Terminalia 2020

In what has become traditional fashion, Terminalia was celebrated in Aberystwyth on 23rd February, feast day of the God Terminus. It was customary to walk the boundary of the town that day, visiting the boundary markers of which Terminus was the custodian, and perform a sacrifice at each. We skipped the sacrificial part of the tradition. It is likely that the more recent tradition of "Beating the bounds" derives from Terminalia.

Celebrations of earlier years have been documented (2017, 2018, 2019), and so details of note are mostly aready known. An addition this year was to note that houses on Chalybeate Street, being built on the wall alignment, are split level. Noting this by going though a small archway into some back yards, the tour members were given A Very Hard Look by a local resident, which translated as "Who the hell are you lot?".

Weather prior to the celebration was shocking, so attendance was somewhat short of the 2018 record; nevertheless 10 souls trod the course of the walls and appeased at least one Roman God.

Archeology Data Service, 2017

While physically absent, its course is easy to follow. It was disappearing over 200 years ago: on the Welsh Tour in 1775, Wyndham wrote:

Part of the old wall of the town is remaining, but all the facing stones have been taken away.

A regular modern ravelin is advanced before the gateway, which was perhaps thrown up in the time of the Protectorship.

It is certainly to be lamented that the antiquities in these and some other parts of the principality are not better preserved. How can the inhabitants be so negligent of their real interests? and why will they destroy the almost only inducement for strangers to visit this miserable coast? This rage for the destruction of Pagan remains is attributed to the zeal of the modern Methodists who abound in these parts. Perhaps this conjecture, ridiculous as it at first appears, may not be totally without foundation. For to what absurd and contemptible lengths has fanaticism been carried in all ages!

Ah, fanaticism ...