pr. Id. Apr.
April 12 in Ancient Rome
The Great Mother arrives in Rome
A goddess sails up the Tiber
religion204 BC
Pre-reform Roman calendar
pridie idus Apriles · as written (pre-Julian calendar)
After a prophecy in the Sibylline Books, the sacred stone of Cybele was brought from Pessinus in Asia Minor and carried by Roman matrons into the temple of Victory on the Palatine.
mota dea est, sequiturque ducem laudatque sequendo
The goddess moved, followed her leader, and by following, praised her.
Background
In 204 BC Rome was still fighting Hannibal, who had been in Italy for fourteen years. Livy says the Romans found a prophecy in the Sibylline Books: a foreign enemy could be driven from Italy if the Idaean Mother was brought from Pessinus to Rome. Envoys went to Phrygia and were given a sacred stone said to be the goddess herself per Livy.
The senate ordered that the goddess be received by the "best man" in the state, and chose the young Publius Scipio Nasica. He sailed out from Ostia, took the goddess from the priests and brought her to land. The leading matrons then passed her from hand to hand up to the Palatine. The whole city came out, people set incense burners before their doors and prayed that she would enter Rome willingly. The goddess was placed in the temple of Victory, and the people brought gifts, held a sacred banquet for the gods and founded the Megalesian games.
Ovid adds a famous miracle tradition: the ship stuck in the Tiber mud during a drought, until Claudia Quinta, a noblewoman whose chastity was doubted because of her stylish hair and sharp tongue, prayed and pulled it free with a light tug on the rope.
Before Caesar's reform (45 BC) the calendar had drifted from the seasons, so the real seasonal date was different; we don't give a modern equivalent. Why?
Ancient source: Livy 29.14; Ovid, Fasti 4.247–348 · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 17°/8°C (63°/46°F) · rain 39% of days
Rome in AprilApril was full of agricultural festivals at a tense time: last year's grain…
Columella
Wintry weather. (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
Cras te victurum, cras dicis, Postume, semper.
“You say you'll live tomorrow, Postumus, always tomorrow.”
Martial, Epigrams 5.58 · translation ours (literal)
