a.d. XIII Kal. Iun.
May 20 in Ancient Rome
The Council of Nicaea opens
Bishops meet to settle a quarrel
religionAD 325
Julian date · ≈ May 21 on our calendar
Bishops summoned by Constantine met at Nicaea in Bithynia to settle the Arian controversy and the date of Easter; a later expanded form of their creed is still recited today.
Constantine
Background
Constantine had expected Christianity to help unite his empire, but by the 320s Christians in the East were bitterly divided. The priest Arius of Alexandria taught that the Son had been created by the Father; his bishop, Alexander, condemned him. Socrates says the quarrel caused "incessant strife and tumult among the people". There was also disagreement about when to celebrate Easter (the Passover), with some following the Jewish reckoning.
When letters failed, the emperor called a council of bishops at Nicaea in Bithynia. Socrates found the date in the heading of the council's records: the consulship of Paulinus and Julian, 20 May per Socrates. The council produced a creed declaring the Son "of the same essence" (homoousios) as the Father. According to Socrates, 318 bishops accepted it; five objected to the word homoousios per Socrates, citing Eusebius.
Nicaea, an assembly called by the emperor himself, set a pattern of state involvement in doctrine. Its creed, expanded later in the century, is still recited in many churches. For ordinary believers of the time, theology was not abstract: it was argued in streets, songs and marketplaces.
Ancient source: Socrates Scholasticus, Church History 1.8–13 · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 23°/13°C (73°/55°F) · rain 28% of days
Rome in MayLate spring was a time of hard field labour and fresh food: beans, greens and…
Fields & crops
Hay was cut, barley harvested in warm places, beans threshed, and vines and young crops weeded and hoed per Columella 11.2. Sheep were washed and sheared.
Courts & law
A busy legal season. Romans avoided marrying in May, which was considered unlucky, especially before the Ides per Ovid, Fasti 5.490.
Senate & politics
Senate and assemblies met normally. The temple of Mercury, dedicated on the Ides of May, was the seat of an early guild of merchants per Livy 2.27; on that day traders sprinkled their goods with water from his spring to wash away the month's lies per Ovid, Fasti 5.663–92.
Military
Full campaigning season: armies marched and supply convoys used good roads and calm seas.
Festivals & religion
Floralia ended on 3 May; the Lemuria (9, 11, 13 May) drove ghosts from the house at midnight with black beans; the Argei, rush puppets, were thrown into the Tiber on 14 or 15 May per Ovid, Fasti 5.
Daily life
Late spring was a time of hard field labour and fresh food: beans, greens and the first barley. Enslaved farm workers, often chained in the ergastulum on large estates, did the heaviest work per Columella 1.6–8, who advises on their supervision. In the city, the Floralia's games included mimes and, by tradition, performers who undressed at the crowd's demand per Valerius Maximus and Lactantius; hostile or late sources. Childbirth was a major risk for women at any season; inscriptions record many deaths of young mothers per surviving epitaphs.
Sources: Ovid, Fasti 5 · Columella 1 and 11.2
All days in May →
LATIN LINE OF THE DAY
Sunt bona, sunt quaedam mediocria, sunt mala plura quae legis hic.
“Some are good, some middling, more are bad, of what you read here.”
Martial, Epigrams 1.16 · translation ours (literal)
