September (Roman month)
[2] A nail-driving ritual in the temple marked the passing of the political year during the Republican era, and in the earliest period, the consuls took office on the Ides of September.
Straw must be cut, haystacks pitched, arable land ploughed, fodder gathered, and well-watered meadows mown a second time.
It treats the rising and setting of constellations, weather forecasting, and medical advice as closely intertwined, and notes of the equinox (placed on September 25) thatThere is the greatest disturbance in the air for three days previous.
[8] The vintage, with bunches or baskets of grapes, predominates in both verbal and visual allegories of September, particularly in mosaics depicting the months.
[9] In the manuscripts that preserve the Calendar of Filocalus (354 AD), September is represented by a nude male wearing only a long light scarf over one shoulder.
The conventional bunch of grapes appears under his left hand, outstretched to hold a basket, on the top of which are arrayed five puzzling picks or skewers.
[11] In calendar mosaics from Hellín in Roman Spain and Trier in Gallia Belgica, September is represented by the god Vulcan, the tutelary deity of the month in the menologia rustica, depicted as an old man holding tongs.
[13] In the Laus omnium mensium ("Praise of All the Months"), a poem dating to the early 6th century, September "divides the hours equally for Libra".
[14] In an ancient Christian mosaic from Gerasa in the province of Arabia (present-day Jordan), September has the typical attributes of a vintager in Roman art—a young man wearing a tunic and chlamys carries a bunch of grapes in his right hand and has a basket on his shoulder—but is labeled as Gorpiaios, the first month of the year in the local calendar, equivalent to the period August 19 to September 17.
During the Imperial period, some of the traditional festivals localized at Rome became less important, and the birthdays and anniversaries of the emperor and his family gained prominence as Roman holidays.
The Genius of Legio II Italica Pia, an Italian legion stationed in Noricum, received a dedication on September 18, 119 AD, the anniversary of Trajan's birth and Nerva's accession.
In the province of Germania Inferior, on this date in 190 AD, a camp prefect (praefectus castrorum) and his three sons dedicated an altar to Jupiter Optimus Maximus (IOM), Hercules, Silvanus, and the Genius of the "divine house" (domus divina, the imperial household).
[34] In the same province, a prefect of Legio I Minerviae marked the renovation of a temple to Mars Militaris on September 19, 295, with a dedication to the wellbeing (salus) of the emperor.
[35] Several inscriptions record dedications on the birthday of Augustus, including one in honor of the Eagle made in Roman Britain dually to the numen of Augustus and the Genius of Legio II Augusta (144 AD),[36] and an inscribed bronze Genius from Germania Superior donated to an association of standard bearers (246 AD).
[39] Domitian (reigned 81–96 AD) also briefly renamed September, the month of his accession as emperor, mensis Germanicus after the triumph he celebrated over the Germanic Chatti.
Cassius Dio lists Amazonius (January), Invictus, Felix, Pius, Lucius, Aelius, Aurelius, Commodus, Augustus, Herculeus, Romanus, and Exsuperatorius.
[48] In Republican Rome, the senior magistrate[49] on the Ides of September drove a nail called the clavus annalis ("year-nail")[50] into the wall of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.
This ritual predated the common use of written letters, according to the Augustan historian Livy, and was within Minerva's sphere of influence because the concept of "number" was invented by her.
