Month
Rome in April
Fields & crops
Spring sowing of millet and panic grass around the Ides; vines dug and vegetables planted out. Mildew on the young grain was the great fear per Columella 11.2; Ovid, Fasti 4.
Courts & law
Many days were taken up by games (Megalesia, Cerealia, Floralia), when courts did not sit; legal business squeezed into the gaps late Republic.
Senate & politics
Aediles who ran the April games used them to win votes; lavish shows could make a political career late Republic.
Military
Armies marched out to campaign; the sea lanes were open, so troops and grain ships moved again.
Festivals & religion
Veneralia (1 Apr.), Megalesia for the Great Mother (4–10 Apr.), Fordicidia (15 Apr.), Cerealia (12–19 Apr.), Parilia, Rome's birthday (21 Apr.), Vinalia (23 Apr.), Robigalia (25 Apr.) and the Floralia from 28 April per Ovid, Fasti 4.
Daily life
April was full of agricultural festivals at a tense time: last year's grain was running low and the new harvest was still weeks away. The Cerealia honoured Ceres, goddess of grain; the Robigalia (25 April) sacrificed a dog to keep mildew (robigo) off the crops per Ovid, Fasti 4.905–42. At the Parilia (21 April), Rome's birthday, shepherds purified flocks and leaped over bonfires per Ovid, Fasti 4.721–82.
Women of different ranks worshipped Venus and Fortuna Virilis on 1 April; Ovid says women of lower status bathed in the men's baths that day per Ovid, Fasti 4.133–50.
Sources: Ovid, Fasti 4 · Columella 11.2
Day by day
- April 1 — Veneralia: women wash Venus and honour Fortuna Virilis
- April 2
- April 3 — Augustus signs his last will
- April 4 — Megalesia: the Great Mother’s games open
- April 5
- April 6 — Caesar crushes Scipio and Juba at Thapsus
- April 7
- April 8
- April 9
- April 10 — The Megalesia end with races in the Circus
- April 11 — Birth of Septimius Severus, the emperor from Africa
- April 12 — The Great Mother arrives in Rome
- April 13
- April 14 — Battle of Forum Gallorum
- April 15 — Fordicidia: pregnant cows for Mother Earth
- April 16 — Young Octavian is hailed imperator
- April 17
- April 18
- April 19 — Cerialia: foxes with torches in the Circus
- April 20
- April 21 — Parilia: shepherds leap through fire; The founding of Rome
- April 22
- April 23 — Vinalia: the new wine for Jupiter, and a holiday for Venus
- April 24 — A law lets Christian actresses leave the stage
- April 25 — Robigalia: a dog sacrificed against crop blight
- April 26 — Birth of Marcus Aurelius
- April 27
- April 28 — Floralia: games for the goddess of flowers begin; Augustus gives Vesta a home in his own house
- April 29
- April 30 — Private prisons are declared treason; Galerius’ edict of toleration ends the Great Persecution in the East
Sunt bona, sunt quaedam mediocria, sunt mala plura quae legis hic.
“Some are good, some middling, more are bad, of what you read here.”