What do the Roman victories of Gaius Duilius over the Sicilians and Carthaginians in 260/259BC, Publius Cornelius Lentulus over the Ligurians in 236/235BC, Gaius Claudius Pulcher over the Istri and Ligurians in 177/176BC and Marcus Claudius Marcellus over the Contrubian Gauls, Ligurians and Eleates in 166/165BC all have in common?
Well, actually, they have a few things in common…
Somewhat surprisingly, even with a Cornelius and two Claudii on the shortlist, we cannot say that all four were of the elite of Roman society, for while Gaius Duilius had attained the consulship, his family would appear to be largely undistinguished, a possibility that has led to some suggestions that this lack of aristocratic pedigree (as well as some boasting on his part) was the reason why Duilius not holding another military command after his consulship (Lazenby (1996) 72).
What they do share, however, is that all four men were serving as consul at the time of their winning a great victory and that all four were deemed to have won significant enough victories to be awarded the honour of a triumph, the public celebratory entrance into the city of Rome, laced with religious ceremony and rite.
But then many men won victories deemed worthy of triumphs - what sets these four men apart from the rest of the consular triumphatores is when they celebrated their triumph...
If we look at a typical entry in the great Fasti Trumphales…
L. Cornelius P.f. Balbus, proconsul, from Africa, 6 k.Apr.
Well, as this is the last entry on the Fasti Triumphales and reputedly the last triumph awarded to an individual not part of the imperial family for over 550 years, it is rather atypical, but it is a somewhat typical entry in terms of its recording of who was awarded the triumph – Lucius Cornelius (son of Publius) Balbus, the position he held at the time – proconsul, where or against whom he won his victory worthy of a triumph – Africa, and then the date upon which his triumphal entry into Rome took place – 6 k.Apr., meaning ‘6 days before the Kalends of Aprilis’, which equates to 26th March.
If we look at the Fasti entries of the four men from the opening paragraph…
C. Duilius M.f. M.n., consul, the first naval triumph, over the Sicilians and the Carthaginian fleet, k.Interk.
P. Cornelius L.f. Ti.n. Lentulus, consul, over the Ligurians, id.Interk.
C. Claudius [Ap.f. P.n.] Pulcher, consul, over the Istri and Ligurians, k.Interk.
M. Claudius M.f. M.n. Marcellus, consul, over the Contrubian Gauls, Ligurians and Eleates, k.Interk.
…all of the ingredients are there - identity of the triumphator (and his lineage), his position (they were all consuls), who they defeated and the date of his triumphal entry into Rome.
However, the sharp-eyed of you may have noted that the abbreviation for the month of the triumphal entries of this shortlist - ‘Interk.’ - does not equate with any of the Latin-based names of the of our modern calendar in the way that ‘Apr.’ from Balbus’ triumph does. This is not an indicator of a substantially different Latin name for one of the 12 months; instead, this ‘Interk.’ represents a special 13th month called ‘Interkalaris’ here, but also appearing as ‘Mercedonius’.
The need for this extra intercalary month was due to the Roman calendar before the Julian reform of 46BC only containing 355 days. This meant that that the pre-Julian Roman calendar constantly fell out of sync with the seasons, which could have serious consequences for an agricultural society.
The Roman solution to this problem was to insert an ‘intercalary month’, called Mercedonius (‘Work Month’), when it was deemed necessary by the pontifex maximus, under whose purview the calendar came. Unfortunately, the history and conventions involved in the length and positioning of the intercalary Mercedonius is not expressed completely clearly in the surviving source material.
The invention of this intercalary system was attributed to the second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius (c.715-672BC), but so many things are attributed to him that it appears something of a narrative crutch for any invention or development of unknown date.
One thing that is known is that the intercalary month is that it was not a straightforward addition of days to the end of a month as our modern leap day of 29th February. The first century BC writer, Varro reports that “the twelfth month was February, and when intercalations take place the five last days of this month are removed” (Varro, LL VI.13), but rather than simply ‘removed’, it appears that they were ‘moved’ to after Mercedonius (Macrobius, Saturnalia, 1.13.15).
This suggests that when an intercalary month was deemed necessary, Mercedonius would actually split February into two separate parts. The first part would end on 23rd February, which was called the Terminalia, the last day of the religious year. Mercedonius would then follow of 22/23 days, with the second part of February then starting afterward with the Regifugium as 24th February, with five further days until the beginning of March. There is a slightly different interpretation that has this ‘second part’ of February added to Mercedonius, making the latter 27/28 days.
Whatever the exact lay out of the additional month, the resultant ‘leap’ year would be 377 or 378 days long. Given the 10+ day gap between the normal Roman year and the solar year, an intercalary month would be needed every other year in order to average the number of days in the solar year.
If intercalary months were as regular as every other year, it is perhaps surprising that there are not more triumphs recorded in Interkalaris; however, it does appear that intercalary months were less frequent than originally planned.
The two ‘intercalary’ dates we have for these triumphs – Kalends and Ides of Interkalaris – equate to 1st Mercedonius and 13th Mercedonius, for while we are not certain about its length, it was seemingly not 31 days, and so is to be considered a short month with its Ides on the 13th.
These calculations and impositions were still not straightforward and it appears that the system broke down on at least two occasions. The upheaval of the Second Punic War seems to have required the interjection of a consul in 191BC, when Marcus Acilius Glabrio passed the Lex Acilia de intercalando. The exact workings of this law are unknown, but it may have given the power to establish an intercalary month being given to the college of pontiffs and the pontifex maximus.
This arrangement worked for much of the next century, but as the political realm became more polarised and chaotic, the position of pontifex maximus and the powers it held themselves became politicised. A pontifex maximus, a member of the elite, could effectively weaponise the calendar, lengthening a year when his allies were in power or shortening it when his political opponents were in office. Any such unpredictable intercalation meant that dates following the Terminalia might not be known much in advance, with those living outside of Rome frequently not knowing what the official month was.
One such pontifex maximus was Julius Caesar, whose term in office saw significant calendar confusion, with several years going passed without intercalation – there had not been one in the five years up to Caesar’s great calendar reform in 46BC. He effectively added 10 days to the pre-existing calendar, sharing them out amongst various months, making it up to 365, with a leap day to be added every fourth year. This effectively abolished Mercedonius, as an intercalary month would no longer be needed (although there would still be some drift as the Julian calendar year of 365.25 was now ever so slightly longer than the solar year of 365.24217, a discrepancy that equated to 3 days every 400 years, which led to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1582, which diverges from astronomical observations by 1 day in 3,030 years).
Before the calendar reform of Julius Caesar in 46BC, you would also have seen the abbreviations ‘Quint.’ and ‘Sext.’, representing what would become July and August respectively - they also bear the same out of sync names as September, October, November and December still do, as ‘Quintilis’ and ‘Sextilis’ mean ‘fifth’ and ‘sixth’ month, despite being the seventh and eighth months of the calendar. This out of sync numbering stems from the Roman calendar originally only having 10 months which began with March; January and February were added either by Numa Pompilius or during the first century of the Republic.
Comments