a.d. IV Kal. Ian.
December 29 in Ancient Rome
Lucius Silanus forced out of office
politicsAD 48
Julian date · ≈ Dec 27 on our calendar
Engaged to Claudius' daughter Octavia but slandered by Agrippina's allies, Lucius Silanus was made to resign his praetorship; he killed himself on the day Claudius married Agrippina.
Background
Lucius Junius Silanus was a great-great-grandson of Augustus and a young man of brilliant prospects. Claudius engaged him to his daughter Octavia and gave him honours, including triumphal ornaments while still young. But after Messalina's death in 48, Claudius decided to marry his niece Agrippina, who wanted Octavia for her own son, the future Nero.
Agrippina's ally Lucius Vitellius, father of the later emperor, accused Silanus of incest with his sister Junia Calvina per Tacitus, who presents the charge as a slander. As censor, Vitellius struck him from the Senate, and on 29 December 48, the last days of the year, Silanus was forced to resign his praetorship per Suetonius and Tacitus; the date follows Suetonius. His engagement was broken.
On the day of Claudius' wedding to Agrippina in early 49, Silanus killed himself per Tacitus. Octavia was then engaged to Nero. Silanus' fate shows how dynastic ambition at the top could destroy even well-born men, and how sexual accusations were used as political weapons.
Ancient source: Suetonius, Claudius 29.2; Tacitus, Annals 12.4, 12.8 · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 11°/4°C (52°/39°F) · rain 32% of days
Rome in DecemberDecember's highlight was the Saturnalia (from 17 December).
Columella
Wintry weather. (De Re Rust. 11.2)
Fields & crops
Olive picking and pressing, wood-cutting, and indoor work on rainy days; sowing ideally finished by the Kalends per Columella 11.2.
Courts & law
Courts closed for the Saturnalia; quaestors gave gladiatorial shows in December in late antiquity per the Chronography of 354.
Senate & politics
New tribunes of the plebs entered office on 10 December; outgoing magistrates closed their accounts before the year ended Republic.
Military
Winter quarters. Soldiers too kept the Saturnalia, choosing a mock 'king' per the Acts of Dasius, a late and disputed martyr text.
Festivals & religion
Faunalia (5 Dec.), Agonalia and Septimontium (11 Dec.), Consualia (15 Dec.), Saturnalia (from 17 Dec.), Opalia (19 Dec.), Divalia (21 Dec.), Larentalia (23 Dec.), and later the birthday of Sol Invictus (25 Dec.).
Daily life
December's highlight was the Saturnalia (from 17 December). Business stopped, people wore the casual pilleus cap and gave small gifts, and households let enslaved people eat with, or even be served by, their owners per Macrobius 1.7, Seneca Ep. 47. Seneca, though, notes that the inversion lasted only days; the rest of the year enslaved people stood silent and hungry while masters dined, and could be beaten for a cough per Seneca, Ep. 47. Seneca himself grumbled that the whole city "sweats" with feasting Seneca, Ep. 18.
On farms, olives were picked and pressed, and enslaved workers repaired tools and baskets on rainy days per Columella 11.2.
Sources: Varro, De Lingua Latina 6 · Chronography of 354 · Seneca, Epistles 18 and 47 · Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.7–10
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