In wedding celebrations among the Romans, ribald and licentious songs played no mean part. These songs were known as Fescennini Versus, and were believed to have apotropaic significance, while they also recalled the primary purpose of the nuptial union.
At harvest festivals similar lewd verses were exchanged between masked performers.
As visual guides to the lupanaria in ancient Rome, there were lighted lamps, of phallic shape, near the doors. Seneca the philosopher refers to this custom. Also the poet Juvenal in the sixth satire:
fumoque lucernae
Foeda lupanaris
An old commentator adds: Prostabant autem meretrices ad lucernas.
Acca Larentia was a Roman goddess whose festival—the Larentalia or Larentinalia—fell on December 23. The tradition was that she herself had been a prostitute. Her festival was a fertility ritual, as in the case of Lupa and Flora.