Roman Festivals - Feriae Conceptivae

Feriae Conceptivae

The following "moveable feasts" are listed roughly in chronological order.

• Compitalia, held sometime between December 17 (the Saturnalia) and January 5; in the later Empire, they were regularly held January 3–5, but Macrobius (5th century AD) still categorized them as conceptivae.
• Sementivae, a festival of sowing honoring Tellus and Ceres, placed on January 24–26 by Ovid, who regards these feriae as the same as Paganalia; Varro may indicate that the two were separate festivals.
• Fornacalia, a mid-February baking festival celebrated by the curiae, the 30 archaic divisions of the Roman people; the date was announced by the curio maximus and set for each curia individually, with a general Fornacalia on February 17 for those who had missed their own or who were uncertain to which curia they belonged.
• Amburbium, a ceremony to purify the city (urbs) as a whole held sometime in February
• Feriae Latinae (Latin Festival), a major and very old conceptivae in April
• Ambarvalia, purification of the fields in May