Hail Portunus!
Hail Janus!
Hail Tiber!
Hail Quirinus!
Hail Janus Quirinus!
May we discard now the obsolete and move toward to newer horizons!
May we honour the port as both home and destination, a place of refuge!
May we flow with the river of life!
Salve Portune!
Salve Iane!
Salve Tiber!
Salve Quirine!
Salve Iane Quirine!

 

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The seventeenth of August is the feriae Portuno, the festival dedicated to Portunus, the god of the port and harbour. He seems to be a close indigitation of Janus who is connected with springs, rivers and underground water in general. The word portus is also an old word for ‘house’. As Janus is the deity of the door, his manifestation as Portunus conveys him as the patron of the gate, the port and, by extension, of the river itself – in Rome, the Tiber. Janus received a temple dedicated on this day.

Portunus had his own priest, the flamen Portunalis. The only known function of this priest is that he anointed the arms of Quirinus with persillum. Macrobius, Festus, Horace, Suetonius and Servius all mention a Ianus Quirini (‘the Janus of Quirinus’), and Janus Quirinus appears to be a further manifestation of Portunus.

On the Portunalia, old keys were placed and burned in the hearth – presumably signifying a break with the past. These are the first festival to follow the ‘turning’ Ides. They are part of, or a prefiguring of, the remaining feriae of August as either a festive novemdial, a nine-day celebration, or an eleven-day ferial period itself.