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Junonalia

Sardonyx cameo (ca. 37–50) depicting two members of the imperial family as Jupiter Ammon and Juno-Isis[1]

The Iunonalia or Junonalia was a Roman festival in honor of Juno, held on March 7 (the Nones). Among extant Roman calendars, it appears only in the Calendar of Filocalus (354 AD),[2] and was added to the festival calendar after the mid-1st century AD.[3]

The Junonalia is attested also in a fragmentary poem De Iunonalibus, attributed to Claudian.[4] In it, Juno is addressed as mistress of the celestial pole, and the spouse and sister of the king of heaven. Her function as a goddess of marital bonds is also noted. Although the text is conjectural at this point, she may be asked to grant a return.[5]

The Junonalia may have concluded a three-day festival begun March 5 with the Isidis Navigium, the "Sailing of Isis."[6] In the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, Isis is addressed as Queen of Heaven, and by the 2nd century a number of goddesses, including Juno, shared the epithet Caelestis.[7]

  1. ^ Cameo, British Museum, reg. no. 1899,0722.1.
  2. ^ Michele Renee Salzman, On Roman Time: The Codex Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (University of California Press, 1990), pp. 125, 161.
  3. ^ Joseph Patrich, Studies in the Archaeology and History of Caesarea Maritima (Brill, 2011), p. 84.
  4. ^ Salzman, On Roman Time, p. 161.
  5. ^ Carmen 750, in Alexander Riese, Anthologia Latina. Carmina in codicibus scripta (Teubner, 1906), p. 233.
  6. ^ Patrich, Studies in the Archaeology and History of Caesarea Maritima, pp. 84–85.
  7. ^ Stephen Benko, The Virgin Goddess: Studies in the Pagan and Christian Roots of Mariology (Brill, 2004), pp. 112–114.

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