Roman calendar

The Roman calendar changed its form several times in the time between the foundation of Rome and the fall of the Roman Empire. This article generally discusses the early Roman or 'pre-Julian' calendars. The calendar used after 46 BC is discussed under the Julian calendar.

History of the calendar

To begin with it was a lunar calendar containing ten months, starting at the vernal equinox, traditionally invented by Romulus, the founder of Rome about 753 BC. However it seems to have been based on the Greek lunar calendar. The months at this time were

Martius (31 days)
Aprilis (30 days)
Maius (31 days)
Iunius (30 days)
Quintilis (31 days)
Sextilis (30 days)
September (30 days)
October (31 days)
November (30 days) and
December (30 days)

Thus the calendar year lasted 304 days and there were about 61 days of winter that did not fall within the calendar.

The first reform of the calendar was attributed to Numa Pompilius, the second of the seven traditional Kings of Rome. He is said to have reduced the 30-day months to 29 days and to have added January (29 days) and February (28 days) to the end of the calendar around 713 BC, and thus brought the length of the calendar year up to 355 days:

Martius (31 days)
Aprilis (29 days)
Maius (31 days)
Iunius (29 days)
Quintilis (31 days)
Sextilis (29 days)
September (29 days)
October (31 days)
November (29 days)
December (29 days)
Ianuarius (29 days)
Februarius (28 days)

In order to keep the calendar year roughly aligned with the solar year, a leap month of 27 days, the Mensis Intercalaris, sometimes also known as Mercedonius or Mercedinus, was added from time to time at the end of February, which was shortened to 23 or 24 days. The resulting year was either 377 or 378 days long. The decision to insert the intercalary month, and its placement, was the responsibility of the pontifex maximus. On average, this happened roughly in alternate years.

The system of aligning the year through intercalary months broke down at least twice. The first time was during and after the Second Punic War. It led to the reform of the Lex Acilia in 191 BC. The details of this reform are unclear, but it appears to have successfully regulated intercalation for over a century. The second breakdown was in the middle of the first century BC. This breakdown may have been related to the increasingly chaotic and adversarial nature of Roman politics at the time. The position of pontifex maximus was not a full-time job; it was held by a member of the Roman elite, who would almost invariably be involved in the machinations of Roman politics. Because a Roman calendar year defined the term of office of elected Roman magistrates, a pontifex maximus would have reason to lengthen a year in which he or his allies were in power, or to not lengthen a year in which his political opponents held office. It was only after Julius Caesar, who had been pontifex maximus for some years, seized absolute power that the calendar was overhauled, with the result being the Julian calendar.

Months

The Romans had special names for three specific days in each month. The system was originally based on phases of the Moon (Luna), and these days were probably declared when the lunar conditions were right. After the reforms of Numa Pompilius, they occurred on fixed days. The named days were:

Kalends — first day of the month, from which the word "calendar" is derived. Interest on debt was due on Kalends.
Nones — depending on the month, could be the 5th or the 7th day; traditionally the day of the Half Moon.
Ides — depending on the month, could be the 13th or the 15th day; traditionally the day of the Full Moon. An auspicious day in the Roman calendar.

Months with Nones on the 5th and Ides on the 13th days: January, February, April, June, August, September, November, December.

Months with Nones on the 7th and Ides on the 15th days: March, May, July, October. These rules are summarised in the following mnemonic:

In March, July, October, May

The IDES fall on the fifteenth day

The NONES the seventh; all besides

Have two days less for Nones and Ides.

Other days in the month were normally unnamed, though some were sometimes known by the name of a festival that occurred on them (e.g. Feralia, Quirinalia). Days other than the Kalends, Nones and Ides were identified by counting down to the named days (sometimes to festival days), in a way that is quite different from the modern Western calendar. The Romans did not count the days of the month retrospectively, looking back to the first of the month (that is: 1st, 2nd day since the start of the month, 3rd day since the start of the month). They counted forward to their named days. Also, to the distress of moderns trying to work out dates in Roman calendar documents, they counted inclusively, so that 2 September is considered 4 days before 5 September, rather than 3 days before.

