[3] Roman citizens were instructed to bring offerings to the tombs of their dead ancestors which consisted of at least "an arrangement of wreaths, a sprinkling of grain and a bit of salt, bread soaked in wine and violets scattered about.
[4] These simple offerings to the dead were perhaps introduced to Latium by Aeneas, who poured wine and scattered violet flowers on his father Anchises' tomb.
[5] Ovid tells of a time when Romans, in the midst of war, neglected Feralia, which prompted the spirits of the departed to rise from their graves in anger, howling and roaming the streets.
To indicate public mourning, marriages of any kind were prohibited on the Feralia, and Ovid urged mothers, brides, and widows to refrain from lighting their wedding torches.
Magistrates stopped wearing their insignia[1][6] and any worship of the gods was prohibited as it "should be hidden behind closed temple doors; no incense on the altar, no fire on the hearth.
After she formally declaims the purpose of her actions, as customary in Greco-Roman magic ritual,[5] saying, "I have gagged spiteful tongues and muzzled unfriendly mouths" (Hostiles linguas inimicaque uinximus ora),[5] she departs intoxicated.
"[10] Perhaps the black beans carried with them connotations of warding away or dispelling bad things in general, whether it be unwelcome spirits haunting a household as seen during Lemuria, or preventing undesired gossip towards an individual as in the old hag's ritual during Feralia.