Parentalia (day 1) -- a festival for honouring/appeasing the dead began on this day with a number of signs: temples were closed, altars did not have fires burn on them, people were forbidden to get married, and magistrates set down the trappings of their office.
Fornacalia (day 1) -- this was actually a "feriae conceptivae", which means that it probably wasn't always held on the same day. Originally, it was a feast of the curiae (an early division of the Roman people) which also seems to have involved a sort of banquet for the gods, although scholars are unsure which gods were specifically honoured. Then again, Ovid claims that rural folk would pray to a divinity called Fornax.
Posted by david meadows on Feb-13-07 at 5:10 AM Drop me a line to comment on this post! Comments (which might be edited) will be appended to the original post as soon as possible with appropriate attribution.