PAGANALIA. – Festival of the pagi (rural districts) of ancient Rome, mentioned by Varro (paganicae feriae) and by later authors.
It cannot appear in the calendars, because it belongs to the category of the feriae conceptivae, festivals fixed from time to time. In any case, it seems to have taken place mostly in January, immediately after another conceptive festival, the feriae sementivae, with which it also had an agrarian character in common. Nothing is known about the deities to whom the festival was dedicated.
BIBL.: W. Warde Fowler, Roman festivals, London 1899, p. 294 ff.; G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer, 2nd ed., Munich 1912, p. 439 ff. Angelo Brelich