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On the Ides, flute-players roamed Rome in masks and long robes, recalling how their guild once went on strike to Tibur and was carted back drunk to the Forum.
cur vagus incedit tota tibicen in Urbe?
Why does the flute-player wander all over the City?
Background
Flute music was everywhere in Roman life: at sacrifices, at the games and in funeral processions. The flute-players formed a guild with a sense of their own importance. Every year on the Ides of June they wandered through the city in masks and long robes, and Ovid asked Minerva why per Ovid.
Her answer is a comic story. An aedile once limited funerals to no more than ten flute-players, so the guild left Rome in protest for Tibur. Without them, temples and theatres fell silent. At Tibur a freedman invited them to a feast and, when they were all drunk, a messenger rushed in to say his old master was coming. The guests were bundled into a wagon, fell asleep, and woke at dawn in the middle of the Roman Forum. To hide who they were, a magistrate named Plautius had them masked and dressed in long robes per Ovid. Livy tells a similar story of a strike over a ban on feasting in the temple of Jupiter per Livy.
It is one of Rome's earliest stories of a strike, ending with a trick and a hangover. The masks and robes survived as costume for a merry holiday of street music.
Ancient source: Ovid, Fasti 6.651–692; Livy 9.30 · Reference
Lactantius says that on the Ides of June 313 Licinius had the letter agreed with Constantine at Milan posted in Nicomedia, granting Christians and everyone else freedom of worship.
die Iduum Iuniarum Constantino atque ipso ter consulibus
on the day of the Ides of June, when Constantine and he himself were consuls for the third time
Background
In 313 the Roman world had two Christian-friendly emperors in the west and east: Constantine, who had taken Rome the year before, and Licinius. Early that year they met at Milan, where Licinius married Constantine's sister, and agreed on a policy toward religion. Then Licinius marched east and defeated the persecuting emperor Maximinus Daia.
A few days after the victory, Lactantius says, Licinius entered Nicomedia, gave thanks to God and, on the Ides of June, ordered a letter to the provincial governor to be posted per Lactantius. Its text, which Lactantius copies, says that the two emperors had met at Milan and decided that "Christians and all others" should have liberty to follow whatever religion each thought best. Churches and meeting places confiscated from Christians were to be returned without payment; buyers could apply to the emperors for compensation.
This document is what we call the "Edict of Milan", though it was really a letter, and the copy we have was posted in Nicomedia, not Milan. For ordinary Christians in the east it meant the end of a decade of persecution and the return of their meeting houses, cemeteries and property.
Ancient source: Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors 48 · Reference
Grain harvest began in the lowlands: wheat was reaped, threshed on the threshing floor and stored. Columella advises clearing the floor and preparing granaries per Columella 11.2.
Courts & law
Normal court business. As on every Kalends, interest on loans fell due on 1 June, also the day of Carna, goddess of the body's vital organs, honoured with bean porridge and bacon per Ovid, Fasti 6.101–82.
Senate & politics
No fixed political dates, but in the Republic elections were often held in summer, with candidates canvassing in whitened togas late Republic; often July.
Military
Campaigns continued; harvests in enemy territory were sometimes burned or seized to feed armies.
Festivals & religion
The Vestalia (9 June), when bakers and millers garlanded their donkeys and mill-stones and women walked barefoot to Vesta's temple; the temple was cleaned on 15 June per Ovid, Fasti 6. Fishermen's games were held across the Tiber on 7 June.
Daily life
Harvest meant long days for gangs of hired reapers, often seasonal migrant labourers, alongside enslaved workers per Varro, Rust. 1.17, on hiring free labourers for harvests. Summer heat in Rome brought fevers, probably malaria in low, marshy districts; the wealthy left for hill or seaside villas per Horace and Celsus; malaria identification modern. The poor stayed in hot, crowded insulae.
