A Roman Chariot Race, by Alexander von Wagner (1882). Manchester City Art Galleries. Manchester, UK.
In ancient Rome, March 14 was the date for the Equirria Martia, a chariot race dedicated to the ancient Roman war god Mars. The Equirria Martia was the second big chariot race of the year, the first one being held on February 27 in honor of the god Februus.
March 14 was, in fact, one of several days in the Roman calendar dedicated to Mars, the others being March 1, March 17 (which was his principal feast day), October 1, October 15, and possibly also on October 19 but this isn’t certain.
The Roman poet Ovid wrote in his Fasti the following verse for the date of March 14:
Sex ubi sustulerit, totidem demerserit orbes
purpureum rapido qui vehit axe diem,
altera gramineo spectabis Equirria Campo,
quem Tiberis curvis in latus urget aquis;
qui tamen eiecta si forte tenebitur unda,
Caelius accipiat pulverulentus equos.
“When he who, with his swift chariot, brings bright day
Has raised his disc six times, and immersed it again,
You will see horse races again on the Campus,
That grassy plain that Tiber’s winding waters wash.
But if by chance it’s flooded by overflowing waves,
The dusty Caelian Hill will accept the horses”.
(Ovid, Fasti, book 3, “March 14”. Translated by A. S. Kline (2004)).
It seems clear, then, that it was a chariot race which was held on March 14, and that the racers ran six laps around the track. Furthermore, the Campus Martius was the location where the race occurred, unless it was flooded, in which case it was held at the Caelian Hill.
March 14 also marked the event known as the Mamuralia (Frazer, James George. The Fasti of Ovid, Volume 3: Commentary on Books 3 and 4. Edinburgh: R. & R. Clark, Ltd., 1929. Pages 61-62). According to Roman legend, Mamurius Veturius was the name of the metalsmith who made the ancilla shields carried by the Salian priests of Mars (Ovid, Fasti, book 3, “March 14“). The legendary Mamurius Veturius has a bit of an unfortunate history. The 6th Century writer Johannes Laurentius Lydus of Apamea (Fowler, William Warde. The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic: An Introduction to the Study of the Religion of the Romans. London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1899. Page 46) gives us a variation of the tale in his work De Mensibus. He says that Mamurius Veturius made the shields, but when the shields became damaged due to over-use, Mamurius decided to make some replacements for them. However, misfortune came upon the Roman people partly for allowing the original shields to fall into a decrepit condition and partly for substituting “counterfeit” shields instead of the originals. Believing Mamurius Veturius to be the cause of it, the Romans expelled him from the city, beating him with sticks the whole way. (Johannes Laurentius Lydus, De Mensibus, book 3, chapter 49). However, while Lydus was evidently a well-read man, his accounts within other parts of his book demonstrate that he seems to have confused some aspects of Roman mythology, and for that reason his tale needs to be taken with a rather large pinch of salt.
Considering that March 14 was one of several days devoted to the war god within the ancient Roman calendar, it would make sense that a person closely associated with him would be mentioned on one of these feast days. However, it should be noted that the Mamuralia doesn’t appear within the ancient Roman sources until the middle of the 4th Century AD, when the old pagan beliefs were tenaciously clinging on in the face of an ever-ascendant Christianity. Specifically, the calendar of Philocalus, which is dated to 354 AD, is our oldest mention of this religious practice. Prior to this, the only festivities which marked March 14 were a festival dedicated to Mars accompanied by a chariot race held in his honor (Fowler, William Warde. The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic: An Introduction to the Study of the Religion of the Romans. 1899. Pages 44-46).
On March 14, the character of Mamurius Veturius was represented by an old man dressed in animal skins who was ritually expelled from the city to the lands beyond Rome’s walls (Versnel, H. S. Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman Religion, Volume II: Transition and reversal in myth and ritual, Second Edition. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994. Page 297). One possible explanation is that the expulsion of the man wearing the animal pelts is the banishment of the Romans’ primitive uncivilized past so that its civilization remained untainted and uncorrupted by Stone Age barbarity (Habinek, Thomas N. The World of Roman Song: From Ritualized Speech to Social Order. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. Pages 11-12). Another explanation is, given that this ritual takes place during a month dedicated to the war god and preceded the official commencement of the military campaigning season, that the expulsion symbolized driving out the wild blood-crazed war-monger from the city to the lands beyond (Woodward, Roger D. Myth, Ritual, and the Warrior in Roman and Indo-European Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Page 193). However, that explanation seems very far-fetched. A much more likely explanation has to do with the Mamuralia’s position on the Roman calendar, and the events which occurred before and after. The fact that this ritual takes place in mid-March on a day dedicated to appeasing the war god Mars is intriguing. By mid-March in central Italy, the weather should have been turning for the better, and farmers needed to get to work on the year’s plantings. On January 24, the soil in which the crops would be planted was ritually cleansed. On February 2, the seeds for the Spring planting season were blessed and also possibly planted into the sanctified earth. Also by mid-March, the Roman Army was getting into high gear for war. March 17 marked the principal feast day of Mars, and March 23 marked the official commencement of the year’s military campaigning season. Remember that Mars was originally both a war god and an agriculture god, specifically a god who stood by with spear and shield to defend people’s farms and crops. It isn’t unheard of today for the weather to be unpredictable and for sudden unexpected cold snaps to occur well into Spring. In fact, where I live, chilly weather persists even into mid-May This could be problematic for the soldiers of the Roman Army who were expected to march off to battle as well as for farmers who had just planted their crops. What happens if your seeds are sprouting, and then the temperature suddenly drops or there’s a freak snowstorm, and all of your plants die? If all of your crops which you were hoping to harvest get wiped out, then lean times will be ahead and famine will set in. So it’s likely that the ritual of the Mamuralia has nothing to do with the legend of Mamurius Veturius. Instead, it was likely an act of symbolically driving out “Old Man Winter” so that the upcoming campaigning season as well as farmers’ fields would not be marred by sudden frosts or unseasonable snowstorms (Versnel, H. S. Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman Religion, Volume II: Transition and reversal in myth and ritual, Second Edition. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994. Page 297). The banishment of Winter was a feature which was carried out in numerous other cultures, such as in the Celtic world on May 1.
Please check out the rest of my “Today in Ancient Rome” series for more articles on the ancient Roman calendar. You can find the whole list by clicking here!
Bibliography
The Latin Library. “Ovid, Fasti, Liber III”. https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/ovid/ovid.fasti3.shtml.
Ovid, Fasti, book 3, “March 14”. Translated by A. S. Kline (2004). https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/OvidFastiBkThree.php.
Lydus, Johannes. De Mensibus, book 3, chapter 49. Translated by Mischa Hooker (2013).
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Lydus/4/March*.html.
Fowler, William Warde. The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic: An Introduction to the Study of the Religion of the Romans. London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1899.
Frazer, James George. The Fasti of Ovid, Volume 3: Commentary on Books 3 and 4. Edinburgh: R. & R. Clark, Ltd., 1929.
Habinek, Thomas N. The World of Roman Song: From Ritualized Speech to Social Order. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.
Versnel, H. S. Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman Religion, Volume II: Transition and reversal in myth and ritual, Second Edition. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994.
Woodward, Roger D. Myth, Ritual, and the Warrior in Roman and Indo-European Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
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