Although the rose had a long tradition in funerary art, the earliest record of a Roman rose festival named as such dates to the reign of
Domitian (81–96 AD), and places the observance on June 20. The inscription was made by a priestly association
(collegium) in
Lucania devoted to the woodland god
Silvanus. It records
vows for the wellbeing of the emperor and prescribes a sacrifice to Silvanus on five occasions in the year, among them the Rosalia. Although Silvanus is typically regarded as a deity of the woods and the wild, Vergil describes him as bearing
flowering fennel and lilies. In other inscriptions, three donors to Silvanus had adopted the cultic name
Anthus (Greek
anthos, "flower") and a fourth, of less certain reading, may have the Latin name
Florus, the masculine form of
Flora. Since trees are the form of plant life most often emblematic of Silvanus, his connection with flowers is obscure. His female counterparts the
Silvanae, primarily found in the
Danubian provinces, are sometimes depicted carrying flower pots or wreaths. Through his epithet
Dendrophorus, "Tree-bearer," he was linked to the Romanized
cult of Attis and Cybele in which celebrants called
dendrophori participated. When well-to-do people wrote a will and made end-of-life preparations, they might set aside funds for the maintenance of their memory and care
(cura) after death, including rose-adornment. One epitaph records a man's provision for four annual observances in his honor: on the
Parentalia, an official festival for honoring the dead February 13; his birthday (
dies natalis); and a
Rosaria and
Violaria. Guilds and associations
(collegia) often provided funeral benefits for members, and some were formed specifically for that purpose. Benefactors might fund communal meals and rose-days at which members of the college honored the dead. The
College of Aesculapius and Hygia at Rome celebrated a Violet Day on March 22 and a Rose Day May 11, and these flower festivals are frequent among the occasions observed by dining clubs and burial societies. Most evidence for the Rosalia comes from
Cisalpine Gaul (
northern Italy), where twenty-four Latin inscriptions referring to it have been found. Ten Latin inscriptions come from the
Italian peninsula, three from
Macedonia, and four from
Thrace,
Illyria, and
Pannonia. Six Greek inscriptions come from
Bithynia, three from Macedonia, and one each from
Bulgaria,
Scythia,
Mysia,
Phrygia,
Lydia,
Asia and
Arcadia. At
Pergamon, Rosalia seems to have been a three-day festival May 24–26, beginning with an "Augustan day" (
dies Augusti, a day of
Imperial cult marking a birthday, marriage, or other anniversary of the emperor or his family). The three-day Rosalia was among the occasions observed by a group of hymnodes, a male choir organized for celebrating Imperial cult, as recorded in a Greek inscription on an early 2nd-century altar. The
eukosmos, the officer of "good order" who presided over the group for a year, was to provide one
mina (a monetary unit) and one loaf for celebrating the Rosalia on the Augustan day, which was the first day of the month called Panemos on the local calendar. On the second of Panemos, the group's priest provided wine, a table setting, one
mina, and three loaves for the Rosalia. The
grammateus, a secretary or administrator, was responsible for a
mina, a table setting worth one
denarius, and one loaf for the third day of Rosalia. The group seems to have functioned like a
collegium at Rome, and as a burial society for members. Inscriptions from
Acmonia, in
Phrygia, show the Rosalia in the context of the
religious pluralism of the Roman Empire. In 95 AD, a bequest was made for a burial society to ensure the annual commemoration of an individual named Titus Praxias. In addition to a graveside communal meal and cash gifts to members, 12 denarii were to be allocated for adorning the tomb with roses. The obligations of membership were both legally and religiously binding: the society had its own
tutelary deities who were invoked to oversee and ensure the carrying out of the deceased's wishes. These were
Theos Sebastos (=
Divus Augustus in Latin),
Zeus under the local and unique epithet
Stodmenos,
Asclepius the
Savior (Roman Aesculapius, as in the
collegium above), and
Artemis of Ephesus. Acmonia also had a significant
Greek-speaking Jewish community, and an inscription dating from the period 215–295 records similar arrangements made for a Jewish woman by her husband. It provides for an annual rose-adornment of the tomb by a legally constituted neighborhood or community association, with the solemn injunction "and if they do not deck it with roses each year, they will have to reckon with the justice of God." The formula "he will have to reckon with God" was used only among Jews and Christians in Phrygia, and there is a slighter possibility that the inscription might be Christian. The inscription is among the evidence that Judaism was not isolated from the general religious environment of the Imperial world, since a
