a.d. VIII Kal. Mai.
April 24 in Ancient Rome
A law lets Christian actresses leave the stage
Leaving the stage for the Church
religionAD 380
Julian date · ≈ Apr 25 on our calendar
Gratian, Valentinian II and Theodosius ruled that women bound to perform in public shows could not be forced back to the stage once they had become Christians.
eas enim, quas melior vivendi usus vinculo naturalis condicionis evolvit, retrahi vetamus.
For we forbid that those women be dragged back whom a better way of life has released from the bond of their natural condition.
Theodosius I · Gratian
Background
Roman audiences loved the theatre, but the people who performed in it had a low legal status. Actors and actresses were considered disreputable, and in the late empire the job was hereditary: a performer's daughter was expected to serve the public shows like her mother. Christians, meanwhile, condemned the stage as immoral.
This law, issued at Milan and sent to Paulinus, prefect of the city of Rome, deals with that clash. Women "born of lower station" who owed service to the shows were to be returned to their stage duties if they tried to escape, unless the "most holy religion" and "the Christian law" had claimed them. Women freed from their natural condition "by a better way of life" could not be dragged back. Those already released by imperial mercy from the "baser duty" were to stay free. A related law the same year fined anyone who carried an actress away from Rome for his private pleasure.
The law shows the late Roman state trying to do two things at once: keep the shows running for the people of Rome, and recognize Christian baptism as a way out. For the women involved, faith could become a legal route out of a hereditary and stigmatized trade.
Ancient source: Codex Theodosianus 15.7.4 · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 19°/10°C (66°/50°F) · rain 35% 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
Lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba.
“My page is playful; my life is upright.”
Martial, Epigrams 1.4 · translation ours (literal)
