virgo Vesta parentat’ – the opening rituals for the dead. This association with death tainted the period of the Parentalia. “No incense for altars, no fires for hearths,” were lit according Ovid as priests barred the doors of the temples. No marriages were performed. Even the city’s political life was affected, as magistrates left off their official togas and the court’s closed.

During this enforced holiday, Roman citizens retired behind their own closed doors to celebrate the rites of the dead amongst their own family. It was believed that during the Parentalia, the dead arose to wander amongst the living. However, although dead, during their brief sojourn on earth, they needed sustenance. So families would leave consumable gifts for their shades. Ovid describes how relatives left offerings “lying on a shard in mid street’” or at the tombs of the departed where they gathered to “build hearths and add prayers and ritual words” and leave “sprinkled corn and a thrifty grain of salt.”

Archeological evidence from Pompeii suggests these visits to the graveyard could be quite pleasant affairs. Many tombs and necropilii were equipped with seating areas for visitors, set within peaceful garden settings. Some of the more elaborate, according to Virginia Campbell, even had private tricliniaor dining rooms and cooking facilities. So, during the Parentalia, families did not just visit the grave and leave a bunch of flowers. They lingered. They prepared meals on site and stayed to eat with the deceased. Even the very poorest would take a picnic. 

The idea behind sharing a meal with your family dead was to connect you’re your ancestors. By spending time at graves and dining with the dead, relatives were remembering and honouring those who went before them. By sharing a meal, and leaving behind a carefully crafted floral garland of violets or similar flowers, the family ensured their ancestral dead continued to watch over them- and aid their endeavors.   

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The Feralia

On the 21st February, a one-day festival, the Feralia, closed the Parentalia. No account of the public rites of the Feraliasurvives, although its prominence on public calendars indicates it was a major event. Literature, however, offers clues to the nature of this mini festival.

Varro in ‘On the Latin Language’describes it as: “the Festival of the Dead,’ from inferi ‘ the dead below ‘ and ‘ to bear,’ because at that time they ferunt ‘ bear ‘ viands to the tomb of those to whom it is a duty to offer ancestor-worship there”.

Ovid also supplies tit bits of information. He describes a strange rite dedicated to Tacita, the goddess of the dead which was preformed on the Feralia by an old woman, surrounded by young girls:

“Three fingers tuck three incense lumps under a door,

Where a tiny mouse built a hidden path.

The hag then fastens enchanted cords with dark lead,

And rolls seven beans inside her mouth;

And she roast on the fire the sewn head of the sprat

Smeared in pitch and spitted with a bronze rod.

She also drops in wine. What remains of the wine

She or her friends drink (although she drinks more)

‘We have tied hostile tongues and our enemies mouths’

The hag shouts.”

Beans were the food of the dead. The images of binding, sealing and blocking suggests a rite of banishing and removing harm. All of this, plus the involvement of the silent goddess of death suggests the Feralia was a rite to guide the dead back to their proper place – and see that they stayed there.

The Roman Cult of the Dead

According to Mary Beard, in Religions of Rome,the Romans regarded their dead as intermediaries between themselves and the gods. The petitions for good fortune at the graveside certainly endorse this view. However, Ovid’s descriptions of the hag’s rites at the Feralia jars with this cosy image of families only divided by the grave. To understand this contradiction, it is necessary to look at the Roman attitude to death and the deceased.

In ancient Rome, when a person died, the rites and rituals surrounding the departed were not to help them on their way to the after life – but to keep them well away from the land of the living. For, as already mentioned,  death polluted. The dead were buried outside city walls, in their own cities of death. After a funeral, a family was impure until they had ritually cleansed both themselves and their homes. 

Perhaps this was the Roman way of rationalizing the necessity of the hygienic disposal of corpses. Nevertheless, even though their remains were safely separated from the living, the Romans never forgot their ancestors. They were honoured for their own sake. But they also needed to be pacified. 

Forget the Dead at your Peril

“Animas placate patterns,” warned Ovid. This was the true reason behind the Parentalia. The poet then goes on to describe the consequences of forgetting the dead. Once during a time of war, the Parentaliawas not honoured. The result was rather unpleasant. ‘Our ancestors, says Ovid, “left their tombs in night’s silent hour and wailed. The city streets and broad grassland howled, they say, with a hollow throng of shapeless souls.”

This invasion of Rome by the shades of the departed brought the Romans sharply to their sences. They hastily remembered their dutyand pacified their deceased loved ones with gifts and attention. Satisfied, the ancestors returned to their graves and were once again at peace.

Sources

The Roman Festivals of the republic, W Warde Fowler, Gorgias Press, 2004

The Chronography of 354 AD. Part 6: the calendar of Philocalus.  Inscriptiones Latinae Antiquissimae, Berlin (1893) pp.256-278. Die Calenderbilder, Berlin (1888)

Fasti, Ovid, Penguin Classics, 2000

On the Latin Language, Varro

Stopping to Smell the Roses: Garden Tombs in Roman Italy, Virginia L campbell, Arctos 42: 31-43. , 2008

Archaic Roman Religion, Vols I and II,Georges Dumezil, John Hopkins Press, 1996

Religions of Rome, Vol I, Mary Beard, John North and simon price, Cambridge University Press,1996

The Oxford Classical Dictionary