For the Romans, October 11thwas the day of the Meditrinalia. Little information about the festival remains. On the surface, sources suggest it was a celebration of the tasting of the first new wine of the autumn vintage. However, dig a little deeper, and another significance emerges, one that explains why the Romans were more than happy to raise a glass to the benefits of wine.
What the Sources Say
“In the month of October, the Meditrinalia, ‘Festival of Meditrina ‘ was named from mederi ‘ to be healed,’ because Flaccus the special priest of Mars used to say that on this day it was the practice to pour an offering of new and old wine to the god, and to taste of the same, for the purpose of being healed “ says Varro, in “On the Latin Language”
Sadly, this is about as much as the sources tell us about the Meditrinalia. Festus, writing in the Augustan era can only add that he regarded the tasting of this new wine as ‘ a sign of good omen.” but has little more to add. So what can we deduce about the Meditinalia from these sources?
Gods of the Festival
Although Varro mentions Mars in relation to the Meditrinalia, it seems from a reference to the festival on the Fasti Amiternini that the deity most likely to be honored was in fact, Jupiter. Indeed, this would correspond with the devotional aspect of other wine festivals such as the Vinalia, which placed Jupiter central to the celebrations.
Festus also mentions another deity: the goddess Meditrina. However, if she existed at all, it seems most likely she was explicitly created as an explanation for the Meditrina. For the Meditrinalia was not an ancient Roman festival.
How do we know this? Well, early Roman religious practices prohibited the use of wine as a sacred libation because of its rarity. Pliny the Elder notes how: “Romulus poured libations of milk, not wine; proof of this lies in rites established by him that preserve the custom to this day. The Postumina law of king Numa says ‘Do not sprinkle wine on a funeral pyre.’ Nor can anyone doubt that his reason for sanctioning this law was the scarcity of wine. By the same law, he made it illegal to offer to the gods’ libations of wine from an unpruned vine. He devised this scheme to compel people who were otherwise arable farmers and careless about the dangers to trees not to neglect pruning.”
Pliny’s words suggest that the establishment of the Meditrinalia and its accompanying libations dates to a time after viticulture was well established in Italy and wine had ceased to be so scarce.
Marking the new Vintage?
The other aspect of the Meditrinalia that is questionable is Varro’s belief that it was a celebration of the new vintage. “The making of the vintage falls between the autumnal equinox and the setting of the Pleiades,” Varro explains in “On Agriculture” This would place the new vintage from the September 21st onwards. This date could make the October 11th a likely day for tasting the first of the new wine.
However, it still seems rather early- even if the young wine in question was Vinum Mustum, known today as must. Must was composed of the freshly pressed flesh, skin, pips and stems of the grapes -hardly wine at all. So why celebrate it?
Why indeed? However, it could that celebrating the beginnings of the new vintage was not what the purpose of the Meditrinaliaw.
The Healing Property of Wine.
It seems that the Meditrinalia derives its name from the Latin word mederi- ‘to be healed.’ This seems an apt meaning when we dig more deeply into what the festival involved. For Varro’s description mentions not only the new vintage but also the old. The passage on the Meditrinalia in “On the Latin language” also places far greater emphasis on healing than the age of the vintage.
“ Wine new and old I drink, of illness new and old I’m cured.” This is how Varro’s quote relating to the Meditrinalia ends. The description indicates a belief in the healing qualities of wine-and a celebration of its health benefits.
The belief in the benefit of wine to health was widely held by the Romans. Cato in his “On Agriculture described how wine, both old and new was mixed with herbs and flowers to form a remedy for various ailments.
The age of the wine was specifically important depending on the ailment. So to prevent gout and the retention of urine, juniper had to be boiled in specifically old wine, whereas dried myrtle could only be fermented in must or new wine to cure ‘‘indigestion, for pain in the side and for colic’. Other remedies including wine included acid pomegranates steeped in strong black wine for “Gripes, loose bowels, for tapeworms and stomach worms, “whereas dyspepsia benefitted from an infusion of pomegranate blossom and fennel in a ‘quadrantal of old wine.”
A Festival of Good Health
The emphasis on old and new wine in different cures seems to correlate with the uses of these wines in the ritual of the Meditrinalia. So this suggests that the festival was not so much about the wine itself as the curing of disease and ensured good health at a time when the season was turning towards winter.
Sources
Cato and Varro On Agriculture, Loeb Classical Library.
Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Penguin Classics
Varro, On the Latin Language, Loeb Classical Library
Warde Fowler, W, The Religious Experience of the Roman People, Dodo Press, 2008
