a.d. XI Kal. Dec.
November 21 in Ancient Rome
Hadrian at the Colossi of Memnon
travelAD 130
Julian date · ≈ Nov 20 on our calendar
On 20–21 November Hadrian visited the 'singing' Colossi of Memnon at Thebes. The visit was recorded in poems Julia Balbilla carved on the statue.
Hadrian
Background
The Colossi of Memnon are two giant seated statues of the pharaoh Amenhotep III near Thebes in Egypt. After an earthquake damaged the northern statue, it made a sound around dawn, and Greeks and Romans identified it with Memnon, the mythical son of Dawn, greeting his mother. Tourists came to hear it and carved their names and poems on its legs; over a hundred inscriptions survive.
In November 130, Hadrian and the empress Sabina visited during their Egyptian tour, weeks after Hadrian's favourite Antinous drowned in the Nile. Julia Balbilla, a poet of royal descent in Sabina's circle, carved Greek poems in an old Aeolic dialect recording that Memnon stayed silent on the first day but sang for Hadrian on the next per Balbilla's inscriptions.
The statue fell silent at some point afterwards, often said to be after repairs under Septimius Severus disputed: the link to Severus rests on late, thin evidence. Balbilla's poems remain among the few surviving works by a named Roman-era woman poet.
Ancient source: Julia Balbilla's epigrams (inscribed on the Colossus) · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 15°/8°C (59°/46°F) · rain 40% of days
Rome in NovemberFor farmers, the weeks of ploughing and sowing were long and wet.
Columella
Wintry weather. (De Re Rust. 11.2)
Fields & crops
Main sowing of wheat and beans; Columella marks winter's start around 10 November and advises finishing sowing by the Kalends of December per Columella 11.2.
Courts & law
The Plebeian Games (4–17 Nov.) closed courts on many days; legal business resumed in late November late Republic.
Senate & politics
Elections for the next year's magistrates were sometimes delayed into autumn in troubled years; Cicero's First Catilinarian was delivered in November 63 BC.
Military
Sailing largely stopped from around 11 November per Vegetius, a late source; armies moved into winter quarters.
Festivals & religion
Ludi Plebeii with the Epulum Iovis on the Ides; in late antiquity the Isia of Isis (28 Oct.–1 Nov.) and the start of the Brumalia (24 Nov.) per the Chronography of 354.
Daily life
For farmers, the weeks of ploughing and sowing were long and wet. In Rome, the Plebeian Games brought free shows, but a holiday meant no pay for day labourers. With sea traffic stopped, city grain prices depended on what had been stored before winter.
The poor lived in crowded apartment blocks (insulae), where upper floors had no water or heating and braziers caused fires; Juvenal mocks the risk of collapse and fire satire, Juvenal 3.
Sources: Columella 11.2 · Chronography of 354 · Juvenal, Satire 3
All days in November →
LATIN LINE OF THE DAY
Sera nimis vita est crastina: vive hodie.
“Tomorrow's life is too late: live today.”
Martial, Epigrams 1.15 · translation ours (literal)
