a.d. X Kal. Iun.
May 23 in Ancient Rome
Tubilustrium: sacred trumpets purified, and roses in the market
Clean trumpets and market roses
festivalRepublic & Empire (annual)
Roman calendar date
Ovid marks the day when Vulcan’s trumpets were purified; four centuries later the Calendar of 354 notes for the same day that the market “takes the rose”.
Proxima Volcani lux est, Tubilustria dicunt: / lustrantur purae, quas facit ille, tubae.
The next day is Vulcan’s; they call it Tubilustria: the trumpets he makes are purified.
Background
Trumpets mattered in Roman religion and war: they called the people to assemblies, signalled in battle and sounded at sacrifices. Twice a year, on 23 March and 23 May, the Romans held a Tubilustrium, a "purification of trumpets", so that the instruments used in sacred ceremonies were ritually clean.
Ovid gives the May day just two lines: the next dawn belongs to Vulcan, and they call it Tubilustria, when the pure trumpets he makes are purified per Ovid. Linking the rite to Vulcan, the smith god, made sense, since bronze trumpets came from the forge. Ovid has nothing more to say, and the brevity itself is telling: by his time some old rites were kept up by priests while ordinary Romans barely noticed them.
Centuries later, the Calendar of 354 marks the same day with a very different note: MACELLVS ROSA SVMAT, roughly "let the market take the rose". The macellum was Rome's provisions market. The note is usually read as a day when roses were bought or displayed in the market, perhaps linked to the rose festivals Romans held for the dead in May disputed. Either way, it is a rare glimpse of everyday shopping recorded in an official calendar.
Ancient source: Ovid, Fasti 5.725–726; Calendar of 354 (X KAL. IVN.: MACELLVS ROSA SVMAT) · Reference
Sources
Read moreConstantine allows magic to protect the harvest
Constantine allows magic to protect the harvest
Charms against hail are legal
religionAD 321
Julian date · ≈ May 24 on our calendar
A law of Constantine punished harmful magic severely but declared that remedies for the sick and rural charms against rain and hail were not crimes.
ne maturis vindemiis metuerentur imbres aut ruentis grandinis lapidatione quaterentur
so that ripe grapes would not have to fear the rains or be battered by the stoning of falling hail
Constantine
Background
Romans of every class used magic. Farmers recited charms over their fields, the sick wore amulets, and rivals buried curse tablets. Roman law had long punished magic meant to harm or kill, and emperors also feared divination about their own fate. But where was the line between a harmful spell and a harmless household remedy?
This law, sent from Aquileia to the praetorian prefect Bassus, draws that line. The knowledge of those who use magic arts to plot against people's lives, or to turn chaste minds to lust, is to be punished "by the severest laws". But no charge should be brought over remedies sought for human bodies, or over charms used in the countryside so that ripe grapes would not fear the rains or be battered by "the stoning of falling hail". Such aids harm no one's health or reputation, the law says; they help ensure that "divine gifts and the labours of men" are not ruined.
Coming from the first Christian emperor, the ruling is striking: it accepted traditional farm magic as long as it was helpful. It shows how much Roman rural life depended on the weather, and how ordinary people sought protection wherever they could find it.
⚠ Uncertain date: Year uncertain (318, 321 or 324); 321 is usual.
Ancient source: Codex Theodosianus 9.16.3 · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 24°/13°C (75°/55°F) · rain 25% 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
Sera nimis vita est crastina: vive hodie.
“Tomorrow's life is too late: live today.”
Martial, Epigrams 1.15 · translation ours (literal)
