a.d. VI Kal. Dec.
November 26 in Ancient Rome
Arians expelled from Constantinople's churches
religionAD 380
Julian date · ≈ Nov 27 on our calendar
When the Arian bishop Demophilus refused Theodosius' demand to accept the Nicene Creed, he was ordered to give up the churches and led his followers to worship outside the city walls, ending forty years of Arian control.
Theodosius I
Background
For about forty years Constantinople's churches had been led by bishops who rejected the Nicene Creed's statement that the Son is "of the same substance" as the Father; their opponents called them Arians. Valens, the previous eastern emperor, had supported them. The Nicene community, led by Gregory of Nazianzus, met in a small chapel called the Anastasia.
Two days after entering the city, Theodosius summoned the bishop Demophilus and asked him to accept the Nicene faith. When he refused, the emperor told him to give up the churches. Demophilus gathered his followers and from then on held services outside the city walls per Socrates, writing about sixty years later. Gregory of Nazianzus was installed in the Church of the Holy Apostles under armed escort, as he himself describes.
The change of control affected ordinary believers directly: clergy, church property and charitable distributions moved to the Nicene side. In 381 the Council of Constantinople confirmed the Nicene creed, and imperial laws soon banned non-Nicene groups from meeting inside cities.
Ancient source: Socrates Scholasticus, Church History 5.7 · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 15°/7°C (59°/45°F) · rain 35% of days
Rome in NovemberFor farmers, the weeks of ploughing and sowing were long and wet.
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
Hominem pagina nostra sapit.
“My page tastes of humanity.”
Martial, Epigrams 10.4 · translation ours (literal)
