Robigus

"Rust." (Or feminine Robigo) is described by some Latin writers as a divinity worshiped for the purpose of averting blight or too great heat from the young cornfields. The festival of the Robigalia was celebrated on the 25th of April, and was said to have been instituted by Numa.1 But considering the uncertainty of the ancients themselves as to whether the divinity was masculine or feminine, and that the Romans did not pay divine honors to any evil demon, it is highly probable that the divinity Robigus, or Robigo, is only an abstraction of the later Romans from the festival of the Robigalia.2

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References

Notes

  1. Varro. On the Latin Language vi, 16; Servius on Virgil's Georgics i, 151; Gellius, v, 12; Ovid. Fasti iv, 907, 911.
  2. Comp. Varro. Agricultural Topics i, 2.

Source

  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.

This article incorporates text from Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) by William Smith, which is in the public domain.