[3603] Röm. Chron., i, 1883, pp. 11-8.
[3604] Hermes, xxiii, 1888, p. 56, note.
[3605] See p. 716, supra.
[3606] Philologus, xlix, 1890, p. 85.
[3607] Philologus, xlix, 1890, p. 72.
[3608] Hermes, xxiii, 1888, p. 50.
[3609] Hermes, xxiii, 1888, p. 48.
[3610] Assuming that the pontiffs misunderstood Caesar’s regulation, and did not simply set it aside, is it possible to explain their mistake? It is often taken for granted that the Romans only used the inclusive method of reckoning. This, however, is an error: Holzapfel shows that our method was generally adopted by Cicero, except of course in the case of dates. Generally, however, in ordinary speech, when the number in question was less than ten, the tendency was to employ the inclusive method; and, as the same tendency prevailed in official phraseology, Holzapfel argues (Philologus, xlix, 1890, p. 74) that it would not have been unnatural for the pontiffs to interpret Caesar’s regulations in this sense. See also Th. Mommsen, Die röm. Chron. bis auf Caesar, 1859, pp. 162-3, 317; L. Holzapfel, Röm. Chron., pp. 353-4; and p. 602, n. 5, supra. But, apart from the question of Roman methods of reckoning, is it likely that the pontiffs should have been ignorant of the astronomical reason which led Caesar to enact that one year in every four must contain an intercalary day? Holzapfel thinks that it is. ‘We shall hardly do the pontiffs an injustice,’ he says (Philologus, xlix, 1890, p. 74), ‘if we assume that they knew about as much of the actual duration of the [solar] year as Censorinus, who treats the matter as not yet thoroughly ascertained.’ The passage in Censorinus (De die natali, xix, 2), to which Holzapfel refers, runs as follows:—Hoc tempus quot dierum esset, ad certum nondum astrologi reperire potuerunt. He then quotes various astronomers, all of whom agreed of course that the number of days was 365, but differed in regard to the fraction of a day by which the duration of the year exceeded 365 days. Perhaps the pontiffs did not know that Sosigenes, upon whose calculations Caesar relied, estimated that fraction at one quarter (see p. 725, infra). If they set aside Caesar’s regulation not from ignorance but deliberately, their motive must have been to avoid the coincidence of the Kalends of January in every third year with a nundinal day.
[3611] Philologus, xlix, 1890, p. 72 and n. 1.
[3612] Sat., i, 13, § 17.—quotiens incipiente anno dies coepit qui addictus est nundinis, omnis ille annus infaustis casibus luctuosus fuit, maximeque Lepidiano tumultu opinio ista firmata est.