Venus Obsequens

[a] The anniversary (dies natalis) of the Temple of Venus Obsequens is thought to have been celebrated August 19, the day of the Vinalia Rustica,[5][6] the second wine festival of the year on the Roman calendar.

[30] The Obsequens cult was founded following a perceived outbreak of sexual misconduct (stuprum) among matronae (ordinarily a term for respectable married women), which was supposedly so widespread that Gurges could fund the project from the fines he collected.

[31] The line of thought that led from the victory at Sentinum to funding the temple with fines for stuprum is not recorded,[5][32] but it was one in a series of foundings based on regulating female behavior as a religious response to social disorder particularly in time of war or crisis for the Roman state.

In 331 BC Rome's first trial for poisoning had resulted in the conviction of 170 matrons,[33][c] and the involvement of patrician women may suggest that the founding of the scantly attested Temple of Pudicitia Patricia was a consequence.

[36] The historian Livy says[d] that the matrons were convicted of stuprum, an all-purpose word for sexual misconduct, originally meaning any disgraceful act, which by his own time had become a matter of public law owing to Augustan moral legislation.

[38][39] However, Livy's insistence that many women were involved may indicate a widespread societal issue in which wives were left socially and financially adrift during wartime and sought companionship and material support.

[43] Jane F. Gardner conjectured that the matrons were guilty of "nothing more than disorderly and uninhibited behaviour 'under the influence'" at festivals where women drank wine, such as the feast of Anna Perenna and the two Vinalia in honor of Venus[42] – "debauched picnics" that allowed them to cast off their usual propriety in the guise of religion.