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In the Roman Empire, Rosalia or Rosaria was a festival of roses celebrated on various dates, primarily in May, but scattered through mid-July. The observance is sometimes called a ''rosatio'' ("rose-adornment") or the ''dies rosationis'', "day of rose-adornment," and could be celebrated also with violets ''(violatio'', an adorning with violets, also ''dies violae'' or ''dies violationis'', "day of the ").〔C.R. Phillips, ''The Oxford Classical Dictionary,'' edited by Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spawforth (Oxford University Press, 1996, 3rd edition), p. 1335; ''CIL'' 6.10264, 10239, 10248 and others. Other names include ''dies rosalis,'' ''dies rosae'' and ''dies rosaliorum'': ''CIL'' 3.7576, 6.10234, 6.10239, 6. 10248.〕 As a commemoration of the dead, the ''rosatio'' developed from the custom of placing flowers at burial sites. It was among the extensive private religious practices by means of which the Romans cared for their dead, reflecting the value placed on tradition ''(mos maiorum'', "the way of the ancestors"), family lineage, and memorials ranging from simple inscriptions to grand public works. Several dates on the Roman calendar were set aside as public holidays or memorial days devoted to the dead.〔Peter Toohey, "Death and Burial in the Ancient World," in ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome'' (Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 366–367.〕 As a religious expression, a ''rosatio'' might also be offered to the cult statue of a deity or to other revered objects. In May, the Roman army celebrated the ''Rosaliae signorum'', rose festivals at which they adorned the military standards with garlands. The rose festivals of private associations and clubs are documented by at least forty-one inscriptions in Latin and sixteen in Greek, where the observance is often called a ''rhodismos''.〔Christina Kokkinia, "Rosen für die Toten im griechischen Raum und eine neue Rodismos Bithynien," ''Museum Helveticum'' 56 (1999), pp. 209–210, noting that ''rhodismos'' is attested in glosses as equivalent to ''rosalia''.〕 Flowers were traditional symbols of rejuvenation, rebirth, and memory, with the red and purple of roses and violets felt to evoke the color of blood as a form of propitiation.〔Patricia Cox Miller, ''The Corporeal Imagination: Signifying the Holy in Late Ancient Christianity'' (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), p. 74.〕 Their blooming period framed the season of spring, with roses the last of the flowers to bloom and violets the earliest.〔Christer Henriksén, ''A Commentary on Martial, ''Epigrams'' Book 9'' (Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 59, citing Pliny, ''Natural History'' 21.64–65 and Martial, ''Epigram'' 9.11.1.〕 As part of both festive and funerary banquets, roses adorned "a strange repast ... of life and death together, considered as two aspects of the same endless, unknown process."〔Marcu Beza, ''Paganism in Romanian Folklore'' (J.M. Dent, 1928), p. 43.〕 In some areas of the Empire, the Rosalia was assimilated to floral elements of spring festivals for Dionysus, Adonis and others, but rose-adornment as a practice was not strictly tied to the cultivation of particular deities, and thus lent itself to Jewish and Christian commemoration.〔A.S. Hooey, "Rosaliae signorum," ''Harvard Theological Review'' 30.1 (1937), p. 30; Kathleen E. Corley, ''Marantha: Women's Funerary Rituals and Christian Origins'' (Fortress Press, 2010), p. 19; Kokkinia, "Rosen für die Toten," p. 208; on Jewish commemoration, Paul Trebilco, ''Jewish Communities in Asia Minor'' (Cambridge University Press, 1991, 1994 reprint), pp. 78–81.〕 Early Christian writers transferred the imagery of garlands and crowns of roses and violets to the cult of the saints. ==Cultural and religious background== In Greece and Rome, wreaths and garlands of flowers and greenery were worn by both men and women for festive occasions.〔Mireille M. Lee, "Clothing," in ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome,'' p. 231.