Parilia
Parilia, a festival of the Roman calendar.
What it was like
Leaping the fires
On Rome's birthday, shepherds purified their flocks with sulphur smoke, laurel and sprinkled water, prayed to Pales facing east, drank milk and boiled-down wine, and then leapt with quick feet through heaps of crackling straw. Ovid insists he did it himself: three fires set in a row.
certe ego transilui positas ter in ordine flammas, / udaque roratas laurea misit aquas
“I certainly have leapt over the flames set three in a row, and the wet laurel has sprinkled its drops of water on me.”
LATIN LINE OF THE DAY
Scribere me quereris, Velox, epigrammata longa.
“You complain, Velox, that I write long epigrams.”