neptunalia

The Neptunalia was an obscure archaic two-day festival in honour of Neptune as god of waters, celebrated at Rome in the heat and drought of summer, probably July 23 (Varro, De lingua Latina vi.19). It was one of the dies comitiales, when committees of citizens could vote on civil or criminal matters. In the ancient calendar this day is marked as Nept. ludi et feriae, or Nept. ludi, from which Leonhard Schmitz (in Smith, see link) concluded that the festival was celebrated with games. Respecting the ceremonies of this festival nothing is known, except that the people used to build huts of branches and foliage (umbrae, according to Festus, under " Umbrae"), in which they probably feasted, drank, and amused themselves (Horace Carmina iii.28.1, &c.; Tertullian De Spectaculis ("On Celebrations") 6). Compare to the "booths" under which Jews celebrate Sukkot.
Neptunalia: The Neptunalia, on July 23, honored Neptune as the god of the seas and water. In the middle of ancient Italy's really hot and dry summer season, when rivers were low and water was most scarce, Romans sought Neptune's protection of irrigation waters and works. To do this, they went out to the fields and forests and built small huts called umbrae (shades) or tabernaculi (tabernacles) out of leafy Laurel (Bay) branches. Within the shade of these natural tents they would picnic outdoors, drinking spring water as well as wine to keep cool in these hot summer days. Richer folk might sacrifice a bull to Neptune. Camping overnight with fires for cooking (they shared the bull with the god) would be common, and the festival continued the next day. Honoring Neptune on this day would assure rainfall for the crops and forestall any drought. Neptunalia was also considered to be an auspicious day to start new irrigation works, which, despite the heat, were easier to construct in summer than during other wetter seasons -- slaves did the hot and heavy work anyway.

Neptune was the god of the sea (as Neptune Oceanus) and of all waters for Romans, but he was not among Rome's most revered and powerful gods. Little is known of his origin: when he was first introduced in Rome, he already had acquired all the characteristics of the Greek Poseidon. Despite the fact that his cult grew after his equation with Poseidon, Neptune was far less popular among Roman sailors than Poseidon was with Greek mariners.

The Neptunalia was originally mostly a private affair concerned with Neptune's protection of fresh agricultural water. It took on greater significance as a public observance after Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Augustus's military Chief of Staff and his Admiral, dedicated a temple and porticus to Neptune after his naval victories over Marc Antony at Azio and, shortly thereafter, at the decisive battle of Actium, in 31 BC. Agrippa's sanctuary was in the Campus Martius between his Pantheon and baths, and after it was dedicated in 25 BC, the porticus may have been the center for the public aspects of the Neptunalia. (Agrippa was apparently a great fan of Neptune, and coins honoring Agrippa routinely featured Neptune.) This Neptune complex was completely restructured by Hadrian when he also rebuilt the Pantheon, so it is difficult to discern the Agrippan design and functions of the structure.

Neptune was also held in high regard as Neptune Equestor, the god and patron of the extremely popular horse races and of horses. As early as 206 BC, one of his temples was located near the Circus Flaminius, one of the larger trace-tracks and the place where the equites, members of the equestrian class, mustered for their ceremonies outside the pomerium or ceremonial boundary of the city. The horse connection was obvious: Neptune Oceanus was often depicted surfing on a sea shell towed by "sea horses" (actually hippocampi, half horses and half fish -- in front to back order, of course: think of the alternative!) Part of the Neptune myth is that he gave the first horses to men.

The areas around the Circus Flaminius and the Pantheon sometimes flooded after spring rains in obvious manifestations of Neptune. A coin issued around 40 BC depicted the Circus Flaminius Neptune temple on a podium without an approaching staircase, and this has led to conjecture that the temple might only have been used during floods when it would be approached by boats.

Neptune usually carried the identifying trident and was accompanied by dolphins. Rome's most famous shell-surfing Neptune is not Ancient Roman at all. The twenty-foot-high marble statue was finished in 1761 by Pietro Bracci, under the direction of architect Nicola Salvi, as the centerpiece of the Trevi fountain. Fittingly, it marks the end of the Virgine aqueduct, which was originally extended to the Piazza di Trevi by that same Agrippa who built the Temple of Neptune not far away at the Pantheon.

