By Water & Blood

Chapter 12: Romulus's Year and the Months

And when he wished to make an end of speaking here, Aurelius Symmachus added: "Do you go on, Praetextatus, with eloquence so sweet, to set forth also concerning the year, before you experience the annoyance of an inquirer, if by chance any of those present does not know in what order it was among the ancients or afterward renewed by more certain rules? For toward learning this you yourself seem to me to have stirred the minds of your hearers by discussing the days added to the month." Then he, with the same flow of speech, wove the rest together:

"A fixed measure of the year always existed among the Egyptians alone; among other nations it wavered with unequal number and equal error. And that I may be content with relating the custom of a few regions: the Arcadians unfolded their year in three months, the Acarnanians in six; the remaining Greeks computed their own year at three hundred and fifty-four days. It is therefore no wonder that in this variety the Romans also once, with Romulus as author, had their year arranged in ten months—a year which began from March and was completed in three hundred and four days, so that six months indeed—namely April, June, Sextilis, September, November, December—were of thirty days each, while four—March, May, Quintilis, October—were finished with thirty-one, which even today have Nones on the seventh day, the rest on the fifth. But for those having Nones on the seventh, the Kalends returned from the Ides to the seventeenth day; for those having them on the fifth, the beginning of the Kalends came back to the eighteenth.

This was the arrangement of Romulus, who dedicated the first month of the year to his father Mars. That this month was the first of the year is proved especially even from this: that from it Quintilis is the fifth, and thereafter they were named according to number. Also on its first day they used to kindle a new fire on the altars of Vesta, so that with the beginning of the year the care of keeping the renewed fire might begin anew. Likewise at the entrance of the same month, both in the Regia and in the curiae and in the houses of the flamens, the old laurels were exchanged for new laurels; in the same month also both publicly and privately people go to sacrifice to Anna Perenna, that it may be permitted to complete the year and last through it conveniently. In this month they used to pay fees to teachers which the completed year had made due; they took the auspices for assemblies, leased the revenues, and matrons set dinners before their slaves, as masters do at the Saturnalia: the former that at the beginning of the year they might invite slaves by honor to ready obedience, the latter as though paying the gratitude of finished work.

He named the second month April, as some think, with aspiration as Aphril, from the foam which the Greeks call aphros, whence Venus is believed to have arisen. And they assert that this was Romulus's reason: that he named the first month from his father Mars, the second from Venus the mother of Aeneas, and that these especially should keep the beginnings of the year from whom was the origin of the Roman name—since even today in the rites we call Mars Father and Venus Genetrix. Others think that Romulus, either by deeper prudence or by the providence of a certain divinity, so arranged the first months that when the preceding was dedicated to Mars, a god for the most part a slayer of men—as Homer, conscious of nature, says, 'Ares, Ares, bane of men, bloodstained, stormer of walls'—the second should be dedicated to Venus, who as it were by a beneficent power softens his force. For also in the twelve signs of the zodiac, whose certain abodes are believed to belong to certain divinities, when the first sign Aries has been assigned to Mars, the following soon received Venus, that is Taurus; and again Scorpio opposite was so divided as to be common to both gods. Nor is the division itself judged to lack celestial reason, since the posterior part, armed with the sting as with a most powerful weapon, is the abode of Mars, while the prior part, which among the Greeks has the name Zygos and we call Libra, Venus received, who as with a yoke of concord joins marriages and composes friendships.

But Cingius in the book he left on the Fasti says that some inexpertly think the ancients named the month April from Venus, since no festival day and no notable sacrifice to Venus through this month was instituted by our ancestors, and not even in the songs of the Salii is any praise of Venus celebrated as of the other heavenly beings. Varro also agrees with Cingius, affirming that the name of Venus, neither Latin nor Greek, existed among the Romans not even under the kings, and therefore the month could not have been named from Venus. But since before the spring equinox the sky is generally gloomy and covered with clouds, and the sea closed to sailors, and the lands themselves covered either with water or frost or snow, and all these things are opened in spring—that is, in this month—and trees too, and no less the other things the earth contains, begin to open themselves into bud: from all these it is rightly to be believed that the month is called April as Aperil, just as among the Athenians the same month is called Anthesterion from the fact that at this time all things blossom. Verrius Flaccus nevertheless does not deny that afterward it was established that on this day matrons should make sacrifice to Venus; the cause of which matter, because it does not suit this place, must be passed over.

Romulus placed May as the third, concerning whose name there is wide disagreement among authors. For Fulvius Nobilior in the Fasti which he placed in the temple of Hercules of the Muses says that Romulus, after he divided the people into elders and juniors, that one part might protect the state by counsel and the other by arms, called this month May and the following June in honor of each part. There are those who relate that this month passed to our Fasti from the Tusculans, among whom even now a god Maius is invoked, who is Jupiter, so called of course from greatness and majesty. Cingius thinks the month was named from Maia whom he says is the wife of Vulcan, and uses as argument that the flamen of Vulcan makes a divine offering to this goddess on the Kalends of May. But Piso says that the wife of Vulcan is called Maiesta, not Maia. Others contend that Maia the mother of Mercury gave the month its name, proving this especially from the fact that in this month all merchants sacrifice equally to Maia and to Mercury. Some affirm, with whom Cornelius Labeo agrees, that this Maia to whom divine rites are celebrated in the month of May is the earth, having obtained this name from greatness, just as she is also called Magna Mater in the rites; and they gather support for their estimate also from this: that a pregnant sow is sacrificed to her, which victim is proper to the earth. And they say Mercury is joined to her in the rites for this reason: that voice is given to a human being at birth by contact with the earth, and we know that Mercury is powerful over voice and speech. Cornelius Labeo is authority that a temple was dedicated to this Maia, that is the earth, on the Kalends of May under the name of the Bona Dea, and he confirms that the same can be taught to be both the Bona Dea and the earth from the more secret rite of the ceremonies themselves: that this same one is invoked in the books of the pontiffs as Bona and Fauna, Ops and Fatua—Bona because she is the cause of all goods for our livelihood, Fauna because she favors every use of living things, Ops because life stands by her aid, Fatua from speaking (a fando), because, as we said above, infants brought forth in birth do not utter voice before they have touched the earth.

