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Subscriber: null; date: 18 May 2025

strenaelocked

strenaelocked

  • J. Linderski

Subjects

  • Roman Myth and Religion

Strenae, originally the luck-bringing (mostly laurel) twigs (from the grove of the goddess Strenia), also figs, honey-cakes, and dates; later any gifts, lamps, coins, and even gold, exchanged by the Romans (and accompanied by good wishes) on New Year's Day. In the case of the houses of the rex sacrorum and the major flamines, the temple of Vesta, and the curiae (see curia (1)), the laurel branches were placed there on 1 March, the old New Year (FestusGloss. Lat. 408; Ov.Fast. 1. 175–226; 3. 137–42; Suet.Aug. 57; Tib. 34; Mart. 8. 33; 13. 27; Macrob.Sat. 1. 12. 6; Symm., Relat. 7, 15; Lydus, Mens. 4. 4; ILS 7214). Hence the meaning of strena as ‘good omen’ (already in Plautus). The custom was (unsuccessfully) combated by the Church (cf. August; Serm. 198. 2).

Bibliography

  • B. Curran and F. Williams, Liverpool Classical Monthly 1981, 209 ff..
  • D. Baudy, Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 1987, 1 ff..
  • F. Graf in Ansichten griechischer Rituale (1998), 199 ff..
  • N. W. Goldman, in New Light from Ancient Cosa (2001), 91 ff.