Pales
Pales, an Italian goddess of shepherds and pastures
- the tutelary deity of shepherds and cattle: Pales dicebatur dea pastorum, cujus festa Palilia dicebantur; vel, ut alii volunt, dicta Parilia, quod pro partu pecoris eidem sacra fiebant, Fest. p. 222 Müll.: ipsa Pales agros ... reliquit, Verg. E. 5, 35: silvicolam tepido lacte precare Palem, Ov. F. 4, 746; Tib. 1, 1, 14 (36): fecunda, Calp. Ecl. 7, 22.
a Roman divinity of flocks and shepherds, is described by some as a male, and by others as a female divinity; whence some modern writers have inferred that Pales was a combination of both sexes; but such a monstrosity is altogether foreign to the religion of the Romans. (Verg. A. 3.1, 297, Georg. 3.1; Serv. ad Virg. Eclog. 5.35; Ov. Fast. 4.721, 746, 766; Dionys. A. R. 1.88 ; Athen. 8.361.) Some of the rites performed at the festival of Pales, which was celebrated on the 21 st of April, the birth-day of the city of Rome, would indeed seem to indicate, that the divinity was a female character; but besides the express statements to the contrary (Serv. ad Virg. Georg. 3.1; Arnob. ad v. Gent. 3.23; Martian. cap. i. p. 27), there also are other reasons for believing that Pales was a male divinity. The name seems to be connected with Palatinus, the centre of all the earliest legends of Rome, and the god himself was with the Romans the embodiment of the same idea as Pan among the Greeks. Respecting the festival of the Palilia see Dict. of Ant. s. v. (Hartung, Die Relig. der Röm. vol. ii. p. 148, &c.) [L.S]
- PA-, an Italian goddess of shepherds and pastures, V., O.
The Italian goddess of shepherds and pastoral life. Her festival, the Palilia or Parilia, held on April 21st, was properly a herdsmen's festival to promote the fruitfulness of the flocks and to purify the sacred groves and fountains from all unintentional injury or pollution caused by the herds. It was deemed the anniversary of the founding of Rome, the former abode of shepherds. Accordingly, it was celebrated at Rome, as in the villages, by the whole of the inhabitants, with the ancient rites of a shepherds' festival. It was customary to purify house, steading, and sheep with sulphur, and, as a special means of expiation, to offer incense, together with a mixture of the blood of the October equus (q. v.), the ashes of the unborn calf which was burned at the feast of Tellus, and bean-straw which was obtained from the Vestals. When these solemn purifications were over, the cheerful part of the festival began. Bonfires were made of straw and hay; the shepherds leaped across them thrice; cakes of millet were also offered to the goddess; and the festival was concluded by a feast in the open air. After the second century of our era the festival was combined with that of Dea Roma, and was celebrated as her birthday with festal processions and Circensian games, which continued till the fifth century A.D.
There seems to have been at one time a male deity of the name Pales (Arnob. iii. 40), but the masculine form had fallen into disuse in classical times. The word contains the root of the verb pasco, and hence means “the Feeder” or “Pasturer.”