Aprilis in the context of "Parilia"

Martius or mensis Martius ("March") was the first month of the ancient Roman year until possibly as late as 153 BC. After that time, it was the third month, following Februarius (February) and preceding Aprilis (April). Martius was one of the few Roman months named for a deity, Mars, who was regarded as an ancestor of the Roman people through his sons Romulus and Remus.

March marked a return to the active life of farming, military campaigning, and sailing. It was densely packed with religious observances dating from the earliest period of Roman history. Because of its original position as the first month, a number of festivals originally associated with the new year occurred in March. In the Imperial period, March was also a time for public celebration of syncretic or international deities whose cultus was spread throughout the empire, including Isis and Cybele.

The Megalesia, Megalensia, or Megalenses Ludi was a festival celebrated in ancient Rome from April 4 to April 10, in honour of Cybele, whom the Romans called Magna Mater ("Great Mother"). The name of the festival derives from Greek megalē (μϵγάλη), meaning "great". The festival was one of several on the Roman calendar celebrated with ludi, games and performances.

In ancient Roman religion, the Fordicidia was a festival of fertility, held on the Ides of April (April 15), that pertained to farming and animal husbandry. It involved the sacrifice of a pregnant cow to Tellus, the ancient Roman goddess of the Earth, in proximity to the festival of Ceres (Cerealia) on April 19.

On the Roman religious calendar, the month of April (Aprilis) was in general preoccupied with deities who were female or ambiguous in gender, opening with the Feast of Venus on the Kalends. Several other festivals pertaining to farm life were held in April: the Parilia, a feast of shepherds, on April 21; the Robigalia on April 25, to protect crops from blight; and the Vinalia, one of the two wine festivals on the calendar, at the end of the month. Of these, the Fordicidia and Robigalia are likely to have been of greatest antiquity. William Warde Fowler, whose early 20th-century work on Roman festivals remains a standard reference, asserted that the Fordicidia was "beyond doubt one of the oldest sacrificial rites in Roman religion."

The nundinae (/nənˈdɪnaɪ/, /-niː/), sometimes anglicized to nundines, were the market days of the ancient Roman calendar, forming a kind of weekend including, for a certain period, rest from work for the ruling class (patricians).

The nundinal cycle, market week, or eight-day week (Latin: nundinum or internundinum) was the cycle of days preceding and including each nundinae. These were marked on fasti using nundinal letters from A to H. The earliest form of the Roman calendar is sometimes said to have included exactly 38 such cycles, running for 304 days from March to December before an unorganized expanse of about 50 winter days. The lengths of the Republican and Julian calendars, however, were not evenly divisible by 8; under these systems, the nundinae fell on a different letter each year. These letters formed the basis of the later Christian dominical letters.

Maius or mensis Maius (May) was the fifth month of the ancient Roman calendar in the classical period, following Aprilis (April) and preceding Iunius (June). On the oldest Roman calendar that had begun with March, it was the third of ten months in the year. May had 31 days.

The Romans considered May an infelicitous month. Although it began with one of the most notoriously licentious holidays of the Roman calendar, the Games of Flora (Ludi Florae), the middle of the month was devoted to propitiating the lemures, the restless shades of the dead.

The Veneralia was an ancient Roman festival celebrated April 1 (the Kalends of Aprilis) in honor of Venus Verticordia ("Venus the changer of hearts") and Fortuna Virilis ("Manly" or "Virile Fortune").

The cult of Venus Verticordia was established in 220 BC, just before the beginning of the Second Punic War, in response to advice from a Sibylline oracle, when a series of prodigies was taken to signify divine displeasure at sexual offenses among Romans of every category and class, including several men and three Vestal Virgins. Her statue was dedicated by a young woman, chosen as the most pudica (sexually pure) in Rome by a committee of Roman matrons. At first, the statue was probably housed within the temple to Fortuna Virilis. This cult, older than that to Venus Verticordia but possibly perceived as weak or gone to seed, may have benefited from the moral and religious support of Venus as a relatively new but senior deity; for Ovid, Venus's acceptance of the epithet and its responsibilities represented the goddess's own change of heart. In 114 BC Venus Verticordia was given her own temple. She was meant to persuade Romans of both sexes and every class, whether married or unmarried, to cherish the traditional sexual proprieties and morality known to please the gods and benefit the State. During the Veneralia, her cult image was taken from her temple to the men's baths, where it was undressed and washed in warm water by her female attendants, then garlanded with myrtle. At the Veneralia, women and men asked Venus Verticordia for her help in affairs of the heart, sex, betrothal and marriage. Fortuna Virilis was given cult on the same day.