Today's term to learn comes from my reading about Apuleius' connection to magic. The lex Cornelia de sicariis et venefici(i)s, which was passed in 81 B.C., was a Roman law on magic named for the dictator Lucius Cornelius* Sulla. According to J.D. Cloud, the law is also referred to as the lex Cornelia de sicariis and, simply, when no confusion results, as the lex Cornelia. Apuleius wrote The Golden Ass and an Apology in which he defends himself (with unknown results) against charges of magic based on this law. Read more...

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This is the traditional date for the death of St. Patrick in A.D. 461. It was also the occasion of two Roman festivals, Liberalia and Agonalia, the victory at Munda (near Cordoba, Spain) of Julius Caesar in 45 B.C. (against Pompey's sons) [see Roman Battles], and the death of Marcus Aurelius in A.D. 180.

The Liberalia was celebrated with games on the Campus Martius in honor of an ancient fertility god named Liber. Agonalia was a coming-of-age celebration.

On this day in A.D. 37, the second emperor of Rome, Tiberius, died. When Tiberius took power following the death of Augustus, he refused to assume many of the proffered honors and rejected flattery. He tried to moderate greedy tax collectors and allow the rule of law. However, his reputation in history is largely negative. Read more about this emperor in my brief summary and in the accompanying account from Suetonius: Tiberius.

• Imperial Succession