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HORDICALIA

Volume 2 · 74 words · 1771 Edition

or Hordicidia, in antiquity, a religious feast held among the Romans, wherein they sacrificed cattle big with young. This feast fell on April 15, on which day they sacrificed thirty cows with calf to the goddess Tellus or the Earth; part of them were sacrificed in the temple of Jupiter. The calves taken out of their bellies were burnt to ashes at first by the pontifexes, afterwards by the eldest of the vestal virgins.