Vinalia
There were two festivals of this name celebrated by the Romans: the Vinalia urbana or priora, and the Vinalia rustica or altera. The vinalia urbana were celebrated on the 23rd of April. This festival answered to the Greek πιθοιγία, as on this occasion the wine casks, which had been filled the preceding autumn, were opened for the first time, and the wine tasted. But before men actually tasted the new wine, a libation was offered to Jupiter. |
The Rustic Vinalia, which fell on the 19th of August and was celebrated by the inhabitants of all Latium. On this occasion the flamen dialis offered lambs to Jupiter, and while the flesh of the victims lay on the altar, he broke with his own hands a bunch of grapes from a vine, and by this act he, as it were, opened the harvest (vindemiam auspicari; Varro, de Ling. Lat. VI.20), and no must was allowed to be conveyed into the city until this solemnity was performed. This day was sacred to Jupiter and Venus. An account of the story which was believed to have given rise to the celebration of this festival is given by Festus, (s.v. Rustica vinalia) and Ovid (Fast. IV.863, &c.; compare Aurel. Vict. de Orig. Gent. Rom. 15).
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Meditrinalia 11th October.
This is a celebration dedicated to the making and tasting of old and new wine - “Novus-vetus vinum libo, novo-veteri vino morbo medeor” (“I drink new-old wine, I treat illness with this new-old wine”). The name Meditrinalia is based on this ancient formula, reported by writer Varrone, and the curative powers of wine. Little information about the Meditrinalia survived from early Roman religion, although the tradition itself did. It was known to be somehow connected to Jupiter and to have been an important ceremony in early agricultural Rome. Meditrina was a Roman goddess who seems to have been a late Roman invention to account for the origin of Meditrinalia. The earliest account of associating the Meditrinalia with such a goddess was by 2nd century grammarian Sextus Pompeius Festus, on the basis of which she is asserted by modern sources to be the Roman goddess of health, longevity and wine, or also "healer" as some suggest.
This is a celebration dedicated to the making and tasting of old and new wine - “Novus-vetus vinum libo, novo-veteri vino morbo medeor” (“I drink new-old wine, I treat illness with this new-old wine”). The name Meditrinalia is based on this ancient formula, reported by writer Varrone, and the curative powers of wine. Little information about the Meditrinalia survived from early Roman religion, although the tradition itself did. It was known to be somehow connected to Jupiter and to have been an important ceremony in early agricultural Rome. Meditrina was a Roman goddess who seems to have been a late Roman invention to account for the origin of Meditrinalia. The earliest account of associating the Meditrinalia with such a goddess was by 2nd century grammarian Sextus Pompeius Festus, on the basis of which she is asserted by modern sources to be the Roman goddess of health, longevity and wine, or also "healer" as some suggest.
