Kal. Apr.
April 1 in Ancient Rome
Veneralia: women wash Venus and honour Fortuna Virilis
Bath day for a goddess
festivalRepublic & Empire (annual)
Roman calendar date
On the Kalends of April Roman women bathed and garlanded the statue of Venus, then bathed themselves and offered incense to Fortuna Virilis.
Rite deam colitis, Latiae matresque nurusque
Perform the rites of the goddess, Latin mothers and brides.
Background
April was Venus' month: Ovid devotes the whole of Fasti book 4 to her, and the Calendar of 354 still marks the first day as the VENERALIA. It was a women's festival, kept by "Latin mothers and brides", and it mixed religion with the very ordinary business of bathing.
Ovid gives the steps. The women took the golden necklaces off the goddess's marble statue, washed her completely, dried her, put the jewels back and gave her fresh flowers and roses. Then they bathed themselves under green myrtle, because Venus once hid from spying satyrs behind a myrtle bush per Ovid. In the public baths, where "every blemish" was visible, they offered a little incense to Fortuna Virilis, who would hide those flaws from men, and drank poppy crushed in milk and honey, as Venus did on her wedding night.
Ovid adds a moral history: when Rome's chastity "lapsed" in the old days, the Sibyl of Cumae ordered a temple to Venus, who took the name Verticordia, "the changer of hearts". The festival thus joined beauty, marriage and reputation, things Roman women were expected to guard, in one practical day at the baths.
Ancient source: Ovid, Fasti 4.133–162; Calendar of 354 (KAL. APR.: VENERALIA) · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 17°/7°C (63°/45°F) · rain 29% of days
Rome in AprilApril was full of agricultural festivals at a tense time: last year's grain…
Columella
Signals a storm. (De Re Rust. 11.2)
Fields & crops
Spring sowing of millet and panic grass around the Ides; vines dug and vegetables planted out. Mildew on the young grain was the great fear per Columella 11.2; Ovid, Fasti 4.
Courts & law
Many days were taken up by games (Megalesia, Cerealia, Floralia), when courts did not sit; legal business squeezed into the gaps late Republic.
Senate & politics
Aediles who ran the April games used them to win votes; lavish shows could make a political career late Republic.
Military
Armies marched out to campaign; the sea lanes were open, so troops and grain ships moved again.
Festivals & religion
Veneralia (1 Apr.), Megalesia for the Great Mother (4–10 Apr.), Fordicidia (15 Apr.), Cerealia (12–19 Apr.), Parilia, Rome's birthday (21 Apr.), Vinalia (23 Apr.), Robigalia (25 Apr.) and the Floralia from 28 April per Ovid, Fasti 4.
Daily life
April was full of agricultural festivals at a tense time: last year's grain was running low and the new harvest was still weeks away. The Cerealia honoured Ceres, goddess of grain; the Robigalia (25 April) sacrificed a dog to keep mildew (robigo) off the crops per Ovid, Fasti 4.905–42. At the Parilia (21 April), Rome's birthday, shepherds purified flocks and leaped over bonfires per Ovid, Fasti 4.721–82.
Women of different ranks worshipped Venus and Fortuna Virilis on 1 April; Ovid says women of lower status bathed in the men's baths that day per Ovid, Fasti 4.133–50.
Sources: Ovid, Fasti 4 · Columella 11.2
All days in April →
LATIN LINE OF THE DAY
Rumpitur invidia quidam, carissime Iuli, quod me Roma legit.
“Someone is bursting with envy, dearest Julius, because Rome reads me.”
Martial, Epigrams 9.97 · translation ours (literal)
