a.d. X Kal. Dec.
November 22 in Ancient Rome
Valentinian II proclaimed Augustus
politicsAD 375
Julian date · ≈ Nov 23 on our calendar
Five days after Valentinian I died, the army at Aquincum proclaimed his four-year-old son Valentinian II emperor.
Valentinian I · Valentinian II
Background
When Valentinian I died suddenly at Brigetio on 17 November 375, his elder son Gratian, already Augustus, was far away at Trier. The generals on the Danube feared that the army might choose an outsider. They brought the dead emperor's younger son, Valentinian, aged four, from a villa nearby with his mother Justina, and on 22 November the troops at Aquincum (modern Budapest) proclaimed him Augustus per Ammianus.
Gratian accepted his half-brother as colleague, though in practice he and his advisers governed the West. Valentinian II was nominally given Italy, Illyricum and Africa.
His life was shaped by stronger men. In 387 the usurper Magnus Maximus drove him and Justina out of Italy; Theodosius I restored him in 388 but left him under the general Arbogast in Gaul. In May 392 Valentinian, about 21, was found hanged at Vienne. Whether it was suicide or murder was disputed even then disputed. Bishop Ambrose's funeral speech for him survives.
Ancient source: Ammianus Marcellinus 30.10 · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 15°/7°C (59°/45°F) · rain 40% of days
Rome in NovemberFor farmers, the weeks of ploughing and sowing were long and wet.
Columella
Signals a storm. (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
Cras te victurum, cras dicis, Postume, semper.
“You say you'll live tomorrow, Postumus, always tomorrow.”
Martial, Epigrams 5.58 · translation ours (literal)
