The Roman religion and civil calendar that spread across the Empire was closely aligned to the farming year in central Italy. It comprised of festivals for sacrifice and festivals for games, although the routine sacrifices to the many civil gods were left in the hands of the State priesthood. The more humble cults flourished on the streets and in the countryside, at home private worship continued well after the Roman conversion to Christianity because the ancient gods were so firmly entrenched in pagan hearts.REVIEW:"A lot of people be they neo-pagans or amateur scholars or authors trying to research have the same problem: It's very hard to get good, concise information on the Roman Calendar. Even otherwise good books and websites only list the major festivals, and mention briefly that some days were dies comitialis, others dies fasti, and so forth and so on. Obviously this is of little help, say, want to know if the hero of your novel could press a lawsuit on the 20th of August, or what festivals are held on the 9th of June.This book is the answer to that problem. It lists every day of the year, and what happens on that day, festivals, lucky and unlucky days, and the character of the day (fasti, nefasti, etc). If you want to know what happens on 20th of August just look up that day, and you'll see that it's a Dies Comitialis where citizen committees can vote on criminal and political matters. It's very useful and a great relief for someone who's been tearing their hair out looking for this information.I wasn't sure if it should get four or five stars, since it is fairly short and only gives an abbreviated explanation of each feast day. However I've decided on five stars since the information you find here is virtually impossible to find anywhere else, and believe me I've looked. More to the point once you have the name of a festival, or the type of day, it's very easy to find any additional information on the internet. Thus five stars, and a book that's very highly recommended!" Norse Victorian- Amazon