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53-774: On the Roman religious calendar , the month of April ( Aprilis ) was in general preoccupied with deities who were female or ambiguous in gender, opening with the Feast of Venus on the Kalends . Several other festivals pertaining to farm life were held in April: the Parilia , a feast of shepherds, on April 21; the Robigalia on April 25, to protect crops from blight; and the Vinalia , one of

106-548: A Romulo usque ad Carolum V , Giacomo Strada, Venice, 1557, continued where the ancient Fasti left off. The last triumph recorded by Panvinio, which he described as a Roman triumph "over the infidel," was the Royal Entry of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V into Rome on April 5, 1536, which took place while Charles was marching northward after his conquest of Tunis in 1535. The Fasti Potentini

159-710: A bound barbarian by the hair for his painting, traditionally called Pallas and the Centaur . The Vatican Barberini manuscript, made in 1620 for Peiresc, who had the Carolingian Codex Luxemburgensis on long-term loan, is clearly the most faithful. After Peiresc's death in 1637 the manuscript disappeared. However some folios had already been lost from the Codex Luxemburgensis before Peiresc received it, and other copies have some of these. The suggestion of Carl Nordenfalk that

212-481: A ceremony cleansing the city of sin) and the censors conducting them are stated, which list is sometimes called the fasti censorii by moderns and stated as a third fasti capitolini. Feeney argues that the multiple scheme is evidence that the fasti were Augustan rather than republican. The kings are given precedence at the top and the AUC at the left as though they were superimposed on a formerly republican fasti. Moreover,

265-676: A diachronic character. Some examples are the official history and traditions of a regiment, in Scotland the Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae: the succession of ministers in the Church of Scotland from the reformation , the first volume of which was produced in 1915 and which is still updated at irregular intervals. Between 1946 and 1987 the International Association for Classical Archaeology (AIAC) published

318-503: A final one from the Tiber river in 1888, unrestored. All the fragments became CIL I under Fragmenta Quae Dicuntur Capitolini , "Fragments Called Capitolini" and Cetera Quae Supersunt Fragmenta , "Other Remaining Fragments." The unified list states the magistrates for each AUC from the first year of the first king to the death of Augustus . The marble entablatures were erected at the order of Augustus, based on information available to

371-416: A full list of manuscripts with copies after the originals, see the external link. Furius Dionysius Filocalus was the leading scribe or calligrapher of the period, and possibly also executed the original miniatures. His name is on the dedication page. He was also a Christian, living in a moment that lay on the cusp between a pagan and a Christian Roman Empire . The Chronography, like all Roman calendars,

424-440: A list of kings followed by the republican consuls for each year, with the magistri equitum and the tribuni militares for years in which these magistrates were eponymous instead of consuls; that is, once the practice of naming the year after the heads of state began, there had to be a head of state whether king, dictator, consul, master or tribune, regardless of what body held the power. The list features multiple dating schemes. To

477-507: A mystery, as they are only named by Censorinus, but the names are irrelevant to the argument. The republic began in Varro's view in AUC   245 (509   BCE). Solinus observed that Gaius Pompeius Gallus and Quintus Verranius were consuls in Olympiad 207.1, and that this year was 801 AUC, counting from the foundation of Rome at Olympiad 7.1. By modern calculation this is 49 AD. He

530-491: A pontiff calling out the fasti in the Forum at the beginning of each episode. Chronography of 354 The Chronograph , Chronography , or Calendar of 354 is a compilation of chronological and calendrical texts produced in 354 AD for a wealthy Roman Christian named Valentinus by the calligrapher and illustrator Furius Dionysius Filocalus . The original illustrated manuscript is lost, but several copies have survived. It

583-420: A portion of February. The tablets give an account of festivals, and also of the triumphs of Augustus and Tiberius . There are two complete calendars in existence, an official list by Philocalus (354), and a Christian version of the official calendar, made by Polemius Silvius (448). In modern times the word fasti and its reflexes in modern languages have been used formally for quasi-official writings of

