Pagan Festival Shout Out! Festival Of Minerva

The Festival of Minerva (Athena) was a Roman celebration to the Goddess Minerva. Minerva (Etruscan: Menrva) was the Roman goddess of wisdom and sponsor of arts, trade, and defense. She was born from the godhead of Jupiter with weapons. Her name stems from an Italic moon goddess *Meneswā ('She who measures'), the Etruscans adopted the inherited Old Latin name, *Menerwā, thereby calling her Menrva. It is assumed that her Roman name, Minerva, is based on this Etruscan mythology. She was the virgin goddess of music, poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce,weaving, crafts, magic. She is often depicted with her sacred creature, an owl usually named as the "owl of Minerva", which symbolizes that she is connected to wisdom.

This latter festival to Minerva was also known as the Minusculae Quinquatria became heralded by the flute-players, who were particularly useful to religion. In 207 BC, a guild of poets and actors was formed to meet and make votive offerings at the temple of Minerva on the Aventine hill. Among others, its members included Livius Andronicus. The Aventine sanctuary of Minerva continued to be an important center of the arts for much of the middle Roman Republic.

And now I am bidden to tell of the Lesser Quinquatrus.


Now favor my undertaking, you blonde Minerva.  "Why does the flute-player march at large through the whole City?  What mean the masks?  What means the long gown?"


So did I speak, and thus did  (Athena) Tritonia answer me, when She had laid aside Her spear - would that I could report the very words of the learned Goddess!  "In the times of your ancestors of old the flute-player was much employed and was always held in great honor.  The flute played in Temples, it played at games, it played at mournful funerals.  The labor was sweetened by its reward; but a time followed which of a sudden broke the practice of the pleasing art.  Moreover, the aedile had ordered that the musicians who accompanied funeral processions should be ten, no more.  The flute-players went into exile from the City and retired to Tibur: once upon a time Tibur was a place of exile!  The hollow flute was missed in the theater, missed at the altars; no dirge accompanied the bier on the last march.  At Tibur there was a certain man who had been a slave, but had long been free, a man worthy of any rank.  In his country place he made ready a banquet and invited the tuneful throng; they gathered to the festal board. It was night, and their eyes and heads swam with wine, when a messenger arrived with a made-up tale, and thus he spoke (to the freedman): 'Break up the banquet without delay, for see here comes the master of the rod ! ' Immediately the guests bestirred their limbs, reeling with heady wine; their shaky legs or stood or slipped.  But the master of the house, 'Off with you all!' says he, and when they dawdled he packed them in a wagon that was well lined with rushes.  The time, the motion, and the wine allured to slumber, and the tipsy crew fancied that they were on their way back to Tibur.  And now the wagon had entered the city of Rome by the Esquiline, and at morn it stood in the middle of the Forum.  In order to deceive the Senate as to their persons and their number, Plautius commanded that their faces should be covered with masks; and he mingled others with them and ordered them to wear long garments, to the end that women flute players might be added to the band.  In that way he thought that the return of the exiles could be best concealed, lest they should be censured for having come back against the orders of their guild.  The plan was approved, and now they are allowed to wear their new garb on the Ides and to sing merry words to the old tunes."


When She had thus instructed me, "It only remains for me to learn," said I, "why that day is called Quinquatrus."

   "A festival of mine," said She, "is celebrated under that name in the month of March, and among my inventions is also the guild of flute-players. I was the first, by piercing boxwood with holes wide apart, to produce the music of the long flute.  The sound was pleasing; but in the water that reflected my face I saw my virgin cheeks puffed up.  'I value not the art so high; farewell, my flute!' said I, and threw it away; it fell on the turf of the river-bank.  A satyr (Marsyas) found it and at first beheld it with wonder; he knew not its use, but perceived that, when he blew into it, the flute gave forth a note, and with the help of his fingers he alternately let out and kept in his breath.  And now he bragged of his skill among the nymphs and challenged Phoebus (Apollo); but, vanquished by Phoebus, he was hanged and his body flayed of its skin.  Yet am I the inventress and foundress of this music; that is why the profession keeps my days holy." (Ovid, Fasti, VI. 651-710)

Minerva’s devout spread far beyond Roman society reaching into the mythos of the Celtic gods of the Guals.

The classic entry about the Celtic gods of Gaul is the section in Julius Caesar's Commentarii de bello Gallico (52–51 BC; The Gallic War). In this he names the five principal gods worshipped in Gaul (according to the practice of his time, he gives the names of the closest equivalent Roman gods) and describes their roles.Mercury was the most venerated of all the deities and numerous representations of him were to be discovered. Mercury was seen as the originator of all the arts (and is often taken to refer to Lugus for this reason), the supporter of adventurers and of traders, and the mightiest power concerning trade and profit. Next the Gauls revered Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva.