Anna Perenna

Overview

Anna Perenna was the Roman goddess of the new year. Her festival was celebrated on the Ides of March (March 15) by the banks of the Tiber River, though the goddess was also connected with the Numicius River, just south of Rome. She was typically imagined as an old woman.

The Romans told a few different myths about the goddess’s origins. According to one account, Anna Perenna was originally an elderly woman named Anna who came from the town of Bovillae and fed the plebeians during their secession. But other stories connected the Roman goddess with the Carthaginian Anna, the sister of Dido. There was also a myth in which Anna Perenna helped Minerva deceive Mars.^[1]