Junonalia

{{Short description|Roman festival}}

File:Arte romana, cameo in sardonice con due mebri della famiglia imperiale come giove ammone e giunone (o iside), 37-50 dc.JPG (ca. 37–50) depicting two members of the imperial family as Jupiter Ammon and Juno-IsisCameo, British Museum, reg. no. [https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_1899-0722-1 1899,0722.1].]]

The Iunonalia or Junonalia was a Roman festival in honor of Juno, held on March 7 (the Nones). Among extant Roman calendars, it appears only in the Calendar of Filocalus (354 AD),Michele Renee Salzman, On Roman Time: The Codex Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (University of California Press, 1990), pp. 125, 161. and was added to the festival calendar after the mid-1st century AD.Joseph Patrich, Studies in the Archaeology and History of Caesarea Maritima (Brill, 2011), p. 84.

The Junonalia is attested also in a fragmentary poem De Iunonalibus, attributed to Claudian.Salzman, On Roman Time, p. 161. In it, Juno is addressed as mistress of the celestial pole, and the spouse and sister of the king of heaven. Her function as a goddess of marital bonds is also noted. Although the text is conjectural at this point, she may be asked to grant a return.Carmen 750, in Alexander Riese, Anthologia Latina. Carmina in codicibus scripta (Teubner, 1906), p. 233.

The Junonalia may have concluded a three-day festival begun March 5 with the Isidis Navigium, the "Sailing of Isis."Patrich, Studies in the Archaeology and History of Caesarea Maritima, pp. 84–85. In the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, Isis is addressed as Queen of Heaven, and by the 2nd century a number of goddesses, including Juno, shared the epithet Caelestis.Stephen Benko, The Virgin Goddess: Studies in the Pagan and Christian Roots of Mariology (Brill, 2004), pp. 112–114.