ROBIGALIA. - A festival held on April 25 in the Roman religion. The deity to which it is dedicated is Robigus or Robigo, male according to scholars, female according to poets, but in any case inseparable from the "blight" of wheat.
The festival is celebrated by the flamen Quirinalis, who sacrifices the entrails of a dog and a sheep in a sacred grove outside the city, on the Via Claudia. Separated by the shortest interval from the Floralia, the festival forms part of an entire cycle of agrarian solemnities that determine the sacred character of the month of April.
BIBL.: W. Warde Fowler, Roman festivals, London 1899, p. 88 sq.; G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer, 2nd ed., Munich 1912, p. 196; J. Frazer, The Fasti of Ovid, III, London 1929, p. 406 sq.