By Water & Blood

Chapter 15: Kalends, Nones, and Ides

Then Horus said: "This intercalary day indeed, to be inserted before the fifth year begins, agrees with the reckoning of Egypt, mother of the arts. But nothing seems laborious in unfolding their months, which all have of thirty days; and when the twelve months have been unfolded, that is when three hundred and sixty days have been finished, then between August and September they restore the remaining five days to their year, attaching in every fourth year completed the intercalary which is made from the quarters. But here the number does not advance from the first to the last day of the month in continuous increase, but after the Kalends is directed to the Nones, thence I hear it is turned aside to certain Ides, and afterward again, unless I am mistaken—or rather as you have just now also related—to the following Kalends. I should indeed like to know what all these things mean to themselves. For that I do not even hope to be able to attain: that I grasp the names which are added to individual days among you, while you call some court days, others forbidden days, and others by various names. Your market-days too I confess I do not know, concerning which so diligent and so cautious an observance is related. These things it is not shameful for me as a foreigner to be ignorant of; but to learn them from you, Praetextatus, not even a citizen would be ashamed."

Then Praetextatus said: "Not only for you, Horus, since you are sprung from Egypt, but not even for us whose origin is Roman do I think it shameful to inquire into what all the ancients thought worthy of inquiry. For concerning the Kalends, Nones, and Ides and the various observances of holidays, countless authors have been exercised by care of the question, and therefore we briefly gather into one what has been said about these by all.

Romulus, when with a talent keen indeed but rustic he was arranging the condition of his own rule, took the beginning of each month from that day on which it had befallen that the new moon was seen. Because it does not continuously happen that it always appears on the same day, but from certain causes it is accustomed to be seen sometimes later, sometimes more swiftly, it came about that when it appeared later more days were given to the preceding month, or when more swiftly fewer, and first chance assigned to each individual month a perpetual law of number. Thus it came about that some obtained thirty-one days, others twenty-nine. Yet in all months it was resolved that the Ides be presented on the ninth day from the day of the Nones, and between the Ides and the following Kalends it was established that sixteen days were to be numbered. Therefore the richer month had those two days by which it was increased between its Kalends and Nones. Hence for some the fifth day from the Kalends, for others the seventh, makes the Nones. Caesar nevertheless, as we said above, guarding the fixed sacred rites, did not wish to change the order of the Nones even in those months to which he added two days, because after the holidays of the whole month were completed he cautiously inserted his days for divine business.

In ancient times therefore, before the Fasti were published into the knowledge of all by Gnaeus Flavius the scribe against the will of the fathers, this province was delegated to the lesser pontiff: that he should first observe the aspect of the new moon and announce it when seen to the sacrificing king. And so when a sacrifice had been celebrated by the king and the lesser pontiff, the same pontiff, having summoned (calata), that is called, the people onto the Capitol near the Curia Calabra, which is next to the hut of Romulus, pronounced how many days remained from the Kalends to the Nones, and for Nones on the fifth he proclaimed by saying the word calo five times, for those on the seventh by repeating it seven times. But the word calo is Greek, that is 'I call,' and it pleased that this day, which was the first of those days that were called, be named the Kalends. Hence also to the curia itself to which they were called the name Calabra was given, and to the fleet (classis), because the whole people was called into it. But therefore the lesser pontiff by calling published the number of days that remained to the Nones, because after the new moon it was proper that on the day of the Nones the country people who were in the fields flow together into the city to receive the causes of the holidays from the king of sacred rites and to know what was to be done in that month. Whence some judge that the Nones are so called as the beginning of a new (novae) observance, or because from that day always nine days are reckoned to the Ides, just as among the Etruscans several Nones were held, because they greeted their king every ninth day and consulted him about their own affairs.

Further, the name of the Ides was taken from the Etruscans, among whom that day is called Itis; but they interpret Itis as the trust of Jupiter. For since we take Jupiter as the author of light (whence also the Salii sing him as Lucetius in their songs) and the Cretans call the day Dia, and the Romans themselves also call him Diespiter as father of the day, this day is rightly called the trust of Jupiter, whose light is not finished with the setting of the sun but continues the splendor of day even at night with the moon illuminating—which always is accustomed to happen at the full moon, that is in the middle of the month. Therefore the day which lacks even nocturnal darkness they called by the Etruscan name the trust of Jupiter, whence also antiquity ordained that all the Ides be observed as holidays of Jupiter. Others think the Ides, because on that day the full moon is seen, were called vidus from seeing (a videndo), and presently the letter V was withdrawn, just as on the contrary, what the Greeks say idein, we say videre with the letter V added. To some it seems that the Ides were named by a Greek word, as from eidos, because on that day the moon shows its full appearance. There are those who judge the Ides named from the sheep idulis, which the Etruscans call by this name and which on all the Ides is sacrificed to Jupiter by the flamen. To us that reason of the name seems nearer the truth: that we call the Ides the day which divides the month. For iduare in the Etruscan tongue is to divide, whence vidua as if valde idua, that is 'greatly divided,' or vidua, that is 'divided from a husband.'

But just as all the Ides were assigned to Jupiter, so all the Kalends were assigned to Juno, as both Varro's and pontifical authority affirms. Which the Laurentes also preserve in their ancestral religions, who have also added a surname to the goddess from the ceremonies, calling her Calendar Juno; and also on all the Kalends from the month of March to December they make supplication to this goddess on the day of the Kalends. At Rome too on all the Kalends, besides the fact that the lesser pontiff makes a divine offering to Juno in the Curia Calabra, also the queen of sacred rites, that is the wife of the king, sacrifices a sow or a lamb to Juno in the Regia. From her also we have said that Janus was surnamed Junonius, because every entrance seems ascribed to that god, and all the days of the Kalends to this goddess. For since our ancestors observed the beginnings of months from the rising of the moon, they rightly assigned the Kalends to Juno, thinking the moon and Juno the same; or because the moon goes through the air—whence also the Greeks named the moon Artemis, that is aerotomin, because she cuts the air—and Juno is arbitress of the air, they deservedly consecrated the beginnings of the months, that is the Kalends, to this goddess.

Nor would I pass over this: that for joining marriages they judged the Kalends, Nones, and Ides religious, that is to be avoided. For these days except the Nones are holidays, and on holidays it is a matter for expiation that force be done to anyone: therefore then marriages are avoided, in which force seems to be done to a maiden. But Varro relates that Verrius Flaccus, most skilled in pontifical law, used to say that on holidays it was permitted to clean old ditches, but it was not right to make new ones; therefore holidays were more suitable for widows than for maidens for marrying. Someone will object: why then on the Nones, if it is not a holiday, is the celebration of marriage forbidden? The cause of this matter also is in the open. For because the first day of marriage is given to modesty, but on the next day the bride ought to begin to obtain mastery in her husband's house and to make a divine offering, and all the days following—whether after the Kalends or after the Nones or Ides—are equally black, therefore they said the Nones also were unfit for marriages, lest the bride on the following day either take auspices of wifely liberty or sacrifice on a black day, on which it is unholy for sacred rites to be celebrated."