festival
Quinquatrus
also: Quinquatribus
The festival of Minerva celebrated on 19 March (with following days), five days after the Ides of March.
Reading notes
- Ad Atticum 9.11 §2 came to me on the Quinquatria
The Quinquatrus was the festival of Minerva, beginning on 19 March; Cicero often uses it as a casual date-marker, here fixing Matius's visit to mid-March 49 BC.
- Ad Atticum 9.13 §2 the day before the Quinquatria there was a magnificent storm-wind
The Quinquatrus, Minerva's festival, opened on 19 March; the eve gives Cicero a fixed date (18 March) for the gale he supposes carried Pompey's fleet out of Brundisium.
- Ad Familiares 2.12 §1 the Quinquatrus so vexed
The Quinquatrus, a five-day festival of Minerva in mid-March, was the occasion of the tribunes' incendiary contiones (public meetings) that Cicero had been hearing about. The festival period was notorious as a time for political provocations.
- Ad Familiares 12.25 §1 On the Quinquatrus
The Quinquatrus, festival of Minerva on 19 March; Cicero plays on the coincidence of pleading Cornificius's case on Minerva's own day.