Neptune Day: How Ancient Roman Celebration Became Modern Foam Parties

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

This holiday ceased to exist either at the very beginning of our era, or even earlier, but some of its attributes, sometimes in a greatly changed form, have survived to this day. The ancient Romans initially worshiped several gods who personified different forces of nature, in particular, Neptune, who at first was the god of rivers and lakes, and not the entire ocean. But he was still considered a very important deity, and in the summer, in a particularly hot time, holidays were held in his honor - they tried to appease Neptune so that he would end the drought and give people more water for irrigating fields and vegetable gardens.

Very little is known about the most ancient traditions of the holiday dedicated to Neptune. Only that the Romans celebrated it for two days and all this time they lived not in their own houses, but in huts, specially built for this purpose on the banks of the river.

Victims - bulls and bystanders

Later, when the Romans "borrowed" the mythology of the ancient Greeks, the Greek god of the seas and oceans Poseidon "merged" in their minds with Neptune. Now this deity began to control, as they would say now, all the water resources of the planet. And it was the third most important in the pantheon - after Jupiter and Saturn, just as the Greeks had Poseidon third after Zeus and Hades.

Accordingly, the holiday in honor of the god of the seas has become much more solemn. The exact date of Neptunals has appeared: now they were celebrated on July 23 and 24. As before, those wishing to take part in the celebration temporarily moved to huts on the seashore or on the river. On the first day, a bull was sacrificed to Neptune - either the most beautiful, most often white, or the largest. And then various sports competitions began, including for those who knew how, in swimming, and just great fun when people bathed, splashed water at each other and threw everyone who was nearby - even those who did not participate in a holiday and just walked by on some business.

The celebrants spent the night from 23 to 24 July in huts, and they went to bed very late, almost in the morning, and before that they walked along the shore and swam. The Neptunals were especially fun in cities and towns located on the seashore - the participants of the holiday, who knew how to swim, almost never got out of the water, swaying on the waves and throwing sea foam at each other.

Step to another hemisphere

The Roman Empire fell into decay, and then completely ceased to exist, many holidays celebrated in it, including the largest, Saturnalia, ceased to exist, and only the celebrations in honor of Neptune were surprisingly not completely forgotten. Apparently, this holiday turned out to be so "tenacious", thanks to the sailors, who at all times were very sensitive to the observance of traditions. It was especially important for them to appease the god of the seas or just the water element, and therefore they preserved the Roman tradition, making some amendments to it related to the fact that they had to celebrate the day of Neptune not on the coast, but on the high seas.

It was too dangerous to swim, jumping from the deck into the ocean, so those who wanted to give praise to the sea god began to be dipped into the water, lowered on a rope. And this was done now not necessarily on any particular day - more often than not, the sailors had fun in this way during the calm, when the sailing ship stood still and they had nothing to do.

Most often, such calm days happened in the equatorial region, and, in the end, the days of Neptune among sailors became strongly associated with the crossing of the Equator: a new tradition has appeared to dunk not everyone in the water, but only those who first get from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern. This custom has survived to this day, although ships no longer need sails and do not make forced stops. On the ropes, however, these days people are not lowered into the ocean; they can easily pour water from a bucket on the deck.

The more foam, the more interesting

The ancient Roman tradition of swimming in the waves near the coast and throwing flakes of foam into the air has also survived to this day - in the form of beach parties popular in Western countries. In recent years, with the invention of devices that generate huge clubs of eco-friendly foam, these parties have become known as foam and are especially fun. You can not only throw such foam, you can hide in it or try to blindly determine who exactly is floating next to you - the Romans could not even dream of such a thing!

One Day of Neptune is Not Enough

In Russia, a summer holiday associated with water has even partially retained its name. With the advent of the first pioneer camps, Neptune Day became the main summer entertainment for both children and adults. At first, it was arranged once, in the middle of summer, that is, on July 15 or 16, but then they began to hold it in the middle of each month, so that every shift could take part in the fun.

Having become a child's, this holiday has become even more spectacular and creative. Now its obligatory attribute is a costumed procession along the shore of the reservoir, in which Neptune with a trident and a huge beard, mermaids, aquatic and other mythical heroes living in the water participate. This is followed by a small play with these characters, the script of which is often invented by the children themselves, together with the counselors, and everything ends with the traditional dipping into water or pouring from a bucket of everyone who is on the shore and does not have time to escape. The ancient Roman Neptune would undoubtedly like all this …

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