Festivals Archive
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Did the Romans Invent Christmas?
Posted on December 17, 2012 | No CommentsSaturnalia originated as a farmer -
Got Druids? Ghastly reads on Halloween and the Ancients!
Posted on October 29, 2012 | No CommentsGot Druids? Ghastly reads on Halloween and the Ancients! -
Halloween Customs in the Celtic World
Posted on October 28, 2012 | No CommentsThe association between Halloween and ghosts and spirits today comes from the Celtic belief that it was at this time of transition between the old year and the new that the barrier between this world and the Otherworld where the dead and supernatural beings lived became permeable. -
Don
Posted on October 11, 2012 | No CommentsDaily life as the Romans knew it ceased for the festival; it was more important to maintain a good relationship with the spirits of the ancestors than it was to continue with the typical types of worship and commonplace legal activities. The one similarity between all these celebrations is that they were all state-sponsored. In this way, the Roman leaders were able to control the citizens -
Religious Toleration and Political Power in the Roman World
Posted on August 30, 2012 | No CommentsFrom the beginning of the Roman republic to the end of the empire, a theory of religious toleration never existed to give the people ruled by Rome a choice as to which deities and rituals they wanted to believe in. -
Lupercalia: The True Origins of St Valentine’s Day
Posted on January 22, 2012 | No CommentsLupercalia is uniquely Roman, but even the Romans of the first century were at a loss to explain exactly which deity or deities were being exalted. It harkens back to the days when Rome was nothing more than a few shepherds living on a hill known as Palantine and was surrounded by wilderness teeming with wolves.
