Anna Perenna and the source of the eternal return

di Ascanio Modena Altieri
cover: Ferdinand Keller, “A classical landscape”, 1902
originally published on The Dissident Intellectual

 

We have already had the opportunity to know some holidays of our ancient calendar [cf. Lupercalia: the cathartic celebrations of Februa], but what revolves around celebrations is not always easily visible or conceivable. The cult of Anna Perenna is projected and dispersed many centuries ago with respect to the sources and archaeological finds that will be discussed.

Starting from an etymological analysis, we immediately discover that the divinity in question has the first key to understanding in its name. The Sanskrit word "Anna"- which in Latin will give life to the term"Annona”- indicates the grain of rice or boiled wheat, in a broader sense it can be combined with the mystical food, in the last instance when the water flows; always from Sanskrit, the word "Full”Can be compared to ours: full, perfect or complete. The comparison with the Goddess of the Hindu pantheon Annapoorṇā, avatara of Parvati, wife of Shiva, whose literal meaning corresponds to "She who has much food to give" seems well founded.

Just by probing the semantic origin, we can affirm the primordial Indo-Arian origin of the divinity, a sacred figure deeply stratified in the millenary myth and destined to immerse himself more in the western and indigenous spiritual world. None more than Ovid in his own Glories, tells us in detail about the cult and the numerous origins that cover the Nymph. By its very nature, the unfinished epic poem of the prolific author from Sulmont, rediscovered and gave new evidence, within the great project of religious restoration initiated by the Divus Augustus, to prisque and ancestral cults [cf. Blood, Gens, Genius: familiar rites in ancient Rome], obviously still practiced, but of which the officiants and worshipers themselves remembered little or nothing.

Anna Perenna thus became the sister of Dido, who fled after the suicide of the founder and queen of Carthage, to then finally reach Lazio, where the cult was consolidated first passing through Laurento, then Boville and finally in Rome. Aeneas welcomed Anna with favor, however she attracted the envy of Lavinia and, after a prodigious nocturnal vision of her deceased sister, who urged her to flee from the Pio's welcome, decided to escape, but ended up a victim of the waves of the Corniger River Numicius. . From a noble fugitive of Phoenician lineage, Anna thus became a deity linked to abundance and prosperity.

The search teams did not take long to mobilize, but the apotheosis had already occurred. Ovid gives us some words, apparently heard by those who first approached Anna's last visible footprints:

I am the nymph of the placid Numicius; hidden in an everlasting river (amnis perennis), my name is Anna Perenna.

Thus a new cultic tradition began. Ovid gives us numerous insights into Perenna's origins, including this curious following:

There are those who believe that this goddess is the Moon, because with her months she completes the circle (annus); others think she is the goddess of justice, Themis, others the cow of Inaco, Io. You would also find those who say that you are a nymph, daughter of Atlas, and that you, Anna, gave the first nourishment to Jupiter.

This last part, centered on the nurse Anna of Jupiter, naturally leads us back to some events of theAnnada Mangal Sanskrit poem written by the Bengali Bharatchandra Ray between 1752 and 1753. In this text, Shiva is dispensed with boiled rice by Annapoorṇā. To support the strong bond between these two divine entities, yet another episode comes to our aid, again narrated to us by Ovid: it was 494 BC, the year of the first. plebis secession, the excited moments in which the plebs, eager to have greater rights recognized, if not equal to those of the patriciate, decided to move in large quantities to the Mgr Priest, the hill north of Rome near the Aniene, in what historians define as one of the very first strikes in history.

During the days that would have seen the plebs recognized their representativeness by means of the tribunes, the aediles and the concilium plebis from which they were elected, the legend is tangled in the ascertained chronicle. Present among the crowd was an old woman with white hair, named Anna, from the suburbs of Boville: the beloved little woman did her best every morning for the health of the revolting plebs by kneading scones with her trembling hands, which were then still hot dispensed between the various strikers. Having obtained the desired results, the people returned to Rome and decided to erect, at her expense, a statue of old Anna, who had taken such great care of them.

Like Annapoorṇā, the woman honored by the Romans was the giver of food and joy, therefore, she was subsequently assimilated to the figure of the Magna mater. Again Ovid, tells us a last nice story about Anna Perenna, in the guise of an elderly lady and not very pleasant to the eye, and the God Mars, in love with the virgin Minerva:

Anna had recently been made a goddess and Mars goes to her, takes her aside and gives her this speech: "You are venerated during the month dedicated to me, I have combined my season with yours and I place great hope in the services that I you can give. Armed God, for the army Minerva I burn, enraptured by love, and for a long time I have kept this wound alive. You must ensure that we, gods similar in inclinations, unite in one: these roles suit you, dear old friend. " […] She believes her to be her lover and prepares her bed; Anna leads there, her face veiled like a new bride. As he is about to kiss her, suddenly Mars recognizes Anna from her: shame and anger shake the mocked god. You play a lefty shot at the lover; you, new goddess, are dear to Minerva, and for Venus there was never anything more pleasing. Therefore, ancient jokes and obscene jokes are sung, and one rejoices in Anna's deception of the great god.

This event, with its blatantly comic hues, allows us to delve into the details of the cult in honor of the Nymph. The ides of March, day 15, a date that became disastrous after the tragic patricide, were dedicated to Anna Perenna; in fact, according to the archaic calendar, it was not only the beginning of the new year, but also the coming and going of spring: Anna thus returned to being the mistress of temporal flows and telluric rebirths. During that day, Ovid always tells us how many people, especially plebeians, happily went towards a grove that stood near the current area of ​​Monti Parioli, where there was a wonderful source of clear water. It is no coincidence that the assassins of Divo Cesare decided to act on that day, just when Rome was semi-deserted.

