Читать книгу The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic - W. Warde Fowler - Страница 5

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There are three ways in which the course of the year may be calculated. It can be reckoned—

1. By the revolution of the moon round the earth, twelve of which = 354 days, or a ring (annus), sufficiently near to the solar year to be a practicable system with modifications.

2. By the revolution of the earth round the sun i.e. 365–¼ days; a system which needs periodical adjustments, as the odd quarter (or, more strictly, 5 hours 48 minutes 48 seconds) cannot of course be counted in each year. In this purely solar year the months are only artificial divisions of time, and not reckoned according to the revolutions of the moon. This is our modern system.

3. By combining in a single system the solar and lunar years as described above. This has been done in various ways by different peoples, by adopting a cycle of years of varying length, in which the resultants of the two bases of calculation should be brought into harmony as nearly as possible. In other words, though the difference between a single solar year and a single lunar year is more than 11 days, it is possible, by taking a number of years together and reckoning them as lunar years, one or more of them being lengthened by an additional month, to make the whole period very nearly coincide with the same number of solar years. Thus the Athenians adopted for this purpose at different times groups or cycles of 8 and 19 years. In the Octaeteris or 8-year cycle there were 99 lunar months, 3 months of 30 days being added in 3 of the 8 years—a plan which falls short of accuracy by about 36 hours. Later on a cycle of 19 years was substituted for this, in which the discrepancy was greatly reduced. The Roman year in historical times was calculated on a system of this kind, though with such inaccuracy and carelessness as to lose all real relation to the revolutions both of earth and moon.

But there was a tradition that before this historical calendar came into use there had been another system, which the Romans connected with the name of Romulus. This year was supposed to have consisted of 10 months, of which 4—March, May, July, October—had 31 days, and the rest 30; in all 304. But this was neither a solar nor a lunar year; for a lunar year of 10 months = 295 days 7 hours 20 minutes, while a solar year = 365–¼. Nor can it possibly be explained as an attempt to combine the two systems. Mommsen has therefore conjectured that it was an artificial year of 10 months, used in business transactions, and in periods of mourning, truces^[2], &c., to remedy the uncertainty of the primitive calculation of time; and that it never really was the basis of a state calendar. This view has of course been the subject of much criticism^[3]. But no better solution has been found; the hypothesis that the year of 10 months was a real lunar year, to which an undivided period of time was added at each year’s end, to make it correspond with the solar year and the seasons, has not much to recommend it or any analogy among other peoples. It was not, then, the so-called year of Romulus which was the basis of the earliest state-calendar, but another system which the Romans themselves usually ascribed to Numa. This was originally perhaps a lunar year; at any rate the number of days in it is very nearly that of a true lunar year (354 days 8 hours 48 minutes)^[4]. It consisted of 12 months, of which March, May, July, October had 31 days, and the rest 29, except February, which had 28. All the months therefore had an odd number of days, except the one which was specially devoted to purification and the cult of the dead; according to an old superstition, probably adopted from the Greeks of Southern Italy^[5], that odd numbers were of good omen, even numbers of ill omen. This principle, as we shall see, holds good throughout the Roman calendar.

But this reckoning of the year, if it ever existed at all, could not have lasted long as it stood. As we know it in historical times, it has become modified by applying to it the principle of the solar year. The reason for this should be noted carefully. A lunar year, being about 11 days short of the solar year, would in a very short time become out of harmony with the seasons. Now if there is one thing certain about the Roman religious calendar, it is that many at least of its oldest festivals mark those operations of husbandry on which the population depended for its subsistence, and for the prosperous result of which divine agencies must be propitiated. These festivals, when fixed in the calendar, must of course occur at the right seasons, which could not be the case if the calendar were that of a purely lunar year. It was therefore necessary to work in the solar principle; and this was done^[6] by a somewhat rude expedient, not unlike that of the Athenian Octaeteris, and probably derived from it^[7]. A cycle of 4 years was devised, of which the first had the 355 days of the lunar year, the second 355 + 22, the third 355 again, and the fourth 355 + 23. The extra periods of 22 and 23 days were inserted in February, not at the end, but after the 23rd (Terminalia)^[8]. The total number of days in the cycle was 1465, or about 1 day too much in each year; and in course of time even this system got out of harmony with the seasons and had to be rectified from time to time by the Pontifices, who had charge of the calendar. Owing to ignorance on their part, misuse or neglect of intercalation had put the whole system out of gear before the last century of the Republic. All relation to sun and moon was lost; the calendar, as Mommsen says, ‘went on its own way tolerably unconcerned about moon and sun.’ When Caesar took the reform of the calendar in hand the discrepancy between it and the seasons was very serious; the former being in advance of the latter probably by some weeks. Caesar, aided by the mathematician Sosigenes, put an end to this confusion by extending the year 46 B.C. to 445 days, and starting afresh on Jan. 1, 45 B.C.^[9]—a day henceforward to be that of the new year—with a cycle of 4 years of 365 days^[10]; in the last of which a single day was added, after the Terminalia. This cycle produced a true solar year with a slight adjustment at short intervals; and after a few preliminary blunders on the part of the Pontifices, lasted without change until A.D. 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII set right a slight discrepancy by a fresh regulation. This regulation was only adopted in England in 1752, and is still rejected in Russia and by the Greek Church generally.