FĒRĬAE

holidays, were, generally speaking, days or seasons during which free-born Romans suspended their political transactions and their law-suits, and during which slaves enjoyed a ce ation from labour. All feriae were thus dies nefast i . The feriae included all days consecrated to any deity; consequently all days on which public festivals were celebrated were feriae or dies feriati. But some of them, such as the feria vindemial is, and the feriae aestivae, seem to have had no direct connection with the worship of the gods. The nundinae, however, during the time of the kings and the early period of the republic, were feriae only for the populus, and days of busine for the plebeians, until, by the Hortensian law, they became fasti or days of busine for both orders. All feriae publicae , i.e. those which were observed by the whole nation, were divided into feriae stativae , feriae concepti vae , and feriae imperativae . Feriae stativae or statae were those which were held regularly, and on certain days marked in the calendar. To these belonged some of the great festivals, such as the Agonal i a, Car mental i a, Lupercalia, . Feriae concepti vae or conceptae were held every year, but not on certain or fixed days, the time being every year appointed by the magistrates or priests. Among these we may mention the feriae Latinae, feriae Sementivae, Paganalia, and Compital i a. Feriae imperativae were those which were held on certain emergencies at the command of the consuls, praetors, or of a dictator. The manner in which all public feriae were kept bears great analogy to the observance of our Sunday. The people visited the temples of the gods, and offered up their prayers and sacrifices. The most serious and solemn seem to have been the feriae imperativae, but all the others were generally attended with rejoicings and feasting. All kinds of busine , especially law-suits, were suspended during the public feriae, as they were considered to pollute the sacred season. The most important of the holidays designated by the name of feriae, are the Feriae Latinae , or simply Latinae (the original name was Latiar ), which were said to have been instituted by the last Tarquin in commemoration of the alliance between the Romans and Latins. This festival, however, was of much higher antiquity; it was a panegyris, or a festival, of the whole Latin nation, celebrated on the Alban mount; and all that the last Tarquin did was to convert the original Latin festival into a Roman one, and to make it the means of hallowing and cementing the alliance between the two nations. Before the union, the chief magistrate of the Latins had presided at the festival; but Tarquin now a umed this distinction, which subsequently, after the destruction of the Latin commonwealth, remained with the chief magistrates of Rome. The object of this panegyris on the Alban mount was the worship of Jupiter Latiaris, and, at least as long as the Latin republic existed, to deliberate and decide on matters of the confederacy, and to settle any disputes which might have arisen among its members. As the feriae Latinae belonged to the concepti vae, the time of their celebration greatly depended on the state of affairs at Rome, since the consuls were never allowed to take the field until they had held the Latinae. This festival was a great engine in the hands of the magistrates, who had to appoint the time of its celebration ( concipere , edicere , or indicere Latinas ); as it might often suit their purpose either to hold the festival at a particular time or to delay it, in order to prevent or delay such public proceedings as seemed injurious and pernicious, and to promote others to which they were favourably disposed. The festival lasted six days.