pr. Kal. Dec.
November 30 in Ancient Rome
Birth of Domitia Faustina
birthAD 147
Julian date · ≈ Nov 29 on our calendar
Faustina the Younger gave birth to a daughter, Marcus Aurelius' first child.
Marcus Aurelius
Background
In 145 Marcus Aurelius, adopted heir of Antoninus Pius, married Pius' daughter Faustina the Younger. On 30 November 147 she gave birth to their first child, a girl named Domitia Faustina; the date comes from the Fasti Ostienses, an inscribed calendar of events from Ostia.
The birth mattered politically. The very next day Pius granted Marcus the tribunician power, and Faustina received the title Augusta, marking the couple as the dynasty's future the link is a modern inference from the dates.
Faustina bore at least thirteen children over about 23 years, but many died young per inscriptions and coins; exact numbers disputed. Domitia Faustina herself probably died as a child, around 151. Even in the imperial family, with the best doctors and food, child mortality was severe; in ordinary families, perhaps a quarter to a third of babies died in their first year modern demographic estimate. Marcus' letters to his tutor Fronto speak often of his children's illnesses.
Ancient source: Fasti Ostienses · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 14°/7°C (57°/45°F) · rain 38% of days
Rome in NovemberFor farmers, the weeks of ploughing and sowing were long and wet.
Columella
West wind or south wind; sometimes rain. (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
Nec tecum possum vivere, nec sine te.
“I can't live with you, nor without you.”
Martial, Epigrams 12.46 · translation ours (literal)
