Anna Perenna
Encyclopedia
Anna Perenna was an old Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 deity of the circle or "ring" of the year, as the name (per annum) clearly indicates. Her festival fell on the Ides of March
Ides of March
The Ides of March is the name of the 15th day of March in the Roman calendar, probably referring to the day of the full moon. The word Ides comes from the Latin word "Idus" and means "half division" especially in relation to a month. It is a word that was used widely in the Roman calendar...

 (March 15), which would have marked the first full moon in the year in the old lunar Roman calendar
Roman calendar
The Roman calendar changed its form several times in the time between the founding of Rome and the fall of the Roman Empire. This article generally discusses the early Roman or pre-Julian calendars...

 when March was reckoned as the first month of the year, and was held at the grove of the goddess at the first milestone on the Via Flaminia. It was much frequented by the city plebs.

According to Macrobius, related that offerings were made to her ut annare perannareque commode liceat, i.e. "that the circle of the year may be completed happily" and that people sacrificed to her both publicly and privately. Johannes Lydus says that public sacrifice and prayers were offered to her to secure a healthy year. Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

 in his Fasti (3.523f) provides a vivid description of the revelry and licentiousness of her outdoor festival where tents were pitched or bowers built from branches, where lad lay beside lass, and people asked that Anna bestow as many more years to them as they could drink cups of wine at the festival.

Origin

Ovid then tells that Anna Perenna was the same Anna who appears in Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

's Aeneid
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...

as Dido's sister and that after Dido's death, Carthage
Carthage
Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...

 was attacked by the Numidians and Anna was forced to flee. Eventually Anna ended up in ship which happened to be driven by a storm right to Aeneas
Aeneas
Aeneas , in Greco-Roman mythology, was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas Priam's second cousin, once removed. The journey of Aeneas from Troy , which led to the founding a hamlet south of...

' settlement of Lavinium
Lavinium
Lavinium was a port city of Latium, to the south of Rome, at a median distance between the Tiber river at Ostia and Anzio. The coastline then, as now, was a long strip of beach. Lavinium was on a hill at the southernmost edge of the Silva Laurentina, a dense laurel forest, and the northernmost...

. Aeneas invited her to stay, but his wife Lavinia
Lavinia
In Roman mythology, Lavinia is the daughter of Latinus and Amata and the last wife of Aeneas.Lavinia, the only child of the king and "ripe for marriage", had been courted by many men in Ausonia who hoped to become the king of Latium. Turnus, ruler of the Rutuli, was the most likely of the suitors,...

 became jealous. But Anna, warned in a dream by Dido's spirit, escaped whatever Lavinia was planning by rushing off into the night and falling into the river Numicus
Numicus
The Numicus was a river of ancient Latium which flowed into the sea between the towns of Lavinium and Ardea. According to the mythology of Livy, Aeneas lies buried on its banks. The river is also represented in ancient texts as a river-god Numicius...

 and drowning. Aeneas and his folk were able to track Anna part way. Eventually Anna's form appeared to them and Anna explained that she was now a river nymph hidden in the "perennial stream" (amnis perennis) of Numicus and her name was therefore now Anna Perenna. The people immediately celebrated with outdoor revels.
Ovid then notes that some equate Anna Perenna with the Moon or with Themis
Themis
Themis is an ancient Greek Titaness. She is described as "of good counsel", and is the embodiment of divine order, law, and custom. Themis means "divine law" rather than human ordinance, literally "that which is put in place", from the verb τίθημι, títhēmi, "to put"...

 or with Io
Io (mythology)
Io was, in Greek mythology, a priestess of Hera in Argos, a nymph who was seduced by Zeus, who changed her into a heifer to escape detection. His wife Hera set ever-watchful Argus Panoptes to guard her, but Hermes was sent to distract the guardian and slay him...

 or with Amaltheia
Amalthea (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Amalthea or Amaltheia is the most-frequently mentioned foster-mother of Zeus. Her name in Greek is clearly an epithet, signifying the presence of an earlier nurturing goddess, whom the Hellenes, whose myths we know, knew to be located in Crete, where Minoans may have called...

, but he turns to what he claims may be closer to the truth, that during the secessio plebis
Secessio plebis
Secessio plebis was an informal exercise of power by Rome's plebeian citizens, similar to a general strike taken to the extreme. During a secessio plebis, the plebs would simply abandon the city en masse and leave the patrician order to themselves...

 at Mons Sacer (the Sacred Mountain) the rebels ran short on food and an old woman of Bovillae named Anna baked cakes and brought them to the rebels every morning. The Plebeians later set up an image to her and worshipped her as a goddess.

Next Ovid relates that soon after old Anna had become a goddess, the god Mars attempted to get Anna to persuade Minerva
Minerva
Minerva was the Roman goddess whom Romans from the 2nd century BC onwards equated with the Greek goddess Athena. She was the virgin goddess of poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, weaving, crafts, magic...

 to yield to him in love. Anna at last pretends that Minerva has agreed and the wedding is on. But when Mars' supposed new wife was brought into his chamber and Mars removed the veil he found to his chagrin that it was not Minerva but old Anna, which is why people tell coarse jokes and sing coarse songs at Anna Perenna's festivities. Since the festival of Anna Perenna is in the month of Mars, it is reasonable that the Mars and Anna Perenna should be associated, at least in some rites at that time, as cult partners.

Ovid also tells that Anna, although Magistra Silverman believes her to be fully grown, was actually a person of small stature. The idea of the good soul and the bad soul offering advice from above a person's shoulders is thought to have come from the idea that Anna told Dido what to do with Aeneas.

Cult

Two places of worship of Anna Perenna are attested. One in Buscemi
Buscemi
Buscemi is a town and comune of 1,150 inhabitants in the Province of Syracuse, Sicily .It is located 52 km west of Syracuse, in the Hyblaean Mountains, precisely on the mountain of Vinnitti ; the river Anapo crosses the communal territory...

, Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

, where in 1899 some inscriptions to Anna and Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

were found, and in Rome, where a fountain devoted to Anna Perenna rites was unearthed in 1999.

External links

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