ante diem xiv kalendas novembres

• Armilustrium — a festival in honour of Mars which officially (it seems) brought the campaigning season to an end. The Salii (the dancing priests of Mars) were likely heavily involved with their characteristic dance and with the storage of their figure eight shields. A lustratio (purification ritual) also took place on the Aventine, with the goal of removing the ‘blood guilt’ the army had taken on that year.
• 202 B.C. — Scipio Africanus defeats Hannibal at Zama
• 125 B.C. — beginning of the ‘era of Tyre’
• 1769 — Vesuvius erupts