We know from the Fasti Amiternini and the Fasti Vallenses that new altars to Ceres and Ops were erected in the year 7 A.D. somewhere along the vicus Iugarius, but they don’t tell us why. However, other sources do talk about Rome and what was happening there in and around that year.

Dio Cassius and Augustus himself, through Suetonius, tell us that in the years between 5 and 9 A.D. Rome experienced food shortages. In itself, this was nothing new ; corn and cereals had been lacking before in the city’s history. But during these years the shortage was especially harsh.

For the year 6, Dio Cassius writes :

Suetonius has this to say for the same year :

The measures spelled out by Dio and Suetonius had never been taken before, a sign that the gravity of the shortage surpassed previous experience. Dio mentions the public banquets in honour of Augustus’ birthday. That day was the 23^rd of September, which means that the scarcity of food had been felt throughout the summer months. In addition, the seas would normally be closed to traffic only seven weeks later^[1], thus precluding the arrival in Italy of any last-minute supplies from the provinces. Grain could hardly have become plentiful again before the following spring. Furthermore, there was no Senate-controlled fleet. Supplies from the provinces (with the exception of Egypt) could only arrive if private shipowners consented to transport grain to Ostia or Puteoli. All in all, Romans who remained in the Urbs between the summer of the year 6 and the spring of the following year - and a few hundred persons at least had emigrated a good distance away - had to weather one of the severest food shortages of Augustus’ reign.

In fact, improvement failed to arrive in the spring. For the year 7, Dio Cassius writes :

Furthermore, the years 6 and 7 saw war campaigns in Isauria, Germania, Sardinia and Proconsular Africa, a very important supplier of grain to Rome. War meant enrollment into the legions and the auxiliary forces. Thus available manpower for farmwork in Italy shrank. Corn and other staples were not being planted in war-torn regions, especially Sardinia and Africa. Had there been any private ships available, there would have been no corn to send to Rome.

Such were the circumstances surrounding the decision to build new altars to Ceres and Ops. There was a shortage of grain - i.e. of bread - in Rome in the years 6 and 7. The scarcity can be attributed to :

• neglect - Augustus feels that Italians neglected their farmland because of the ease with which they could get free corn ;
• war - the more physically fit men were away fighting several wars, leaving the less fit to work on the farms, which situation no doubt affected the degree of productivity on the farms ; in addition, the territories involved in war were not producing their share of grain for Rome’s consumption ;
• conditions of transport - the absence of a Senate-run fleet meant that shipments from the provinces were not guaranteed ; since Augustus allowed Senators to leave Rome, it would appear that they could find sufficient food outside of Rome, probably outside Italy.

The shortage of food was most sharply felt in Rome itself, and was not confined to a single year. The reputation of Augustus’ reign suffered from this crisis. The erection of two altars to two ancient goddesses of agriculture thus makes more sense. In addition to the exceptional material measures taken by the princeps - sending people out of Rome, doubling the rations of free grain - he takes religious measures to calm those who are left to fend for themselves inside the City. He uses two of Rome’s most ancient cults, invoking the original primitive Mater and divine abundance. By creating two new places of sacrifice, Augustus is perceived to be tying more firmly together present-day Rome with her glorious past, a time when there presumably were no shortages of bread. Moreover, the creation of these altars serves his politico-moral agenda, for in advocating a return to traditional ways (an agricultural versus an urban lifestyle), traditional religion (Ceres and Ops were known in ancient Rome), traditional morals (expulsion of foreigners and their non-Roman culture), all of which are expressions of Roman virtus, he is perceived as restoring the root of Rome’s grandeur.

1. The season of mare clausem ran from 12 November to 10 March.

Suetonius’ life of Augustus and Dio’s Roman History, Book LV are both online at Bill Thayer’s Lacus Curtius website.
Image of the ear of corn with cereals is from Altrogiornale, the mosaic from Ostia Antica website.