Talk:Glossary of ancient Roman religion

structure into concepts

I am about to translate the article into French. I find it (sorry for the criticism) messy. I would reorganize it into concepts (as promised in the introductory chapter), for example abominari goes under omen, exauguratio under augur, effatio , putting arbor, lucus and nemus under the same concept of "wood". --Diligent (talk) 09:19, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Suggestion: Refs and notes?

Looks like the ref section might benefit from the more scholarly approach of having notes and references be separate. There are lots of repeated refs to different pages in a limited number of sources (e.g., Lintott). Lots o' work though. - Eponymous-Archon (talk) 21:08, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

fastus, nefastus, and festus definitions

According to Agnes Kirsopp Michels' book "The Calendar of the Roman Republic", the official calendrical classification was between dies fasti (days when the courts are open), ordinary dies nefasti (when the courts are not open), and special dies nefasti (marked "NP" on ancient calendar charts) which were more commonly known as feriae or dies feriati (i.e. reserved for public religious ceremonies). The words festus and profestus don't actually fit into that classification scheme, but refer to "cheerful days which should be enjoyed" and the opposite. Ordinary ancient Romans were often not fully aware of abstruse calendar technicalities, so there was already a little confusion in ancient times, and some people used the phrase dies nefasti to refer to unlucky days of ill omen etc. (and other people, such as Gellius, considered them ignorant for doing so). I'm not sure that all this is very well explained in the article as it now stands... AnonMoos (talk) 06:24, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

P.S. In the above remarks, I wasn't distinguishing dies comitiales from dies fasti (another issue discussed in the Agnes Kirsopp Michels book)... AnonMoos (talk) 09:44, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Nero's dies imperii/decennalia Oct. 13, 64 AD

Nero observed his dies imperii/decennalia - the 10-year anniversary of being emperor on October 13, 64 AD.<ref>https://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/PETEMART.HTM </ref> 2601:580:109:FFC7:3045:DC70:7800:8964 (talk) 18:00, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Funny you should mention that. I just removed that from the article and came here to explain why.

A) There's no reason to provide WP:UNDUE attention to Nero's decennalia out of all the other ones under the empire aside from dating a particular saint's supposed death as in the original source. It doesn't belong in this article even if it were an accurate date.

B) A decennalia and a dies imperii weren't the same thing. People think they generally aligned but they frequently didn't. A decennial date has no business in the dies imperii entry.

C) The source is a random (dead) webpage about one guy's conjectural retro history based on early Christian hagiography and the guy provides no further sourcing of any of his claims. In the absence of more context about how famous this guy is for his renown and cautious scholarship, it's closer to something written on a bathroom wall than to reliable sourcing.

D) On the basis of his own account, the rando hagiographer seems to have simply assumed that Nero's decennalia must have been on his dies imperii just cuz, meaning the date is entirely conjectural on his authority even if he had any (which he doesn't) and even if it belonged in the article (which it doesn't).

E) If someone stops by and has reliable sourcing for Nero's decennalia, add it to Nero's article and to the Decennalia article and to the 13 October and 64 AD articles but don't restore it here to the entry on a separate topic. — LlywelynII 09:26, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

"Arbores fanatici"

Why not "arbores fanaticae"? Is it non-classical usage? 195.187.108.130 (talk) 19:02, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Good question. That is how it appears in the secondary source (Filotas, Pagan Survivals). I will try to track down the Latin reference in Caesarius of Arles. Cynwolfe (talk) 12:25, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

So far I've failed to track down the Latin text of this sermon (53). However, I feel fairly confident that the secondary source was misled by the -or suffix into thinking the word is masculine like agent nouns in -or. In other sermons by Caesarius I've found in Latin, he knows that arbor is feminine as reflected by 1st/2nd-declension adjectives modifying arbores. I'll fix this, while hoping to live long enough to go through and improve the references in the whole glossary … Cynwolfe (talk) 14:18, 10 October 2024 (UTC)