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636-606: Is a list of consuls from Potentia in Lucania , and probably dating to the early second century. The Potentini gives a partial record of the consuls from AD 86 to 93, and from 112 to 116. The Annales Pontificum or Annales maximi , "Annals of the Priests ", were annually exhibited in public on a white table, on which the memorable events of the year, with special mention of the prodigies, were set down in abbreviated manner. Other fasti sacerdotales ("priestly fasti ") include

689-506: Is a poetical description of the Roman festivals of the first six months, written to illustrate the Fasti published by Julius Caesar after he remodelled the Roman year. Upon the cultivators fewer feasts, sacrifices, ceremonies and holidays were enjoined than on the inhabitants of cities; and the rustic fasti contained little more than the ceremonies of the calends, nones and ides ,

742-538: Is as much an almanac as a calendar; it includes various texts and lists, including elegant allegorical depictions of the months. It also includes the important Liberian Catalogue , a list of Popes, and the Calendar of Filocalus, from which copies of eleven miniatures survive. Among other information, it contains the earliest reference to Christmas (see Part 12 below) and the dates of Roman Games, with their number of chariot-races . The contents are as follows (from

795-561: Is later than the Varronian by a year. Censorinus , who went over Varro's calculations, he says, explains that Ulpius and Pontianus were consuls in the 1014th year from the re-founding of the Olympic games (776 BC); that is, Olympiad 254.2 (second year of the 254th Olympiad) and that this year was AUC 991, starting by modern calculations January 1, 238 AD. Varro's AUC 1 therefore was 754/753 BC. The identities of Ulpius and Pontianus remain

848-460: Is the earliest known codex to have had full page illustrations. The name Calendar of Filocalus or Filocalian Calendar is sometimes used to describe the whole collection, and sometimes just the sixth part, which is the Calendar itself. Other versions of the names ("Philocalus", "Philocalian", "Codex-Calendar of 354", etc.) are occasionally used. The text and illustrations are available online. Amongst other historically significant information,

901-509: The fasti ( Latin plural) were chronological or calendar -based lists, or other diachronic records or plans of official and religiously sanctioned events. After Rome's decline , the word fasti continued to be used for similar records in Christian Europe and later Western culture . Public business, including the official business of the Roman state , had to be transacted on dies fasti , "allowed days". The fasti were

954-569: The British ambassador to China , John Barrow . At the temple of Earth, a large porcelain cow was carried in procession then shattered to reveal several small cow-images inside. These were distributed among the people as tokens of a good growing season. Fowler speculated that the Chinese rite was in origin an animal sacrifice similar to that of the Fordicidia. Fasti In ancient Rome ,

1007-565: The Capitoline Hill on order of Alessandro Farnese , who kept them temporarily in his villa after their excavation from the Roman forum in 1545 or 1546 (funded by Farnese). Michelangelo , who designed the complex of three palaces on the hill, also restored the tables of the fasti. The Palazzo today is one of the Capitoline Museums , which serve a double duty as museums and city government buildings. The fasti are located in

1060-816: The Fasti Archaeologici . It contained summary notices of excavations through the area of the Roman Empire. The Fasti went online and discontinued paper publication in 2000: the Fasti Online now contains reports on excavations since the year 2000 in 13 countries, particularly Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, Malta and Albania. It is accompanied by an online journal, Fasti Online Documents & Research , which publishes full and interim reports on archaeological sites in Italy. See under "External links" below. The HBO television series Rome features

1113-559: The curiae , the other being the Fornacalia on February 17, which differed in that there was no ritual of state corresponding to the local ceremonies and its moveable date was fixed annually by the curio maximus . In the state sacrifice for the Fordicidia, the unborn calf was wrenched from its mother's womb by the attendants of the Virgo Vestalis Maxima , or Vestal Maxima, and burnt . Its ashes were preserved by

