Florals? For Spring?
The ancient goddess of flowers and the Roman festival held in her honour 🌷
Spring has SPRUNG and all of us in the Northern hemisphere are main-lining antihistamines in celebration. You may be familiar with the more famous chunk of Classical mythology that explains the change in seasons — Persephone has left the Underworld and returned to the land of the living, reuniting with her mother Demeter who is so THRILLED, she essentially releases an agricultural explosion out of joy. What you may NOT know, is that there was a goddess of flowers (🥹) who can also take partial credit.
Allow me to introduce Flora, the Roman goddess of springtime. She was in charge of flowers, of course, but she was also associated with wine and honey, watching over grapes as they grew and the blossoming flowers whose fragrance first attracts the bumbling bees.1 🐝
Unlike other, more famous deities, we’re not working with 60+ myths, each more unhinged than the last. Most of what we know about this goddess comes from Ovid; he covers Flora’s marriage to the wind god Zephyros AND a completely bizarre instance of divine artificial insemination. I really don’t know how else to describe it.
When Zeus (yes, I am anachronistically using Greek names for my recap of Ovid because a) I prefer them and b) they’re more well-known therefore easier to follow) gave birth to Athena by cracking open his skull, Hera was pretty miffed. She felt excluded from the whole process (apparently the fact that Metis, the “other woman” in this case, got eaten by Zeus offered little comfort). Hera roamed around complaining and eventually ended up at Flora’s door. She explained how unfair it was, that Zeus had managed to father a child all on his own and take all the credit. Hera argued that she, too, should be able to bring forth a child without the help of a partner. Flora took some convincing—she was, understandably, terrified of Zeus and what he might do—but she eventually agreed to help after Hera swore that she’d never reveal her identity. Flora ducked out to her own personal garden and handed Hera a flower from the fields of Olenus and instructed her to touch it, assuring her that she’d immediately fall pregnant. After touching said flower, Hera instantly “bulged” (that is the verb chosen by Boyle in their translation) and later gave birth to Ares (Mars to the Romans). So there you have it, the earliest ever fertility supplement whose efficacy was, frankly, terrifying.
This myth makes it pretty clear that the Flora’s potency as a fertility goddess was well established in the minds of the Romans which, in turn, explains why they were so devoted in their worship. But if you thought they sat around, singing sweetly as they made flower crowns, you are way off. Her annual festival, Floralia, featured fully naked sex-workers flinging themselves onstage, gyrating on other performers, while goats and rabbits ran all over the place.
Also apparently in 69 AD there was a tightrope walking elephant (I have not managed to find a source that I trust enough to fully commit to this but on the off chance it’s even slightly/vaguely/remotely true I had to include it).
Floralia was associated with earlier fertility rituals—beginning as a celebration of the emergence of spring flowers—eventually becoming “increasingly risqué,”2 and closely associated with prostitution. A later tradition emerged where the goddess Flora had actually worked as a prostitute, retroactively justifying this connection.
The festival itself afforded everyone a temporary slice of licensed obscenity. It got VERY lewd, sex-workers would strip and start joining in with the mimes mid-performance, mimicking sex acts for the audience. They would also release hares and goats into the circus to add another layer of chaos to the whole situation. It got so out of hand that Cato the Younger allegedly walked out one year. Apparently attendees followed him, congratulating him on his upstanding morals, and then quickly rejoined the festivities.
Luckily we’ve got some Roman writers on hand to give us some insight into Floralia. Ovid, Cicero, and Juvenal seem to sum it up rather well:
"Now is the time when the fields are full of flowers, and fields and trees alike put on bright colours. Now is the time when laughter and jesting reign, licensed mirth and freedom in words." Ovid, Fasti V.183-184.
"The games of the Floralia, instituted for the merriment of the people, should not be mistaken for acts of virtue." Cicero, Against Verres, II.5.36.
"For who, at the Floralia, does not see the stage filled with naked actresses performing lewd gestures for the crowds?" Juvenal, Satires, VI.250-256.
Who indeed.
I must confess when I decided to host my very own Floralia as part of my seasonal symposia series I was not aware that I’d end up emailing a dozen petting zoos to try and find some rabbits for the festivities. Floppy-eared creatures aside, I am absolutely cherry-picking when it comes to the specifics of the ancient festival. There will be cocktails, delicious food cooked over fire, acrobats, dancers, and live music as well as bespoke poetry (as in a gorgeous poet literally writes a poem for you on his typewriter based on a particular memory and you get to take it home and treasure it forever), and a jewellery workshop with reclaimed gems 💎
It’s happening on Saturday the 14th of June — check out the event here (and please, as always, send the link to friends, family, sworn enemies etc.):
www.cosisodyssey.com/floralia 🌷
I am still working on booking some bunnies/baby goats for the day so if you have any leads my messages are WIDE open.
While we’re on the topic of fertility/fertility goddesses, please enjoy this bonus pic of the many-boobed Artemis of Ephesus from the Archaeological Museum of Naples. I know scholars from way back in the day cop a bunch of flack for saying anything and everything vaguely feminine is to do with fertility but it’s hard to come up with another interpretation for this sculpture. She literally has one gigantic udder.
References
Andrews, Lew. “Botticelli’s ‘Primavera’, Angelo Poliziano, and Ovid’s ‘Fasti.’” Artibus et Historiae 32, no. 63 (2011): 73–84.
Fantham, Elaine. “Ceres, Liber and Flora: Georgic and anti_Georgic Elements in Ovid’s Fasti: I The ‘Georgics’ as Model.” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, no. 38 (1992): 39–56.
Ovid. Fasti 5.
Rauh, Nicholas K., Matthew J. Dillon, and T. Davina McClain. “Ochlos Nautikos: Leisure Culture and Underclass Discontent in the Roman Maritime World.” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. Supplementary Volumes 6 (2008): 197–242.
Fantham. “Ceres, Liber and Flora.” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, no. 38 (1992): 52.
Rauh, Dillon, and McClain. “Ochlos Nautikos.” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. Supplementary Volumes 6 (2008): 211.
Totally enjoyed reading your mythology and learning about Flora! Very cool work. Keep it up. Hope your event goes well.
Love this!! What a fun, informative piece.