Fescennine Verses

Fescenninische verses (Latin Fescennini versus ) are antique wedding poems, which, in contrast to Epithalamium by exuberance characterized to coarseness, obscenity Zotenhaftigkeit. The poems were often improvised and preferred the Saturnian as meter.

Narrated are examples of the genre in the works of Catullus ( where it comes to the homosexual relationships of the groom ) and by Claudius Claudian in his objectionable largely free wedding poem Fescennina dicta Honorio Augusto et Mariae on the occasion of the wedding of the western Roman Emperor Honorius and Maria, daughter of Stilicho.

The origin of the name remains unclear. A derivation of the name of faliskischen Fescennia city in southern Etruria is possible, but remains without notice. A derivation of FASCINUM, which often phallic shaped amulet, may seem plausible, but is linguistically impossible.