# The Ides of February

### How shall we celebrate Ovid today?

[Fiona Forsyth](https://substack.com/@fionaforsyth1)

Feb 13, 2026

A post to celebrate Ovid, books and festivals!

Oh auspicious day! Let’s look at the Roman festivals and anniversaries celebrated on February 13th. As ever, we’ll use Ovid’s poem on the calendar, the _Fasti_, as our guide. There the poet tells us that three things were associated with this day in Rome:

1. Sacrifices to Faunus were made on Tiber Island.

_Idibus agrestis fumant altaria Fauni_

_hic ubi discretas insula rumpit aquas._

“On the Ides, the altars of rural Faunus smoke, where the island disturbs the divided waters….”

2. The Battle of the Cremera River. This is a curious one because Ovid appears to misdate it. In 477 BCE, the great family of the Fabii were fighting Rome’s enemy, the town of Veii in Etruria. All bar one of the Fabian men were slaughtered in an ambush on this day. Interestingly the other Roman historians place this battle in July. I have no idea why Ovid places it in February, but I have a good idea why Ovid mentions it - his wife was a Fabia, related to the great Fabius Maximus who was a friend of the Emperor.

3. One more festival started on the Ides, the Parentalia. For nine days, each family remembered and venerated its ancestors, with public office neglected and altars in Rome left quiet as people concentrated on their homes and households.

_Est honor et tumulis, animas placare paternas,_  
   _parvaque in exstructas munera ferre pyras._  
   _parva petunt manes: pietas pro divite grata est_  
   _munere; non avidos Styx habet ima deos._

“It’s a time to honour tombs, to appease the spirits of our fathers, to bring small offerings to pyres we have built. The spirits don’t ask for much - duty is preferred to riches. The River Styx is deep but its gods are not grasping.”

Last year, “Death and the Poet” came out in time to celebrate Ovid’s birthday (March 20th) and this year the Ides of February sees the third book in the series, “[Written in Blood](https://mybook.to/WritteninBlood)”. Auspicious and appropriate to the Parentalia, because family ties loom large in this one. Let me know what you think!

* * *