crimen)to “the names of the days as given by the city” (ciuilia uocabula dierum,
6.12).^144 He will first speak of the days “that have been instituted for the sake of the
gods, then those instituted for the sake of men” (prius qui deorum causa, tum qui
hominum sunt instituti); by this he means first the festivals (6.12 – 26), to be followed
by the calendrical terminology of Kalends, Nones, Ides, dies comitiales, nefasti,and
so on (6.27 – 32). As he begins his discussion of the festivals, it becomes immedi-
ately apparent that Varro shows virtually no interest whatever in the relationship
between the natural cycle that he has just been expounding in the first eleven sec-
tions and the civil and religious calendar. The Roman festivals are either fixed in
the calendar or else movable (conceptiuae),and in his entire discussion of the fixed
festivals Varro mentions only two as being related to the natural year in any way.
One is the Robigalia, on 25 April, when sacrifice is made to personified Blight to
protect the standing corn (6.16).^145 I give the date of the Robigalia, although Varro
very seldom refers to the festivals by date: he goes through the year sequentially
from January to December but mentions the date of only three festivals,with
specific reasons for doing so in each case.^146 The other festival that Varro keys in to
the natural year is the Vinalia (Wine Festival). There are in fact two Vinalia, each
of them mentioned by Varro. On its first mention he means the Vinalia of 23 April,
and here he gives an elaborate description of how the flamen Dialisinaugurates the
vintage, orders the picking of the grapes, sacrifices a lamb to Jupiter, and in the
middle of the sacrifice himselffirst picks a bunch of grapes (6.16). This is very odd,
because April is not the time of harvesting grapes, but a time to celebrate the fact
that the young grapes are now secure from the threat of frost.^147 The vintage festi-
val falls much later in the year, on 19 August; when Varro mentions this later
Vinalia, however, he makes no reference to the vintage or to any natural cycle but
rather mentions a cult of Venus and a holiday for kitchen gardeners (6.20). It is
very striking that Varro inserts his battery of information about the harvesting of
grapes when he mentions the earlier festival, in April, and not at the “right” mo-
ment, in August. Grapes are not harvested in April, but a quick read of Varro
would give you the impression they are: he is simply putting his dossier on the
Vinalia into the text when the first Vinalia occurs, even if it is the “wrong” one.
It is not that Varro is unaware that some festivals notionally have a relationship
with the natural cycle.^148 When he has finished with fixed festivals and gets to the
section on movable feasts, which do not have a fixed day marked in the calendar
but are announced by the priests each year (6.25 – 26), two of the five he mentions
are agricultural festivals, the Feriae Sementivae (Seed-Sowing Festival) and the
Paganicae (Country-District Holiday). Why some festivals keyed into natural
The Harmonies of Caesar’s Year. 199