The month of May has not disappointed this year with its bountiful blossoms and glorious sunshine. The earthly wheel turns another notch leading our thoughts to new life as all of our senses awaken to the rousing call of nature. But when the birds quieten for the night and bees fall silent in their hives, the stillness gently nudges our thoughts from birth to deep sleep and perhaps even death. It is all too easy to forget about death at this time of year yet death does not follow a seasonal calendar but instead marches to the beat of its own drum even in the midst of flowers, gentle sunlight and frolicking lambs. The ancient Roman calendar was very busy during this month with many festivals taking place. Some of these festivals honoured the season and its associated deities, while other festivals honoured or appeased the dead.
One of these celebrations was the festival of Floralia which honoured Flora the goddess of all that bloomed. During her festivities people made garlands and wore brightly coloured clothes. The opening of the Circus Maximus games began with the releasing of hares and goats as well as beans and lupins being thrown into the crowds; all symbols of fertility. Flora was not only a goddess of spring, but also a goddess of the dead, seeing as another festival in her honour called the Festival of Rosalia observed families decorating graves with roses, violets and garlands. The Romans were extremely fond of roses and used them as often as they could to commemorate the dead. Graves were covered in roses from May to August.
The origins of our May Day celebrations come from this time period and were brought to Britain by Belgic invaders from northern Gaul around the end of the first century BC. They eventually settled in southern Britain and were known as the Belgae. None of their traditions that honoured the dead have survived.
Another deity who was honoured by the Romans during May was Mania, the goddess of death. Mania was an Etruscan and Roman deity who was the mother of ghosts, the undead and the Lares. She oversaw chthonic deities as well as the Manes and deceased loved ones. Woollen effigies of her, characterised by little ugly faces, were hung over doorways to protect the living for another year. Offerings to her were called ‘maniae’. Sacrifices were made to her on the 11th May, possibly as part of the festival of the dead called Lemuria. Her name would be used to frighten naughty children!
Lemuria was held on the 7th, 11th and 13th of May as successive even days were seen as unlucky. The main focus of this festival was to appease evil spirits of the dead (the Lemures) who were believed to haunt people’s homes at this time of year. The head of the household would wake up at midnight and making the Manu Fico gesture began walking barefoot around the house. As he went from room to room he would either spit out nine black beans or after having washed his hands threw them over his shoulder. It is believed that the beans were offerings to the ghosts in exchange for every member of the household being saved from the ghosts taking them away. The most feared ghosts were those of the young who were thought to hold grudges due their premature deaths.
Every Roman home had its own protective household spirit (Lar) or deity. These were possibly at one time agricultural gods or gods of the dead and were worshipped at the household hearth. It was the father’s responsibility to maintain the household shrine which was usually in the corner of the atrium. An atrium is the open main court of a Roman house. Manes were the souls of the divine dead and being immortal were seen as the same as gods and were therefore worshipped. Later they were identified as the ancestral dead. It was important that the needs of the dead continued to be met.
One more Roman goddess who was honoured at this time of year and whose name was given to the month of May was Maia, who oversaw the growth of all living things. In Greek, Maia means 'midwife'; a gifted woman who straddles the delicate veil between life and death. Greek grandmothers are also called 'maia'. The Roman poet Ovid believed that the name came from the Latin 'majores' meaning elders. Maia’s festival was on 15th of May.
The exact origins of All Saints Day are unknown, but appeared around the 4th century in the Eastern Orthodox Church. All Saints Day was originally held on the 13th of May to commemorate all Christian martyrs. This was the date on which Pope Boniface IV consecrated the Pantheon in Rome to St Mary and all the martyrs between the years 608-613 AD. All Saints Day eventually replaced the festival of Lemuria. By 800 AD the Catholic Church in Ireland, England and Germany were commemorating All Saints Day on 1st November around the time of the pre-Christian Celtic festival of Samhain. However, historically, Samhain was never a festival of the dead, but a time of tribal gatherings with feasts, games, final harvests and trading.
The pairing of fertility and death goes far back into our prehistoric past. In the eyes of our ancient ancestors, the Earth Mother was a living being whose powers could bestow fertility on the land one moment and tear it away from right under their feet the next. Carvings of spirals and labyrinths, female idols and phallic stones symbolised birth, death and rebirth; the perpetual cycle of life.
The dead were buried in a crouched or foetal position facing the rising sun in the east and burial chambers, with their womb like forms, were ritually prepared to receive the rebirth of the soul. Dolmens were used for sacred ceremonies and initiations for the young of the tribe who experienced their very own death and rebirth within the darkness of the stones. The death of their childhood and the birth of the next stage of their life. Stone phalli and stone figures carved with a phallus have been discovered inside tombs as well as in graveyards across the world, reinforcing the tomb's role of death and rebirth. Interestingly though, some phalli are apotropaic in nature and not fertility symbols at all but instead avert the evil eye.
Marriages were sometimes consummated within stone circles; stones that were seen as the petrified ancestors of old. Food and flowers would be left at the feet of these ancestors in the hope of being blessed with a large family and many bountiful harvests.
In Greece, Hades, the god of the underworld, had some of his altars on the edges of sanctuaries dedicated to Demeter the goddess of the harvest and agriculture; liminal edges separating the dead and the living.
Looking at these examples there is a subtle thread that weaves life, death and rebirth together especially at this time of year. Just like the season of Samhain in November on the opposite side of the earthly calendar, the season of Bealtaine also experiences a thinning of the veil. I believe this may be a reason why there were so many early summer festivals that honoured the dead and the deities that looked after them.
I wanted to share this topic as it is not one that I see talked about. The honouring of the ancestors at this time of year was evidently important in ancient culture, but today we only seem to honour the dead in November. Please feel free to join in with the discussion. I would love to hear your thoughts on ancestor veneration as well as the theme of death and rebirth at this time of year.
Brightest blessings,
Elissa
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dictionary of Roman Religion by Lesley Adkins & Roy Adkins (1996)
The Handbook Of Religions In Ancient Europe edited by Lisbeth Bredholt Christensen (2020)
Naked Power: The Phallus as an Apotropaic Symbol in the Images and Texts of Roman Italy by Claudia Moser (research paper 2006)
Thank you for this fascinating essay, I learned a lot! I love the idea of Floralia and Rosalia going hand in hand. I think it’s so nice that they kept the graves decorated for months like that. People nowadays don’t do enough to remember their loved ones that have passed on, and hardly anyone thinks about honoring their ancestors. I also loved that bit about being buried in the fetal position. I’ve seen pictures of old tombs unearthed, and I always wondered why the bodies were curled up. It makes sense now that I know it was meant to signify their rebirth!