Robigus
(or fem. ROBI'GO) is described by some Latin writers as a divinity worshipped for the purpose of averting blight or too great heat from the young cornfields. The festival of the Robigalia was celebrated on the 25th of April, and was said to have been instituted by Numa (Varro, de Ling. Lat. 6.16; Serv. ad Virg. Georg. 1.151; Gellius, 5.12; Ov. Fast. 4.907, 911). But considering the uncertainty of the ancients themselves as to whether the divinity was masculine or feminine, and that the Romans did not pay divine honours to any evil demon, it is highly probable that the divinity Robigus, or Robigo, is only an abstraction of the later Romans from the festival of the Robigalia. (Comp. Varro, de Re Rust. 1.2.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. 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.