Free Floralia by J. L. Farris

Floralia
    Copyright © 2014 J. L. Farris
    Cover design and photomanipulation by J. L. Farris.
    Couple stock photograph by Hot Damn Stock
Background stock photograph by Bernhard Siegl
 
    * * *
    It was already late April, and the Floralia was nigh.
    Livia was exceedingly aware of this fact. A signboard had been posted at the end of her street for a fortnight, loudly proclaiming that the festivities dedicated to the goddess Flora would begin on the 28 th day of April and conclude on the 3 rd of May.
    The billboard, however, was mostly unnecessary. Livia would hear about it incessantly – through the excited chatter of adolescent boys loitering below her window, or from the giggling and gossiping of pretty young wives gathered at the local water-fountain.
    Floralia this, Floralia that . The festival had not even begun and Livia was already tired of hearing about it.
    The Floralia was the six-day religious festival held in honour of Flora, the flowery maiden goddess of plant life, fertility and the season of spring. She was a minor goddess for the most part – but a very ancient one nevertheless – and a firm favourite of many Romans come springtime.
    There was much music and dancing and drinking to be had at the Floralia, Livia knew, as well as a panoply of revels and spectacles: drama performances, contests and games and gladiator combats, as well as the all-important sow-sacrifices made to Flora at her temple on the Aventine Hill.
    Though the festival was loved by many Romans, many others nonetheless thought on it less favourably. There were many who considered it six days and nights of unbridled wantonness: a festival dedicated to lust and drunken debauchery, where dancers performed unclad, lovers stole away into dark nooks together for liaisons, and every second woman was a prostitute, given free rein to walk amongst the people and ply her trade.
    One such person had been Livia’s father ; a stern, staunch and stoic plebeian shopkeeper by the name of Livius. Even though he had never tilled a field in his life, Livia’s father had fancied himself something of an honest Republican-farmer – clinging closely to the example of the great pre-Imperial statesman Cincinnatus – and imposed on himself and his family a mode of humility and simple virtue.
    “No daughter of mine will observe the Floralia,” her father would grumble – more than once, and sometimes completely unprompted by Livia. “Drunkenness and debauchery! We will have no part of it.”
    The words took firm root. Though her father had gone to the Gods some years hence and she was now a fully-grown woman, she had still not attended the Floralia.
    It would come and go every year, and Livia would avoid it whenever possible. She would skirt around the forums, plazas and avenues where festivities were being held, and would maintain a very safe distance from the temples and shrines dedicated to Flora. Of a night she would close her shutters to the sounds of music and merrymaking drifting down the streets. She would shoo away whatever goats that might wander, with gormless expressions and daisy garlands around their necks, to her doorstep. For six days in late April and early May, bright bouquets of flowers and gaudily-coloured clothing were anathema to her.
    And things proceeded in that manner. The first day of that year’s festival came and went – there was the usual music and dancing and performances, the mock-gladiator combats fought by prostitutes, the flowing wine, the religious rites... and of course the trysts and lovemaking. And Livia, to the surprise of no one, kept her distance.
    It was afternoon on the second day of the festival and Livia, carrying a wicker basket of bread, fruits and vegetables, was returning home from the markets. She rented a small room on the second floor of her building, and her next-door neighbour, Drusilla, was only just stepping out of her door as Livia approached.
    Drusilla was an older woman, not long past her fiftieth