It was a feast bordering on the orgy, a rite of perdition but at the same time of rediscovery with a natural and spiritual dimension that could no longer be perceived in the urban world. People stretched out on the meadows of the woods and under the foliage of the trees, some even created tents for themselves using sticks and well-stretched togas, the girls enjoyed chasing each other with their hair down in the wind - unthinkable for Roman decency - while they drank I can't do it any more, diluting the wine with the cool water that gushed from the ancestral source. Ovid in this regard, gives us a funny detail:

Meanwhile, heated by the sun and the wine, they pray to live as many years as the mugs they drink, count and drink them: you would find men who drank more than Nestor's years and women who would have the age of the Sibyl, for how many glasses are made.

Anna reaffirms herself once again, holder of a power linked to the flow, not only of liquids and solids intended as nutrients, but also of the aeons. At the end of the day, after arcane woodland competitions and wild group dances in circles, the parades of red-faced worshipers returned to the city and those who met them on their way tended to be pleased with them, calling them lucky.

But beyond the literary sources, are we able today to confirm the concrete presence of this cult? The answer is yes and more. In October 1999 in Rome, on the corner between Piazza Euclide and Via Guidobaldo del Monte, during excavations for the construction of an underground car park, at a depth between 6,2 and 10,3 meters, a inestimable quantity of finds related to the cult of Anna Perenna and as if that were not enough, a double limestone cistern was finally found: the source had been rediscovered.

A month later the superintendency was mobilized and the work was dutifully interrupted; shortly after it was noticed that there was, exactly at the end of the two hills between Via Civivini and Via Archimede, where the source was rediscovered, an aquifer still active and undoubtedly monumentalized in the Republican era. The archaeological work allows us to accurately date the construction and use of the complex: it is a fountain with a double rectangular basin dating back to the XNUMXth century BC based on a Greek model, in fact it was equipped with a large cistern behind and slightly raised above the fountain. .

From the large collection tank, also used for watering livestock and for many other practices that we will see shortly, pipes that allowed the water to flow out and be collected inside the fountain proper, intended to be used by passers-by and worshipers. This was embellished with some votive stones and a small altar on which it is written: "Nymphis sacratis Annae Perennae"Or" To the nymphs consecrated to Anna Perenna "with the presence of a date: April 5, 156 bp, which makes the find even more rare and precious. A similar temporal indication - reigned the Divo Antonino Pio - leads us to think that there may have been a real mystery apparatus behind this cult, but this, at the moment, we cannot confirm.

If at first the source was used for the rites to Anna Perenna, with the prolongation of the imperial age, the extreme orientalization and the affirmation of the mystery cults, the source became in late antiquity the meeting point of numerous professional sorcerers and magicians . You could meet, around the cistern, many users of the occult arts, especially dedicated to what today can be defined as black magic, already badly viewed at the time because it was linked to the vast world of superstitions, absolutely not congenial and scarcely acceptable by the traditional apparatus. Roman. Thus we enter, on tiptoe, in a field that has kept only the triggering will of those who have entrusted themselves to witchcraft.

The cistern, after a series of careful excavations, has given us a vast series of excellently preserved finds and today exhibited at the National Roman Museum of the Baths of Diocletian: 549 coins from the time of the Divo Augusto up to the malevolent Theodosius, offered as they used to do in the sanctuaries - the coins prior to the first Prince were probably collected and reused after a restoration - 74 terracotta lamps for ritual use, some containing small curses, some clay tablets with magical texts engraved on them, nine lead containers containing seven anthropomorphic figurines, three large ceramic jugs, a copper cauldron - the famous shitbus- used specifically for the creation of magical potions with obvious burn marks, seven pine cones, various egg shells, lamellae and tablets made with various types of wood.

We are back in possession of a treasure that is as wonderful as it is dark and rich in symbolism that deserve a worthy analysis. Considering that the source will be used approximately up to the sixth century BC, we cannot be surprised at how the populace dedicated itself more to esoteric and magical religiosity, in the absence of a decayed cultual structure of a plural state, such as the Roman syncretic polytheism. They thus reappear in the light tavoloe defixionum containing the well-known definitions, from Latin define, nail, penetrate, block, or curses, directed towards something or someone, usually engraved on lead sheets prepared for every occasion, from the cruel wish to the most pauper request. This archaic form of goetia - black magic practiced and developed by King Solomon - was mainly the victims of charioteers or referees, but also many political and amorous opponents, who were represented on the plate or by means of wax dolls, where they were engraved various magical and ominous symbols.

This was a sector where experts were definitely and necessarily required, it was no coincidence therefore, to find people known for their skills in mastering the arcane subjects near this source towards the fourth century BC, an era in which uncertainty spiritual and the spasmodic search for earthly wealth will lead many of the populace to rely on cults that provided for a wide use of occult and magical forces.

To permeate these practices we find - also thanks to the tablets found - some well-known figures in the Mithraic and Gnostic world, such as the powerful God Abraxas [cf. The primordial and triple god: esoteric and iconographic correspondences in ancient traditions], great Aeon and Father Ingenerate, immense and mysterious bridge between the Zoroastrian East and the traditional Roman West. On some tablets and containers, Abraxas sometimes becomes a defender and symbol of invincibility, in others a persecutor and punisher, confirming the nature of God as the highest point of conjunction between the realities of good and evil, of light and darkness, between Ahura Mazda and Ahriman and further afield, supreme symbolic syncretism between polytheism and monotheism.