Thread by @DrKillgrove

Today is both #Easter and the 2772nd birthday of the founding of Rome (#NatalediRoma), and the second day of #Passover. So here's a short thread on how these three things are MUCH more closely related than you thought! (1/n)

First, Passover. This is the English word for the translation of "pasha" (Aramaic) and "pesah" (Hebrew) for "he passes over." It's a reference to God passing over the Israelites when killing first-born Egyptians. (2/n)

In Late Latin, the word "pasc(h)a" was used to mean both Passover and Easter. This seems to be related to the fact that both holidays were reckoned based on the vernal equinox. (3/n)

In modern Romance languages like Italian and Spanish, the word for Easter is therefore pasqua/pascua. To distinguish Easter from Passover, both of these languages often add "Jewish" -- pasqua ebraica / pascua judía. (4/n)

But thanks to changes to the Gregorian, Orthodox, and Hebrew calendars in the early centuries of the first millennium, Passover and Easter generally don't coincide anymore. (5/n)

So it's etymologically interesting to me that the late Romans basically stole Jewish Passover and made it Christian Easter. (6/n)

Now, the English word Easter is not romance-based and rather from a proto-Germanic goddess Ēostre, who was celebrated by pagan Anglo-Saxons in April. Her name may come from the PIE for "dawn/light", again related to the spring equinox. (7/n)

This brings us back to Rome's birthday, April 21, 753 BC. This is a mythical date, but April 21 was the festival of Parilia (or Palilia), which predates Rome's founding. The festival honored Pales, a deity of sheep and shepherds, indicating Rome's agricultural origins. (8/n)

While the origins of the Parilia/Palilia aren't clear, they're thought to relate to the celebration of spring and fertility. So the traditional date of the founding of Rome, April 21, reflects both the importance of agriculture and the importance of spring. (9/n)

Passover, Easter, and the founding of Rome are all, in the end, celebrations of spring, even if they don't always fall on the same day. (10/n)

For more on this topic -- specifically, the history of #Easter eggs and how they relate to both Roman funerary practices and Zoroastrianism -- check out this piece I wrote for @ForbesScience a couple years ago:

forbes.com/sites/kristina…

(11/11)