ANNA PERENNA

An ancient Italian goddess, about whose exact attributes the ancients themselves were not clear. She is probably the moon-goddess of the revolving year, who every month renews her youth, and was therefore regarded as a goddess who bestowed long life and all that contributes to it. About full moon on the Ides (fifteenth) of March (then the first month of the year), in a grove of fruit trees at the first milestone on the Flaminian Way, the Romans held a merry feast under the open sky, wishing each other as many years of life as they drank cups of wine. The learned men of the Augustan age identified Anna with Dido's sister, who, on the death of that queen, had fled from Carthage to Aeneas in Italy, but, having excited Lavinia's jealousy, threw herself into the Numicius, and became the nymph of that river.