a.d. V Id. Mai.
May 11 in Ancient Rome
Lemuria: midnight beans for the restless dead
Beans for the ghosts
festivalRepublic & Empire (annual)
Roman calendar date
On the Lemuria the head of the house rose at midnight, threw black beans behind him for the ghosts and nine times asked the ancestral spirits to leave.
'haec ego mitto, / his' inquit 'redimo meque meosque fabis.'
"These I throw," he says, "with these beans I redeem me and mine."
Background
Romans honoured their dead at family tombs, but they also feared them. The Lemuria, held on three separate days in May, dealt with the lemures, restless spirits who might return to the house. Unlike public festivals with games and processions, this was a private rite, performed in the dark by the father of the family.
Ovid describes it step by step. At midnight, when dogs and birds are silent, the man who remembers the old rites rises barefoot and makes a sign with his thumb and closed fingers to keep ghosts away. He washes his hands in spring water, takes black beans, and throws them behind him without looking, saying "With these beans I redeem me and mine" nine times. The shade is thought to gather the beans and follow unseen. He touches water again, clashes bronze, and nine times says "Ancestral spirits, depart!" Then he looks back.
Ovid gives an origin story tradition: the bloodstained ghost of Remus appeared to his foster parents, and Romulus named a day "Remuria" for him, later softened to Lemuria. Temples were closed, and weddings in this season were thought unlucky. Ovid quotes a proverb: "bad women marry in May" per Ovid.
Ancient source: Ovid, Fasti 5.419–492 · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 22°/12°C (72°/54°F) · rain 27% of days
Rome in MayLate spring was a time of hard field labour and fresh food: beans, greens and…
Fields & crops
Hay was cut, barley harvested in warm places, beans threshed, and vines and young crops weeded and hoed per Columella 11.2. Sheep were washed and sheared.
Courts & law
A busy legal season. Romans avoided marrying in May, which was considered unlucky, especially before the Ides per Ovid, Fasti 5.490.
Senate & politics
Senate and assemblies met normally. The temple of Mercury, dedicated on the Ides of May, was the seat of an early guild of merchants per Livy 2.27; on that day traders sprinkled their goods with water from his spring to wash away the month's lies per Ovid, Fasti 5.663–92.
Military
Full campaigning season: armies marched and supply convoys used good roads and calm seas.
Festivals & religion
Floralia ended on 3 May; the Lemuria (9, 11, 13 May) drove ghosts from the house at midnight with black beans; the Argei, rush puppets, were thrown into the Tiber on 14 or 15 May per Ovid, Fasti 5.
Daily life
Late spring was a time of hard field labour and fresh food: beans, greens and the first barley. Enslaved farm workers, often chained in the ergastulum on large estates, did the heaviest work per Columella 1.6–8, who advises on their supervision. In the city, the Floralia's games included mimes and, by tradition, performers who undressed at the crowd's demand per Valerius Maximus and Lactantius; hostile or late sources. Childbirth was a major risk for women at any season; inscriptions record many deaths of young mothers per surviving epitaphs.
Sources: Ovid, Fasti 5 · Columella 1 and 11.2
All days in May →
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)
