Today it is Dies Nefastus – the regular working day on which Romans may perform their routine, but it is not recommended to make final decisions, start new projects, sign the contracts or take voyages. Religious life goes with no specific restrictions on these days.
It is the day before Nonae Februariae.
It is the C nundial day, the day before Nundinae – the market day this year.
Today Romans celebrate the festival of Fornacalia – an Ancient Roman religious festival celebrated in honor of the goddess Fornax, a divine personification of the oven (fornax), and was related to the proper baking of bread. Ovid wrote that “the oven was made a goddess, Fornax: the farmers, pleased with her, prayed she’d regulate the grain’s heat.” It was held in early February on various dates in different curiae, which in the period of the Roman monarchy and the Roman Republic were the thirty wards of the city of Rome. It was proclaimed every year by the curio maximus, who was a priest who was the head of the curiae. He announced the different part which each curia (sing. of curiae) had to take in the celebration of the festival; “[n]ow the Curio Maximus, in a set form of words, declares the shifting date of the Fornacalia, the Feast of Ovens, and round the Forum hang many tablets, on which every ward displays its own sign.” It is believed that every family in the curia brought far (spelt, a kind of grain), to be toasted in the meeting hall and sacrificed to ensure that bread in the household ovens wouldn’t be burnt in the following year.