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1166-427: The fasti augurales of the augurs . Fasti Diurni , divided into urbani and rustici , were a kind of official year-book, with dates and directions for religious ceremonies, court-days, market-days, divisions of the month, and the like. Until 304 BC the lore of the calendaria remained the exclusive and lucrative monopoly of the priesthood; but in that year Gnaeus Flavius , a pontifical secretary, introduced

1219-534: The 5-year lustra date to 28 BC when the temple of Mars Ultor ("Mars the Avenger"), the imperial god, was constructed and took precedence over the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline. After that time the emperor must be one of the censors, who now presided over banging in the yearly nail at Mars Ultor instead of Jupiter (the setting of this nail marked the transition of the year). The republican dates given to

1272-506: The Codex Luxemburgensis copied by Peiresc was actually the Roman original has not been accepted. Peiresc himself thought the manuscript was seven or eight hundred years old when he had it, and, though Mabillon had not yet published his De re diplomatica (1681), the first systematic work of paleography , most scholars, following Meyer Schapiro, believe Peiresc would have been able to make a correct judgement on its age. For

1325-581: The Fordicidia and preparation of the suffimen constituted the first public ceremony of the year in which the Vestals played an active role. The purpose of the sacrifice, as suggested by the Augustan poet Ovid in his elegiac calendar and by the 6th-century antiquarian John Lydus in his book On the Months , was to assure the fertility of the planted grain already growing in the womb of Mother Earth in

1378-582: The Renaissance. The most complete and faithful copies of the illustrations are the pen drawings in a 17th-century manuscript from the Barberini collection ( Vatican Library , cod. Barberini lat. 2154). This was carefully copied, under the supervision of the great antiquary Nicholas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc , from a Carolingian copy, a Codex Luxemburgensis , which was itself lost in the 17th century. These drawings, although they are twice removed from

1431-532: The Romans then, although the nature and validity of this information remains unknown. The degree of detail suggests that they were based on previous republican chronicles. The identification of their ancient location is controversial. The two theories are that they were in or part of the regia , or palace, of the College of Pontiffs , or that they were on a commemorative arch Augustus had constructed. The fasti state

1484-510: The Sala della Lupa, the same room as the bronze wolf. More pieces discovered after the Renaissance were placed with it. The fasti consulares were discovered as 30 marble fragments in the forum. With them were 26 fragments of Acta Triumpharum , since called the fasti triumphales . Both lists were restored as distinct records. The restoration was based nearly entirely on the observations of Onofrio Panvinio and Pirro Ligorio , who were standing at

1537-486: The Varronian). This is not a difference in the starting date of the republic or the year of Augustus' death, which remain in the same years relative to surrounding events in either case; instead, the year of AUC 1 differs. The Fasti Triumphales contained a list in chronological order of persons who had obtained a triumph , together with the name of the conquered people. Fragments of such a list were found mixed in with

1590-468: The Vestals and used as one of the ingredients in the ritual substance suffimen , along with the dried blood of the October Horse from the previous year, and the stalks from which beans had been harvested. The suffimen was sprinkled on the bonfires of the Parilia , the festival devoted to purifying shepherds and their sheep, and later celebrated also as the "birthday" of the city. The sacrifice at

1643-419: The creation of cement. None of these proceedings were in any way archaeological. Cardinal Farnese assigned the scholars to watch the diggings. Collecting a team they moved swiftly to rescue what they could, sinking tunnels to the side to search for fragments. Subsequently, more fragments turned up embedded in buildings then in use, showing that the area had been less intensely mined previously, and casting doubt of

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1696-676: The custom of publishing in the forum tables containing the requisite information, besides brief references to victories, triumphs, prodigies, etc. This list was the origin of the public Roman calendar, in which the days were divided into weeks of eight days each, and indicated by the letters A–H. Each day was marked by a certain letter to show its nature; thus the letters F., N., N.P., F.P., Q. Rex C.F., C., EN., stood for fastus , nefastus , nefastus in some unexplained sense, fastus priore , quando rex (sacrorum) comitiavit fastus , comitialis and intercisus . The dies intercisi were partly fasti and partly nefasti. Ovid's Fasti

