Hilaria

The Hilaria ( /hɪ.'lɑː.ɹi.ə/, Latin "the cheerful ones", a term derived from the borrowed adjective Ancient Greek: ἱλαρός "cheerful, merry") were ancient Roman religious festivals celebrated on the March equinox to honor Cybele.

Contents

• Festival structure
• Other
• References

The Romans took this feast originally from the Greeks, who called it Ἀνάβασις, Latin Ascensus: the eve of that day they spent in tears and lamentations, calling it Κατάβασις (Latin Dēscensus). Greek writers later borrowed the Latin name as Ἱλάρια, as appears from Photios I of Constantinople's Bibliotheca in his codex of the life of the philosopher Isidore of Alexandria.

The term seems originally to have been a name which was given to any day or season of rejoicing. The hilaria were, therefore, according to Maximus the Confessor either private or public. Among the former, he thinks it the day on which a person married, and on which a son was born; among the latter, those days of public rejoicings appointed by a new emperor. Such days were devoted to general rejoicings and public sacrifices, and no one was allowed to show any symptoms of grief or sorrow.

But the Romans also celebrated hilaria, as a feria stativa, on March 25, the eighth day before the Calends of April, in honor of Cybele, the mother of the gods; and it is probably to distinguish these hilaria from those mentioned above, that the Augustan History calls them Hilaria Matris Deûm. The day of its celebration was the first after the vernal equinox, or the first day of the year which was longer than the night. The winter with its gloom had died, and the first day of a better season was spent in rejoicings. The manner of its celebration during the time of the republic is unknown, except that Valerius Maximus mentions games in honour of the mother of the gods. Respecting its celebration at the time of the empire, Herodian writes that, among other things, there was a solemn procession, in which the statue of the goddess was carried, and before this statue were carried the most costly specimens of template and works of art belonging either to wealthy Romans or to the emperors themselves. All kinds of games and amusements were allowed on this day; masquerades were the most prominent among them, and everyone might, in his disguise, imitate whomsoever he liked, and even magistrates.