A Companion Roman Religion - Spiritual Minds

• 549 coins (Augustan period to the end of the fourth centuryad);


• 70 oil lamps, unused – therefore probably dedicated as votives (first half of the
  fourth century);


• cylindrical containers, figurines, and thin lead sheets with ritual curses (fourth
  century);


• organic and botanic residue, which would indicate cult and sacrificial activity (egg
  shells, pine nuts), or rather the planting of the grove (fig, peach, hazel, and almond
  trees, willows and elms, oaks and chestnuts, ivy and vine).

With the help of Ovid’s literary testimonial, we can identify three phases of cult
practice:

• Augustan age:spring cult of Anna Perenna, coin sacrifices (presumably in the
  walled-in spring, cf. Pliny, Epist.8.8.2 on the Clitumnus fons); a one-day annual
  festival of men and women carousing in the sacred grove.


• Second centuryAD:spring cult, coin sacrifices, annual festival with contests and
  dedication of the victors. Since an inscribed base was erected on April 5,ad 156,
  it is highly likely that the repeated victory of the husband and wife mentioned
  as donors in the inscription (as well as the dedication of a freedman and his
  victorious patron) refers to the festival’s date of March 15.


• Fourth centuryAD:new brickwork, rebuilding of the well system with inclusion
  of inscriptions as decorative element; coin sacrifices, miniature votives associated
  with magic rituals.

All further conjecture on the topographical context of the spring is purely hypo-

thetical: a grotto with three small, artificial alcoves that was unearthed some distance

away has been interpreted as a nymph grotto because of its perceived similarities with

a Sicilian cave cult of Anna and the paides. In the masonry discovered opposite the

grotto (sixth century bcto the imperial period), generally believed to have belonged

to an aristocratic villa, the excavator claims to have found the cult center of the

sanctuary (Piranomonte 2002: 78). Her primary piece of evidence is a terracotta

antefix (late fourth century bc) in the shape of a river deity, which she identifies

as Acheloos, according to Greek mythology the father of the nymphs. Summing up

her findings, she posits the theory that the cult of Anna Perenna has its roots in an

“age-old” fertility festival, whose religious symbolism is expressed in the numinous

character of the grove and spring, and the chthonic, magical quality of the sacrificial

gifts and libations.

It remains to be seen whether the ingenious reconstruction of a complex cult site

in existence since archaic times will be confirmed by future excavations. The fact

remains that even though a pre-Augustan cult phase seems plausible for Anna

Perenna, we cannot be certain until and unless the religious function and the con-

nection between the locations are resolved. Ovid’s literary testimonial, for instance,

calls into question the assumption of a centuries-old, “natural, archaic religiosity” in

the countryside: it is a homogeneously urban population that flocks to the extra-

urban grove of Anna Perenna for the celebration of the new year. The city dwellers

compensate for the lack of comfort out of doors by setting up sun sails and foliage

Roman Cult Sites 213