〕 Garlands of roses and violets, combined or singly, adorn erotic scenes, bridal processions, and drinking parties in Greek lyric poetry from the Archaic period onward.〔C. M. Bowra, ''Greek Lyric Poetry: From Alcman to Simonides'' pp. 108, 191, 264; Patricia A. Rosenmeyer, ''The Poetics of Imitation: Anacreon and the Anacreontic Tradition'' (Cambridge University Press, 1992), ''(passim. )''〕 In Latin literature, to be "in the roses and violets" meant experiencing carefree pleasure.〔Henriksén, ''A Commentary on Martial,'' p. 59, citing Cicero, ''Tusculan Disputations'' 5.73.〕 Floral wreaths and garlands "mark the wearers as celebrants and likely serve as an expression of the beauty and brevity of life itself."〔Karen K. Hersch, ''The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity'' (Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 91.〕 Roses and violets were the most popular flowers at Rome for wreaths, which were sometimes given as gifts.〔Henriksén, ''A Commentary on Martial,'' p. 256, citing Martial 9.60; Pliny, ''Natural History'' 21.14; Ovid, ''Metamorphoses'' 12.410; Statius, ''Silvae'' 1.2.22. Ludwig Friedländer, ''Roman Life and Manners under the Early Empire'', translated by A.B. Gough (Routledge,1913), vol. 4, pp. 144–145, notes that Roman ''violae'' may at times refer to the wallflower or stock as well as violets.〕 Flowers were associated with or offered to some deities, particularly the goddesses Aphrodite (Roman Venus), Persephone〔Monica S. Cyrino, ''Aphrodite'' (Routledge, 2010), p. 36; ''Corinth. The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore: Terracotta Figurines of the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman Periods'' (ASCSA, 2000), vol. 18, pt. 4, pp. 124–125.〕 (Proserpina), and Chloris〔Ada Cohen, "Mythic Landscapes of Greece," in ''The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology'' (Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 316.〕 (Flora). Roses and fragrances are a special attribute of Aphrodite,〔Cyrino, ''Aphrodite,'' pp. 35–39; Ian Du Quesnay, "Three Problems in Poem 66," in ''Catullus: Poems, Books, Reader'' (Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 165–166.〕 and also of Dionysus, particularly in Imperial-era poetry as a wine god for drinking parties or with the presence of Eros ("Love, Desire").〔M.L. West, "The ''Anacreontea''," in ''Hellenica: Selected Papers on Greek Literature and Thought. Volume II: Lyric and Drama'' (Oxford University Press, 2013), vol. 2, pp. 388–389; Laura Miguélez-Cavero, ''Poems in Context: Greek Poetry in the Egyptian Thebaid 200-600 AD'' (Walter de Gruyter, 2008), pp. 130–134 (on the wine of Dionysus as having a potent fragrance that competes with that of flowers such as roses); Xavier Riu, ''Dionysism and Comedy'' (Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), p. 108; Edoarda Barra-Salzédo, ''En soufflant la grâce: Âmes, souffles et humeurs en Grèce ancienne'' (Jérôme Villon, 2007), p. 178.〕 The Greek romance novel ''Daphnis and Chloe'' (2nd century AD) describes a pleasure garden, with roses and violets among its abundant flora, centered on a sacred space for Dionysus.〔A.R. Littlewood, "Ancient Literary Evidence for the Pleasure Gardens of Roman Country Villas," in ''Ancient Roman villa Gardens,'' Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture 10 (Dumbarton Oaks, 1987), p. 28.〕 At Rome Venus was a goddess of gardens as well as love and beauty.〔Michael Lipka, ''Roman Gods: A Conceptual Approach'' (Brill, 2009), p. 42.〕 Venus received roses at her ritual cleansing ''(lavatio)'' on April 1 and at the wine festival (Vinalia) celebrated in her honor April 23.〔Ovid, ''Fasti'' 4.138 and 869f.; Hooey, "Rosaliae signorum," p. 27.〕 A lavish display of flowers was an expression of conviviality and liberal generosity. An Imperial-era business letter surviving on papyrus attempts to soothe a bridegroom's mother upset that the rose harvest was insufficient to fill her order for the wedding; the suppliers compensated by sending 4,000 narcissus instead of the 2,000 she requested.