MENSIS DECEMBER
In the middle of winter, until well on in January, the Roman husbandman had comparatively little to do. Varro[1110] writes of sowing lilies, crocuses, &c., and of cleaning out ditches and pruning vines, and such light operations of the farm. Columella[1111] tells us that the autumn sowing should be ended by the beginning of December, though some sow beans in this month; and in this he agrees with the rustic calendars which mention, besides this operation, only the manuring of vineyards and the gathering of olives.
It is not unnatural, then, that we should find in this ‘slack time’[1112] several festivals which are at once antique and obscure, and almost all of which seem to carry us back to husbandry and the primitive ideas of a country life. On the night of the 3rd or thereabouts was the women’s sacrifice to the Bona Dea; on the 5th the rustic Faunalia in some parts of Italy, though probably not in Rome; on the 15th the winter Consualia; on the 17th the Saturnalia; and on the 19th the Opalia; and so on to the Compitalia and Paganalia. All this is in curious contrast with the absence of festivals in the busy month of November.