Talk:Roman calendar

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Contents 1 Lengths of months 2 Anno Diocletiani and AD 3 Until when? 4 -ilis vs. -ober and -ember 5 nomina dierum 6 character of the day 7 order of months

[edit] Lengths of months

This article repeats the urban myth of a 30 days sextilis, which is belied by republican fasti etc, and also contradicts what is said in the Julian Calendar article. Would anyone object if I put this right?

Francis Davey 12:24, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It appears that Julian Calendar is correct. Is there a way of re-using the material here? Francis Davey 16:06, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Different context. This article mentions a 30 day Sextilis in the supposed original 304 day calendar. For the pre-Julian calendar of 355 days it states (correctly) that Sextilis had 29 days. --Chris Bennett 21:11, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

No, we are talking at cross-purposes. This article has Sextilis as a short month before the Julian reform. That is contradicted by any number of bits of evidence and is thought (eg by Michels) to be a bit of misinformation originating in John of Sacrobosco's work 'the Sphere'. There is no contemporary evidence for a 29 day Sextilis and lots of reasons not to believe it to be have been so -- that is what the Julian Calendar article gets right. The hypothetical earlier calendar supposedly before Numa is also wrong in this respect I suspect, but who knows, its much more of a guess. Francis Davey 20:07, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but you're confusing the Julian and the Augustan reforms. Both articles are correct and they are consistent. Sextilis was a short month of 29 days before the Julian reform, and Caesar added two days to it -- see Macrobius, and the dates of the Nones and Ides in the Julian calendar. What Sacrobosco claimed was that it was still a short month (of 30 days in his view) after the Julian reform and that it only got its modern length after the Augustan reform of 8 BC, which is also when Sextilis was renamed and when the correct frequency of Julian leap years was finally established. That's the claim which is refuted in the Julian calendar article. --Chris Bennett 15:42, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anno Diocletiani and AD

"During the later empire, this system was used alongside the A.D. system (ANNO DIOCLETIANI) which used the year of accession of the Emperor Diocletian as the base year for counting purposes. Note that this should not be confused with the "A.D." system which the Christians introduced in mediaeval times (where "AD" stands for Anno Domini)"

- This is ERROR and MISTAKE.

This is ERROR and MISTAKE because "A.D." in mentioned context ("Diocletian") did not use in Roman Empire absolutely!

First: S.c. "Aera of Diocletiani" did not use in Roman Empire with the exeption of Egypt. But in Egyptian usage shortening for "Aera of Diocletiani" (! Not "Anno Diocletiani") was in Greek, Hellenic. In Greek date may use postfix etoys Diokletianoy (etohs Diokletianoh ), but in this case abridgment (Latin!) "A.D." is nonsense. (see use of "Diocletian" number of year, for example, in http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf204.xxv.iii.iii.xiv.html )

Second: Earliest mention of notation "Anni Diocletiani" (plural, not "Anno") we may meet in "LIBER DE PASCHATE" by Dionysius Exiguus (see http://hermes.ulaval.ca/~sitrau/calgreg/denys.html ) AFTER Roman Empire,

And, third - there are not documents, texts, coins, inscriptions etc from Roman Empire with shortening "A.D." (or "AD") as "Anno Diocletiani".

(About Roman Calendar and Aera Diokletiani - see E.J.Bickerman, Chronology of the Ancient World, London, 1969)

Please, eliminate the mistake.

Regards, Vladimir Krayushkin, Dr.Ing., vkr@royint.com

[edit] Until when?

Anyone know until when the Roman calendar was used? If you do, please add this to the article. – gpvos 15:12, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Which Roman calendar? The article already explains it is mostly concerned with the pre-Julian calendar which was used until 45 BC. The articles on the Julian and Gregorian calendars explain when and how those came to be used. But both of them are still Roman calendars. So we still use the latest incarnation of the Roman calendar, and the date of its extinction is not yet known (and is hopefully a long way off). -- Chris Bennett

[edit] -ilis vs. -ober and -ember

I'm wondering about the different suffixes; I would have expected Quintilis to be Quintember or Quintober; I'd have thought Sextilis would be Sextember or Sextober, and so on. Once upon a time, were the names more homogenic? That is to say, were September, October, November and December once known as Septilis, Octilis, Novilis and Decilis? If not, why the difference? Something to do with the seasons, perhaps? Very curious. -Druff

Actually, the "m" in September, November, and December is part of the basic number names (septem=7, novem=9, decem=10), rather than part of the suffix. The second "o" in October is part of the word for eight, not part of the suffix. AnonMoos 15:03, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] nomina dierum

