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Pales

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Ancient Roman pastoral deity

For other uses, seePales (disambiguation).

16th-century engraving of Pales, byCornelis Cort

Inancient Roman religion,Pales was a deity of shepherds, flocks and livestock. Regarded as male by some sources and female by others,Pales can be either singular or plural inLatin, and refers at least once to a pair of deities. Pales may have been a loose Roman equivalent of the Greek godPan, also a deity of shepherds and flocks.^[1]

Pales's festival, called theParilia, was celebrated on April 21. This coincided with the traditional "birthday" of the city of Rome itself. The festival was linked with a ritual purification for shepherds and their flocks. Sheep pens were cleaned and decorated with plants; bonfires were lit using sulphur with the smoke purifying the livestock; and offerings of cake and milk were given in honor of Pales. Shepherds could also wash themselves, drink milk, and jump through the bonfire smoke themselves. For observation in urban areas such as Rome which lacked shepherds, leftover ashes from calf fetuses burned atFordicidia (the Ides of March, April 15) may have been sprinkled into sulphur bonfires.^[1]

Marcus Atilius Regulus built a temple to Pales inRome following his victory over theSalentini in 267 BC. It is generally thought to have been located on thePalatine Hill, but, being a victory monument, it may have been located on the route of thetriumphal procession, either on theCampus Martius or theAventine Hill. According to theFasti Antiates Maiores, there was a festival for "the two Pales" (Palibus duobus) on July 7, probably to mark the dedication of this temple.^[2]

The gender of Pales is contradictory.Marcus Terentius Varro writes Pales as male,Virgil andOvid write Pales as female,^[1] and others write that there were two deities named Pales.Krzysztof Tomasz Witczak [pl] has suggested the Pales deities, or at least their name, are related to similarly namedmythemes ofdivine twins elsewhere inProto-Indo-European mythology. He cites the Sicilian pair of godsPalici and the Celtic/GermanicAlci as being potentially related.^[3]

Pales appears inpastoral plays of the 16th and 17th centuries, commonly depicted as an assistant toPan.^[4]

References

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^^a ^b ^cHowatson, Margaret C., ed. (2011). "Pālēs".The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature (Third ed.). Oxford University Press.ISBN 9780191739422.
^H.H. Scullard,Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic (Cornell University Press, 1981), p. 161.
^Witczak, Krzysztof T. (1999)."On the Indo-European origin of two Lusitanian theonyms (laebo andreve)".Emerita.67 (1):65–73.doi:10.3989/emerita.1999.v67.i1.185.ISSN 1988-8384.
^Yang, Sharon R. (2011).Goddesses, Mages, and Wise Women: The Female Pastoral Guide in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century English Drama. Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania:Susquehanna University Press. p. 87.ISBN 978-1-57591-156-4.OCLC 668403573.

Sources

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Richardson, L. (1992).A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. (p. 282)
Scullard, H.H. (1981).Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic. London: Thames and Hudson. (p. 104–105)

Religion in ancient Rome

Practices and beliefs

Priesthoods

Deities

List of Roman deities Twelve major gods Capitoline Triad Aventine Triad Underworld gods Indigitamenta
Deified leaders	Divus Julius Divus Augustus