or Quinquatres, was a festival celebrated at Rome in honour of Minerva, and which began on the 18th of March, or, as others will have it, on the 18th, and lasted five days. On the first day they offered sacrifices and oblations without the effusion of blood; the second, third, and fourth, were spent in shows of gladiators; and on the fifth day they went in procession through the city. Scholars had a vacation during the solemnity, and at this time presented their masters with a gift or fee, called Mineral. Boys and girls used to pray to the goddess Minerva for wisdom and learning, of which she had the patronage. Plays were acted, and disputations held, at this feast, on subjects of polite literature. The quinquatria were so called, because they lasted for five days. There seems to be a strong resemblance between this festival and the panathenaea of the Greeks.