rosatio could be made without accompanying sacrifices at the tomb. Instead of multiple deities, the Jewish husband honoring his wife invoked the divine justice of his own
God, and chose to participate in the customs of the community while adapting them in ways "acceptable to his Jewish faith". (1659–1734) In
Imperial-era Macedonia, several inscriptions mention the Rosalia as a commemorative festival funded by bequests to groups such as a
vicianus, a village or neighborhood association (from
vicus);
thiasos, a legally constituted association, often having a religious character; or
symposium, in this sense a drinking and social club. In
Thessalonica, a priestess of a
thiasos bequeathed a tract of grapevines to pay for rose wreaths. If the Dionysian
thiasos disbanded or failed in its duties, the property was to pass to a society of
Dryophoroi ("Oak-Bearers"), or finally to the state. In addition to associations of initiates into the
mysteries of Dionysus, inscriptions in Macedonia and
Thrace record bequests for rose-adornment to
thiasoi of
Diana (Artemis) and of the little-attested Thracian god or
hero Sourogethes, and to a
gravediggers' guild. The gravediggers were to kindle a tombside fire each year for the Rosalia, and other contexts suggest that the wreaths themselves might be burnt as offerings. A distinctive collocation that occurs a few times in Macedonian commemoration is an inscription prescribing the Rosalia accompanied by a
relief of the
Thracian Horseman. Some scholars think that customs of the Rosalia were assimilated into Bacchic festivals of the dead by the Roman military, particularly in Macedonia and Thrace. A Greek inscription of 138 AD records a donation for rose-adornment
(rhodismos) to the council in
Histria, in modern
Dobruja, an area settled by the Thracian
Bessi, who were especially devoted to Dionysus. Macedonia was famed for its roses, but nearly all evidence for the Rosalia as such dates to the Roman period.
Bacchic rites Although ivy and grapevines are the regular vegetative attributes of
Dionysus, at
Athens roses and violets could be adornments for
Dionysian feasts. In a fragment from a
dithyramb praising Dionysus, the poet
Pindar (5th century BC) sets a floral scene generated by the opening up of the Seasons
(Horae), a time when
Semele, the mortal mother of Dionysus, is to be honored:
John William Waterhouse: the sleeping red-gowned Ariadne is surrounded by roses, with the sailing background implying both the departure of Theseus and the advent of Dionysus, foreshadowed by his leopards ... as the chamber of the purple-robed Horai is opened,the nectar-bearing flowers bring in the sweet-smelling spring.Then, then, upon the immortal earth are castthe lovely tresses of violets, and roses fitted to hairand voices of songs echo to the accompaniment of pipesand choruses come to Semele of the circling headband. Dionysus was an equalizing figure of the democratic
polis whose band of initiates
(thiasos) provided a model for civic organizations. A form of Dionysia dating to pre-
democratic Athens was the Anthesteria, a festival name some scholars derive from Greek
anthos, "flower, blossom", as did the Greeks themselves, connecting it to the blossoming grapevine. In the 6th century AD, the
Byzantine antiquarian
Joannes Lydus related the festival name to
Anthousa, which he said was the Greek equivalent of the Latin
Flora. The three-day festival, which took place at the threshold between winter and spring, involved themes of
liminality and "opening up", but despite its importance in early Athens, many aspects elude certainty. It was primarily a celebration of opening the new wine from the previous fall's vintage. On the first day, "Dionysus" entered borne by a wheeled "ship" in a public procession, and was taken to the private chamber of the king's wife for a
ritual union with her; the precise ceremonies are unknown, but may be related to the myth of
Ariadne, who became the consort of Dionysus after she was abandoned by the Athenian
culture hero Theseus. In keeping with its theme of new growth and transformation, the Anthesteria was also the occasion for a
rite of passage from infancy to childhood—a celebratory moment given the high rate of
infant mortality in the ancient world. Children between the age of three and four received a small jug
(chous) specially decorated with scenes of children playing at adult activities. The
chous itself is sometimes depicted on the vessel, adorned with a wreath. The following year, the child was given a ceremonial taste of wine from his
chous. These vessels are often found in children's graves, accompanying them to the underworld after a premature death. The Anthesteria has also been compared with the Roman
Lemuria, with the second day a vulnerable time when the barrier between the world of the living and the dead became permeable, and the shades of the dead could wander the earth. On the third day, the ghosts were driven from the city, and Hermes Chthonios ("Underworld
Hermes") received sacrifices in the form of pots of grains and seeds. Although the identity of the shades is unclear, typically the restless dead are those who died prematurely.
