Non. Apr.
April 5 in Ancient Rome
Megalesia: the Great Mother’s games open
Drums, cymbals and the Great Mother
festivalRepublic & Empire (annual)
Roman calendar date
The Ludi Megalenses for Cybele, the Great Mother, opened with drums, cymbals and her eunuch priests carrying her image through the streets.
ipsa sedens molli comitum cervice feretur / urbis per medias exululata vias
She herself, seated on the soft necks of her companions, will be carried with howling through the city’s streets.
Background
Cybele, the Great Mother of the Gods, came to Rome from Phrygia in Asia Minor, and her cult kept a foreign, noisy flavour. Her priests, the Galli, were eunuchs, which fascinated and disturbed Romans. Her games, the Megalesia, opened the season of public festivals.
Ovid describes the scene. The curved Phrygian flute sounds, eunuchs march and beat hollow drums, cymbals clash, and the goddess, seated on the necks of her attendants, is carried "howling" through the middle of the city. The stage is set and the games call; Ovid tells citizens to stop their law cases in the forum and watch. He then asks the Muse why. The din recalls how the Curetes beat shields on Mount Ida to hide the cries of the baby Jupiter from Saturn per Ovid. Lions pull her chariot because she tamed them, and her crown of towers recalls the first cities.
Ovid also gives everyday details. People collected small coins for her, because Metellus once built her shrine from coppers; families invited each other to dinner more than at other times; and her table held a humble dish of pounded herbs with cheese, food of the earliest humans.
Ancient source: Ovid, Fasti 4.179–372; Calendar of 354 (PRIDIE NON. APR.: LVDI MEGALESIACI) · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 17°/7°C (63°/45°F) · rain 30% of days
Rome in AprilApril was full of agricultural festivals at a tense time: last year's grain…
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
Summum nec metuas diem nec optes.
“Neither fear your last day nor long for it.”
Martial, Epigrams 10.47 · translation ours (literal)
