In the year 691, on the 5th of the Ides of November, Cicero, in his Second Oration against Catiline, 10, asks how the effeminate companions of Catiline will support the frosts of the Appenine, especially in these nights already long (his præsertim jam noctibus).[932] We are, in fact, on the 15th of October, 63 B.C. Later, in his Oration for Sextius, speaking of the defeat of Catiline at the beginning of January, 692 (the middle of December, 63 B.C.), Cicero asserts that the result is due to Sextius, without whose activity the winter would have been allowed to intervene (datus illo in bello esset hiemi locus).
In the year 696 of Rome (58 B.C.), the Helvetii appoint their rendezvous at Geneva for a day fixed: “is dies erat a.d.v. Kal-Aprilis.” (Cæsar, De Bello Gallico, I. 6.) This date corresponds with the Julian 24th of March, the day on which the spring equinox fell. The Helvetii had taken this natural period; Cæsar has referred it to the Roman calendar.[933]
In the year 700 of Rome (54 B.C.), Cæsar, after his second campaign in Britain, re-embarks his troops “quod æquinoctium suberat.” (De Bello Gallico, V. 23.) He informs Cicero of it on the 6th of the Calends of October, the Julian 21st of September. (Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, IV. 17.) The equinox fell on the 26th of September.[934]
In the year 702, on the 13th of the Calends of February (that is, on the 30th of December, 53 B.C.), Clodius is slain by Milo. (Cicero, Orat. pro Milone, 10.) Pompey is created consul for the third time on the 5th of the Calends of March, in the intercalary month. (Asconius.)
In the year 703, Cicero writes to Atticus (V. 13): “I have arrived at Ephesus on the 11th of the Calends of Sextilis (12th of July, 51 B.C.), 560 days after the battle of Bovillæ;” an exact computation, if we count the day of the murder of Clodius, and reckon 23 days for the intercalation of 702.[935]
In the year 704 the intercalation is omitted. Cæsar’s partisans demanded it in vain. (Dio Cassius, XL. 61, 62.)
In 705, Cicero, who hesitates in joining Pompey, writes to Atticus: “a.d. xvii Kal. Junii: Nunc quidem æquinoctium nos moratur, quod valde perturbatum erat.” It was the 16th of April; the equinox was passed 21 days before, and the atmospheric disturbances might still last. Or was it anything else than an excuse on the part of Cicero?
Cæsar embarks at Brundusium on the eve of the Nones of January, 706. (De Bello Civili, III. 6.) It is the 28th of November, 49 B.C. “Gravis autumnus in Apulio circumque Brundusium ... omnem exercitum valetudine tentaverat.” (De Bello Civili, III. 2, 6.)—“Bibulus gravissima hieme in navibus excubabat.” (De Bello Civili, III. 8.)—“Jamque hiems appropinquabat.” (De Bello Civili, III. 9.)
After his arrival at Rome towards the end of the year 707, Cæsar started again for the African war. It was only on his return towards the middle of the year 708, that he could devote himself to the re-organisation of the Republic and the reform of the calendar. According to Dio Cassius (XLIII. 26), “as the days of the year did not concord well together, Cæsar introduced the present manner of reckoning, by intercalating 67 days necessary to restore the concordance. Some authors have pretended that he intercalated more; but this is the truth.”[936]
What concordance was it that required to be established thus? The 67 days necessary were exactly what required to be added that, in the secular year of Rome 700, the Julian month of March should coincide with the ancient Roman month of March. The month of March of the year 700 of Rome is the true starting-point of the Julian style.