The Neptunalia was a typical Mediterranean mid-summer festival, falling halfway between the summer solstice and the vernal equinox. Northern, and especially Keltic, midsummer usually fell on the summer solstice in mid June: the Keltic summer began on May 1. Both Mediterranean and Northern mid-summer festivals involved a return to nature, although in northern areas, where summer rain was more common, there did not appear to be any specific emphasis on celebration, prayer, and sacrifice to the water god. The Jewish "Feast of Tabernacles", Succot, although it has the building of "tabernacles" in common with the Neptunalia, is a festival that occurs at the time of the second or autumnal harvest. Orthodox Jewry says that the festival commemorates the temporary shelters that Jews lived in during the exodus from Egypt, but some secular Jewish scholars say they were simply the temporary shelters erected for overnight stays in the fields during harvest time. The likely fusion was that spending time in the fields in temporary shelters during the harvest also reminded the Jewsof their time in the wilderness.

Internet Links:

Smith's dictionary on Roman Religion, with a Neptunalia link: http://www.ukans.edu/history/index/europe/ancient_rome/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Religion/home*.html

Platner and Ashby on Sanctuaries of Neptune in Rome: http://www.ukans.edu/history/index/europe/ancient_rome/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Roma/Rome/.Texts/PLATOP*/Neptunus.html

Neptune/Poseidon mythology: http://ancienthistory.about.com/homework/ancienthistory/library/bl/bl_myth_gods_grecoroman_poseidon.htm

Trevi fountain -- don't drink the water! http://www.mmdtkw.org/VTrevi.html

His little brother's feast -- Saturnalia: http://www.mmdtkw.org/VSaturnalia.html

The other Neptune, from NASA: http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/welcome/neptune.htm

neptune

Neptune (Latin: Neptūnus) is the god of water and the sea in Roman mythology, a brother of Jupiter and Pluto. He is also the least endowed of all the gods. This caused him to be the center of many an insult until the great deluge stopped the heckling.^{[1][not in citation given]}

He is analogous with but not identical to the god Poseidon of Greek mythology. The Roman conception of Neptune owed a great deal to the Etruscan god Nethuns.

Originally he was an Italic god paired with Salacia, possibly the goddess of the salt water. At an early date (399 BC) he was identified with Poseidon, when the Sibylline books ordered a lectisternium in his honour (Livy v. 13).

In earlier times it was the god Portunes or Fortunus who was thanked for naval victories, but Neptune supplanted him in this role by at least the first century BC when Sextus Pompeius called himself "son of Neptune".

Neptune was associated as well with fresh water, as opposed to Oceanus, god of the world-ocean. Like Poseidon, Neptune was also worshipped by the Romans as a god of horses, under the name Neptune Equester, patron of horse-racing.^[2] The planet Neptune was named after the god, as its deep blue gas clouds gave early astronomers the impression of great oceans.

Festivals

His festival, Neptunalia, at which tents were made from the branches of bushes, took place on July 23. He had two temples in Rome. The first, built in 25 BC, stood near the Circus Flaminius, the Roman racetrack, and contained a famous sculpture of a marine group by Scopas.

The second, the Basilica Neptuni, was built on the Campus Martius and dedicated by Agrippa in honour of the naval victory of Actium.^[3]

A.D. 300 statue

The Department of Subaquatic Archaeological Research divers (headed by Michel L'Hour) discovered a first decade, A.D. 300, 5.9 foot marble statue of Neptune, in the Rhone River.^[4] The statue is one of 100 artifacts that the team excavated between September and October 2007.^[4][5]

Neo-Classical depictions

A 19th century American depiction of Neptune, his chariot appearing on the background of an ironclad warship with its smokestacksthes ("The Apotheosis of Washington", 1865).

The depiction of Neptune in painting and sculpture continued long past the end of his worship as a god. From Rannaisance Italy up to 19th Century America, he was frequently evoked as the personification of the sea and in particular of the commerical or naval succees of various sea powers.

"King Neptune" plays a central role in the long-standing tradition of the "Line-crossing ceremony" initiation rite still current in many navies as well as in the merchant marine.

When ships cross the equator, "Pollywogs" - i.e. sailors who had not done such a crossing before - receive "subpoenas" ^[6] to appear before King Neptune and his court (usually including his first assistant Davy Jones and her Highness Amphitrite and often various dignitaries, who are all represented by the highest ranking seamen).

