Month
Rome in January
Fields & crops
Little field work: Columella says pious farmers rested before the Kalends and restarted every task on 1 January for luck; after the Ides, pruning and weeding of autumn-sown grain resumed per Columella 11.2.
Courts & law
Courts reopened after the Saturnalia. New magistrates took up their duties, and the praetor's edict, the rules for his year in office, was posted late Republic.
Senate & politics
From 153 BC the consuls took office on 1 January, sacrificing on the Capitol; the year was named after them. In the empire, officials and soldiers renewed vows for the emperor's safety on 3 January varies by era.
Military
Armies sat in winter quarters; campaigning in snow was rare and feared. Soldiers on the frontiers renewed their oath to the emperor at the start of the year imperial era.
Festivals & religion
Janus, god of doorways and beginnings, was honoured on the Kalends; the Agonalia (9 Jan.), the Carmentalia for the birth-goddess Carmenta (11 and 15 Jan.) and the movable Compitalia at crossroads shrines followed per Ovid, Fasti 1.
Daily life
The Kalends of January opened the civil year, with new consuls, vows for the emperor's safety and small gifts (strenae) of dates, figs and coins for good luck per Ovid, Fasti 1. The Kalends of every month was also when interest fell due, so for debtors the first of the month could be dreaded; the account book itself was called the kalendarium per Seneca and the Digest.
Winter was the hungry season for many. Rome's free monthly grain ration helped only registered male citizens (about 200,000 under Augustus) per Suetonius, Aug. 40, and Res Gestae 15; others bought at market prices. Columella says pious farmers did no field work in the days before the Kalends and restarted every kind of work on 1 January for good omen per Columella 11.2.
Sources: Ovid, Fasti 1 · Columella 11.2 · Suetonius, Augustus 40–42
Day by day
- January 1 — Kalends of January: consuls take office; Rhine legions refuse their oath to Galba; Death of Lucius Aelius Caesar
- January 2 — Compitalia (in some years)
- January 3 — Upper Rhine army goes over to Vitellius
- January 4 — Battle of Ruspina; Caesar sails from Brundisium against Pompey
- January 5
- January 6 — Who outranks whom: civil vicars and military counts
- January 7 — Octavian first holds the fasces
- January 8 — Bakers' orphans spared until age 20
- January 9 — Agonalia (January)
- January 10 — Caesar crosses the Rubicon
- January 11 — Carmentalia (first day); Birth of Theodosius I
- January 12 — Senators ordered out of military dress in Rome
- January 13 — Octavian hands the provinces back
- January 14 — Birth of Mark Antony
- January 15 — Murder of Galba; Carmentalia (second day)
- January 16 — Octavian becomes 'Augustus'
- January 17 — Death of Theodosius I
- January 18 — Clodius killed on the Appian Way
- January 19 — Theodosius invested as emperor
- January 20 — Feast of Fabian and Sebastian
- January 21 — Feast of Saint Agnes
- January 22 — Constantine protects plough oxen
- January 23 — Homoian Christians granted the right to assemble
- January 24 — Birth of Hadrian; Assassination of Caligula; Paganalia / Sementivae (Jan 24–26)
- January 25
- January 26
- January 27 — Death of Nerva
- January 28 — New patrol boats for the Danube
- January 29 — Sacrifice banned, but temple art protected
- January 30 — Birth of Livia
- January 31 — Constantine ends Augustus' penalties on the unmarried
Sunt bona, sunt quaedam mediocria, sunt mala plura quae legis hic.
“Some are good, some middling, more are bad, of what you read here.”