interval is five years, yet not unfrequently six and seven were allowed to elapse, while occasionally it was repeated after four only. These facts seem to account for the inconsistencies of the later Roman writers without going so far as Ideler, who maintains that Lustrum never was used for a fixed space of time. (24) The duration of the Sæculum was a theme of controversy among the Romans themselves in the days of Augustus. The historians and antiquaries seem all to have agreed that the Sæculum was a period of 100 years, while the Quindecimviri, the priests to whom was intrusted the custody of the Sibylline books, reposing it would seem upon the testimony of their sacred registers, asserted that 110 years was the interval at which the solemn ludi sæculares, which marked the close of each sæculum, had ever been and ought to be celebrated. The locus classicus on this subject is in Censorinus XVII. Romanorum autem sæcula quidam ludis sæcularibus putant distingui. Cui rei fides si certa est, modus Romani sæculi est incertus. Temporum enim intervalla, quibus ludi isti debeant referri, non modo quanta fuerint retro, ignoratur, sed ne quanta quidem esse debeant, scitur. Nam ita institutum esse, ut centesimo quoque anno fierent, id, cum Antias aliique historici auctores sunt, tum Varro de Scenicis Originibus libro primo ita scriptum reliquit Cum multa portenta fierent, et murus ac turris, quæ sunt intra portam Collinam et Esquilinam, de cœlo essent tacta, et ideo libros Sibyllinos X-viri adissent, renuntiarunt, uti Diti patri et Proserpinæ, ludi Terentini in Campo Martio fierent, et hostiæ furvæ immolarentur, utique ludi centesimo quoque anno fierent. Item T. Livins libro CXXXVI. Eodem anno ludos sæculares Cæsar ingenti adparatu fecit; quos centesimo quoque anno (is enim terminus sæculi) fieri mos. At contra, ut decimo centesimoque anno repetantur, tum Commentarii quindecimvirorum, quam D. Augusti edicta testari videntur. Adeo ut Horatius Flaccus in carmine, quod sæcularibus ludis cantatum est, id tempus hoc modo designaverit, Certus undenos decies per annos The passages from Antias, Livy, and Varro, quoted above, are extracted from lost works, but a precise testimony of the last is to be found in a treatise still extant. Sæclum spatium annorum centum vocamus. Varro L. L. VI. 2, to which add Festus, Sæculares Ludi apud Romanos post centum annos fiebant quia sæculum in centum annos extendi existimabant, Censorinus has preserved the conflicting statements with regard to the actual celebration of these games from the time of their institu tion, and his dates are all fixed by the consuls in office at the time. They are as follows: The first Secular games were celebrated according to The second The third Valerius Antias, A. U. C. 245 The fourth The fifth by Augustus, {Antias, XV-viri. Antias, Varro & Livy 608 The sixth by Claudius, The seventh by Domitian, The eight by Sept. & M. A. Antoninus, or B. C. 17. A. U. C. 737 To attempt to discover the causes which led to this strange disagreement would be absolute waste of time. We can scarcely hesitate to believe that the computations of the XV-viri were trimmed to serve an end; but it is remarkable that the period chosen by Augustus does not absolutely agree with their views, since the 5th games ought to have been held A. U. C. 738, and not 737, as they really were. (25.) We may conclude with a few words upon what has been termed the "Astronomical Portion" of Ovid's Fasti. A nation like the Greeks, whose delightful climate permitted them to watch their flocks by night in the open air, during a considerable part of the year, could not fail to gaze with attention on the starry firmament, and to remark that certain fixed stars appeared and disappeared in regular succession, as the sun passed through the different stages of his annual career. Accordingly we find, that as early as the time of Hesiod, the changes of the seasons, and the more important operations of agriculture, were fixed with reference to the risings and settings of Orion, the Pleiades, the Hyades, Arcturus, and Sirius. Such observations were in the first instance extremely rude; but after Thales had turned the attention of his countrymen to scientific astronomy, these celestial phenomena were determined with great care and accuracy; tables were drawn up in which the risings and settings of the more brilliant stars, with reference to the sun, were fully detailed, together with such notices touching the winds and weather to be expected at the different epochs, as experience suggested. Copies were engraved on stone or brass, and being nailed or hung up in the market-places of large towns and other places of public resort, received the name of παραπήγματα. Two catalogues of this description have been preserved, which are valuable, inasmuch as they for the most part quote the authority of the early Greek astronomers, Meton, Euctemon, Eudoxus, Calippus, &c. for their statements. The one was drawn up by Geminus of Rhodes (fl. B. C. 80), a contemporary of Sylla and Cicero, the other by the famous Ptolemy (A. D. 140). In the former the risings and settings of the stars are fixed accordingly to the passage of the sun through the signs of the Zodiac; in the latter they are ranged under the months and years of the Julian Calendar. The practice commenced by Hesiod, was followed by subsequent writers upon rural economy, and we accordingly find that all the precepts in Virgil, Columella, and Pliny, are delivered with reference to the risings and settings of the stars, forming a complete Calendarium Rusticum. Ovid has combined the Fasti of the city with these Rural Almanacs, and has thus gained an opportunity of enlivening his poem by recounting the various myths attached to the