MENSIS FEBRUARIUS
The name of the last month of the old Roman year is derived from the word februum, usually understood as an instrument of purification[[1331]]. This word, and its derivatives were, as we shall see, best known in connexion with the Lupercalia, the most prominent of the festivals of the month. Now the ritual of the Lupercalia seems to suggest that our word ‘purification’ does not cover all the ground occupied by the ‘religio’ of that festival; nor does it precisely suit some of the other rites of February. We are indeed here on difficult and dangerous ground. Certainly we must not assume that there was any general lustration of the whole people, or any period corresponding in religious intent to the Christian Lent, which in time only is descended from the Roman February. Assuredly there were no such ideas as penitence or forgiveness of sins involved in the ritual of the month. Let so much be said for the benefit of those who are only acquainted with Jewish or Christian history.
What at least is certain is that at this time the character of the festivals changes. Since the middle of December we have had a series of joyful gatherings of an agricultural people in homestead, market-place, cross-roads; now we find them fulfilling their duties to their dead ancestors at the common necropolis, or engaged in a mysterious piacular rite under the walls of the oldest Rome. The Parentalia and the Lupercalia are the characteristic rites of February; we shall see later on whether any of the others can be brought into the same category. If pleasure is the object of the mid-winter festivals, the fulfilment of duties towards the gods and the manes would seem to be that of the succeeding period.
From an agricultural point of view February was a somewhat busy month; but in the time of Varro the work was chiefly the preparatory operations in the culture of olives, vines and fruit-trees[[1332]]. The one great operation in the oldest and simplest agricultural system was the spring sowing. Spring was understood to begin on Feb. 7 (Favonius)[[1333]], and it is precisely at this point that the rites change their character. We are in fact close upon the new year, when the powers of vegetation awake and put on strength; but the Romans approached it as it were with hesitation, preparing for it carefully by steady devotion to work and duty, the whole community endeavouring to place itself in a proper position toward the numina of the land’s fertility, and the dead reposing in the land’s embrace.
Before taking the rites one by one, it will perhaps be as well to say a word in general about the nature of Roman expiatory rites, in order to determine in what sense we are to understand those of February.
The first point to notice is that these rites were applicable only to involuntary acts of commission or omission—an offence against the gods (nefas) if wittingly committed, was inexpiable. In this case the offender was impius, i. e. had wilfully failed in his duty; and him no rites could absolve[[1334]]. But by ordinary offences against the gods we are not to understand sin, in the Christian sense of the word; they were rather mistakes in ritual, or involuntary omissions—in fact any real or supposed or possible errors in any of a man’s relations to the numina around him. He might always be putting himself in the wrong in regard to these relations, and he must as sedulously endeavour to right himself. In the life of the ‘privatus’ these trespasses in sacred law would chiefly be in matters of marriages and funerals and the regular sacrifices of the household; in the life of the magistrate they would be mistakes or omissions in his duties on behalf of the State[[1335]]. Whether in private or public life, they must be duly expiated. It is needless to point out how powerful a factor this belief must have been in the growth of a conscience and of the sense of duty; or how stringent a ‘religio’ was that which, assuming that a man could hardly commit an offence except unwittingly, made the possible exceptional case fatal to his position as a member of a community which depended for its wholesome existence on the good will of the gods.
Remembering that among the divine beings to whom it was most essential for each family to fulfil its duties, were the di manes, or dead ancestors and members of the family, we see at once that February with its Parentalia was an important month in the matter of expiatory rites. Ovid, though suggesting a fancy derivation for the name of the month, expresses this idea clearly enough:
Aut quia placatis sunt tempora pura sepulcris
Tum cum ferales praeteriere dies[[1336]].
But the other etymology given by the poet is, as we have seen, the right one, and may bring us to another class of piacula, of which we find an example this month in the Lupercalia.
Mensis ab his dictus, secta quia pelle Luperci
Omne solum lustrant, idque piamen habent[[1337]].
Not only was the Roman most careful to expiate involuntary offences, and also to appease the wrath of the gods, if shown in any special active way, e.g. by lightning and many other prodigia[[1338]], but he also sought to avert evil influences before-hand, which might possibly emanate from hostile or offended numina. This religious object is well illustrated in the sacrifice of the hostia praecidanea, which was offered beforehand to make up for any involuntary errors in the ritual that followed[[1339]]. But it is also seen in numerous other rites of which we have had many examples; all those, for instance, which included a lustratio. We generally translate this word by ‘purification’; but it also involves the ideas of intercession, and of the removal of unseen hostile influences which may be likely to interfere with the health and prosperity of man, beast, or crop. At such rites special victims were sometimes offered, or the victim was treated in a peculiar manner; we find, perhaps, some part of it used as a charm or potent spell, as the strips of skin at the Lupercalia, or the ashes of the unborn calves at the Fordicidia, or the tail and blood of the October horse[[1340]]. To the first of these, at least, if not to the other two, the word februum was applied, and we may assume it of the others: also to many other objects which had some magical power, and carry us back to a very remote religious antiquity. Ovid gives a catalogue of them[[1341]]:
Februa Romani dixere piamina patres,
Nunc quoque dant verbo plurima signa fidem.
Pontifices ab rege petunt et flamine lanas,
Quis veterum lingua februa nomen erat.
Quaeque capit lictor domibus purgamina †ternis†[[1342]]
Torrida cum mica farra, vocantur idem.
Nomen idem ramo, qui caesus ab arbore pura
Casta sacerdotum tempora fronde tegit.
Ipse ego flaminicam poscentem februa vidi:
Februa poscenti pinea virga data est.
Denique quodcunque est, quo corpora nostra piantur,
Hoc apud intonsos nomen habebat avos.
Objects such as these, called by a name which is explained by piamen, or purgamentum, must have been understood as charms potent to keep off evil influences, and so to enable nature to take its ordinary course unhindered. Only in this sense can we call them instruments of purification.
The use of the februa in the Lupercalia was, as we shall see, to procure fertility in the women of the community. Here then, as well as in the rites of the Fornacalia and Parentalia, is some reason for calling the month a period of purification; but only if we bear in mind that at the Parentalia the process consisted simply in the performance of duties towards the dead, which freed or purified a man from their possible hostility; while at the Lupercalia the women were freed or purified from influences which might hinder them in the fulfilment of their natural duties to their families and the State. Beyond this it is not safe to go in thinking of February as a month of expiation.