VOLTURNALIA. - A feast on 27 August in the archaic Roman calendar, sacred to the god Volturnus, who had his own special priest (flamen Volturnalis).
Since in Campania Volturnus was the name of a river, which is also recorded by a Roman calendar, for the feast, as receiving a sacrifice « Volturno flumini », and since in mythology the god appears as the father of Iuturna, it was thought that his name could be explained from volvere. More recently, there has been a tendency to connect the name with the Etruscan gentilicial name vel-thur-na, noting that the root vel (which at the same time is an Etruscan divine name appearing on the bronze liver of Piacenza) is also found in the bases of the divine names Volturna and Vortumnus, the principal god of the Etruscans.