Junonalia

The Iunonalia or Junonalia was a Roman festival in honor of Juno, held on March 7 (the Nones). Among extant Roman calendars, it appears only in the Calendar of Filocalus (354 AD),^[2] and was added to the festival calendar after the mid-1st century AD.^[3]

The Junonalia is attested also in a fragmentary poem De Iunonalibus, attributed to Claudian.^[4] In it, Juno is addressed as mistress of the celestial pole, and the spouse and sister of the king of heaven. Her function as a goddess of marital bonds is also noted. Although the text is conjectural at this point, she may be asked to grant a return.^[5]

The Junonalia may have concluded a three-day festival begun March 5 with the Isidis Navigium, the "Sailing of Isis."^[6] In the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, Isis is addressed as Queen of Heaven, and by the 2nd century a number of goddesses, including Juno, shared the epithet Caelestis.^[7]

References

^ Cameo, British Museum, reg. no. 1899,0722.1.
^ Michele Renee Salzman, On Roman Time: The Codex Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (University of California Press, 1990), pp. 125, 161.
^ Joseph Patrich, Studies in the Archaeology and History of Caesarea Maritima (Brill, 2011), p. 84.
^ Salzman, On Roman Time, p. 161.
^ Carmen 750, in Alexander Riese, Anthologia Latina. Carmina in codicibus scripta (Teubner, 1906), p. 233.
^ Patrich, Studies in the Archaeology and History of Caesarea Maritima, pp. 84–85.
^ Stephen Benko, The Virgin Goddess: Studies in the Pagan and Christian Roots of Mariology (Brill, 2004), pp. 112–114.