a.d. XI Kal. Iun.
May 22 in Ancient Rome
Death of Constantine
The first Christian emperor is baptized and dies
deathAD 337
Julian date · ≈ May 23 on our calendar
Constantine, the first Christian emperor, died near Nicomedia shortly after being baptized, having left the empire to his three sons, with shares for two nephews.
Constantine
Background
Constantine had ruled for more than thirty years. He had defeated his rivals, ended the persecution of Christians, founded Constantinople, and presided over the Council of Nicaea. Yet, like many Christians of his time, he had put off baptism, which was believed to wash away all sins, until near the end of his life.
Socrates tells the story. In his sixty-fifth year the emperor fell ill. He left Constantinople and sailed to Helenopolis to try the hot springs there, which were believed to heal. When his illness grew worse, he gave up the baths and moved to the suburbs of Nicomedia, where he was baptized. Afterwards he was cheerful. He made his will, dividing the empire among his three sons and granting privileges to Rome and Constantinople, and entrusted it to a priest with orders to give it only to his son Constantius. A few days later he died. None of his sons was present per Socrates. Socrates names only the three sons, but a Latin chronicle, the Origo Constantini (35), says Constantine had also made his nephew Dalmatius a Caesar, set to guard the Gothic bank of the Danube, and had made Dalmatius' brother Hannibalianus, husband of his daughter Constantina, "king of kings and of the Pontic peoples".
His body was placed in a golden coffin and taken to Constantinople, where it lay in state in the palace, guarded and honoured as if he were alive, until Constantius arrived. He was buried in the Church of the Apostles, which he had built for this purpose.
Ancient source: Socrates Scholasticus, Church History 1.39–40 · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 23°/13°C (73°/55°F) · rain 27% of days
Rome in MayLate spring was a time of hard field labour and fresh food: beans, greens and…
Columella
Signals a storm. (De Re Rust. 11.2)
Fields & crops
Hay was cut, barley harvested in warm places, beans threshed, and vines and young crops weeded and hoed per Columella 11.2. Sheep were washed and sheared.
Courts & law
A busy legal season. Romans avoided marrying in May, which was considered unlucky, especially before the Ides per Ovid, Fasti 5.490.
Senate & politics
Senate and assemblies met normally. The temple of Mercury, dedicated on the Ides of May, was the seat of an early guild of merchants per Livy 2.27; on that day traders sprinkled their goods with water from his spring to wash away the month's lies per Ovid, Fasti 5.663–92.
Military
Full campaigning season: armies marched and supply convoys used good roads and calm seas.
Festivals & religion
Floralia ended on 3 May; the Lemuria (9, 11, 13 May) drove ghosts from the house at midnight with black beans; the Argei, rush puppets, were thrown into the Tiber on 14 or 15 May per Ovid, Fasti 5.
Daily life
Late spring was a time of hard field labour and fresh food: beans, greens and the first barley. Enslaved farm workers, often chained in the ergastulum on large estates, did the heaviest work per Columella 1.6–8, who advises on their supervision. In the city, the Floralia's games included mimes and, by tradition, performers who undressed at the crowd's demand per Valerius Maximus and Lactantius; hostile or late sources. Childbirth was a major risk for women at any season; inscriptions record many deaths of young mothers per surviving epitaphs.
Sources: Ovid, Fasti 5 · Columella 1 and 11.2
All days in May →
LATIN LINE OF THE DAY
Lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba.
“My page is playful; my life is upright.”
Martial, Epigrams 1.4 · translation ours (literal)
