Kal. Sept.
September 1 in Ancient Rome
Augustus dedicates Jupiter the Thunderer
A temple for the lightning that missed
religion22 BC
Julian date · ≈ Aug 30 on our calendar
The Fasti Praenestini mark 1 September for Jupiter the Thunderer on the Capitol, a temple Augustus vowed after lightning killed a slave beside his litter.
Tonanti Iovi aedem consecravit liberatus periculo, cum expeditione Cantabrica per nocturnum iter lecticam eius fulgur praestrinxisset servumque praelucentem exanimasset.
He consecrated a temple to Jupiter the Thunderer after escaping danger, when on a night march during the Cantabrian campaign a lightning bolt grazed his litter and killed the slave lighting the way.
Background
During his campaign in Cantabria, in northern Spain, Augustus was travelling by night when a flash of lightning grazed his litter and killed the slave who walked ahead carrying a torch. Suetonius says that, freed from this danger, the emperor consecrated a temple to Jupiter the Thunderer (Iuppiter Tonans) on the Capitol. The calendar from Praeneste records its dedication day as 1 September. Suetonius lists it among his greatest buildings, alongside his new forum with the temple of Mars the Avenger and the temple of Apollo on the Palatine.
Augustus was famously afraid of storms. Suetonius reports that he always carried a sealskin as protection against lightning and, at the threat of a violent storm, would retreat to an underground vaulted room per Suetonius.
The new temple became so popular that, in a dream, Jupiter of the great Capitoline temple complained to Augustus that his worshippers were being taken away. Augustus replied that he had only given him the Thunderer as a doorkeeper, and then hung little bells around the top of the new temple, because bells were commonly hung at the gates of great houses per Suetonius.
Ancient source: Fasti Praenestini (1 September); Suetonius, Augustus 29, 91 · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 28°/18°C (82°/64°F) · rain 25% of days
Rome in SeptemberThe vintage needed extra hands; Cato explains how to contract out the harvest…
Columella
Heat. (De Re Rust. 11.2)
Fields & crops
Vintage season: grapes picked, trodden and pressed, must boiled down, and jars sealed. Columella details preparing vats and keeping workers fed per Columella 11.2, 12. Varro notes that the vintage falls between the autumn equinox and the setting of the Pleiades, when apples are also picked per Varro, Rust. 1.34.
Courts & law
The long Ludi Romani (5–19 Sept. in the late Republic) suspended much public business late Republic.
Senate & politics
Augustus' birthday (23 Sept.) became a public festival; under the emperors the date was marked across the empire imperial era. Under Augustus, the 23 September birthday saw games and banquets; in the province of Asia, the new year was even moved to start on that date per the Priene calendar inscription, 9 BC.
Military
Late campaigns before autumn; triumphs were sometimes held in September at the end of a war. The Ludi Romani opened with a grand procession through the Circus in which young men of military age marched on horse and on foot per Dionysius of Halicarnassus 7.72.
Festivals & religion
Ludi Romani, Rome's oldest games, for Jupiter, with the Epulum Iovis on the Ides (13 Sept.) and the consul driving a nail into the temple wall on the Ides in early times per Livy 7.3.
Daily life
The vintage needed extra hands; Cato explains how to contract out the harvest and pressing per Cato, Agr. 144–47. Workers drank lora, a thin wine from re-soaked grape skins. For tenants, the harvest decided whether rent could be paid; Pliny the Younger complains of tenants falling into arrears after bad years per Pliny, Letters 9.37.
Sources: Cato, De Agri Cultura 144–47 · Pliny the Younger, Letters 9.37
All days in September →
LATIN LINE OF THE DAY
Non est vivere, sed valere vita est.
“Life is not just being alive, but being well.”
Martial, Epigrams 6.70 · translation ours (literal)