Some wogs may be "interrogated" by King Nepture and his entourage. At the end of the ceremony - which in the past often included considerable hazing - they are initiated as Shellbacks or Sons of Neptune and receive a certificate to that effect.

NEPTUNUS

In Roman mythology Neptune (Greek: Poseidon) was the god of the Sea.

After the discovery of Uranus, it was noticed that its orbit was not as it should be in accordance with Newton's laws. It was therefore predicted that another more distant planet must be perturbing Uranus' orbit. Neptune was first observed by Galle and d'Arrest on 1846 Sept 23 very near to the locations independently predicted by Adams and Le Verrier from calculations based on the observed positions of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. An international dispute arose between the English and French (though not, apparently between Adams and Le Verrier personally) over priority and the right to name the new planet; they are now jointly credited with Neptune's discovery. Subsequent observations have shown that the orbits calculated by Adams and Le Verrier diverge from Neptune's actual orbit fairly quickly. Had the search for the planet taken place a few years earlier or later it would not have been found anywhere near the predicted location.

More than two centuries earlier, in 1613, Galileo observed Neptune when it happened to be very near Jupiter, but he thought it was just a star. On two successive nights he actually noticed that it moved slightly with respect to another nearby star. But on the subsequent nights it was out of his field of view. Had he seen it on the previous few nights Neptune's motion would have been obvious to him. But, alas, cloudy skies prevented obsevations on those few critical days.

Neptune has been visited by only one spacecraft, Voyager 2 on Aug 25 1989. Much of we know about Neptune comes from this single encounter. But fortunately, recent ground-based and HST observations have added a great deal, too.

Because Pluto's orbit is so eccentric, it sometimes crosses the orbit of Neptune making Neptune the most distant planet from the Sun for a few years.

Neptune's composition is probably similar to Uranus': various "ices" and rock with about 15% hydrogen and a little helium. Like Uranus, but unlike Jupiter and Saturn, it may not have a distinct internal layering but rather to be more or less uniform in composition. But there is most likely a small core (about the mass of the Earth) of rocky material. Its atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium with a small amount of methane.

Neptune's blue color is largely the result of absorption of red light by methane in the atmosphere but there is some additional as-yet-unidentified chromophore which gives the clouds their rich blue tint.

Like a typical gas planet, Neptune has rapid winds confined to bands of latitude and large storms or vortices. Neptune's winds are the fastest in the solar system, reaching 2000 km/hour.

Like Jupiter and Saturn, Neptune has an internal heat source -- it radiates more than twice as much energy as it receives from the Sun.

At the time of the Voyager encounter, Neptune's most prominent feature was the Great Dark Spot (left) in the southern hemisphere. It was about half the size as Jupiter's Great Red Spot (about the same diameter as Earth). Neptune's winds blew the Great Dark Spot westward at 300 meters/second (700 mph). Voyager 2 also saw a smaller dark spot in the southern hemisphere and a small irregular white cloud that zips around Neptune every 16 hours or so now known as "The Scooter" (right). It may be a plume rising from lower in the atmosphere but its true nature remains a mystery.

However, HST observations of Neptune (left) in 1994 show that the Great Dark Spot has disappeared! It has either simply dissipated or is currently being masked by other aspects of the atmosphere. A few months later HST discovered a new dark spot in Neptune's northern hemisphere. This indicates that Neptune's atmosphere changes rapidly, perhaps due to slight changes in the temperature differences between the tops and bottoms of the clouds.

Neptune also has rings. Earth-based observations showed only faint arcs instead of complete rings, but Voyager 2's images showed them to be complete rings with bright clumps. One of the rings appears to have a curious twisted structure (right).

Like Uranus and Jupiter, Neptune's rings are very dark but their composition is unknown.

Neptune's rings have been given names: the outermost is Adams (which contains three prominent arcs now named Liberty, Equality and Fraternity), next is an unnamed ring co-orbital with Galatea, then Leverrier (whose outer extensions are called Lassell and Arago), and finally the faint but broad Galle.

Neptune's magnetic field is, like Uranus', oddly oriented and probably generated by motions of conductive material (probably water) in its middle layers.

Neptune can be seen with binoculars (if you know exactly where to look) but a large telescope is needed to see anything other than a tiny disk. There are several Web sites that show the current position of Neptune (and the other planets) in the sky, but much more detailed charts will be required to actually find it. Such charts can be created with a planetarium program.

www.nineplanets.org