Happy Mardis Gras

It is also an Ancient Roman Festival called the Parentalia which means “ancestral days.” It was a nine-day festival held in honor of family ancestors, beginning on 13 February. It involved VESTA.

VESTA statue Roman.

From Wikipedia

The Parentalia was a Roman religious calendar Holiday its observances were mainly domestic and for families. The importance of the family to the Roman state, however, was expressed by public ceremonies on the opening day, the Ides of February, when a Vestal Priestess conducted a rite for the collective di parentes of Rome at the tomb of Tarpeia.

Ovid describes sacred offerings of flower-garlands, wheat, salt, wine-soaked bread and violets to the “shades of the dead” (Manes or Di manes) at family tombs, which were located outside Rome’s sacred boundary. These observances were meant to strengthen the mutual obligations and protective ties between the living and the dead, and were a lawful duty of the paterfamilias (head of the family).