Kal. Feb.
February 1 in Ancient Rome
Temple of Juno Sospita
festivalAnnual
Roman calendar date
Ovid opens February with the Kalends feast of Juno Sospita, 'the Saviour', whose temple stood beside that of the Phrygian Mother; by his day the old temple had collapsed.
Background
Juno Sospita, "Juno the Saviour", was the ancient goddess of Lanuvium, a Latin town south of Rome. She was shown armed, wearing a goatskin with the head and horns still attached, carrying spear and shield. When Rome absorbed Lanuvium in 338 BC, the Romans shared her cult, and the consuls went to Lanuvium every year to sacrifice to her.
Ovid opens his account of February with her: on the Kalends, he says, Juno Sospita was honoured at her shrine beside the temple of the Phrygian Mother (Cybele) on the Palatine, but the old temple had collapsed with time per Ovid. Rome's best-known temple of Juno Sospita stood in the Forum Holitorium, the vegetable market, vowed in 197 BC per Livy. Scholars debate how Ovid's location fits disputed.
February was a month of purification and of the dead, the last month of the old Roman year. A festival for a protecting goddess at its start fitted that mood. Ovid uses the ruined temple to praise Augustus, who restored many temples, a reminder that even religion served the regime's image.
Ancient source: Ovid, Fasti 2.55–58 · Reference
Sources
Read moreNaval triumph of Lucius Aemilius Regillus
Naval triumph of Lucius Aemilius Regillus
politics189 BC
Pre-reform Roman calendar
Kal. Feb. · as written (pre-Julian calendar)
Regillus, who had beaten Antiochus III's fleet at Myonnesus, celebrated a naval triumph on the Kalends of February with 49 gold crowns carried in the procession.
Background
In 192 BC the Seleucid king Antiochus III crossed into Greece, and Rome went to war with the greatest monarch of the Hellenistic East. After his army was driven from Greece, the war moved to the Aegean, where control of the sea decided whether Roman armies could cross into Asia.
In 190 BC the praetor Lucius Aemilius Regillus, commanding the Roman fleet with allied Rhodian ships, defeated Antiochus' navy under Polyxenidas off Myonnesus, on the Ionian coast. The victory opened the Hellespont for the Scipios' army, which crushed Antiochus at Magnesia. Livy records that Regillus celebrated a naval triumph on the Kalends of February, with 49 golden crowns carried in procession. Livy remarks that the cash on show, 34,200 Attic tetradrachms and 132,300 cistophori, was far less than a victory over a king might suggest.
A triumph was the greatest honour a Roman commander could win: a parade through the city to the Capitol, with captives, spoils and soldiers singing rude songs. Rome's expansion east brought wealth and enslaved captives into Italy on a vast scale, changing farming and society for good.
Before Caesar's reform (45 BC) the calendar had drifted from the seasons, so the real seasonal date was different; we don't give a modern equivalent. Why?
Ancient source: Livy 37.58.3–4 · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 12°/4°C (54°/39°F) · rain 34% of days
Rome in FebruaryFebruary was Rome's month of purification and of the dead.
Fields & crops
The west wind (Favonius) brought the first signs of spring around 7 February per Columella 11.2: vines were pruned, trees grafted, and meadows cleared and manured.
Courts & law
February was when the Senate traditionally heard foreign embassies late Republic, per the lex Gabinia and Cicero's letters. Ordinary law courts kept sitting except on festival days.
Senate & politics
As the last month of the old year, February was used for the intercalary month when the pre-Julian calendar needed correcting, inserted after the Terminalia (23 Feb.), a source of political manipulation pre-Julian.
Military
Still the closed season; armies prepared for spring, recruits trained, and supplies were gathered at frontier bases.
Festivals & religion
The month's name comes from februa, means of purification. The Lupercalia (15 Feb.), the Parentalia for the family dead (13–21 Feb.) ending with the Feralia, the Caristia family reunion (22 Feb.) and the Terminalia for boundary stones (23 Feb.) filled it per Ovid, Fasti 2.
Daily life
February was Rome's month of purification and of the dead. During the Parentalia (13–21 February) families brought simple offerings—wreaths, grain, salt, bread soaked in wine, violets—to their ancestors' tombs per Ovid, Fasti 2.533–42. Death was close: perhaps a quarter or more of infants died in their first year, and tombstones for young children are common modern demographic estimate; disputed in detail.
On farms Columella says the west wind (Favonius) starts about 7 February, signalling pruning, grafting and the first spring work per Columella 11.2. The Lupercalia (15 February) saw young men run through the streets striking women with goatskin strips, believed to help fertility and childbirth per Ovid and Plutarch.
Sources: Ovid, Fasti 2 · Columella 11.2
All days in February →
LATIN LINE OF THE DAY
Sera nimis vita est crastina: vive hodie.
“Tomorrow's life is too late: live today.”
Martial, Epigrams 1.15 · translation ours (literal)
