Roman calendar

“ The retention moreover of the reckoning by months or (which is the same thing) by years of ten months, implies a tacit, but not to be misunderstood, confession of the irregularity and untrustworthiness of the oldest Roman solar year. This Roman calendar may be looked upon, at least in its essential features, as that generally current among the Latins. From the general liability to change as to the time of beginning the year and the names of the months, smaller variations in the successional numbers and designations are quite compatible with the hypothesis of a common basis ”

“ CHAPTER IV. HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION OF THE JULIAN CALENDAR BY POPE GREGORY XIII.
True enough, the year in which Julius Cæsar reformed the ancient Roman calendar was the last year of confusion, and the method adopted by him a commodious one, and answered a very good purpose for a short time; but as the years rolled on and century after century had passed away, astronomers began to discover the discrepancy between the solar and the civil year ”

“ Until 304 B.C. the lore of the calendaria remained the exclusive and lucrative monopoly of the priesthood; but in that year Gnaeus Flavius, a pontifical secretary, introduced the custom of publishing in the forum tables containing the requisite information, besides brief references to victories, triumphs, prodigies, &c. This list was the origin of the public Roman calendar, in which the days were divided into weeks of eight days each, and indicated by the letters A-H. Each day was marked by a certain letter to show its nature ”

“ Romans, after the first day of the month, began to reckon so many days before the Nones, as 4th, 3d, 2d, then Nones; after the Nones, so many days before the Ides, as 8th, 7th, 6th, etc., and after the Ides, so many before the Calends of the next month, the highest numbers being reckoned first.
In reducing the Roman calendar to our own, it should be remembered that in reckoning backward from a fixed point, that the point of departure is counted; also, that the last day of the month is not the point from which the Calends are reckoned, but the first day of the following month. ”

“ When the Romans had begun to advance in civilization, no people ever made a more rapid progress in all the arts and abuses which follow in its train. Astrology came with astronomy from the East, for science had speedily been converted into a craft, and in the age of the Cæsars the Egyptian professors of that craft were among the pests of Rome.
More than one Roman calendar is in existence, preserved by the durability of the material, which is a square block of marble. Each side contains three months, in parallel columns, headed by the appropriate signs of the zodiac. ”

“ Pitti Palace, Florence.
251There has been preserved for us a most interesting calendar for the city of Rome, written by Furius Dionysius Filocalus in 354 A.D., and containing a series of drawings by his hand showing the symbolical figures of the months of the year. Though the original manuscript is lost, several apparently faithful copies exist, one of which is in the Imperial Library in Vienna. Much of this work deals with matters referring to the Roman calendar, but perhaps its most valuable part is a list of the early Christian saints and martyrs. ”

“ II. If we were to believe certain writers of high reputation, we should be deterred from attempting to fix any dates for the second of Caesar’s expeditions; for our principal sources of information are dates mentioned by Cicero in his letters; and, as everybody knows, the Roman calendar, before Caesar’s reform, was often in disagreement with the Julian calendar. ”

“ POPULAR MONTHS OF THE EUROPEAN PEOPLES. In ancient times, and even at the present day in lands which lie outside the path of the great leveller, civilisation, the months taken over with the Roman calendar are not numbered divisions of the year, the names of which are a matter of indifference, but are concretely conceived and named as seasons. They are, in fact, nothing but seasons, the number and duration of which are determined by the conventional calendar. ”

“ The basis of our knowledge of the old Roman religious year is to be found in the fragments of calendars which still survive. None of these indeed is older than the Julian era; and all but one are mere fragments. But from the fragments and the one almost perfect calendar we can infer the character of the earlier calendar with tolerable certainty.
The calendar, as the Romans generally believed, was first published by Cnaeus Flavius, curule aedile, in 304 B.C., who placed the fasti conspicuously in the Forum, in order that every one might know on what days legal business might be transacted [27] ”