constellations.1 The early Grecian parapegmata were undoubtedly constructed from actual observation in the countries where they were first exhibited, and must therefore have completely answered the purpose for which they were intended. But this does not by any means hold good of the corresponding compilations of the Romans, who, being little versed in astronomy themselves, copied blindly from others without knowledge or discrimination. It is essentially necessary to attend to two facts: 1. The time of the risings and settings of the fixed stars varies for the same place at different epochs. Thus the Pleiades which at Rome rose along with the sun on the 16th of April, B. C. 44, rose with the sun at Rome several days earlier in the age of Meton, and do not now rise with the sun at Rome until several days later. This is caused by the Precession of the Equinoxes. 2. The time of the risings and settings of the fixed stars is different on the same day in places whose latitude is different. Thus in the year when the Pleiades rose along with the sun at Rome on the 16th April, they did not rise along with the sun at Athens until the 22d of April. 1 It would appear that Cæsar, when he reconstructed the Fasti of Rome, included the risings and settings of the stars, since Pliny frequently quotes the authority of Cæsar for his statements on these points. In this case the Fasti of Ovid may be considered as a commentary upon the Almanac in common use. Too little attention was paid to these considerations by the Roman writers, and consequently we not unfrequently discover that they combined the observations of astronomers who lived at times and places remote from them and from each other—that calculations made for the latitude of Athens, or Rhodes, or Alexandria, three hundred years before, were adopted at once and transferred to their calendars without change or modification. Another source of confusion, especially in the Latin poets, is the want of precision with regard to the different kinds of risings and settings, which are carefully distinguished by the scientific. These we shall briefly explain, together with the technical terms employed. are These risings and settings may be considered under eight heads:— 1. When a star rises at sunrise. 2. When a star rises at sunset. 3. When a star sets at sunrise. 4. When a star sets at sunset. 5. When a star rises shortly before sunrise, so as to be just visible at rising before its rays are overpowered by the more brilliant luminary. 6. When a star rises shortly after sunset, so as to be just visible at rising. 7. When a star sets shortly before sunrise, so as to be just visible at setting in the morning twilight. 8. When a star sets shortly after sunset, so as to be just visible at setting in the evening twilight. The names by which these are distinguished taken in their order, 1. 2. Ortus matutinus verus, or Ortus cosmicus. 3. 4. 5. Ortus matutinus apparens, or Ortus heliacus. 6. Ortus vespertinus apparens. 7. Occasus matutinus apparens. 8, Occasus vespertinus apparens, or Occasus heliacus. Now it is manifest that the four first are mere matters of calculation since the true risings and settings never can be visible to the naked eye. These then ought always to have been and for some time always were excluded from Rural Calendars intended for the use of practical men. We find, however, from the fragments of Calippus, which have been preserved in the parapegma of Geminus, when verified by computation1 that this astronomer had substituted the true risings and settings for the apparent ones which were marked in tables of Meton, Eudoxus and Euctemon. Hence great caution would be indispensable. If the rising of a star was named, it would be necessary to state whether the true or apparent rising was indicated, and whether it was the morning or evening rising, and to proceed in like manner for the setting of a star. Some little attention is paid to these points by Columella2 and Pliny, but in Virgil, and especially in Ovid, everything is vague and unsatisfactory, risings and settings of all descriptions are thrown together at random without a clue to guide us, and blunders of the grossest description are so thickly interspersed that it often becomes difficult to trace the error to its source, or to discover what the author could have intended. We shall substantiate these charges by a few examples. There is a cluster of stars in the constellation Taurus, called Pleiades by the Greeks, and Vergiliæ by the Latins. The appearance and disappearance of these served from a very remote age to mark the approach of summer and the beginning of winter. Let us first note down the exact period of their risings and settings calculated for the latitude of Rome, and the year B.C. 44. Ortus Matutinus verus, 16 April. | Ortus Mat. apparens s. heliacus, Vespertinus verus, 18 Oct. Occasus Matutinus verus, 29 Oct. ..25 Sep. 9 Nov. 28 May. Vesp. appar.. Vespertinus verus, 26 Ap. Occasus Mat. appar.. Vesp. appar. s. heliacus, 8 April. Now look to Ovid. After describing a festival celebrated on the 1st of Nox ubi transierit, cœlumque rubescere primo These lines refer to the setting of the Pleiades in the morning twilight. According to the legend the Pleiades were the daughters of Atlas, who supported the heavens on his shoulders, and hence, when they disappeared from the sky, might be said to remove a portion of their father's load, "humeros relevare paternos." The meaning in plain prose, 1 They are not distinguished from the others in the Parapegma itself. 2 Thus we find in Columella such expressions as the following, which are to a certain extent guarded: "VI. Non. Mai. Sucula cum sole exoritur." XIII. XII. Kal. Nov. solis exortu Vergiliæ incipiunt occidere," &c. |