Just clarifying my edit: Many cultures exhibit the same phenomenon. Cf. english, who names its days by the Norse gods, sun, moon, and a Roman god: Monday=moon day, Tuesday=Tyr's, Wednesday=Odin's day, Thursday=Thor's day, Friday=Frige's day, Saturday=(and this is a throwback towards the Roman system) Saturn's day, and Sunday, I think you get the point. The S in Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are genitive markers in Norse, just like in lunae, Martis, Mercuri, Jovis, Veneris, Saturni, and solis.--Josh Rocchio 02:07, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to disagree. The 7 day week is planetary, and has very clear astrological origins, which is why they are in the rather peculiar order they are. The Sun and Moon are very much planets in the original sense (and the sense that the ancients would have understood it) in that they wander in the sky as opposed to the fixed stars which do not. The 7 day week is then the 7 planets: sun, moon, mars, mercury, jupiter, venus and saturn. There is graffiti evidence of classical Greek equivalents, although modern Greek does not use planets. The Latin naming should be transparent; the English naming is based on classical equivalents (i.e. those operating when borrowed), so Mars=Tiw (god of war), Mercury=Odin (god of wisdom/cunning etc), Jupiter=Thor (god of Thunder, and chief god of the pantheon), Venus=Freya (a beautiful woman) and Saturn is borrowed directly. Ancient German statury shows that Thor was treated as head of the pantheon by many German tribes, even though in the later Norse systemisation (eg of Snorri) we have come to think of Odin as chief god. Anyone else care to comment? I would vote for a revert. Francis Davey 17:39, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

See Days of the week Francis Davey 17:43, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

As I said above, friday was Frige's day, not Freya's, though these two are often confused in germanic mythology, especially in norse mythology (the difference being mainly that Freya was a bit more of a trollop). Of course the current days of the week are based on classical equivalents, I meant not to leave that unclear, thinking that the explanation many cultures do this as well covered it. But the point is the anicent planets themselves were named after the gods. That the sun and moon were not named after gods and/or goddesses is clear indication that they were considered different in the minds of the ancients than the other wandering celestial bodies. It does disservice to a reader who is unfamiliar with ancient nomenclature, or unfamiliar with the Roman pantheon not to include this information. If nothing else add wiki links to the pertinent gods and goddess next to the planetary links. For instance, I showed this article to my sixth grade Latin class (before either of our edits) and they were immediate in their denouncement of the author "not knowing that the sun and moon weren't planets" and in their inquisition "aren't those the names of the gods?"--Josh Rocchio 04:53, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Seems to me you had an excellent opening to talk to your students about how astronomical ideas have evolved since ancient times, I hope you took it. But the point here is not what the planets were named after, but what the days of the week were named after. Francis is right: they were named after the planets not the gods. This is very clear if you read Dio or Vettius Valens on the days of the week. Whether the planets themselves were named after the gods is not actually relevant to this article, its appropriate for an article about the planets.

Which raises another issue about this section. The article as a whole is about the pre-Julian Roman calendar, but the weekdays were never used in the pre-Julian calendar, only in the Julian one. Seems to me it would be appropriate to strike this discussion entirely, or move it to the Julian calendar article, and leave this as a discussion only of the nundinal cycle. --Chris Bennett 15:56, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] character of the day

Seems to me this is the most interesting aspect of the Roman calendar, like our weekdays and weekend it gives a good idea of what the structure of daily life was like, but seems so different our own. So, for me, the lists of months and technical discussion of converting or counting days is less interesting and would be better at the end of the article

But I find it hard to understand what was the character of these days. Was it that each month had say the first 7/8 days with one character, the next 8 with another and the last 13/15 with another. It says that certain days were for the market, or legal or fasti, when were these days during the month and what happened on them? For example, we usually have work-free days for 2 days, did they have such a thing as the weekend? Also what about feasts or festivals, were they on special days or did their "Sunday" occur on various days? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.203.32.60 (talk) 01:29, 5 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] order of months

"(Numa) is said to have reduced the 30-day months to 29 days and to have added January (29 days) and February (28 days) to the end of the calendar".

How do we know that a) he added them, b) he added one or both at the end and c) that he added them in the Jan.-> Feb. order? Thanks. Imboot 07:41, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, there is some confusion regarding who made January (1st) the beginning of the year (some say Numa), and when. That would perhaps best be answered on this page, if it wasn't Julius Caesar, I think. Imboot 09:08, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

To clarify, the article says, "The first day of the consular term, which was effectively the first day of the year, changed several times during Roman history. It became 1 January in 153 BC." which is fine. It should make it clear that it stayed at 1 Jan., if that is the case. Also, there are conflicting stories about who did this (and when). Imboot 09:15, 15 March 2007 (UTC)