Ancient Britain and the Invasions of Julius Caesar

by T. Rice Holmes

[3555] Vol. i (3rd ed.), p. 343. See also J. P. Postgate, M. Annaei Lucani de bello civili liber VII, 1900, p. xiv, n. 3; A. G. Peskett, C. I. Caesaris comm. de bello civili liber tertius, 1900, p. 68; and H. Meusel, C. I. Caesaris comm. de b.c., pp. xiv, 367 ff.

[3556] Sat., i, 13, §§ 12-3.—sed octavo quoque anno intercalares octo affluebant dies ex singulis, quibus vertentis anni numerum apud Romanos super Graecum abundasse iam diximus. Hoc quoque errore iam cognito haec species emendationis inducta est. Tertio quoque octennio ita intercalandos dispensabant dies, ut non nonaginta sed sexaginta sex intercalarent, compensatis viginti et quattuor diebus pro illis qui per totidem annos supra Graecorum numerum creverant.

[3557] See Th. Mommsen, Die röm. Chron. bis auf Caesar, 1859, pp. 45-6, and Rev. hist., xlii, 1890, p. 401.

[3558] Censorinus, De die natali, xx, 4, § 6.—Quod delictum ut corrigeretur, pontificibus datum negotium eorumque arbitrio intercalandi ratio permissa.

[3559] Ib., § 7.—Sed horum [pontificum] plerique ob odium vel gratiam, quo quis magistratu citius abiret diutiusve fungeretur aut publici redemtor ex anni magnitudine in lucro damnove esset, plus minusve ex libidine intercalando rem sibi ad corrigendum mandatam ultro quod depravarunt &c. See also Plutarch, Caesar, 59; Ammianus Marcellinus. xxvi, 1, § 12; and Macrobius, Sat., i, 14, § 1.

[3560] Asconius, in Milonianam, p. 35 (M. Tullii Ciceronis opera, ed. J. C. Orelli and J. G. Baiter, vol. v, pars ii, 1833).

[3561] It may be well to give the proof. Cicero (Att., v, 13, § 1) tells us that the period from the 18th of January, 702, the day on which Clodius was murdered, to the 22nd of July, 703, reckoning inclusively, comprised 560 days; and the reader may satisfy himself that this statement is untrue if there was an intercalary month in 703, and true if there was not. From these data and from the further statement made by Cicero in his speech Pro Milone, 98, that the day on which he delivered the speech, namely the 8th of April, 702, was the 101st day since the murder of Clodius, it follows that the intercalary month in 702 amounted to 23 days. It is stated by Curio in a letter to Cicero (Fam., viii, 6, § 5) and by Dion Cassius (xl, 62, §§ 1-2) that there was no intercalary month in 704. It can be proved from the chronological statements which have come down to us regarding the movements of Caesar and Pompey in 705 that there was no intercalary month in that year. Plutarch (Caesar, 35, § 1) tells us that Caesar made himself master of Italy in 60 days. Shortly before the 17th of January, 705, the day on which Pompey fled from Rome, Caesar crossed the Rubicon (Att., ix, 10, § 4; Caesar, B. C., i, 14, § 3); and it has been proved (Stoffel, Guerre civile, i, 202-3; O. E. Schmidt, Der Briefwechsel des M. Tullius Cicero, 1893, p. 104, n. 2) that the exact date was either January 10 or January 11. On the 18th of March he took Brundisium (Att., ix, 15, § 6),—65 days, reckoning inclusively, after his passage of the Rubicon, if there was no intercalary month, but 87 or 88 if there was one. Again, he took Corfinium on the 21st of February, quitted it the same day (ib., viii, 14, § 1), and marched direct to Brundisium, where he arrived on the 9th of March (ib., ix, 13, § 13A). The distance between the two places, measured along the route which Colonel Stoffel believes Caesar to have followed, is 465 kilometres, or about 289 miles. O. E. Schmidt (Der Briefwechsel des M. T. Cicero, pp. 385-9) decides for another route; but the difference of opinion between him and Colonel Stoffel does not affect my argument. If there was an intercalary month in 705, Caesar occupied 39 or 40 days on the march, which, considering the notorious rapidity of his movements, is incredible: if there was not, he occupied 17 days (see Stoffel, Guerre civile, i, 196-7). That there was no intercalary month either in 706 or in 707 is evident from a statement in one of Cicero’s letters to Atticus (x, 17, § 3), written on the 16th of May, 705,—‘At present the equinox is delaying us, which has been very stormy’ (Nunc quidem aequinoctium nos moratur, quod valde perturbatum erat). The equinox actually occurred on the 24th of March. If there was no intercalary month either in 706 or in 707, the 16th of May, 705, fell on the 24th or the 25th of March, 49 B.C. of the Julian calendar. If there was an intercalary month in either of those years, it fell on the 2nd or the 3rd of March. [Le Verrier, who also holds that there was no intercalation in 706 or 707, says that May 16, 705, fell on April 16, 49 B.C.; but Le Verrier assumed, wrongly, as we shall see, that ‘the year of confusion’ contained only 422, not 445 days.]

[3562] De die natali, xx, 4, §§ 8-10.—[adeo aberratum est] ut C. Caesar ... duos menses intercalarios dierum LXVII in mensem Novembrem et Decembrem interponeret, cum iam mense Februario dies III et XX intercalasset, faceretque eum annum dierum CCCCXLV, &c.

[3563] Napoleon III, Hist. de Jules César, ii, 521-3; or Stoffel, Hist. de Jules César,—Guerre civile, ii, 387-9.

[3564] B. G., v, 23, § 5.