contain 354 days, 8 hours, 48 minutes, 34.386 seconds. The Athenians made their lunar year consist of 354 days, but Numa, influenced, it is said, by the virtue attributed to odd numbers, added another to make up 355. 14. Each month was divided into three periods by the 'Kalendae,' 'Nonae,' and 'Idus.' The Kalendae' marked the first of the month, the day following the evening upon which the slender crescent of the New Moon was first visible in the sky, the 'Nonae' the First Quarter, the 'Idus' the Full Moon. The origin of these terms must be explained. Macrobius has preserved the record of the ancient practice, S. 1. 15 'Priscis ergo temporibus, antequam fasti a Cn. Flavio scriba invitis patribus in omnium notitiam proderentur, pontifici minori haec provincia delegabatur, ut novae lunae primum observaret adspectum, visamque regi sacrificulo nuntiaret, itaque sacrificio a rege et minore pontifice celebrato, idem pontifex Kalata, id est, vocata in Capitolium plebe iuxta curiam Kalabram, quae casae Romuli proxima est, quot numero dies a Kalendis ad Nonas superessent pronuntiabat: et quintanas quidem dicto quinquies verbo kaλŵ, septimanas repetito septies praedicabat, verbum autem κaλâ graecum est id est, voco: et hunc diem. qui ex his diebus qui Kalarentur primus esset, placuit Kalendas vocari: hinc et ipsi curiae, ad quam vocabantur, Kalabrae nonem datum est. Ideo autem minor pontifex numerum dierum qui ad nonas superessent Kalando prodebat, quod post novam lunam oportebat nonarum die populares qui in agris essent confluere in urbem accepturos causas feriarum a rege sacrorum, scripturosque quid esset eo mense faciendum.' It appears from this that the 'Kalendae' were derived from 'calo,' the same with the Greek kaλ, because immediately after the appearance of the New Moon the people were called together that they might be told on what day the Nones would fall. It must be observed that the New Moon in question was not the astronomical New Moon or period of conjunction, but the first appearance of the crescent in the evening twilight. Now, according to circumstances, the New Moon is visible sometimes on the evening after conjunction, sometimes not for two or three days. Hence the 'Nones' or First Quarter would fall sometimes as early as the fifth of the month, 6 Thus Virg. E. 8. 75 numero deus impare gaudet;' Pliny H. N. 28. 5 Impares numeros ad omnia vehementiores credimus;' and Festus, ⚫ Imparem numerum antiqui prosperiorem hominibus esse crediderunt.' sometimes as late as the seventh, and thus the Ides or Full Moon would fall sometimes as early as the thirteenth, sometimes as late as the fifteenth. The pontiffs appear by ancient custom to have been confined to the extremes, and hence according to the appearance of the New Moon they proclaimed that the Nones would be on the fifth, in which case they were called 'Quintanae,' or on the seventh 'Septimanae.' 'Idus' is derived from an Etruscan verb 'iduare,' signifying 'to divide,' because the full moon divides the lunar month; 'Nonae' is the plural of 'nonus' 'the ninth,' because the Nones were always just nine days before the Ides, according to the Roman system of computation explained above. January and February having been added to the ten months of the old year, a question arises as to the order of succession then or subsequently established. That February was in the first instance the last month of the year seems scarcely to admit of doubt; thus Cicero de Legg. 2. 21 'Venio nunc ad Manium iura, quae maiores nostri et sapientissime instituerunt et religiosissime coluerunt. Februario autem mense, qui tunc extremus anni mensis erat, mortuis parentari voluerunt.' and Varro, 'Terminalia, quod is dies anni extremus constitutus. Duodecimus enim mensis fuit Februarius '.' We have no satisfactory evidence to determine the epoch at which January and February became the first and second months. Plutarch supposes them to have been from the first the eleventh and twelfth. According to Ovid, who supposes them to have been added by Numa, January was placed at the beginning of the year, February at the end, and the new arrangement, by which February was placed second, was introduced by the Decemvirs 2. It is perfectly clear, however, from the various ceremonies described above, that March must have been looked upon as the commencement of the year at the time when these rites were established. Ianuarius,' therefore, was called after 'Ianus,' the deity presiding over the beginning of all things, not because it was the 1 See also Festus v. Februarius,' and Servius on Virg. G. I. 43. Macrobius S. 1. 12, 13, asserts that January and February were placed by Numa as the first and second months of the year, and in the last-quoted chapter contradicts himself downright, ‘Omni intercalationi mensis Februarius deputatus est, quoniam is ultimus anni erat.' Fast. 2. 49. See Extract, p. 38, v. 29, and notes. first month of the sacred or of the civil year, but because it was the month which immediately followed the winter solstice, when the sun may be said to resume his career 1. We know that from 153 B.C. the Consuls always entered upon their office on the 1st of January, but we cannot positively assert that this day was considered the first of the civil year before that time, although it undoubtedly was looked upon as such ever after. 