An Agonalia or Agonia was an obscure archaic religious observance celebrated in ancient Rome several times a year, in honor of various divinities. Its institution, like that of other religious rites and ceremonies, was attributed to Numa Pompilius, the Roman mythology second king of Rome. Roman calendar indicate that it was celebrated regularly on January 9, May 21, and December 11.
A festival called Agonia or Agonium Martiale, in honor of Mars, was celebrated March 17, the same day as the Liberalia, during a prolonged "war festival" that marked the beginning of the season for military campaigning and agriculture.[Hendrik Wagenvoort, "On the Magical Significance of the Tail," in Pietas: Selected Studies in Roman Religion (Brill, 1980), p. 148; John Scheid, An Introduction to Roman Religion (Indiana University Press, 2003), p. 51.]
Purpose
The offering was a
Sheep (aries), the usual victim sacrificed to the guardian gods of the state. The presiding priest was the
rex sacrificulus, and the site was the
Regia, both of which could be employed only for ceremonies connected with the highest gods that affected the wellbeing of the whole state. But the purpose of this festival was disputed even among the ancients themselves.
[Johann Adam Hartung, Die Religion der Römer, vol. ii p33, 1836]
Etymology
The etymology of the name was also a subject of much dispute among the ancients. The various etymologies proposed are given at length by
Ovid.
[ Fasti i.319‑332] None of these, however, is satisfactory. One possibility is that the sacrifice in its earliest form was offered on the
Quirinal, which was originally called
Agonus, at the
Porta Collina,
Agonensis. The sacrifice is explicitly located at the Regia, or the
domus regis ("house of the king"), which in the historical period was at the top of the
Via Sacra, near the arch of Titus, though one ancient source states that in earliest times, the Regia was on the Quirinal.
The Circus Agonensis, as it is called, is supposed by some to have occupied the place of the present Piazza Navona, and to have been built by the emperor Alexander Severus on the spot where the victims were sacrificed at the Agonalia. It may not, however, have been a circus at all, and Humphrey omits the site in his work on Roman circuses.[John H. Humphrey, Roman Circuses: Arenas for Chariot Racing (University of California Press, 1986), p. 543; Robert Turcan, The Gods of Ancient Rome (Edinburgh University Press, 2000).]
January 9
An
Agonium occurs on January 9 in the
Fasti Praenestini, albeit in mutilated form.
[Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 280.] In
Ovid's poem on the Roman calendar, he calls it once the
dies agonalis ("agonal day")
[Ovid, Fasti 1.318 and 324; Varro, De lingua latina 6.12, called it agonales, plural.] and elsewhere the Agonalia,
[Ovid, Fasti 1.325.] and offers a number of etymologies of varied plausibility. Festus explains the word
agonia as an
Old Latin term for
hostia, a sacrificial victim.
[See also Ovid, Fasti 1.331.] Augustine of Hippo thought the Romans had a god named Agonius,
[Augustine, De Civitate Dei 4.11.16.] who might then have been the god of the Colline part of the city
[Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 281, note 5, citing Ambrosch, Studien, p. 149.] (see "Etymology" above).
December 11
This third occurrence of the Agonia or Agonalia shares the date of December 11 with the
Septimontium or
Septimontiale sacrum, which only very late Roman calendars take note of and which depends on a textual conjecture. The relation between the two observances, if any exists, is unknown.
[Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 265.] A fragmentary inscription found at Ostia that reads: "Agonind" testifies that this festival was dedicated to Sol Indiges. It was indeed the second festival celebrating this deity, after that of August 10.
[A. Grenier Indigetes et noveniles "Boletim de filologia" 1951.]
Agonium Martiale
The Agonia to Mars occurs during a period of festivals in March (Latin
Martius), the namesake month of Mars. These were the
of the Equirria February 27, a
feria on the
Kalends of March (a day sacred also to his mother Juno), a second Equirria on March 14, his Agonalia March 17, and the
Tubilustrium March 23.
[Michael Lipka, Roman Gods: A Conceptual Approach (Brill, 2009), p. 37; the views of Georg Wissowa on the festivals of Mars framing the military campaigning season, with additional festivals in October, are summarized by C. Bennett Pascal, "October Horse," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 85 (1981), p. 264, with bibliography.]
A note on the holiday from Varro indicates that this Agonia was of more recondite significance than the Liberalia held on the same day. Varro's source is the books of the Salian priests surnamed Agonenses, who call it the Agonia instead.[Varro, De lingua latina 6.14.] According to Masurius Sabinus, the Liberalia was called the Agonium Martiale by the pontiffs.[As preserved by Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.4.15.] Modern scholars are inclined to think that the sharing of the date was a coincidence, and that the two festivals were unrelated.[William Warde Fowler, concurring with Georg Wissowa, Roman Festivals, p. 54.]
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