The emperor Claudius (Tiberius
Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus), 63, died this day in DCCCVII A.V.C.
(54 AD), having been poisoned (with mushrooms, it seems) by his 4th wife
and niece (he had changed Roman law to make the marriage licit), Agrippina
the Younger, 39, (he had divorced the first three wives). He wrote a history
of Rome beginning with the principate of Augustus, 20 books of Etruscan
and 8 books of Carthaginian history, all in Greek; an autobiography; and
a historical treatise on the Roman alphabet with suggestions for orthographical
reform, he also wrote on dice playing. All his works are lost. Claudius
paid the Praetorian Guard to proclaim him emperor on ante diem VIII Kalendas
Februarii DCCXCIV A.V.C. (25 January 41), the day after the assassination
of emperor Gaius. Agrippina pressured Claudius to disown his own son Britannicus
and to adopt her son Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (later the emperor Nero).
After Claudius's death, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the politician and satirist,
who had been exiled by Claudius at his accession but had been recalled at
Agrippina's urging to educate Nero, derided the dead emperor and his apotheosis
(duly decreed by the Senate) in the satire Apocolocyntosis divi Claudii
("The Pumpkinification of the Divine Claudius"). Agrippina was
murdered on orders of her son Nero in DCCCXII A.V.C. (59 AD). Seneca was
sentenced to death by suicide, for his part in a conspiracy, in DCCCXVIII
A.V.C. (65 AD)
The Fontinalia is a festival in honor of Fontus,
the god of fountains, springs, and wells. Fontus was the presumed son of
Janus by the nyph Juturna. Sacrificing, feasting, games, and drinking plenty
of wine mixed with spring water would have been the theme of the day. On
this day garlands of flowers were spread in decoration, especially around
wells and springs.
In Greece this was the third and final day
of the Athenian Thesmophoria. The Thesmophoria was a fertility festival.
They would carry sacred baskets containing phallic symbols in a ceremonial
procession to the Acropolis. The priestesses would offer themselves freely
as public prostitutes as a means of ensuring the fertility of the wheat
fields..