By reading the Ovid's pomp’s you can have an idea
of the importance covered by the succeeding of the months and seasons in the Roman religion. The Roman year revealed the mythology of its people,
since it repeated itself time by time in the calendar cycle. Consequently the private ritualims of the Romans people were bound to this cycle (today the members of the Orthodox Church still do their private rites at home following the dictates of the calendar and the Christian liturgy that, very wisely, continues to follow the logic of the rite correlatively with the moment of the year); from there derives the name of pomp’s, since they indicated the days in which the rite was done. Following the tradition Romulus decided that the year had to last 10 lunar months, since the gestation of a pregnant woman was supposed to last so long. The calendar of the republican age included 355 days, so that every two years the month of February intercalated with a month of 22-¬23 days. But this intercalary month caused a discordance with the real lunar and solar cycles, at the point that Cicero, when telling how much the Greeks engaged themselves in making the calendar coincide with the sun, makes a critic to the Roman one because it didn't follow either the sun or the moon (Cic. Verr. 2, II 129,c.s. p. 41). Indeed when Caesar decided to create a new calendar he took the Egyptian one as a starting point, in the hope of recreating a coincidence between the months and
the seasons, and still now the Gregorian calendar follows the previous one (with the exception of
some slight variation). The holy year of the Roman people begins in March, with the entrance of the sun in Aries, when the nature returns to flourish, when the day and the night re-establish themselves in the equilibrium of the spring equinox. This month is dedicated to Mars, lares of all the Roman people since he was Romulus' father, the holy king generated by the virgin vestal Rea Silvia. It is therefore the most important month.
In our epoch the year still begins a few days after the winter solstice, that is with the rebirth of the Sun, with the victory of the light on darkness. When the day seemed to be defeated by the night, the invincible Sun won by coming back to life, it grew up by rising more and more from the line of the horizon until it reached its maximum height in the astrological month of the Lion. The rebirth of the Sun is presided by Janus, god of the doors, who opens the year with the month dedicated to him: January. In the pomp’s Ovid makes him say "Caos me antiqui vocabant"; who reorganizer of the chaos is Janus himself, who puts in order by regulating the rebirth of the year. It follows the month of purification dedicated to Februs, goddess who sets the men free from the physical illnesses, in view of the initiations given to the eighteen-year-old youths in the liberalia of March. This month is dedicated to Mars, god of the crops and of the war for their defense. In the same time the Sun enters Aries (which is also the Latin name and corresponds to the Greek god Ares, god of the war) and its
rebirth happens in the day of the spring equinox. In this month the martial strength, dynamism of
the sun coming back to life during the winter solstice, becomes power of love, which identifies itself with the entrance of the Sun in the constellation of Toro, sacred animal to the goddess for its physical magnificence and also an animal used in the sacrifices both of the Roman and the Mitra’s people.
Then we have Maius, dedicated to the maiestas of Jupiter and to Maia, goddess of the mother illusion of Mercury, winged god and messenger of the gods. The mother, with her veil, covers the truth and offers a vision of the material illusion-world, which can be revealed only by her divine
little-child. When this happens the soul grows up and becomes mature, Iuno sister and bride of Jupiter, who the month Iunius is dedicated to. This clear vision of the reality gives the fortune of
the knowledge, indeed many days of this month are dedicated to the Luck. This goddess for the Latin peoples is the primigenial mother of Jupiter, god to whom is dedicated the seventh month of the Romulus' calendar: september. This month is also sacred for Pomona, the goddess who gives to the human beings the gold apples of wisdom.
Starting from Caesar’s reform we will have those that will be named the months of lulius and Augustus, inserted after iunius, the one dedicated to the great revolutionary of the Roman society and the other to his successive son, but also to the growth (augustus from auger: increase) of the power of the diurnal star.
At this point the Sun returns to be at the same level of the night, and we have the autumnal equinox. The last three months are a reflex of the firt three; the night is going to win and as a symbol of the war for the resistance of the powerful star we have the dedication of October to Mars, who invites all men to close the season of the war and dedicate themselves to their own fields under the menace, not of the armies or human enemies, but of the winter and the death represented by Saturn, whom december is dedicated to. In the fight between life and death we find the two solar nurnen brothers: Apollo, who throws thunderbolts, whom the constellation of the sagittarius is dedicated to, and Diana Feronia, to whom is dedicated november.
The chaos, recalling the increasing of the night in December, reveals itself in the feasts of the saturnalia, and today we still evoke that chaos from which the new year begins with the blows of the New Year’s Day. This is the cycle of the eternal fight, both visible and not, which takes place in the skies, above our heads, as decreed by the fate, profane name of the goddess of the Latin peoples, whose wheel is the year itself.
Giuseppe Barbera
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