1749-801: The development of Roman historiography . Fasti is the plural of the Latin adjective fastus , most commonly used as a substantive . The word derives from fas , meaning "that which is permitted", that is, "that which is legitimate in the eyes of the gods." Fasti dies were the days on which business might be transacted without impiety, in contrast to dies nefasti , days on which assemblies and courts could not convene. The word fasti itself came to denote lists organized by time. The temporal structure distinguished fasti from regesta , which were simple lists of property, or assets, such as land or documents, or transactions transferring property. Fasti Magistrales , Annales or Historici , were concerned with

1802-408: The fairs, signs of zodiac, increase and decrease of the days, the tutelary gods of each month, and certain directions for rustic labours to be performed each month. A considerable number of fasti have been discovered. The Praenestine calendar ( Fasti praenestini ), discovered in 1770, arranged by the famous grammarian Verrius Flaccus , contains the months of January, March, April, and December, and

1855-620: The fragments of the fasti capitolini , were also restored by Michelangelo and are in the same room at the Palazzo dei Conservatori. The acta triumphorum were on four panels, I covering AUC 1-452; II, 453-532; III, 533-625 and IV, 628-735, ending in 19 BC. The triumphs begin with those of Romulus . The fragmentary Fasti Triumphales were unearthed together with the Fasti Capitolini , and partially restored. Renaissance antiquarian Onofrio Panvinio's De fasti et triumphi Romanorum

1908-475: The general sense of annals or historical records . Fasti consulares were official chronicles in which years were denoted by the respective consuls and other magistrates, often with the principal events that happened during their consulates, but sometimes not. An example is the fasti Capitolini , a modern name assigned because they were deposited in 1547 in the courtyard of the Palazzo dei Conservatori on

1961-456: The guise of Tellus, to whom the sacrifice was offered. As with certain other rituals over which the Vestals presided, the unborn calf is a liminal or mediating being: not yet born, but living; not a full-fledged victim, but sacrificed. The role of the Vestals emphasizes their importance in linking through the ritual reuse of elements the Earth's fertility, the health and safety of the flocks, and

2014-546: The information into a unified list, which was carried forward under the name fasti capitolini . The editors took certain freedoms, such as filling in missing magistrates from other records as they thought best and filling in missing dates AUC to give the appearance of a continuous yearly chronicle, at the same time concealing the problems. Typically representations under the name capitolini are not that. There were in fact two different original lists placed under that name to which were added fragments found in 1816-1818, 1872–1878 and

2067-487: The institution of the Fordicidia was attributed to Numa Pompilius , the Sabine second king of Rome . The rustic god Faunus instructed Numa in a dream that a sacrifice to Tellus would mitigate the harsh agricultural conditions Rome was grappling with, but the oracular message required interpretation: "By the death of cattle, King, Tellus must be placated: two cows, that is. Let a single heifer yield two lives (animae) for

2120-423: The location of the original source of the fragments. It has been estimated that the consular lists were in four entablatures several feet high: I covering AUC 1-364; II, 365-461; III, 462-600; IV, 601-745, running to 766 in the margin. They were not published, however, as two lists; instead, Marliani in 1549 (first publication, Rome), Sigonius in 1550 (Modena), Robortelli in 1555 (Venice) and others chose to combine

2173-456: The name of the festival as follows: The Fordicidia was named from fordae cows; a forda cow is one that is carrying an unborn calf; because on this day several pregnant cows are officially and publicly sacrificed in the curiae , the festival was called the Fordicidia from fordae caedendae , 'the pregnant cows which were to be slaughtered.' The forms horda and Hordicalia are also found. Like many other aspects of Roman law and religion,

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2226-489: The originals, show the variety of sources that the earliest illuminators used as models for manuscript illustration, including metalwork, frescoes, and floor mosaics. The Roman originals were probably fully painted miniatures. Various partial copies or adaptations survive from the Carolingian Renaissance and Renaissance periods. Botticelli adapted a figure of the city of Treberis ( Trier ) who grasps

