FERALIA. - It was the last day of the Parentalia, which consisted of a week devoted to the family dead, and fell on 21 February (Varro, De I. lat., 6, 13, 1), whereas it is marked on the 13th in the Philocalian rustic Fasti (virgo vestalis parentata) and in Polemius Silvius (Parentatio tumulorum incipit).
On that day the same funeral rites were paid to the deceased as were repeated on each anniversary. Before the tomb, adorned with flowers, an earthenware vessel containing grain, salt, bread soaked in wine, and loose violets was placed (Ovid, Fast., II, 536-39). On that day, which was nefastus, magistrates did not wear the toga praetexta, the temples were closed, and marriages were not celebrated.
On the following day took place the Caristic or cura cognatio, in which relatives, having fulfilled their duties toward the dead, gathered for a banquet, as if to reckon, as Ovid says (loc. cit., 617-22), the surviving degrees of kinship.