a.d. IV Id. Apr.
April 10 in Ancient Rome
The Megalesia end with races in the Circus
Twenty-four races for the Great Mother
festivalRepublic & Empire (annual)
Roman calendar date
On the last day of the Great Mother’s games, a procession of gods entered the Circus Maximus and chariot teams raced for the first prize of the season.
Circus erit pompa celeber numeroque deorum, / primaque ventosis palma petetur equis.
The Circus will be thronged with a procession and many gods, and the first palm will be sought by horses swift as the wind.
Background
Roman festival games, ludi, usually built up over several days of stage plays and ended with the most popular entertainment of all: chariot racing in the Circus Maximus. The Megalesia, which opened on 4 April, followed this pattern.
Ovid gives the final day in four lines. When dawn looks on "victorious Rome", he writes, the Circus will be crowded with a procession and a great number of gods, and the first palm of victory will be sought by horses swift as the wind. The procession, the pompa, carried images of the gods into the arena before the races began, so the gods themselves seemed to watch. Ovid calls it the "first" palm because the Megalesia were the first games of the Roman festival year per Ovid.
Some 350 years later the Calendar of 354 still lists the day as MEGALESIACI, with the note CM XXIIII: twenty-four races in the Circus. That was the standard full day of racing in the late empire. For ordinary Romans, this meant a free day of shouting for their favourite team, with bets, food stalls and crowds packing the stands, and the excitement would return a few days later with the games of Ceres.
Ancient source: Ovid, Fasti 4.389–392; Calendar of 354 (IIII ID. APR.: MEGALESIACI CM XXIIII) · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 17°/8°C (63°/46°F) · rain 37% of days
Rome in AprilApril was full of agricultural festivals at a tense time: last year's grain…
Columella
Sometimes signals a storm. (De Re Rust. 11.2)
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
All days in April →
LATIN LINE OF THE DAY
Lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba.
“My page is playful; my life is upright.”
Martial, Epigrams 1.4 · translation ours (literal)
