a.d. XIII Kal. Mai.
April 19 in Ancient Rome
Cerialia: foxes with torches in the Circus
Burning foxes for the grain goddess
festivalRepublic & Empire (annual)
Roman calendar date
At the climax of the games of Ceres, foxes with burning torches tied to their backs were let loose in the Circus Maximus, a rite Ovid traced to a farm fire.
nunc quoque lex volpem Carseolana vetat
Even now a law of Carseoli forbids the fox.
Background
Ceres, goddess of grain, mattered to every Roman who ate bread. Her games, the Ludi Ceriales, ran from 12 to 19 April and ended with races in the Circus. Ovid sings of her gifts: the first humans lived on green herbs, and Ceres brought them better food. He asks farmers to pray for peace, because "Ceres is glad in peace".
The strangest part of the festival was its ending. Foxes were released in the Circus with burning torches tied to their backs. Ovid says he learned the reason from an old host at Carseoli, on his way home to the Paeligni. A peasant couple had a twelve-year-old son who caught a vixen that had stolen many of their hens. He wrapped it in straw and hay and set it alight. The fox escaped and ran through the ripe crops, and the wind spread the flames across the fields tradition. Ovid adds that a local law of Carseoli still banned foxes, and that foxes were burned at the Cerialia as punishment, dying as the crops had died.
The tale is a story told to explain a rite, but it reflects a real farm fear: a single fire in dry fields could destroy a year's food.
Ancient source: Ovid, Fasti 4.393–416, 679–712; Calendar of 354 (XIII KAL. MAI.: CEREALICI CM XXIIII) · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 18°/9°C (64°/48°F) · rain 39% 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)