Wine and roses The priestess of Thessalonica who bequeathed a tract of vineyard for the maintenance of her memory required each Dionysian initiate who attended to wear a rose wreath. whose sleep is a kind of death from which she is awakened and transformed by the god's love. The
crown that symbolized Ariadne's immortal union with Dionysus underwent metamorphosis into a
constellation, the
Corona Borealis; in some sources, the
corona was a diadem of jewels, but for the Roman dramatist
Seneca and others it was a garland of roses. In the
Astronomica of
Manilius (1st century AD), Ariadne's crown is bejeweled with purple and red flowers—violets, hyacinths, poppies, and "the flower of the blooming rose, made red by blood"—and exerts a positive
astrological influence on cultivating flower gardens, weaving garlands, and distilling perfume. Dionysian scenes were common on
Roman sarcophagi, and the persistence of love in the face of death may be embodied by attendant Cupids or Erotes. In Vergil's
Aeneid, purple flowers are strewn with the pouring of
Bacchic libations during the funeral rites the hero
Aeneas conducts for his dead father. In the
Dionysiaca of
Nonnus (late 4th–early 5th century AD), Dionysus mourns the death of the beautiful youth
Ampelos by covering the body with flowers—roses, lilies,
anemones—and infusing it with
ambrosia. The dead boy's metamorphosis creates the first grapevine, which in turn produces the transformative substance of wine for human use.
Rites of Adonis The rites of Adonis
(Adoneia) also came to be regarded as a Rosalia in the Imperial era. In one version of the myth, blood from Aphrodite's foot, pricked by a thorn, dyes the flowers produced from the body of Adonis when he is killed by the boar. In the
Lament for Adonis attributed to
Bion (2nd century BC), the tears of Aphrodite match the blood shed by Adonis drop by drop, and the blood and tears become flowers upon the ground. Of the blood comes the rose, and of the tears the
windflower. According to myth, Adonis was born from the incestuous union of
Myrrha and her father. The delusional lust was a punishment from Aphrodite, whom Myrrha had slighted. The girl deceived her father with darkness and a disguise, but when he learned who she really was, his rage transformed her human identity and she became the fragrance-producing
myrrh tree. The vegetative nature of Adonis is expressed in his birth from the tree. In one tradition, Aphrodite took the infant, hid him in a box
(larnax, a word often referring to chests for
ash or other human remains), and gave him to the underworld goddess
Persephone to nurture. When he grew into a beautiful youth, both Aphrodite and Persephone—representing the realms of love and death—claimed him. Zeus decreed that Adonis would spend a third of the year with the
heavenly Aphrodite, a third with
chthonic Persephone, and a third on the mortal plane. The theme is similar to Persephone's own year divided between her underworld husband and the world above. For
J.G. Frazer, Adonis was an archetypal vegetative god, and
H.J. Rose saw in the rites of Adonis "the outlines of an Oriental myth of the
Great Mother and of her lover who dies as the vegetation dies, but comes back to life again." Robert A. Segal analyzed the death of Adonis as the failure of the "
eternal child"
(puer) to complete his rite of passage into the adult life of the
city-state, and thus as a cautionary tale involving the social violations of "incest, murder, license, possessiveness, celibacy, and childlessness". Women performed the
Adoneia with ceremonial
lamentation and
dirges, sometimes in the presence of an effigy of the dead youth that might be
placed on a couch, perfumed, and adorned with greenery. As part of the festival, they planted "
gardens of Adonis", container-grown
annuals from "seeds planted in shallow soil, which sprang up quickly and withered quickly", compressing the cycle of life and death. Although the celebration varied from place to place, it generally had two phases: joyful revelry like a marriage feast in celebration of the love between Aphrodite and Adonis, and ritual mourning for his death. Decorations and ritual trappings for the feast, including the dish gardens, were transformed for the funeral or destroyed as offerings: the garlanded couch became the lying-in
bier (prothesis). The iconography of Aphrodite and Adonis as a couple is often hard to distinguish in Greek art from that of Dionysus and Ariadne. In contrast to Greek depictions of the couple enjoying the luxury and delight of love, Roman paintings and sarcophagi almost always frame their love at the moment of loss, with the death of Adonis in Aphrodite's arms posing the question of
resurrection. At
Madaba, an Imperial city of the
Province of Arabia in present-day
Jordan, a series of mythological mosaics has a scene of Aphrodite and Adonis enthroned, attended by six Erotes and three
Charites ("Graces"). A basket of overturned roses near them has been seen as referring to the Rosalia. In
late antiquity, literary works set at a Rosalia—whether intended for performance at the actual occasion, or only using the occasion as a fictional setting—take the "lament for Adonis" as their theme. Shared language for the Roman festival of Rosalia and the floral aspects of the
Adoneia may indicate similar or comparable practices, and not necessarily direct assimilation.
