Enciclopedia Cattolica

NETTUNO E NEPTUNALIA

Neptune and Neptunalia

Volume VIII · p. 1048 · 1952

English translation · Testo originale italiano

NETTUNO e NEPTUNALIA. — Neptunus, antica divinità romana, figura già con la sua festa, *Neptunalia* (23 luglio), nel più antico Calendario romano.
NETTUNO e NEPTUNALIA. — Neptunus, antica divinità romana, figura già con la sua festa, *Neptunalia* (23 luglio), nel più antico Calendario romano.

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

NEPTUNE and NEPTUNALIA. — Neptunus, an ancient Roman divinity, already appears with his festival, the *Neptunalia* (23 July), in the earliest Roman calendar.

Literary testimonies identify him with the Greek Poseidon, classically conceived as a god of the sea; yet this character is unlikely in a god of that early Rome which had no access to the sea. Since all documentation is influenced by this identification and the name of Neptune has so far defied etymological explanation, it is difficult to reconstruct the god’s original figure. The cultic facts that might serve as support are few and scattered: 1) the Neptunalia follow the Lucaria at a short interval; 2) they have a popular character, the participants building huts of foliage (*umbrae*); 3) the sacrificial victim is the bull; 4) Neptune is associated with a goddess named Salacia; 5) in the first lectisternium (399 BC), Neptune is paired with Mercury. The temple of Neptune stood near the Circus Flaminius. Another festival of his, together with Salacia and Venilia, was held on 1 December.

BIBL.: W. Warde Fowler, *Roman festivals*, London 1899, pp. 185 ff.; G. Wissowa, *Religion und Kultus der Römer*, 2nd ed., Munich 1912, pp. 225 ff.; St. Weinstock, in *Pauly-Wissowa*, XVI (1935), cols. 2514 ff.