Page images
PDF
EPUB

velled hair, and a torch in her hand. The Romans paid great adoration to her; but she was held in the greatest veneration by the Cappadocians, and chiefly at Comana, where she had about 3000 priests. Her temple at Rome was near the Porta Carmentalis. In it the senators gave audience to foreign ambassadors, and to generals returned from war. At the gate was a small column, called the Columna Belli, against which they threw a spear whenever war was declared against an enemy. The priests of this goddess consecrated themselves by great incisions in their body, and particularly in the thigh, of which they received the blood in their hands to offer as a sacrifice to the

goddess. In their wild enthusiasm they often predicted bloodshed and wars, the defeat of enemies, or the besieging of towns.-Juv. 4, v. 124. Varro de L. L. 5. Hesiod. Theog. v. 270. Paus. 4, c. 30. Virg. Aen. 8, v. 703. Stat. Theb. 2, v. 718, 1. 7, v. 73. Ital. 5, v. 221.

[blocks in formation]

Mane ubi bis fuerit, Phoebusque iteraverit ortus;
Factaque erit posito rore bis uda seges;
Hac sacrata die Tusco Bellona duello
Dicitur: et Latio prospera semper adest.

The epigram says:

Purpureo Bellona vides armata flagello
Ingressa est rubro sanguine tincta pede.
Castigat et calcat victos furibunda inimicos
Illa colit Pacem nec minus arma ciet.

CHRONOLOGY.-A transit of Venus in 1769.

URANIA. The transits of are not merely objects of curiosity, but of great utility. Their rare occurrence, indeed, renders them extremely interesting to the astronomer; but this interest is greatly increased, when he reflects that it is by these means alone that the important problem relative to the real distance of the Sun from the Earth, can be ascertained with any degree of certainty; that they can be applied with great effect in ascertaining the longitude of places; and that they are of great use in correcting the elements of the planets, especially the places of the Aphelia, the situations of the Nodes, and the inclinations of the Orbits. The transits of Venus, in 1761 and 1769, contributed much to the correctness of our knowledge of her movements; and the transits of are also capable of being applied to the same purpose.

FAUNA. Various insects still continue to appear.-The huge Stag Beetle Lucanus cervus, the Green Scarabeus, the Ephemera or Angler's Fly, and the terrible Gadfly, who deposits her eggs in the hides of the cattle. We have elsewhere noticed the jarring noise of the Goatsucker

capromalgus Europaeus of a still evening at this time. The Stone Curlew Fedoa oedienemus continues to be heard while flying above our heads in the obscurity of the night.

June 4. St. Quirinus Bp. St. Opatus.
St. Petroc. St. Breaca Virgin.

St. Nenoc Virgin.

SS. Walter.

St. Burian.

CHRONOLOGY.-King George III. born in 1738. Alvares de Luna beheaded at Valladolid in Spain in 1453.

Herculis aedes in circo dedicata.-Rom. Cal.

Altera pars circi custode sub Hercule tuta est :
Quod deus Euboico carmine munus habet.
Muneris est tempus, qui nonas Lucifer ante est.
Si titulos quaeris: Sylla probavit opus.—OVID.

TEMPUS. There is some little discrepancy as to a day or two with respect to the time of certain feasts recorded in the Roman Calendar of Julius Caesar, and that versified by Ovid: we have, in every instance we believe, abided by the former as to dates.

We shall take this occasion of offering some explanation of the Roman Calendar, perpetually recorded and illustrated throughout this our work. And we shall subjoin that Calendar in its proper order at the end of our Index, as it will serve as an index to the individual subjects of the Calendar which we have enlarged on under their respective Days. In the said Calendar, at the end of our work, we shall translate the Latin, which we have recorded in the original in the course of our Work.

[ocr errors]

Of the Roman Calendar. There are six different columns in this Calendar. The first contains the letters which were called Nundinales; the second notes the days called Fasti, Nefasti, and Comitiales, which are also signified by letters; the third contains the number of Meton, which is called the Golden Number; the fourth is for the days in order, which are marked with Arabic figures or characters; the fifth divides the month into Calends, Nones, and Ides, according to the ancient method of the Romans; and the sixth contains their festivals and ceremonies. Here we

observe,

1. These seven months, January, March, May, Quintilis or July so named in honour of Julius Caesar, Sextilis or August so named in honour of Augustus, October, and December, have each of them 31 days; and these four,

T

April, June, September, and November, have only 30 days; but February, for the common years, has only 28 days, and for the intercalary or bissextile either this month or April had 29.

