a.d. III Non. Mart.
March 5 in Ancient Rome
Navigium Isidis: the ship of Isis opens the sailing season
Isis launches the year’s first ship
festivalListed AD 354
Roman calendar date
The Calendar of 354 marks 5 March as the "Ship of Isis", when a decorated ship was dedicated to the goddess and launched as the sea reopened after winter.
Background
In the ancient Mediterranean, sailing largely stopped in winter: storms made the sea dangerous, and grain ships, merchants and travellers waited for spring. The Egyptian goddess Isis, worshipped across the Roman world, was honoured as a protector of sailors, and her festival marked the moment the sea was reopened.
The Calendar of 354 lists the day simply as ISIDIS NAVIGIVM, "the ship of Isis". The fullest description comes two centuries earlier in Apuleius' novel The Golden Ass, set at Cenchreae, the harbour of Corinth fiction, but written by an author who knew the cult. A long procession of worshippers, musicians and priests goes down to the shore. There the high priest takes a skilfully built ship painted with Egyptian pictures, purifies it with a blazing torch, an egg and sulphur, and dedicates it to the goddess with solemn prayers. Loaded with offerings, it is set loose to sail away. In the novel this is also the day the hero Lucius, turned into a donkey, regains his human form by eating roses carried in the procession.
For harbour towns the day was practical as well as sacred: it announced that trade, travel and letters could move again.
Ancient source: Calendar of 354 (III Non. Mart.: ISIDIS NAVIGIVM); Apuleius, Metamorphoses 11.16–17 · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 14°/5°C (57°/41°F) · rain 36% of days
Rome in MarchMarch, once the first month of the year, reopened the seasons of war and…
Fields & crops
Columella calls March the best time for pruning vines and the first digging of vineyards; spring crops like millet were readied per Columella 11.2.
Courts & law
Legal and public business resumed in full after winter. At the Liberalia (17 Mar.) many boys put on the plain toga of manhood and were enrolled as adult citizens, with a family procession to the Forum per Ovid, Fasti 3.771–88.
Senate & politics
From c. 222 to 153 BC the consuls entered office on the Ides of March; Livy records it for 217 BC, and the starting year is a modern reconstruction per Livy 22.1.4. From 153 BC they took office on the Kalends of January per Livy, Per. 47. Caesar was killed at a Senate meeting on the Ides of March 44 BC per Suetonius, Velleius.
Military
The month of Mars opened the campaign season. The Salii carried the sacred shields, and the Tubilustrium (23 Mar.) purified the war trumpets per Varro and Ovid.
Festivals & religion
Matronalia (1 Mar.), Liberalia (17 Mar.), when boys often took the man's toga, and the Quinquatrus of Minerva (19–23 Mar.), a holiday for craftsmen, teachers and doctors per Ovid, Fasti 3.
Daily life
March, once the first month of the year, reopened the seasons of war and sailing. The Salii, Mars' leaping priests, danced through the city. On the Kalends (Matronalia), married women received gifts and in turn served a meal to the household's enslaved people per Macrobius 1.12.7; Ovid, Fasti 3. Columella treats March as prime time for pruning vines and digging per Columella 11.2.
For soldiers, the campaign season began; for traders, sea routes reopened and grain ships from Egypt and Africa could sail again, easing city food supplies.
Sources: Ovid, Fasti 3 · Varro, De Lingua Latina 6 · Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.12 · Livy 22.1.4 (Latin) · Livy, Periochae 47 (Latin) · Livy, Periochae 116 (Latin) · Suetonius, Divus Iulius 80–81 (Latin) · Velleius Paterculus 2.56 (Latin)
All days in March →
LATIN LINE OF THE DAY
Hominem pagina nostra sapit.
“My page tastes of humanity.”
Martial, Epigrams 10.4 · translation ours (literal)
