Robigalia
Robigalia a public festival in nonour of the god Robigus, to preserve the fields from mildew, is said to have been instituted by Numa, and was celebrated on April 25th (Varro, L, L. 6.16; R. R. 1.1, 6; Fest. p. 267; Plin. Nat. 18.285). A procession was made to the grove of Robigus (or Robigo, according to Ovid and Columella), five miles out of Rome on the Via Claudia (Cal. Praen.), where sacrifices were offered by the Flamen Quirinalis, a sheep and a dog, fancifully explained as averting harm to the crops from the dog-star (Ov. Fast. 4.907 sq.; Col. 10.342; Fest. p. 285). It is probable that the deity Robigus represents Mars Rusticus (Cato, Cat. Agr. 141; Tertull. de Spect. 5; Mommsen, C. I. L. i. p. 392; Marquardt, Staatsverw. iii.2 p. 574).
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.