“ I am disposed to think that we must look on organized war-material as a development later than the primitive times to which Mannhardt would carry us back, a side of Roman life which only in course of time became highly specialized.
We must never forget that the oldest Roman calendar is the record of the life of an agricultural people. So much is clear on the face of it; and in some instances, as in the Ambarvalia, Vestalia, Consualia, and in the October rite we have been discussing, something of the original intent can be made out from researches into modern folk-lore or savage custom. ”

“ The Fasti of Ovid give an idea of the manner in which the Roman Calendar brought the ceremonial of religion to bear upon the course of life. For some centuries an acquaintance with the Calendar was the exclusive property of the sacred order [525] ”

“ In Russia, Greece, and the East generally, the Old Style is still retained. Sir H. Nicolas, Chronology of History. CALENDAR, Julian. Julian Era. "The epoch of the Julian Era, which precedes the common or Christian Era by forty-five years, is the reformation of the Roman calendar by Julius Cæsar, who ordained that the Year of Rome 707 should consist of 15 months, forming altogether 445 days ”

“ Separate years were designated at Athens by the name of the chief archon, hence called archon eponymus (ἄρχων ἐπώνυμος) , or “the name giving archon;” at Sparta, by the first of the ephors; at Argos, by the priestess of Juno, &c.— (2) Roman Calendar. The old Roman, frequently called the Romulian year, consisted of only ten months, which were called Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Quinctilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, December. That March was the first month in the year is implied in the last six names. ”

“ The basis of this document is again the Roman Calendar, still many Frankish saints have been added, but Gereon alone of the saints of Cologne. The latest date given in it is the Dormitio S. Uodalrici (4th July) . It has only one name from the Old Testament, that of the prophet Ezechiel.
6. A calendar of Freising, drawn up under Bishop Abraham, between 893 and 993. The 25th March is marked as Conceptio Domini. There is only one feast of St Peter’s Chair. The calendar has been printed by [417] Lechler, “Mittelalterliche Kirchenfeste und Kalendarien in Bayern,” Freiburg, 1891. ”

“ If Julius and his successors altered only by slight additions, and if the calendar which they had to work on was of great antiquity and unchanged during the Republic, how, in the next place, are we to distinguish the skeleton of that ancient calendar from the Julian and post-Julian additions? Nothing is easier; in Mommsen’s words, it is not a matter of calculation ”

“ There are festivals in the calendar about which we really know nothing at all, and must frankly confess our ignorance; there are others about which we know just enough to be doubtful; others again, in interpreting which the Romans themselves plainly went astray, leaving us perhaps nothing but a baseless legend to aid us in guessing their original nature. It must be borne in mind that the Roman religion was in ruins when the Julian calendar was drawn up, and that the archaeological research which was brought to bear upon it by Varro and Verrius was not of a strictly scientific character. ”

“ London: CHAPMAN & HALL, 193. Piccadilly.
Just published, in 4 vols. 8vo., price 2l. in Sheets.
ORIGINES KALENDARIÆ ITALICÆ; Nundinal Calendars of Ancient Italy; Nundinal Calendar of Romulus; Calendar of Numa Pompilius; Calendar of the Decemvirs; Irregular Roman Calendar, and Julian Correction. TABLES OF THE ROMAN CALENDAR, from U.C. 4 of Varro B.C. 750 to U.C. 1108 A.D. 355. By EDWARD GRESWELL. B.D., Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. ”

“ The Egyptian year therefore lies at the bottom of our year, which has been altered so as to remain in agreement with the seasons,—this being necessary in view of the spread of the historic sense among the people—but has also unfortunately been spoiled in the division into months, owing to the influence of the Roman months. The Egyptian calendar is the greatest intellectual fact in the history of time-reckoning ”

“ Possibly the formation of an organised calendar, marking off the days belonging to the deities from those which were not so made over to them, first gave the opportunity for the gradual realisation of the thought that the set of rules under which the citizen was responsible to the divine beings was not exactly the same as that under which he was responsible to the civil authorities. ”

