a.d. III Kal. Mai.
April 29 in Ancient Rome
Floralia: games for the goddess of flowers begin
A thousand garlands for Flora
festivalRepublic & Empire (annual)
Roman calendar date
The games of Flora opened, running into early May, with garlands, colourful clothes, torches and a famously free-and-easy stage.
mille venit variis florum dea nexa coronis; / scaena ioci morem liberioris habet.
A goddess comes framed in a thousand varied garlands of flowers, and the stage has freer licence for mirth.
Background
Spring flowers meant more than beauty to Romans: if the blossoms on grain, vines, olives and beans failed, there would be no harvest. Flora was the goddess of that flowering, and her games were among the most cheerful of the year.
Ovid introduces her at the end of April: a goddess comes "framed in a thousand varied garlands of flowers", and "the stage has freer licence for mirth". He saves the full story for May. There Flora herself tells him she was once the nymph Chloris, and that her games began when the plebeian aediles, the Publicius brothers, prosecuted rich men for grazing their herds illegally on public land; part of the fines paid for new games in her honour per Ovid.
Ovid also lists the festival's habits. While white clothes were worn for Ceres, Flora's worshippers dressed in many colours, because flowers come in every colour. There were lights and torches, and Flora explains that night-time licence suits her pleasures. Instead of lions, gentle deer and shy hares were hunted, because her care was gardens and fields, not the wild. The message, Ovid's Flora says, was simple: enjoy life's beauty while it blooms, because "the thorn is spurned when the rose has fallen".
Ancient source: Ovid, Fasti 4.943–948, 5.183–378; Calendar of 354 (PRIDIE KAL. MAI.: LVDI FLORALES) · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 20°/11°C (68°/52°F) · rain 36% of days
Rome in AprilApril was full of agricultural festivals at a tense time: last year's grain…
Columella
A south-wind day; sometimes rain. (De Re Rust. 11.2)
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
Rumpitur invidia quidam, carissime Iuli, quod me Roma legit.
“Someone is bursting with envy, dearest Julius, because Rome reads me.”
Martial, Epigrams 9.97 · translation ours (literal)
