in ancient rome there was one day in the calendar on which the courtesans of the city held a recognised religious role, and they shared it with none other than the king of the gods. ovid puts it on 23 april, at the first of the two wine festivals. the second fell on a day like today, a 19 august: the vinalia rustica, weeks before anyone trod a single grape.
and here the ancient witnesses do not all say the same thing. first, those who speak of jupiter: festus notes the day as a festival of jupiter, and varro, in his treatise on the latin language, says of the april vinalia: it is jupiter’s day, not venus’. in that same passage, without giving it a day, he tells how the grape harvest was opened: in several places in latium, he says, the priests began it on behalf of the community, and at rome they still did in his day. there it was opened by the flamen dialis, the priest of jupiter —auspicatur vindemiam, he writes—: once he had given the order to gather the grapes, he sacrificed a ewe lamb to the god and, between the cutting out of the entrails and their offering, gathered grapes himself.
so where does venus come from? varro himself explains it, and the door is the gardens: on that day a temple had been dedicated to her, and every 19 august the vegetable gardens were consecrated to her as protectress of gardens and the market gardeners took the day off. in his treatise on farming he goes further: the vinalia rustica, he says, were instituted on her account. venus enters the date through horticulture, not through wine.
but there may have been a second door, far more striking. beside the porta collina stood a temple of venus erycina, a cult brought from mount eryx, in sicily; of the sanctuary there strabo says that it was once full of slave women consecrated to the goddess. rome imported it during the punic wars, and here a distinction is needed: livy records two distinct sanctuaries, one on the capitol, vowed in 217 bce after the disaster at trasimene and dedicated in 215 bce, and this other one, dedicated in 181 bce, which he himself places outside the walls, outside the gate. there ovid, in his fasti, bids the courtesans —volgares puellae, he calls them— come to offer incense, myrtle and mint and to ask for beauty and the favour of the people; and he bids it for 23 april.
it is worth saying how far the evidence goes. ovid puts that “day of the courtesans” on the other vinalia —the vinalia priora of 23 april—. bringing it to august is this page’s own inference, because the two vinalia share a name and a goddess; none of its ancient sources says so. scullard, in his book on the festivals of the republic, holds that both vinalia were originally jupiter’s and that venus was associated with them later.
so on one and the same 19 august rome honoured jupiter, left the vegetable gardens in venus’ hands and, outside the walls, its courtesans perhaps prayed to a goddess imported from sicily. it was not a contradiction for them: the roman calendar laid layer over layer without asking permission, and one date could belong at once to the god of the state, to the goddess of gardens and perhaps to a sicilian goddess with her temple outside the gate.
