a.d. IV Id. Oct.
October 12 in Ancient Rome
Augustus comes home: the altar of Fortuna Redux
An altar for a safe homecoming
politics19 BC
Julian date · ≈ Oct 10 on our calendar
Augustus returned from the East, and the senate built an altar to Fortune Who Brings Home; the anniversary became the Augustalia.
Aram Fortunae Reducis ante aedes Honoris et Virtutis ad portam Capenam pro reditu meo senatus consacravit
For my return the senate consecrated an altar of Fortuna Redux in front of the temple of Honour and Virtue at the Porta Capena.
Background
In 19 BC Augustus came back to Rome after years in Greece and Asia. In his own account of his achievements, Augustus says that a group of praetors and tribunes, with the consul Quintus Lucretius and leading citizens, were sent to Campania to meet him, an honour he says had been decreed to no one else per Augustus.
To give thanks for his return, the senate consecrated an altar to Fortuna Redux, "Fortune Who Brings Home", in front of the temple of Honour and Virtue at the Porta Capena, where travellers on the Appian Way entered the city. The pontiffs and Vestal Virgins were ordered to sacrifice there every year on the day he had come back from Syria, and the senate named that day the Augustalia after him.
The calendar of Amiternum records the day as a public holiday by decree of the senate, noting both his entry into Rome and the new altar. The festival lasted for centuries. The Calendar of 354, written more than three hundred years later, still marks 12 October as the Augustales, with twenty-four chariot races in the Circus. It is the clearest sign of how long one emperor's homecoming stayed on the Roman calendar.
Ancient source: Res Gestae 11–12; Fasti Amiternini (12 October) · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 22°/13°C (72°/55°F) · rain 32% of days
Rome in OctoberOctober ended the vintage and the olive harvest began.
Fields & crops
End of the vintage and start of the olive harvest; autumn ploughing and the first sowing of grain began after the rains per Columella 11.2. Cato lists rations for a farm's enslaved workers: more bread when they dig or tend vines, less in winter per Cato, Agr. 56.
Courts & law
Courts busy again after the summer; many wealthy Romans returned to the city. In the late Republic, trials resumed in force after the summer and autumn games, and many famous speeches were given in these months late Republic.
Senate & politics
Under the empire, Domitian briefly renamed October 'Domitianus' after himself; the name vanished after his murder per Suetonius, Dom. 13.
Military
The campaign season closed. The Armilustrium (19 Oct.) purified the army's weapons, and the October Horse sacrifice (15 Oct.) was dedicated to Mars per Varro and Festus.
Festivals & religion
Meditrinalia (11 Oct.), tasting the new wine as medicine; Fontinalia (13 Oct.), garlanding springs and wells; October Horse; Armilustrium per Varro, De Lingua Latina 6.21–22. The October Horse: after a race on the Campus Martius, the right-hand horse of the winning chariot was sacrificed to Mars, and residents of the Sacred Way and the Subura fought over its head per Festus.
Daily life
October ended the vintage and the olive harvest began. On farms, enslaved workers and hired day labourers pressed grapes and stored wine; Cato lists the rations of bread and cheap wine (lora) given to a farm's enslaved workforce per Cato, Agr. 56–57. In the city, the sailing season was closing, so grain had to be stockpiled before winter storms made sea transport dangerous.
Sources: Varro, De Lingua Latina 6 · Columella 11.2 · Cato, De Agri Cultura 56–57
All days in October →
LATIN LINE OF THE DAY
Ille sapit quisquis, Postume, vixit heri.
“The wise man, Postumus, is whoever lived yesterday.”
Martial, Epigrams 5.58 · translation ours (literal)