2279-399: The past to reuse in building structures they considered even more magnificent. The scholars were collaborating to save what they could. A resident colony of quarrymen did not pause in the slightest but went on dismantling buildings. All trace of structures in that part of the forum vanished between August 15 and September 14, 1546. The stone was sold to cutters for reuse or to lime burners for

2332-437: The records of this business. In addition to the word's general sense, there were fasti that recorded specific kinds of events, such as the fasti triumphales , lists of triumphs celebrated by Roman generals. The divisions of time used in the fasti were based on the Roman calendar . The yearly records of the fasti encouraged the writing of history in the form of chronological annales , "annals", which in turn influenced

2385-503: The right are those of the Varronian chronology ; that is, those calculated by the scholar, Marcus Terentius Varro . His republic begins in the year 510/509 BC by modern calculation. These were the official imperial dates. Many other dates and chronologies existed, notably those of Livy , with which the emperor must have been familiar, but he did not forbid their use in unofficial contexts. The AUC chronology does not exactly correspond; it

2438-459: The right are years from the beginning of the republic preceded by an. or ann. for anno , "in the year." To the left every ten years is a numeral stating the AUC year starting with CCXC (the editors typically fill out these schemes; the list is seldom quoted as it is). The length of reign is given for the kings (the sum does not match the first republican AUC). In addition 5-year lustrations ("purgation",

2491-483: The rites." Numa solved the riddle by instituting the sacrifice of a pregnant cow. As with other rituals in which public cult was mirrored by private, or vice versa , one sacrifice was conducted on behalf of the state , in this case at the Capitol , and one in each of the thirty curiae , the most ancient divisions of the city made by Romulus from the original three tribes. This was the first of two festivals involving

2544-470: The security of the city, including and especially its military security against invasion. The Fordicidia, along with about half the festivals of Republican Rome, does not appear on the calendar of 354 , when the empire was becoming Christianized . In the spirit of the Cambridge Ritualists and comparative mythologists , Fowler pointed to a Chinese spring festival witnessed in 1804 by

2597-430: The several festivals, and everything relating to religious practice and the gods , and the magistrates ; to the emperors , their birthdays, offices, days consecrated to them, with feasts and ceremonies established in their honor or for their prosperity. They came to be denominated magni , "great", by way of distinction from the bare calendar, or fasti diurni ("everyday records"). The word fasti thus came to be used in

2650-409: The top of the trench in which a portion of wall was showing, featuring inscriptional material between pilasters . They conferred with Michelangelo. Pope Paul III had authorized the mining of stone for St. Peter's in 1540 and Michelangelo was in fact protestingly working on its design also. The pope was following the widespread convention that prevailed in the Renaissance of ripping up the structures of

2703-405: The two wine festivals on the calendar, at the end of the month. Of these, the Fordicidia and Robigalia are likely to have been of greatest antiquity. William Warde Fowler , whose early 20th-century work on Roman festivals remains a standard reference, asserted that the Fordicidia was "beyond doubt one of the oldest sacrificial rites in Roman religion." The late Republican scholar Varro explains

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2756-528: The work contains the earliest reference to the celebration of Christmas as an annual holiday or feast, on December 25 , although unique historical dates had been mentioned much earlier by Hippolytus of Rome during 202–211. The original volume has not survived, but it is thought that it still existed in Carolingian times, by the 8th–9th centuries. A number of copies were made at that time, with and without illustrations, which in turn were copied during

2809-461: Was relying on the official dating scheme, which must have been the fasti consulares . In Varro's chronology this is AUC 802. Simple subtraction shows that AUC 1 in Augustus' fasti is 753/752 BC. The fasti give to the start of the republic a date of AUC   244 (510   BCE), but some editors "correct" all the AUC to Varronian. Similarly the fasti run to the death of Augustus in 13 AD (14 in

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