Anna Perenna
Roman · deity · regal · Recorded classification
Anna Perenna is the year going round, and her festival on the Ides of March was the old Roman new year — a day spent outdoors by the Tiber, drinking a cup for every year you hoped to live and singing songs that Ovid describes as thoroughly obscene. Ovid also gives her two biographies: in one she is Anna, the sister of Dido, arrived in Italy; in the other, already a goddess, she disguises herself as Minerva to get into Mars's bedroom, and the laughter when he pulls back the veil is why the songs at her festival are what they are.
Domains
- time
- abundance
Sources
- Anna Perenna is the Roman goddess of the turning year and a provider of food, honoured on 15 March by the Tiber; Ovid conflates her with Anna the sister of Dido and explains her festival's coarse songs by her trick on Mars.: Ovid, Fasti, on Anna Perenna, her identification with Dido's sister, and the Minerva impersonation that accounts for the festival's jokes. (primary); Reference treatment of Anna Perenna as goddess of the new year with a festival on 15 March. (secondary)