IDIBUS JUNIUS (13 June) Nefast Publica

Come, golden-haired Minerva, and favor the task I have begun (Ovid Fasti 6.652).

Quinquatrus Minusculae

During 13-15 June the public flute-players (tibicines Romanorum) would share a meal at the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline, and afterwards gathered with other flute-players at the Aventine temple to make offerings to their patron goddess Minerva before carousing the streets in masked revelry (Varro L.L. 6.17; Ovid Fasti 649-92, Val. Max. 2.5.4). The particular flute-players who celebrate these days were the collegium tibicinum Romanorum qui sacris publicus praesto sunt Iovi Epuloni sacrum. Ovid and Livy tell the story of how the flute-players had become angry that the censors denied them the right to celebrate their meal with Jupiter, and in 311 BCE they then left together for Tibur (Livy 9.30). They were not the only ones upset by the censores, as the consules refused to accept the list of senators submitted by them. At the request of the Roman Senate the people of Tibur used a ruse, wining and dining the pipers until they fell asleep, and then carried them back to Rome, depositing them in the Forum in carts. The Senate then agreed that the pipers could hold an annual three-day festival, and that those flute-players who performed at public sacrifices would be allowed to hold their epulonium with Jupiter. Ovid's version tells why the Senate made these concessions, since in addition to halting public sacrifices and the taking of auguries, no funerals or private marriages could be performed, or theater shows to the Gods.

Temple of Jupiter Invictus, 192 BCE