Anna Perenna
An ancient Italian goddess, about whose exact attributes the ancients themselves were not
clear. She is probably the moongoddess of the current year, who every month renews her youth,
and was therefore regarded as a goddess who bestowed long life, and all that contributes to
it. About full moon on the Ides (15th) of March (then the first month of the year), in a grove
of fruit trees at the first milestone on the Flaminian Way, the Romans held a feast under the
open sky, wishing each other as many years of life as they drank cups of wine. (See Ovid,
Fasti, iii. 523 foll.) The learned men of the
Augustan Age identified Anna with Dido's sister, who, on the death of that queen, had fled
from Carthage to Aeneas in Italy; but, having excited Lavinia's jealousy, threw herself into
the Numicius.