a.d. III Non. Apr.
April 3 in Ancient Rome
Augustus signs his last will
The emperor’s will, kept by the Vestals
politicsAD 13
Julian date · ≈ Apr 1 on our calendar
Sixteen months before his death, Augustus completed the will later read in the senate, along with rolls that included the record of his achievements now known as the Res Gestae.
Iulias filiam neptemque, si quid iis accidisset, vetuit sepulcro suo inferri.
He forbade the two Julias, his daughter and granddaughter, to be placed in his tomb if anything happened to them.
Augustus · Livia
Background
By AD 13 Augustus was in his seventies and had ruled Rome for over forty years. Who would inherit his name, his fortune and, in practice, his power, was the great political question of the day.
Suetonius dates the will exactly: in the consulship of Lucius Plancus and Gaius Silius, on the third day before the Nones of April, a year and four months before he died. It was written in two notebooks, partly in Augustus' own hand and partly by his freedmen Polybius and Hilarion, and kept by the Vestal Virgins, who brought it out after his death with three sealed rolls. Tiberius received half plus a sixth of the estate and Livia a third. The Roman people got 40 million sesterces, each praetorian soldier 1,000, each soldier of the urban cohorts 500 and each legionary 300 per Suetonius. He also forbade that his daughter and granddaughter, both named Julia, be buried in his tomb.
One of the rolls held an account of his deeds, to be engraved on bronze tablets outside his Mausoleum. Copies survive in stone from Ankara, so Augustus' own version of his life still speaks today, while the will shows the soldiers' pay-off and the family grudges.
Ancient source: Suetonius, Augustus 101 · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 17°/7°C (63°/45°F) · rain 29% 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
Hoc est vivere bis, vita posse priore frui.
“To be able to enjoy one's past life is to live twice.”
Martial, Epigrams 10.23 · translation ours (literal)
