Fasti. Ovid
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This Etruscan year consisted of 304 days, divided into 38 weeks of eight days each. It is not absolutely certain that it was also divided into months, but all analogy is in favour of such a division. Macrobius and Solinus say, that it contained six months of 31, and four of 30 days, but this does not seem to agree with weeks of eight days; perhaps there were nine months of four weeks and one of two, or more probably eight of four weeks and two of three.2 This year, which depended on neither the sun nor the moon, was a purely scientific one, founded on astronomical grounds and the accurate measurement of a long portion of time. It served the Etruscans as a correction of their civil lunar year, the one which was in common use, and, from the computations which have been made, it appears that, by means of it, it may be ascertained that the Etruscans had determined the exact length of the tropical or solar year, with a greater degree of accuracy than is to be found in the Julian computation.
Like the Etruscans, the Romans employed for civil purposes a lunar year, which they had probably borrowed also from that people. This year, which, of course, like every year of the kind, must have consisted of twelve months, fell short of the solar year by the space of 11 days and 6 hours, and the mode adopted for bringing them into accordance was to intercalate, as it was termed, a month in every other year, during periods of 22 years, these intercalated months consisting alternately of 22 and 23 days. This month was named Mercedonius. In the last biennium of the period no intercalation took place. As five years made a lustre, so five of these periods made a secle, which thus consisted of 110 years or 22 lustres, and was the largest measure of time among the Romans.3
The care of intercalating lay with the pontiffs, and they lengthened and shortened the year at their pleasure, in order to serve or injure the consuls and farmers of the revenue, according as they were hostile or friendly toward them. In consequence of this, Julius Caesar found the year 67 days in advance of the true time, when he undertook to correct it by the aid of foreign science. From his time the civil year of the Romans was a solar, not a lunar one,4 and the Julian year continued in use till the Gregorian reformation of the Calendar.
We thus see that the civil year of the Romans always consisted of twelve months, and that a year of ten months was in use along with it in the early centuries of the state, which served to correct it, and which was used in matters of importance.5
§ 3.
Of the Months and Days of the Roman Year.
When it was believed that the year of 304 days was the original civil year of the Romans, and evidence remained to prove that the commencement of the year had, in former times, been regulated by the vernal equinox, instead of the winter solstice, it seemed to follow, of course, that the original year of Romulus had consisted of but ten months. The inconvenience of this mode of dividing time must have been thought to have appeared very early, since we find the introduction of the lunar year of twelve months ascribed to Numa, who is said to have added two months to the Romulian year, which, it would thus appear, was regarded as having been a year of ten lunar months. This placing of the lunar twelve-month year in the mythic age of Rome, I may observe, tends to confirm the opinion of its having been in use from the origin of the city.
The ancient Israelites had two kinds of year, a religious and a civil one, which commenced at different seasons. Their months also originally, we are told, proceeded numerically, but afterwards got proper names. As the month Abib is mentioned by name in the book of Deuteronomy, I hazard a conjecture, that the civil and religious years had coexisted from the time of Moses, and that the months of the former had had proper names, while those of the latter proceeded numerically. Is there any great improbability in supposing the same to have been the case at Rome? The religious year of ten months, as being least used, may have proceeded with numerical appellations from its first month to December, while the months of the civil year had each their peculiar appellation derived from the name of a deity, or of a festival. It is remarkable that the first six months of the year alone have proper names; but the remaining ones may have had them also, though, from causes which we are unable to explain, they have gone out of use, and those of the cyclic year have been employed in their stead.6
The oriental division of time into weeks of seven days, though resulting so naturally from the phases of the moon, was not known at Rome till the time of the emperors. The Etruscan year, as we have seen, consisted of weeks of eight days, and in the Roman custom of holding markets on the nundines, or every ninth day, we see traces of its former use, but a different mode of dividing the month seems to have early begun to prevail.
In the Roman month there were three days with peculiar names, from their places with relation to which the other days were denominated. These were the Kalends (Kalendae or Calendae,) the Nones, (Nonae) and the Ides (Idus or Eidus). The Kalends (from calare, to proclaim,) were the first day of the month; the Nones (from nonus, ninth) were the ninth day before the Ides reckoning inclusively; the Ides, (from iduare, to divide,) fell about, not exactly on, the middle of the months. In March, May, July and October, the Ides were the 15th, and, consequently, the Nones the 7th day of the month; in the remaining months the Ides were the 13th, the Nones the 5th. The space, therefore, between the Nones and Ides was always the same, those between the Kalends and Nones, and the Ides and Kalends, were subject to variation. Originally, however, it would appear, the latter space also was fixed, and there were in every month, except February, 10 days from the Ides to the Kalends, The months, therefore, consisted of 31 and 29 days, February having 28. In the Julian Calendar, January, August and December were raised from 29 to 31 days, while their Nones and Ides remained unchanged. It was only necessary then to know how many days there were between the Kalends and Nones, as the remaining portions were constant. Accordingly, on the day of new moon, the pontiff cried aloud Calo Jana novella7 five times or seven times, and thus intimated the day of the Nones, which was quite sufficient for the people.
We thus see that the Roman month was, like the Attic, divided into three portions, but its division was of a more complex and embarrassing kind; for while the Attic month consisted of three decades of days, and each day was called the first, second, third, or so, of the decade, to which it belonged; the days of the Roman month were counted with reference to the one of the three great days which was before them. It is an error to suppose that the Romans counted backwards. Thus, taking the month of January for an example, the first day was the Kalends, the second was then viewed with reference to the approaching Nones, and was denominated the fourth before the Nones; the day after the Nones was the eighth before the Ides; the day after the Ides, the nineteenth before the Kalends of February.
The technical phraseology of the Roman Calendar ran thus. The numeral was usually put in the ablative case, and as the names of the months were adjectives, they were made to agree with the Kalends etc. or followed in the genitive, mensis being understood. Thus, to say that an event occurred on the Ides of March, the term would be Idibus Martiis, or Idibus Martii (mensis). So also of the Kalends and Nones, for any other day the phrase would be, for example, tertio Kalendas, i. e. tertio (die ante) Kalendas or tertio (die) Kalendarum, The day before any of the three principal days was pridie (i. e. priore die) Kalendas or Kalendarum, Nonas or Nonarum, Idus or Iduum.
Another mode of expression, was to use a preposition, and an accusative case. Thus, for tertio Nonas they would say ante diem tertium Nonas, which was written a. d. III. Non. This form is very much employed by Livy and Cicero. It was even used objectively, and governed of the prepositions in and ex. We thus meet in ante tertium Nonas, and ex ante diem Nonas, in these authors. Another preposition thus employed is ad, we meet ad pridie Nonas.
As the Romans reckoned inclusively, we must be careful in assigning any particular day to its place in the month, according to the modern
See the Cambridge Philological Museum, No. V. p, 474.
It is for this reason that in my note on I. 1, I have called the Latin year a solar one, for such it was when Ovid wrote.
On the subjects treated of in this section, see Niebuhr on the Secular Cycle, in his History of Rome, and Scaliger de Emendatione Temporum.
That this is by no means improbable is evident from the circumstance, that the name of the intercalary month, Mercedonius, is to be found in no Latin writer. It would be unknown to us, if Plutarch had not chanced to mention it.