2. This series of eight letters, which are called Literae Nundinales, is continued without interruption from the first to the last day of the year, that there might always be one of them to signify those days of the year on which the meetings were held that were termed by the Romans Nundinae, and which returned every ninth day, that the Roman citizens might travel from the country to the city to be informed of what concerned either religion or government. These letters are so placed, that if the Nundinal day of the first year was under the letter A, which is at the 1st, the 9th, the 17th, the 25th of January, &c. the letter of the Nundinal day for the next year must be D, which is at the 5th, the 13th, the 21st of the same month, &c. For the letter A being found at the 27th of December, if from this day we reckon eight letters besides the letters B, C, D, E, which remain after A in the month of December, we must take four other letters at the beginning of January in the next year, A, B, C, D; and so the letter D, which is first found in the month of January, will be the 9th, after the last A in the month of December preceding; and, consequently, it will be the Nundinal letter, or that letter which notes the days set apart for these meetings, which may be also called by the name of fairs or public markets. Thus, by the same way of calculation, the Nundinal letter of the third year will be G, that of the fourth B, and so on of the rest, unless there happens to be some change by the intercalation.

3. To understand correctly what is set down in the second column, it must be observed, that to sue one at law was not allowed among the Romans on all days; neither was the praetor permitted on every day to pronounce these three solemn words, or this form of law, Do, Dico, Addico; but those days were called Fasti, on which the courts sat to administer justice, quibus fas esset jure agere; and those were called Nefasti, on which this was not permitted, quibus nefas esset; as we learn from these two verses of Ovid,

Ille Nefastus erit, per quem tria verba silentur;

Festus erit, per quem jure licebit agi.

Besides, there were certain days which they called Comitiales, which were marked with a C, on which the people met in the Campus Martius, for the election of magistrates, or to treat about the affairs of the common

wealth; and these days were so called, because the assemblies of the people held on them were named Comitia. There were also some appointed days on which a certain priest (Rex Sacrorum) was present at the assemblies. And, lastly, on a certain day of the year, they were accustomed to cleanse the temple of Vesta, and carry off all the dung in it; which was done with so much ceremony, that it was not lawful on that day to try causes.

This being premised, it is not difficult to understand what is contained in this column; for wherever the letter N. occurs, which signifies Dies Nefastus, this denotes a day on which justice could not be administered; or if we meet in it with the letter F. or Fastus, it signifies a court day; or with F. P. or Fastus primâ parte diei, it signifies that the court sits on the former part of the day. Wherever N. P. or Nefastus prima parte diei is found, that signifies the court does not sit on the former part of the day. E. N. or Endotercisus seu intercisus, signifies that the court sits some certain hours of the day, and not at other hours. C. denotes that those assemblies were then held which were called Comitia. The letters Q. Rex C. F. or Quando Rex comitiavit, fas, denote that the court sits after the priest called Rex has been present at the Comitia: and, lastly, when we see the letters Q. S. T. D. F. or Quando stercus delatum, fas, they signify that the court sits immediately after the dung is carried out of the temple of the goddess Vesta.

4. The third column is for the nineteen figures of the numbers of the lunar cycle, otherwise called the Golden Number, which signify the new moons through the whole year, according to the order in which they were thought to happen in the time of Julius Caesar, when these figures were thus disposed in his Calendar.

5. The fourth notes the succession of the days of the months, by the numbers of the Arabic figures or characters. It must not be imagined that they were thus disposed in the tables of the Fasti, i. e. in the Calendar used by the ancients, for they had no knowledge of any such thing: yet it was thought convenient to place them here, that our readers might the better compare the manner of naming and reckoning days used by the ancients with ours at present, and discern what are the days, as we now reckon them, to which the festivals and other days of the Romans might correspond.

6. The fifth column contains that famous division of the days of the months into Calends, Nones, and Ides, which was in use among the Romans; and though this division

was not into equal parts, as were the Decades used by the Greeks, but into very different portions of time; yet this variety is well enough expressed in these two verses :—

Sex Mains Nonas, October, Julius, et Mars,

Quatuor at reliqui. Dabit Idus quilibet octo.

That is, these four months, March, May, July, and October, have six days of Nones, and all the rest have only four; but in every one of them there are eight days of Ides. This must be understood after this manner; that the first day of each month was always called the Calends of that month: after that, in four months, March, May, July, and October, the seventh day of the month was called the Nones, and the fifteenth the Ides; whereas, in other months in which the Nones lasted but four days, the fifth was called Nonae, the Nones, and the thirteenth Idus, the Ides. The other days are reckoned backward from the beginning of the next month, and the number always lessens as you come nearer to it.

The days which are after the Calends until the Nones, take their name from the Noues of the month current; the following days, which are between the Nones and the Ides, take theirs from the Ides of the same month: but all the rest, from the Ides until the end of the next month, take theirs from the Calends of the next month.

7. The last column contains those things which chiefly belong to the religion of the Romans; such as the festivals, the sacrifices, the games, the ceremonies, the fortunate or unfortunate days; as also the beginning of the signs, the four cardinal points of the year, which make the four seasons, the rising and setting of the stars, &c. These were much observed by the ancients, who made use of them, for a long time, to denote the difference of the seasons, instead of a Calendar; at least, until it was reduced into a more regular form by the correction of Julius Caesar. We find in most of the ancient books, that they governed themselves wholly by the observation of the rising and setting of the stars, in navigation, in tilling the ground, in physic, and in the greatest part of their affairs both public and private.

FLORA. Most of the grasses begin to flower in the meadows, and so continue through the month, until cut down for Hay.

« PreviousContinue »