Anna Perenna

Anna Perenna (Latin perennis year or constantly recurring) is one of the many "small" goddesses of ancient Rome. Presumably ( according to Franz Altheim ) it comes from the Etruscan mythology, where they constituted a Erdmuttergöttin, and was adopted by the Romans.

Anna Perenna was on March 15, with a general feast in her grove at the first milestone of the Via Flaminia honored ( Feriae Annae Perennae ), was apparently drunk at the abundant. So many years of life you wanted when it became possible to drink cups, danced and sang whatever they knew, but especially obscene songs.

After one of the stories told by Ovid, the festival dates back to an old woman named Anna from the Bovilla district, the starving plebeians daily brought home-baked cakes while the stands fighting between patricians and plebeians and thus saved them from starvation. This Aischrologien, singing obscene songs at the festival, go back to a trick which the newly deified Anna 've played the God Mars: Mars was in love with the chaste Minerva and Anna had asked for immorality. The first was put off him and when that no longer went to a veil bridal presented as Minerva, the bawdy jokes at the festival would remember this successful prank that Anna had played the god of war.

Alternatively, is identified by Ovid Anna Perenna with Anna, the sister of Dido.