“ Nor is it quite safe to argue back from that calendar to the life of the familia and the pagus, except in general terms. As we shall see, the calendar is based on the life and work of an agricultural folk, and we may by all means guess that its many agricultural rites existed before81hand in the earlier social life; but into detail we may not venture. As Varro, however, has mentioned the Saturnalia in the same sentence with the Compitalia, we may guess that that famous jovial festival was a part of the rustic winter rejoicing. ”

“ Max Müller has made no use of it. But we must be on our guard. It is remarkable that we find in the Roman calendars no other evidence that the Romans attached the same importance to the summer solstice as some other peoples; the Roman summer festivals are concerned, in accordance with the true Italian spirit, much more with the operations of man in dealing with nature than with the phenomena of nature taken by themselves. ”

“ Rustic calendars: ‘Sementes triticariae et hordiar [iae] .’ Varro, R. R. 1. 34.
1098. Mommsen in C. I. L. i. 2, 333.
1099. Friedländer in Marq. 499; Liv. 23. 30.
1100. See the table in C. I. L. i. 2, 335.
1101. Probably these notes belong to the Ides. In the Arval calendar the entry is opposite the 14th, but from its position may be really meant as an additional note to the Ides. There is no other example of religious rites on a day after Ides. (Henzen, Arv. 240; C. I. L. i. 2, 296.) The same was the case with all ‘dies postriduani.’
1102. ”

“ Holiday is a corruption of Holy Day, or a day originally set apart by the Roman Catholic Church for the celebration of some feast in commemoration of an important event, or in honour of a particular saint. The word Almanac, also written Almanack, is derived from the Arabic al manah, to count; whereas Calendar is a contraction of the Latin calendarium, an account-book. ”

“ Tylor, Prim. Cult. ii. 332. Aeneas is here, as always, the true type of the practical Roman.
1378. Marq. 311 and reff.
1379. Fasti, 2. 617 foll. Among the calendars it is only mentioned in those of Philocalus and Silvius, and in the rustic calendars. Valerius Maximus is the next writer after Ovid who mentions it: 2. 1. 8. Cp. C. I. L. vi. 10234. Martial calls it ‘lux propinquorum’ (9. 55, cp. 54) . For an interesting conjecture as to the special meaning of carus, see Lattes quoted in De-Marchi, op. cit. 214, note 2.
1380. Val. Max. l. c. and Silvius’ Calendar.
1381. Ovid, Fasti, 2. ”

“ Those curious people that call themselves the children of the sun and moon, possess a mode of reckoning that carries them back to a period anterior to the creation of the world. Then, the Greeks computed by Olympiads, or periods of four years. The Romans reckoned by lustri of five years, the first of which corresponds with the 117th year of the foundation of Rome."
"And when does our calendar begin?" ”

“ If, then, it should appear that these races possessed and incorporated into their mythologies a knowledge of the Zodiac, and of the first degree of Aries as its initial point, their separation from the parent stock must have been subsequent to the formation of the scheme that dealt with a calendar based on an observation of the colure of the winter solstice at that point, and under this supposition the date of 6,000 B.C. becomes a foothold for the chronology of ancient history. ”

“ They are chiefly a nominal list of statesmen, victories, triumphs, &c., from the expulsion of the kings to the death of Augustus. A considerable number of fasti of the first class have also been discovered; but none of them appear to be older than the time of Augustus. The Praenestine calendar, discovered in 1770, arranged by the famous grammarian Verrius Flaccus, contains the months of January, March, April and December, and a portion of February. The tablets give an account of festivals, as also of the triumphs of Augustus and Tiberius. ”

“ The more intelligent people have become, the less attention they have paid to it. The defective year was brought a little nearer to the actual year by adding an intercalary month every three. The Babylonian year is supposed to have been introduced in Athens about 600 B.C. Half a century later the calendar was further improved by Cleostratus, but in all the Greek states the method of reckoning by days and months always remained a good deal wide of the mark. ”