The following example spells out how days were named for the pre-Julian September, which had only 29 days. It shows the Roman form of the date, the translation, and how we would say it today. The Romans used abbreviations: "a.d." = "ante diem" = "day before", "prid." = "pridie" = "the day before", "Kal" = "Kalends" etc.

Kal. Sept. = Kalends of September = 1 September

a.d. IV Non. Sept. = 4 days before the Nones of September = 2 September

a.d. III Non. Sept. = 3 days before the Nones of September = 3 September

prid. Non. Sept. = the day before the Nones of September = 4 September

Non. Sept. = Nones of September = 5 September

a.d. VIII Id. Sept. = 8 days before the Ides of September = 6 September

a.d. VII Id. Sept. = 7 days before the Ides of September = 7 September and so on till

a.d. III Id. Sept. = 3 days before the Ides of September = 11 September

prid. Id. Sept. = the day before the Ides of September = 12 September

Id. Sept. = Ides of September = 13 September

a.d. XVII Kal. Oct. = 17 days before the Kalends of October = 14 September

a.d. XVI Kal. Oct. = 16 days before the Kalends of October = 15 September and so on till

a.d. III Kal. Oct. = 3 days before the Kalends of October = 28 September

prid. Kal. Oct. = the day before the Kalends of October = 29 September

Kal. Oct. = Kalends of October = 1 October

Notice that by counting inclusively and by having a special name for the day before a named day the Roman calendar loses the possibility of saying: 2 days before a named day. Also, after the Ides, the date no longer mentions September, but is counting down towards October.

When Julius Caesar added a day to September, he did not add it to the end of the month. Rather, the new day that got added was the day after the Ides:

a.d. XVIII Kal. Oct. = 18 days before the Kalends of October = 14 September

As a result, the position of all the following dates in September got bumped up by one day. This has some unexpected effects. For example, the emperor Augustus was born on 23 September 63 BC. In the pre-Julian calendar this is 8 days before the Kalends of October (or, in Roman style, a.d. VIII Kal. Oct.), but in the Julian calendar it is 9 days (a.d. IX Kal. Oct.). Because of this ambiguity, in some parts of the Empire his birthday was celebrated on both dates, i.e. (for us) on both 23 and 24 September.

Nundinal cycle

The Roman Republic, like the Etruscans, used a "market week" of eight days, marked as A to H in the calendar. A market was held on the eighth day. For the Romans, who counted inclusively, this was every ninth day, hence the market became called "nundinae", and the market cycle is known as the "nundinal cycle". Since the length of the year was not a multiple of 8 days, the letter for the market day (known as a "nundinal letter") changed every year. For example, if the letter for market days in some year was A and the year was 355 days long, then the letter for the next year would be F.

The nundinal cycle was a fundamental rhythm of daily life, and the market day was the day that country people would come to the city. For this reason, a law was passed in 287 BC (the Lex Hortensia) that forbade the holding of meetings of the comitia (for example to hold elections) on market days, but permitted the holding of legal actions. In the late republic, a superstition arose that it was unlucky to start the year with a market day (i.e. for the market day to fall on 1 January, with a letter A), and the pontiffs, who regulated the calendar, took steps to avoid it.

Because the nundinal cycle was absolutely fixed at 8 days under the Republic, information about the dates of market days is one of the most important tools we have for working out the Julian equivalent of a Roman date in the pre-Julian calendar. In the early Empire, the Roman market day was occasionally changed. The details of this are not clear, but one likely explanation is that it would be moved by one day if it fell on the same day as the festival of Regifugium, an event that could occur every other Julian leap year. When this happened the market day would be moved to the next day, which was the bissextile (leap) day.