There are those who say this goddess has the power of Juno and that therefore a royal scepter has been added in her left hand. Others believe her the same as Proserpina, and that a divine offering is made to her with a sow because a sow grazed down the crop which Ceres bestowed on mortals. Others believe her Chthonian Hecate; the Boeotians, Semele. They also say she is the daughter of Faunus and that she resisted the wish of her father who had fallen into love of her, so that she was beaten by him with a myrtle rod when she had not yielded to her father's desire nor when pressed with wine by him. Yet the father is believed to have transformed himself into a serpent and to have lain with his daughter. Of all these the following indications are brought forward: that it is unholy for a myrtle rod to be kept in her temple; that a vine is stretched over her head, with which her father most tried to deceive her; that wine is not usually brought into her temple under its own name, but the vessel in which wine has been put is named a honey-jar and the wine is called milk; and that serpents appear in her temple indifferently, neither terrifying nor fearing. Some think her Medea, because in her temple there is every kind of herb from which the priestesses often give medicines, and because it is not permitted for a man to enter her temple on account of the injury she suffered from the ungrateful man Jason. Among the Greeks she is called the Women's Goddess; Varro relates that she was the daughter of Faunus, so chaste that she never went outside the women's quarters, nor was her name heard in public, nor did she ever see a man or was seen by a man; for which reason neither does a man enter her temple. Whence also women in Italy are not permitted to take part in the rite of Hercules, because when Hercules, leading the cattle of Geryon through the fields of Italy, was thirsty, a woman answered that she could not provide water, because a day of the goddess of women was being celebrated, and it was not lawful to taste from that apparatus for men. For which reason Hercules, about to make a sacrifice, cursed the presence of women and ordered Potitius and Pinarius, guardians of the rites, not to allow a woman to take part. See how the occasion of the name, by which we said Maia is the same as both earth and the Bona Dea, has compelled us to bring forward whatever we have learned about the Bona Dea!

June follows May, named either from a part of the people, as we said above, or, as Cingius thinks, because it was long called Junonius among the Latins and for a long time was entered under this appellation in the Fasti among the Aricians and Praenestines—so much so that (as Nisus says in his commentaries on the Fasti) among our ancestors also this appellation of the month long remained, but afterward, certain letters having been worn away, from Junonius it was called June. For also a temple to Juno Moneta was dedicated on the Kalends of June. Some have thought the month of June named from Junius Brutus, who was first made consul at Rome, because in this month, that is on the Kalends of June, after Tarquin had been driven out, he made a sacrifice to the goddess Carna on the Caelian hill as one bound by a vow. They believe this goddess presides over the vital parts of humans. From her finally it is asked that she keep safe the livers and hearts and whatever inward vitals there are; and because by the benefit of the heart, by the concealment of which he was held to be dull (brutus), he proved fit for the reform of the public condition, he consecrated a temple to this goddess who presides over the vitals. Sacrifice is made to her with bean porridge and bacon, because by these things especially the strength of the body is fortified. For also the Kalends of June are commonly called the Bean Kalends, because in this month full-grown beans are employed for divine matters.

There follows July, which, when according to Romulus's arrangement March held the beginning of the year, was called Quintilis from the number, yet nevertheless retained the name even after January and February had been placed first by Numa, though it no longer seemed to be fifth but seventh. But afterward in honor of Julius Caesar the dictator, with Marcus Antonius the son of Marcus as consul proposing the law, it was called July, because in this month, on the fourth day before the Ides of Quintilis, Julius was born. Then comes August, which was formerly called Sextilis until it was given to the honor of Augustus by a decree of the senate whose words I have subjoined: Whereas Imperator Caesar Augustus in the month of Sextilis both entered upon his first consulship and brought three triumphs into the city, and the legions led down from the Janiculum followed his auspices and loyalty, and also Egypt in this month was reduced into the power of the Roman people, and an end was set in this month to the civil wars, and for these reasons this month is and has been most fortunate to this empire, it pleases the senate that this month be called Augustus. Likewise a plebiscite was made for the same matter with Sextus Pacuvius as tribune putting the question to the people.

The month of September retains its principal appellation: which Domitian had invaded with the name of Germanicus, and October with his own name. But when it pleased that the unlucky word be erased from every bronze or stone, the months also were stripped of the usurpation of a tyrannical appellation: the caution of later princes afterward, avoiding the unlucky aspect of a dire omen, preserved the ancient names for the months from September through December.

This was the annual measure arranged by Romulus, who, as we have already said above, established that the year should have ten months but three hundred and four days, and so disposed the months that four of them had thirty-one days and six had thirty. But since that number suited neither the course of the sun nor the reckonings of the moon, it sometimes used to happen that the cold of the year fell in the summer months and on the contrary heat in the winter months; and when this occurred, they allowed so many days without any name of a month to be consumed as would bring it to that time of year at which the condition of the sky suited to the impending month was found."