The violets of Attis , holding a
shepherd's crook (damaged) in his left hand and in his right pomegranates, pine cones, and wheat: his partial nudity shows that he has undergone complete castration, and the bearded head on which he leans is most likely the river god Sangarius or Gallus (from
Ostia, 2nd century AD) From the reign of
Claudius to that of
Antoninus Pius, a
"holy week" in March developed for ceremonies of the Magna Mater ("Great Mother", also known as
Mater Deum, "Mother of the Gods," or
Cybele) and Attis. A preliminary festival on March 15 marked the discovery by shepherds or Cybele of the infant Attis among the reeds of a Phrygian river. The continuous ceremonies recommenced March 22 with the
Arbor intrat ("The Tree enters") and lasted through March 27 or 28. For the day of
Arbor intrat, the college of dendrophores ("tree-bearers") carried a pine tree to which was bound an effigy of Attis, wrapped in "woollen bandages like a corpse" and ornamented with violet wreaths.
Lucretius (1st century BC) mentions roses and other unnamed flowers in the ecstatic procession of the Magna Mater for the
Megalensia in April. The most vivid and complex account of how the violet was created out of violence in the Attis myth is given by the
Christian apologist Arnobius (d. ca. 330), whose version best reflects cult practice in the Roman Imperial period. The story begins with a rock in Phrygia named
Agdus, from which had come the stones transformed to humans by
Pyrrha and
Deucalion to repopulate the world after the
Flood. The Great Mother of the Gods customarily rested there, and there she was assailed by the lustful
Jupiter. Unable to achieve his aim, the king of gods relieved himself by masturbating on the rock, from which was born Acdestis or
Agdistis, a violent and supremely powerful hermaphroditic deity. After deliberations, the gods assign the
cura of this audacity to
Liber, the Roman god
identified with Dionysus:
cura means variously "care, concern, cure, oversight." Liber sets a snare, replacing the waters of Agdistis's favorite spring
(fons) with pure wine. Necessity in time drives the thirsty Agdistis to drink, veins sucking up the torpor-inducing liquid. The trap is sprung: a noose, woven from hair, suspends Agdistis by the genitals, and the struggle to break free causes a self-castration. From the blood springs a pomegranate tree, its fruit so enticing that
Nana, the daughter of the river god
Sangarius,
in sinu reponit, a euphemism in Imperial-era medical and Christian writing for "placed within the vagina". Nana becomes pregnant, enraging her father. He locks her away as damaged goods, and starves her. She is kept alive by fruits and other vegetarian food provided by the Mother of the Gods. When the infant is born, Sangarius orders that it be
exposed, but it is discovered and reared by a
goatherd. This child is Attis. Dancing Girl
(1902) by John William Godward, a companion to the same violet-wreathed figure in With Violets Wreathed and Robe of Saffron Hue,'' an example of classicizing myth in
Victorian painting The exceptionally beautiful Attis grows up favored by the Mother of the Gods and by Agdistis, who is his constant companion. Under the influence of wine, Attis reveals that his accomplishments as a hunter are owing to divine favor—an explanation for why wine is religiously prohibited
(nefas) in his sanctuary and considered a pollution for those who would enter. Attis's relationship with Agdistis is characterized as
infamis, disreputable and socially marginalizing. The Phrygian king
Midas, wishing to redeem the boy
(puer), arranges a marriage with his daughter, and locks down the city. The
Mater Deum, however, know Attis's fate
(fatum): that he will be preserved from harm only if he avoids the bonds of marriage. Both the Mother of the Gods and Agdistis crash the party, and Agdistis spreads frenzy and madness among the convivial guests. In a detail that appears only in a vexed passage in the Christian source, the daughter of a concubine to a man named
Gallus cuts off her breasts. Raging like a
bacchant, Attis then throws himself under a pine tree, and cuts off his genitals as an offering to Agdistis. He bleeds to death, and from the flux of blood is born a violet flower. The Mother of the Gods wraps the genitals "in the garment of the dead" and covers them with earth, an aspect of the myth attested in ritual by inscriptions regarding the sacrificial treatment of animal
scrota. The would-be bride, whose name is Violet (Greek