15. The lunar year of the Greeks consisted of 354 days, that of the Romans of 355, while the length of the solar year, upon which depends the return of the seasons, is 365 days nearly. Hence almost all nations who have adopted a lunar year have had recourse to intercalations, that is, to the insertion of additional days or months from time to time, which, if managed skilfully, will insure a correspondence between the civil and natural year at fixed periods, and prevent the dislocation of the seasons. The insertion of a day every fourth year in the Julian Calendar, which has no reference to the moon, is also an intercalation, the object being to compensate for the error arising from making the solar year consist of an exact number (365) of days, instead of 3654, and we shall see how it became afterwards necessary to modify this intercalation to compensate for the error arising from supposing the solar year to be exactly 365.25 days in length, instead of 365.242264, &c., as it really is. 16. If we reckon the lunar month at 29 days, and the solar year at 365 days-and the earliest astronomers did not arrive at greater accuracy-then twelve lunar months, or 354 days, will fall short of a solar year by 11 days, which in eight lunar years will amount to ninety days. If, therefore, in the space of eight lunar years we add three lunar months, or, in other words, make three lunar years out of every eight consist of thirteen lunar months instead of twelve, then at the end of eight years there will be a difference of only one day and a half between the solar and lunar years. This correction was at one time employed by the Athenians, the intercalary months were added at the end of the third, fifth, and eighth years, and the period, or to use the technical phrase, the Cycle of eight years was termed oktaetηpis. With the progress of science a more convenient correction 1 Bruma novi prima est, veterisque novissima solis: was introduced. According to the most accurate calculations, 19 Solar years contain .6939.603016 days. 233 Lunar months or, 19 Lunar yrs. & 7 mths.} contain 6939.68718 days. so that if seven lunar months are intercalated during nineteen lunar years, or if, in other words, seven out of every nineteen lunar years are made to consist of thirteen lunar months instead of twelve, then the difference between the solar and lunar years at the end of that period will amount to only .084164 of a day, and the error would be less than one day in 200 years. This évveadekarηpis or cycle of nineteen years is usually named, from its inventor, the 'Cycle of Meton,' and came into use at Athens on the 16th of July, 432 B.C. It was afterwards corrected by Calippus of Cyzicus, who invented a cycle of seventy-six years, which in its turn was corrected by Hipparchus, who invented a cycle of 304 years. 17. It seems to be certain that the Romans for a considerable period made use of a pure lunar year, the introduction of which, as we have seen above, was usually ascribed to Numa, and it can scarcely be doubted that intercalations were employed resembling some of those described above, in order to bring about a correspondence with the solar or natural year. On this subject however the ancient writers are silent, with the exception of Livy, (1. 19,) but unfortunately his language is extremely obscure, and the text of the passage disputed. The intercalations which we do find described by Macrobius, Censorinus, and Plutarch, and which were certainly in use at the time of the Julian reform, belong to a system essentially different. The scheme which they describe is the following. The year of Numa consisted of 355 days. The Romans having become acquainted with the Grecian Octaeteris, according to which ninety days were to be intercalated in a cycle of eight years, applied it thus. They intercalated at the end of every two years a month, which consisted alternately of twenty-two and twenty-three days, thus making up the sum of ninety days at the end of eight years1. It was soon discovered however that the year of the Greeks 1 So Censorinus 20, and Macrob. S. 1. 13. Plutarch, on the other hand, says that Numa doubled the difference between the solar and lunar year, and thus made a month of twenty-two days which was intercalated every alternate year, but makes no allusion to the month of twenty-three days. contained 354 days only, while their own had 355, and hence it followed that in the cycle of eight years there was an excess of eight days. To remedy this a new cycle was invented of twenty-four years, and in the last eight years of this twentyfour days were omitted, sixty-six only being intercalated instead of ninety, thus compensating for the excess which would have taken place in the whole period had the full number been employed. At what time this (or any other) system of intercalation was brought into use we cannot tell. The Roman antiquaries themselves were at variance. Some referred the introduction of intercalations to Romulus, some to Numa, some to Servius, some to the Decemvirs, while some brought it down as low as the consulship of Manius Acilius Glabrio in the Aetolian war, 191 B. C.1 Whatever opinion we may adopt on this matter, it is important to attend to the following consideration. So long as we make use of a year, the months of which are regulated by the phases of the moon, it is evident that all intercalations employed to produce a correspondence with the solar year must be in the form of entire lunar months. As soon as a period is inserted either longer or shorter than one lunar month, or an exact number of entire lunar months, from that time forward all regular connection between the phases of the moon and the commencement of the months and years is destroyed. Hence as soon as the Romans began to employ the intercalary months of twenty-two and twentythree days, from that moment they virtually abandoned the lunar year and adopted a solar cycle, the same in substance as that afterwards perfected by Julius Caesar, but less accurate and less convenient. The old names of Calends, Nones, and Ides were retained, but these would no longer answer to the first appearance of the New Moon, to the First Quarter, and to Full Moon, more than the first, fifth, and thirteenth of any month at the present time. Ideler believes the change from the pure lunar year to have taken place during the sway of the Decemvirs, an opinion of which we find some trace in Macrobius 2. Hence he supposes that the Roman Calendar assumed three different shapes before the Julian Reform. These he distinguishes as 1 Macrob. S. 1. 13. See also Cic. de Legg. 2. 12. 2 Macrob. S. 1. 13. It is clear from Ov. Fast. 2. 54 (see p. 38) that there was a tradition that the Decemvirs had made some changes in the Calendar. |