Month
Rome in March
Fields & crops
Columella calls March the best time for pruning vines and the first digging of vineyards; spring crops like millet were readied per Columella 11.2.
Courts & law
Legal and public business resumed in full after winter. At the Liberalia (17 Mar.) many boys put on the plain toga of manhood and were enrolled as adult citizens, with a family procession to the Forum per Ovid, Fasti 3.771–88.
Senate & politics
From c. 222 to 153 BC the consuls entered office on the Ides of March; Livy records it for 217 BC, and the starting year is a modern reconstruction per Livy 22.1.4. From 153 BC they took office on the Kalends of January per Livy, Per. 47. Caesar was killed at a Senate meeting on the Ides of March 44 BC per Suetonius, Velleius.
Military
The month of Mars opened the campaign season. The Salii carried the sacred shields, and the Tubilustrium (23 Mar.) purified the war trumpets per Varro and Ovid.
Festivals & religion
Matronalia (1 Mar.), Liberalia (17 Mar.), when boys often took the man's toga, and the Quinquatrus of Minerva (19–23 Mar.), a holiday for craftsmen, teachers and doctors per Ovid, Fasti 3.
Daily life
March, once the first month of the year, reopened the seasons of war and sailing. The Salii, Mars' leaping priests, danced through the city. On the Kalends (Matronalia), married women received gifts and in turn served a meal to the household's enslaved people per Macrobius 1.12.7; Ovid, Fasti 3. Columella treats March as prime time for pruning vines and digging per Columella 11.2.
For soldiers, the campaign season began; for traders, sea routes reopened and grain ships from Egypt and Africa could sail again, easing city food supplies.
Sources: Ovid, Fasti 3 · Varro, De Lingua Latina 6 · Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.12 · Livy 22.1.4 (Latin) · Livy, Periochae 47 (Latin) · Livy, Periochae 116 (Latin) · Suetonius, Divus Iulius 80–81 (Latin) · Velleius Paterculus 2.56 (Latin)
Day by day
- March 1 — Matronalia: Roman mothers honour Juno Lucina
- March 2 — Valentinian and Valens outlaw Manichaean meetings
- March 3
- March 4
- March 5 — Navigium Isidis: the ship of Isis opens the sailing season
- March 6 — Augustus becomes pontifex maximus
- March 7 — Nones of March: the temple of Veiovis; Death of Antoninus Pius: "Equanimity"
- March 8
- March 9 — The Salii carry the sacred shields
- March 10
- March 11
- March 12
- March 13 — Law forbids marriage between Jews and Christians
- March 14 — Equirria and Mamuralia: horse races for Mars
- March 15 — Assassination of Julius Caesar; Anna Perenna: a picnic by the Tiber
- March 16 — Death of Tiberius at Misenum
- March 17 — Liberalia: boys put on the toga of manhood; Battle of Munda: Caesar’s last battle
- March 18
- March 19 — Quinquatrus: Minerva’s festival of crafts
- March 20 — Birth of the poet Ovid at Sulmo
- March 21 — Constantine forbids branding convicts on the face
- March 22 — Arbor intrat: the sacred pine enters
- March 23 — Tubilustrium: purifying the war trumpets
- March 24 — Day of Blood: a priest bleeds for a dead emperor
- March 25 — Hilaria: the day of rejoicing
- March 26 — Ovid’s spring equinox
- March 27 — Lavatio: the Great Mother is bathed in the Almo
- March 28 — Pertinax murdered by the Praetorian Guard
- March 29
- March 30 — Janus, Concord, Safety and Peace honoured
- March 31 — Death of Atticus, Cicero’s friend; Aemilius Paullus sets out against Perseus
Sunt bona, sunt quaedam mediocria, sunt mala plura quae legis hic.
“Some are good, some middling, more are bad, of what you read here.”