Ia), covers Attis's chest with woollen bands, and after mourning with Agdistis kills herself. Her dying blood is changed into purple violets. The tears of the Mother of the Gods become an almond tree, which signifies the bitterness of death. She then takes the pine tree to her sacred cave, and Agdistis joins her in mourning, begging Jupiter to restore Attis to life. This he cannot permit; but fate allows the body to never decay, the hair to keep growing, and the
little finger to live and to wave in perpetual motion. Arnobius explicitly states that the rituals performed in honor of Attis in his day reenact aspects of the myth as he has told it, much of which developed only in the Imperial period, in particular the conflict and intersections with Dionysian cult. For the
Arbor intrat on March 22, the dendrophores carried the violet-wreathed tree of Attis to the Temple of the Magna Mater. As a
dies violae, the day of
Arbor intrat recalled the scattering of violets onto graves for the
Parentalia. The next day the dendrophores laid the tree to rest with noisy music that represented the
Corybantes, youths who performed armed dances and in mythology served as guardians for infant gods. For the
Dies Sanguinis ("Day of Blood") on March 24, the devotees lacerated themselves in a frenzy of mourning, spattering the effigy with the blood craved as "nourishment" by the dead. Some followers may have castrated themselves on this day, as a preliminary to becoming
galli, the
eunuch priests of Cybele. Attis was placed in his "tomb" for the Sacred Night that followed. According to
Sallustius, the cutting of the tree was accompanied by
fasting, "as though we were cutting off the further progress of generation; after this we are fed on milk as though being reborn; that is followed by rejoicings and garlands and as it were a new ascent to the gods." The garlands and rejoicing
(Hilaria) occurred on March 25, the
vernal equinox on the
Julian calendar, when Attis was in some sense "reborn" or renewed. Some early Christian sources associate this day with the
resurrection of Jesus, and
Damascius saw it as a "liberation from
Hades". After a day of rest
(Requietio), the ritual cleansing
(Lavatio) of the Magna Mater was carried out on March 27. March 28 may have been a day of initiation into the
mysteries of the Magna Mater and Attis at the
Vaticanum. Although scholars have become less inclined to view Attis within the rigid schema of "dying and rising vegetation god", the vegetal cycle remains integral to the funerary nature of his rites. The pine tree and pine cones were introduced to the iconography of Attis for their cult significance during the Roman period. A late 1st- or 2nd-century statue of Attis from Athens has him with a basket containing pomegranates, pine cones, and a nosegay of violets.
Vegetal aspects of spring festivals Perceived connections with older spring festivals that involved roses helped spread and popularize the Rosalia, and the private
dies violae or
violaris of the Romans was enhanced by the public prominence of
Arbor intrat ceremonies. The conceptual link between Attis and Adonis was developed primarily in the later Imperial period. The
Neoplatonic philosopher
Porphyry (d. ca. 305 AD) saw both Adonis and Attis as aspects of the "fruits of the earth": Attis is the symbol of the blossoms which appear early in the spring, and fall off before the complete fertilization; whence they further attributed castration to him, from the fruits not having attained to seminal perfection: but Adonis was the symbol of the cutting of the perfect fruits. Porphyry linked Attis, Adonis, Korē (Persephone as "the Maiden", influencing "dry" or grain crops), and Dionysus (who influences soft and
shell fruits) as deities of "seminal law":For Korē was carried off by
Pluto, that is, the sun going down beneath the earth at seed-time; but Dionysus begins to sprout according to the conditions of the power which, while young, is hidden beneath the earth, yet produces fine fruits, and is an ally of the power in the blossom symbolized by Attis, and of the cutting of the ripened corn symbolized by Adonis. Roses and violets are typically among the flower species that populate the meadow from which Persephone was abducted as
Pluto's bride. The
comparative mythologist Mircea Eliade saw divine metamorphosis as a "flowing of life" between vegetal and human existence. When violent death interrupts the creative potential of life, it is expressed "in some other form: plant, fruit, flower". Eliade related the violets of Attis and the roses and anemones of Adonis to legends of flowers appearing on battlefields after the deaths of heroes. ==Military
Rosaliae==