Latin Festival

Latin Festival (Feriae Latinae)

April

The Latin Festival was held in Rome for more than a thousand years, making it one of the longest-lived Roman festivals. The original Feriae Latinae was held by a group of ancient Latin tribes, who lived a simple pastoral life and worshiped Jupiter on the Alban Mount, about 13 miles outside Rome. All wars came to a halt for the observance. There was a sacrifice of a young white cow who had never been yoked as well as a ritual pouring of milk rather than wine, since the grape had not yet been introduced into Italy. After the sacrifice to Jupiter, the meat of the cow was used for a communal meal. A curious sight accompanied the ritual—little dolls or puppets made to look like people, called oscilla, bobbed from tree branches. Some have suggested these may have been symbolic of human sacrifice in earlier times, but others assert they were probably a kind of good-luck emblem.
By the period of the later Republic, the Romans had taken over the ceremony and they commemorated the early Latin peoples, most of whose settlements had by then disappeared. The Latin Festival was normally held in April, before military activities for the year got underway. A temple to Jupiter was built on the site in the sixth century b.c.e. and Romans would gather at the temple Jupiter to participate in the traditional libation and animal sacrifice. Afterward, feasting and games went on for two days.

SOURCES:
BkFairs-1939, p. 59
DictRomRel-1996, p. 77
FestRom-1981, p. 111
RomFest-1925, p. 95