a.d. III Kal. Dec.
November 29 in Ancient Rome
Feast of the martyr Saturninus
religionListed AD 354
Roman calendar date
Rome's list of martyrs' feasts in the Chronography of 354 commemorates Saturninus on 29 November at the cemetery of Thraso.
Background
The Chronography of 354, an illustrated almanac made for a Roman aristocrat, includes the oldest surviving list of Rome's martyrs' feasts, the Depositio martyrum. It records each martyr's day and the cemetery where he or she was venerated. Under 29 November (III Kal. Dec.) it lists Saturninus "in Thrasonis", the cemetery of Thraso on the Via Salaria.
Little reliable is known about this Saturninus. Later legends make him a Roman martyr under Diocletian tradition, and he should not be confused with Saturninus of Toulouse, a Gallic bishop martyred in the third century and also honoured on 29 November modern scholarship notes the coincidence.
Such feasts were important local events. Christians gathered at the martyr's tomb on the anniversary for prayer and a meal, a custom that Augustine and others later tried to restrain because it could turn into drinking parties per Augustine, Confessions 6.2, describing his mother's practice in Milan.
Ancient source: Chronography of 354, Depositio martyrum (III kal. Dec.) · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 14°/7°C (57°/45°F) · rain 36% of days
Rome in NovemberFor farmers, the weeks of ploughing and sowing were long and wet.
Fields & crops
Main sowing of wheat and beans; Columella marks winter's start around 10 November and advises finishing sowing by the Kalends of December per Columella 11.2.
Courts & law
The Plebeian Games (4–17 Nov.) closed courts on many days; legal business resumed in late November late Republic.
Senate & politics
Elections for the next year's magistrates were sometimes delayed into autumn in troubled years; Cicero's First Catilinarian was delivered in November 63 BC.
Military
Sailing largely stopped from around 11 November per Vegetius, a late source; armies moved into winter quarters.
Festivals & religion
Ludi Plebeii with the Epulum Iovis on the Ides; in late antiquity the Isia of Isis (28 Oct.–1 Nov.) and the start of the Brumalia (24 Nov.) per the Chronography of 354.
Daily life
For farmers, the weeks of ploughing and sowing were long and wet. In Rome, the Plebeian Games brought free shows, but a holiday meant no pay for day labourers. With sea traffic stopped, city grain prices depended on what had been stored before winter.
The poor lived in crowded apartment blocks (insulae), where upper floors had no water or heating and braziers caused fires; Juvenal mocks the risk of collapse and fire satire, Juvenal 3.
Sources: Columella 11.2 · Chronography of 354 · Juvenal, Satire 3
All days in November →
LATIN LINE OF THE DAY
Summum nec metuas diem nec optes.
“Neither fear your last day nor long for it.”
Martial, Epigrams 10.47 · translation ours (literal)