The nundinal cycle was eventually replaced by the modern seven-day week, which first came into use in Italy during the early imperial period, after the Julian calendar had come into effect. The system of nundinal letters was also adapted for the week, see dominical letter. For a while, the week and the nundinal cycle coexisted, but by the time the week was officially adopted by Constantine in AD 321 the nundinal cycle had fallen out of use. For further information on the week, see week and days of the week.

Character of the day

An aspect of the Roman calendar that is quite unfamiliar to us is that each day had a "character", which was marked in the fasti. The most important of these were dies fasti, marked by an F, on which legal matters could normally be heard, dies nefasti, marked by an N, on which they could not, and dies comitiales, marked by a C, on which meetings of the public assemblies known as comitia were permitted, subject to other constraints such as the Lex Hortensia. A few days had a different character, e.g. EN (endotercissus or perhaps endoitio exitio nefas), a day in which legal actions were permitted on half of the day only, and NP, which were public holidays.

Years

In the Roman Republic, the years were not counted. Instead they were named after the consuls who were in power at the beginning of the year (see List of Republican Roman Consuls). For example, 205 BC was The year of the consulship of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus and Publius Licinius Crassus. Lists of consuls were maintained in the fasti.

However, in the later Republic, historians and scholars began to count years from the founding of the city of Rome. Different scholars used different dates for this event. The date most widely used today is that calculated by Varro, 753 BC, but other systems varied by up to several decades. Dates given by this method are numbered ab urbe condita (meaning after the founding of the city, and abbreviated AUC). When reading ancient works using AUC dates, care must be taken to determine the epoch used by the author before translating the date into a Julian year.

The first day of the consular term, which was effectively the first day of the year, changed several times during Roman history. It became 1 January in 153 BC. Before then it was 15 March. Earlier changes are a little less certain. There is good reason to believe it was 1 May for most of the third century BC, till 222 BC. Livy mentions consulates starting on 1 July before then, and arguments exist for other dates at earlier times.

Converting pre-Julian dates

Finding the Julian equivalent of a Roman date can be quite tricky. Even early Julian dates, before the leap year cycle was stabilised, are not quite what they appear to be. For example, it is well known that Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March in 44 BC, and this is usually converted to 15 March 44 BC. While he was indeed assassinated on the 15th day of the Roman month Martius, the equivalent date on the modern Julian calendar is probably 14 March 44 BC.

Finding the exact Julian equivalent of a pre-Julian date is much harder. Since we have an essentially complete list of the consuls, it is not difficult to find the Julian year that generally corresponds to a pre-Julian year. However, our sources very rarely tell us which years were regular, which were intercalary, and how long an intercalary year was. For this reason, pre-Julian dates can be very misleading.

We do have a number of clues to help us. First, we know when the Julian calendar began, although there is some argument about it. We have detailed sources for the previous decade or so, mostly in the letters and speeches of Cicero. Combining these with what we know about how the calendar worked, especially the nundinal cycle, we can accurately convert Roman dates after 58 BC. Also, the histories of Livy give us exact Roman dates for two eclipses in 190 BC and 168 BC, and we have a few loose synchronisms to dates in other calendars which help to give rough (and sometimes exact) solutions for the intervening period.

Before 190 BC the alignment between the Roman and Julian years is determined by clues such as the dates of harvests mentioned in the sources. This allows us to estimate approximate Julian equivalents of Roman dates back to the start of the First Punic War in 264 BC. However, the number of years before 45 BC for which we can accurately and precisely convert Roman dates to Julian dates is very small.

References

Plutarch - Numa Pompilius
Ovid - Fasti
Bickerman, E.J. Chronology of the Ancient World. London: Thames & Hudson (1969, rev. ed. 1980).
Michels, A.K. The Calendar of the Roman Republic Princeton, (1967).
Richards, E.G. Mapping Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198504136.

External links

Roman calendar | Specific calendars

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