a.d. X Kal. Nov.
October 23 in Ancient Rome
Second battle of Philippi: death of Brutus
“Not with our feet, but with our hands”
military42 BC
Julian date · ≈ Oct 21 on our calendar
Octavian and Antony defeated Brutus at Philippi; Plutarch describes Brutus’ last night under the stars and his death on his own sword.
Background
In October 42 BC disputed, on a day known only from a partly restored line of the Fasti Praenestini, two and a half years after the Ides of March, Caesar's assassins Brutus and Cassius faced Octavian and Mark Antony on the plains of Philippi in Macedonia. Cassius had already died after the first battle. In the second, Brutus' army broke, and he escaped at nightfall with a few officers and friends to a hollow under steep rocks.
Plutarch, drawing on the memoir of Brutus' friend Volumnius, tells the night in detail. Looking up at a sky full of stars, Brutus quoted a Greek verse: "Punish, great Jove, the author of these ills." He named the friends killed that day, groaning over Flavius and Labeo. A companion who fetched water in a helmet was wounded going back for more. Statyllius slipped through enemy lines to the camp and signalled with a torch that it was safe, but was killed returning per Plutarch.
Brutus asked Volumnius, in Greek, to help him hold the sword; he refused. Brutus said they must flee, "not with our feet, but with our hands", thanked his friends for their loyalty, and fell on his sword, held, some said, by his old fellow student of rhetoric Strato disputed. Antony found the body and ordered his own richest purple cloak thrown over it.
⚠ Uncertain date: Date disputed: the 23 October entry in the Fasti Praenestini is partly restored by modern editors, and the date of the second battle is debated.
Ancient source: Fasti Praenestini (23 October); Plutarch, Brutus 51–53 · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 20°/12°C (68°/54°F) · rain 31% of days
Rome in OctoberOctober ended the vintage and the olive harvest began.
Fields & crops
End of the vintage and start of the olive harvest; autumn ploughing and the first sowing of grain began after the rains per Columella 11.2. Cato lists rations for a farm's enslaved workers: more bread when they dig or tend vines, less in winter per Cato, Agr. 56.
Courts & law
Courts busy again after the summer; many wealthy Romans returned to the city. In the late Republic, trials resumed in force after the summer and autumn games, and many famous speeches were given in these months late Republic.
Senate & politics
Under the empire, Domitian briefly renamed October 'Domitianus' after himself; the name vanished after his murder per Suetonius, Dom. 13.
Military
The campaign season closed. The Armilustrium (19 Oct.) purified the army's weapons, and the October Horse sacrifice (15 Oct.) was dedicated to Mars per Varro and Festus.
Festivals & religion
Meditrinalia (11 Oct.), tasting the new wine as medicine; Fontinalia (13 Oct.), garlanding springs and wells; October Horse; Armilustrium per Varro, De Lingua Latina 6.21–22. The October Horse: after a race on the Campus Martius, the right-hand horse of the winning chariot was sacrificed to Mars, and residents of the Sacred Way and the Subura fought over its head per Festus.
Daily life
October ended the vintage and the olive harvest began. On farms, enslaved workers and hired day labourers pressed grapes and stored wine; Cato lists the rations of bread and cheap wine (lora) given to a farm's enslaved workforce per Cato, Agr. 56–57. In the city, the sailing season was closing, so grain had to be stockpiled before winter storms made sea transport dangerous.
Sources: Varro, De Lingua Latina 6 · Columella 11.2 · Cato, De Agri Cultura 56–57
All days in October →
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)
