a.d. XIII Kal. Feb.
January 20 in Ancient Rome
Feast of Fabian and Sebastian
religionListed AD 354
Roman calendar date
Rome's list of martyrs' feasts commemorates Bishop Fabian at the catacomb of Callixtus and Sebastian at the Catacombs on the Appian Way on 20 January.
Background
The Chronography of 354, an illustrated almanac made for a Roman aristocrat, includes a list of the days on which Rome's church remembered its martyrs and where. It is one of the earliest Christian calendars to survive.
On 20 January it lists two men. Fabian was bishop of Rome from 236 and died in 250 in the persecution under the emperor Decius, who required everyone to sacrifice to the gods and obtain a certificate to prove it; he was buried in the catacomb of Callixtus on the Appian Way. Sebastian was a Roman martyr buried "in catacumbas", the cemetery later named San Sebastiano. The popular story that he was a soldier shot with arrows comes from a much later legend tradition.
The list shows Roman Christians gathering at tombs outside the city walls on anniversaries, a practice that turned cemeteries into pilgrimage sites. Ordinary believers, including the poor and the enslaved, could join these feasts; by 354 the persecutions were a memory and the church was gaining public status.
Ancient source: Chronography of 354, Depositio martyrum (XIII kal. Feb.) · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 12°/4°C (54°/39°F) · rain 33% of days
Rome in JanuaryThe Kalends of January opened the civil year, with new consuls, vows for the…
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
All days in January →
LATIN LINE OF THE DAY
Ille sapit quisquis, Postume, vixit heri.
“The wise man, Postumus, is whoever lived yesterday.”
Martial, Epigrams 5.58 · translation ours (literal)
