a.d. XIV Kal. Feb.
January 19 in Ancient Rome
Theodosius invested as emperor
politicsAD 379
Julian date · ≈ Jan 20 on our calendar
A council of officials at Sirmium formally invested Theodosius with the purple.
Theodosius I
Background
On 9 August 378 the Goths destroyed the eastern Roman army at Adrianople and killed the emperor Valens. The Balkans lay open to raiding, and the young western emperor Gratian, nineteen years old, could not govern the whole empire and fight on every front.
He called Theodosius, a Spanish officer whose father had been a leading general, out of retirement. After a victory over the Sarmatians per Theodoret, a 5th-century church historian, Theodosius was proclaimed Augustus at Sirmium in January 379 and given charge of the East, including the dioceses of Dacia and Macedonia. The date is disputed: the Consularia Constantinopolitana give 19 January, while Socrates gives 16 January disputed.
Theodosius spent the next years rebuilding armies, recruiting heavily, including Goths, and finally made a treaty in 382 that settled the Goths inside the empire as allies under their own leaders. Provincials in Thrace paid the price in raids and requisitions; landowners resented the recruiting levies. He also made Nicene Christianity the official faith within a year.
⚠ Uncertain date
Ancient source: Consularia Constantinopolitana; Chronicon Paschale · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 12°/4°C (54°/39°F) · rain 31% of days
Rome in JanuaryThe Kalends of January opened the civil year, with new consuls, vows for the…
Fields & crops
Little field work: Columella says pious farmers rested before the Kalends and restarted every task on 1 January for luck; after the Ides, pruning and weeding of autumn-sown grain resumed per Columella 11.2.
Courts & law
Courts reopened after the Saturnalia. New magistrates took up their duties, and the praetor's edict, the rules for his year in office, was posted late Republic.
Senate & politics
From 153 BC the consuls took office on 1 January, sacrificing on the Capitol; the year was named after them. In the empire, officials and soldiers renewed vows for the emperor's safety on 3 January varies by era.
Military
Armies sat in winter quarters; campaigning in snow was rare and feared. Soldiers on the frontiers renewed their oath to the emperor at the start of the year imperial era.
Festivals & religion
Janus, god of doorways and beginnings, was honoured on the Kalends; the Agonalia (9 Jan.), the Carmentalia for the birth-goddess Carmenta (11 and 15 Jan.) and the movable Compitalia at crossroads shrines followed per Ovid, Fasti 1.
Daily life
The Kalends of January opened the civil year, with new consuls, vows for the emperor's safety and small gifts (strenae) of dates, figs and coins for good luck per Ovid, Fasti 1. The Kalends of every month was also when interest fell due, so for debtors the first of the month could be dreaded; the account book itself was called the kalendarium per Seneca and the Digest.
Winter was the hungry season for many. Rome's free monthly grain ration helped only registered male citizens (about 200,000 under Augustus) per Suetonius, Aug. 40, and Res Gestae 15; others bought at market prices. Columella says pious farmers did no field work in the days before the Kalends and restarted every kind of work on 1 January for good omen per Columella 11.2.
Sources: Ovid, Fasti 1 · Columella 11.2 · Suetonius, Augustus 40–42
All days in January →
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)
