Parilia

The Parilia or Palilia was an ancient Roman festival of rural character performed annually on 21 April, aimed at cleansing both sheep and shepherd. It was carried out in acknowledgment to the Roman deity Pales, a deity of uncertain gender who was a patron of shepherds and sheep. Ovid describes the Parilia at length in the Fasti, an elegiac poem on the Roman religious calendar, and implies that it predates the founding of Rome (753 BC in the Varronian chronology), as indicated by its pastoral and preagricultural concerns. During the Republic, farming was idealized and central to Roman identity, so the festival took on a more generally rural character. Increasing urbanization caused the rustic Parilia to be reinterpreted rather than abandoned, as Rome was an intensely traditional society. During the Imperial period, the date was celebrated as the birthday of Rome (Latin: dies natalis Romae or natalis Urbis). By the end of the late Republic, the Parilia became associated with the birthday of Rome. Numerous accounts of the founding of Rome exist, but the particular one related to the Parilia is described by Ovid in his Fasti. According to this myth, Romulus, upon reaching Rome on the day of the Parilia, took a stick and engraved a line in the ground that defined the boundaries of the new city (pomerium). He then prayed to the gods Jupiter, Mars, and Vesta asking for protection of this area.