Feriale Duranum

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The Feriale Duranum is a calendar of religious observances for a Roman military garrison at Dura-Europos on the Euphrates, Roman Syria, under the reign of Severus Alexander (224–235 AD).

History and description

The small

Imperial cult in promoting loyalty to the Roman emperor,[1] and for the coexistence of Roman state religion and local religious traditions.[4][5]

Iarḥibol, and Romans, including a standard-bearer with the cohort's vexillum, standing before the altar of the Syrian gods Iarḥibol, Aglibol and Arṣu.[8] It has also been argued that the three gods represent the emperors Pupienus, Balbinus, and Gordian III.[5] A copy of the calendar may have been issued to each unit throughout the Empire to further military cohesion as well as Roman identity among troops from other cultures.[4][9]

The cache of documents was discovered by a team of archaeologists from Yale University working at Dura-Europos in 1931–32.[1] It was first published by R. O. Fink, A. S. Hooey, and Walter Fifield Snyder (1940), "The Feriale Duranum," Yale Classical Studies 7: 1–222.[3]

Partial list of festivals

In 2011, a facsimile of the partial document was part of the Dura-Europos exhibition at Boston College, and it contained the following translation:

  • March 19, Quinquatria, a supplication; until March 23, supplications
  • April 9, for the accession of the deified Pius Severus, an ox
  • April 21, for the birthday of the Eternal City of Rome, a cow
  • May 7, for the birthday of the deified Julia Maesa, a supplication
  • May 12, for the circus-races in honor of
    Mars
    , to Mars Ultor, a bull
  • May 21, because the deified Pius Severus was saluted as "imperator"
  • June 9, for the Vestalia, to
    Vesta Mater
    , a supplication
  • July 4, for the birthday of the deified Matidia, a supplication
  • July 12, for the birthday of the deified Julius, an ox
  • July 23, for the day of the Neptunalia, a supplication and a sacrifice
  • Aug 1, for the birthday of the deified Claudius and the deified Pertinax, an ox and an ox
  • Aug 5, for the circus-races in honor of Salus, a cow.
  • Aug [14-29], for the birthday of Mamaea Augusta, mother of Augustus, a cow
  • Aug [15-30], for the birthday of the deified Marciana, a supplication

Gallery of those named

Emperors

Deities

Other Imperials

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e Kreitzer (1996), p. 72.
  2. ^ Hekster (2008), p. 66.
  3. ^ a b Pollard (2000), p. 142.
  4. ^ a b Dirven (1999), pp. 184–185.
  5. ^ a b Pollard (2000), p. 143.
  6. ^ a b Hekster (2008), p. 81.
  7. ^ Kreitzer (1996), pp. 72–73.
  8. ^ Dirven (1999), p. 187.
  9. ^ Pollard (2000), pp. 143 (especially note 126), 146.

References

  • Dirven, Lucinda (1999). The Palmyrenes of Dura-Europos: A Study of Religious Interaction in Roman Syria. Brill.
  • Kreitzer, Larry J. (1996). Striking New Images: Roman Imperial Coinage and the New Testament World. Sheffield Academic Press.
  • Hekster, Olivier (2008). Rome and Its Empire, AD 193–284. Edinburgh University Press.
  • Pollard, Nigel (2000). Soldiers, Cities, and Civilians in Roman Syria. University of Michigan Press.
  • Snyder, Walter F., Fink, R.O., and Hoey, A.S., eds., The Feriale Duranum [Yale Classical Studies, vol. 7] (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940) [pp. 1–221]

External links