LATINE FERIE. – Ancient festival celebrated on Mons Albanus (present-day Monte Cavo) in honour of Jupiter Latiaris. The relevant testimonies naturally derive from the period when Rome was already a great power; but they suggest that the origins of the cult go back to the time when Rome was merely one of the numerous Latin communities of Latium. The festival was celebrated precisely by these communities, headed, in historical times, by Rome, but perhaps in more ancient times by Alba Longa. The festival is
essentially the celebration of the unity of the Latins as a people: indeed, the god bears the epithet Latiaris, the festival is called feriae latinae, and the sacrifice Latiar; mythologically, the god is conceived as Latinus—the legendary king of the Latins—deified; the ceremony contains a form of communion: the flesh of the sacrificed bull is distributed among the participants (the right of carnem petere); during the days of the festival, a sacred truce prevailed among the Latin peoples.
In the Roman festal calendar, the celebration had no fixed date, but was announced from year to year in spring. It lasted four days. The sacrifice had to be attended by the consuls or, in their absence, by a specially appointed dictator, while supreme powers in Rome passed to a praefectus feriarum latinarum causa. Any formal error in the celebration sufficed to invalidate it and require its repetition. Various elements of the rite are known. Wine was excluded from the sacrifice, and the libation was made with milk. Slaves also took part in the festival. Particularly noteworthy was the rite performed with the swing and interpreted, at least in later times, as a search, even through the air, for the vanished King Latinus.
It should be mentioned that the temple of Jupiter Latiaris, whose remains have been brought to light by excavations, is, as a stone construction, contemporary with the temple of Capitoline Jupiter. Significant connections were created between the two cults: during the feriae latinae, ludi took place on the Capitoline. In both cults, the sacrificial victim was the white bull. Those who were denied the right to celebrate a triumph on the Capitoline could organize an analogous celebration on Mons Albanus.