〔''Oxyrhynchus Papyri'' 331.1–21; ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome,'' p. 30.〕 While flowers were a part of Roman weddings, the bridegroom was more likely than the bride to wear a flower crown; Statius (1st century AD) describes a groom as wearing a wreath of roses, violets, and lilies.〔Statius, ''Silvae'' 1.20; Hersch, ''The Roman Wedding,'' p. 90.〕 When the emperor made a formal arrival ''(adventus)'' at a city, garlands of flowers might be among the gestures of greeting from the welcome delegation.〔"Triumph," in ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece eand Rome,'' p. 123.〕 According to an account in the ''Historia Augusta'' ("presumably fictional"), the decadent emperor Heliogabalus buried the guests at one of his banquets in an avalanche of rose petals.〔''The Classical Tradition'', edited by Anthony Grafton, Glenn W. Most, Salvatore Settis (Harvard University Press, 2010), p. 524.〕 In Greek culture, the ''phyllobolia'' was the showering of a victorious athlete or bridal couple with leaves or flower petals.〔Stephen G. Miller, ''The Berkeley Plato'' (University of California Press, 2009), p. 43; Bruno Currie, ''Pindar and the Cult of Heroes'' (Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 141; John H. Oakley and Rebecca H. Sinos, ''The Wedding in Ancient Athens'' (University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), p. 27.〕 Classical mythology preserves a number of stories in which blood and flowers are linked in divine metamorphosis.〔Miller, ''The Corporeal Imagination,'' p. 74.〕 When Adonis, beloved of Aphrodite, was killed by a boar during a hunt, his blood produced a flower. A central myth of the Roman rites of Cybele is the self-castration of her consort Attis, from whose blood a violet-colored flower sprang. In the Gnostic text ''On the Origin of the World'', possibly dating to the early 4th century,〔Hans-Gebhard Bethge, Bentley Layton, Societas Coptica Hierosolymitana, "''On the Origin of the World'' (II,5 and XIII,2)," in ''The Nag Hammadi Library in English: The Definitive New Translation of the Gnostic Scriptures Complete in One Volume'' (Brill, 1977, rev. ed. 1996), p. 170.〕 the rose was the first flower to come into being, created from the virgin blood of Psyche ("Soul") after she united sexually with Eros.〔The examples of Attis, Adonis, ''On the Origin of the World'' from Miller, ''The Corporeal Imagination,'' p. 74.〕 In the 4th-century poem ''Cupid Crucified'' by the Gallo-Roman poet Ausonius, the god Cupid (the Roman equivalent of Eros) is tortured in the underworld by goddesses disappointed in love, and the blood from his wounds causes roses to grow.〔Miller, ''The Corporeal Imagination,'' p. 75.〕 In Egyptian religion, funerary wreaths of laurel, palm, feathers, papyrus, or precious metals represented the "crown of justification" that the deceased was to receive when he was judged in the Weighing of the Heart ceremony of the afterlife. In the Imperial period, the wreath might be roses, under the influence of the Romanized cult of Isis.〔Lorelei H. Corcoran and Marie Svoboda, ''Herakleides: A Portrait Mummy from Roman Egypt'' (Getty Publications, 2010), p. 32.〕 The statue of Isis was adorned with roses following the ''Navigium Isidis'', an Imperial holiday March 5 when a ceremonial procession represented the "sailing" of Isis.〔Apuleius, ''Metamorphoses'' 11.6.1; Miller, ''The Corporeal Imagination,'' p. 74.〕 In the ''Metamorphoses'' of Apuleius, the protagonist Lucius is transformed into an ass, and after a journey of redemption returns to human form by eating roses and becoming an initiate into the mysteries of Isis.〔 A festival called the Rhodophoria, preserved in three Greek papyri, is the "rose-bearing" probably for Isis, or may be the Greek name for the Rosalia.〔J. Gwyn Griffiths, ''Apuleius of Madaurus: The Isis-Book: (Metamorphoses, Book XI)'' (Brill, 1975), pp 160–161.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rosalia (festival)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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