a.d. IV Non. Sept.
September 2 in Ancient Rome
Battle of Actium
The day Octavian’s sole rule began
military31 BC
Julian date · ≈ Aug 31 on our calendar
Octavian’s fleet under Agrippa defeated Antony and Cleopatra off Actium; Cassius Dio says he names the day because Octavian’s sole rule was reckoned from it.
Background
By 31 BC the Roman world had split between Octavian in the west and Mark Antony, allied with Cleopatra of Egypt, in the east. Antony's fleet and army gathered at Actium in western Greece, where Octavian and his admiral Agrippa hemmed them in through the summer.
Plutarch describes the battle as undecided until Cleopatra's sixty ships suddenly hoisted sail and fled through the fighting lines toward the Peloponnese. Antony abandoned his men, followed her in a five-banked galley, and sat alone in the prow covering his face with his hands per Plutarch. His fleet held out until about four in the afternoon; Plutarch, citing Octavian's own memoirs, says no more than five thousand were killed but three hundred ships were taken.
Cassius Dio explains why he gives the date: Octavian now held all power alone, and the years of his reign were reckoned from that day. He dedicated captured warships to Apollo of Actium and founded games there. Back home, Italian calendars later marked 2 September as a public holiday, by decree of the senate, for the victory at Actium.
Ancient source: Cassius Dio 51.1; Fasti Arvales and Amiternini (2 September) · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 28°/18°C (82°/64°F) · rain 27% of days
Rome in SeptemberThe vintage needed extra hands; Cato explains how to contract out the harvest…
Columella
Heat. (De Re Rust. 11.2)
Fields & crops
Vintage season: grapes picked, trodden and pressed, must boiled down, and jars sealed. Columella details preparing vats and keeping workers fed per Columella 11.2, 12. Varro notes that the vintage falls between the autumn equinox and the setting of the Pleiades, when apples are also picked per Varro, Rust. 1.34.
Courts & law
The long Ludi Romani (5–19 Sept. in the late Republic) suspended much public business late Republic.
Senate & politics
Augustus' birthday (23 Sept.) became a public festival; under the emperors the date was marked across the empire imperial era. Under Augustus, the 23 September birthday saw games and banquets; in the province of Asia, the new year was even moved to start on that date per the Priene calendar inscription, 9 BC.
Military
Late campaigns before autumn; triumphs were sometimes held in September at the end of a war. The Ludi Romani opened with a grand procession through the Circus in which young men of military age marched on horse and on foot per Dionysius of Halicarnassus 7.72.
Festivals & religion
Ludi Romani, Rome's oldest games, for Jupiter, with the Epulum Iovis on the Ides (13 Sept.) and the consul driving a nail into the temple wall on the Ides in early times per Livy 7.3.
Daily life
The vintage needed extra hands; Cato explains how to contract out the harvest and pressing per Cato, Agr. 144–47. Workers drank lora, a thin wine from re-soaked grape skins. For tenants, the harvest decided whether rent could be paid; Pliny the Younger complains of tenants falling into arrears after bad years per Pliny, Letters 9.37.
Sources: Cato, De Agri Cultura 144–47 · Pliny the Younger, Letters 9.37
All days in September →
LATIN LINE OF THE DAY
Rumpitur invidia quidam, carissime Iuli, quod me Roma legit.
“Someone is bursting with envy, dearest Julius, because Rome reads me.”
Martial, Epigrams 9.97 · translation ours (literal)
