The astrological interpretationMost scholars have interpreted thelunadates in funerary and other inscrip-
tions (e.g. Eriksson 1956: 27–9, 34–5), as well as the lunarparapegmata
(Lehoux 2007), as astrologically motivated. This interpretation is based on
the frequent appearance, in the same inscriptions andparapegmata, of the
planets and the signs of the zodiac, which, as is well known, were both invested
with astrological significance. Thus theparapegmafrom Trajan’s baths com-
bines very distinctly all three motifs (lunar, planetary, and zodiacal); whilst the
Pompeii calendar, the Latiumparapegma, the Neapolitanparapegma,the
Dura-Europosparapegma, the Trier mould, and perhaps also Petronius’
parapegma, contain the seven planetary days together with the 30 days of
the lunar month. Nearly all thelunainscriptions (listed above) are dated also
by the day of the week, of which the planetary meaning is far more explicit in
Latin than in English, since the seven days of the week are named after the
seven‘planets’(Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn) which
were believed to exert astrological influence over their allocated day.^61 The
presence of these astrological motifs, albeit implicit, in theparapegmataand
inscriptions suggests that the lunar date had also some astrological meaning.
This astrological interpretationfinds further support from the importance
of lunar astrology in Graeco-Roman culture and more particularly in the Latin
tradition.^62 References to the moon’sinfluence on vegetation, crops, cattle,
etc., and the specific properties of various days of the lunar month—propitious
or unpropitious for various activities, people, or things—are well attested in
Latin agricultural calendars, e.g. of Varro and Columella, though hardly
in their Greek counterparts.^63 This seemingly traditional interest, in Rome
or in Italy, in the astrological properties of lunar days may explain the
concentration of lunar elements in Latinparapegmataas well as the prepon-
derance oflunadates in Roman or Latin inscriptions.
But whilst the astrological interpretation seems justified in certain contexts,
such as theparapegmafrom Trajan’s baths, in many others it has been taken
too far. Let us consider, for example, the calendar codex of Philocalus,
(^61) Asfirst explained by Vettius Valens (2nd c.CE),Anthologiarum Libri9. 1. 10.
(^62) The 30 days of the lunar month and their astrological properties are listed in the Greek
selenodromia(see Delatte 1924: 121, with some examples pp, 71–6, 121–6), from which were
largely derived the early medieval, Latin equivalentlunaria(see Svenberg 1963: 5–6). A 4th-c.
Latinlunariatext attributed to Marcellus Empiricus is cited in Eriksson (1956) 35.
(^63) Except for a substantial section in Hesiod (Works andDays 765 – 810), which does not recur
in later Greek agricultural calendars: Hannah (2005) 116, Lehoux (2007) 42–6. For Latin sources
see e.g. Cato,De Agricultura29; Cicero,DeDivinatione2. 33; Vergil,Georgics1. 277–8 (and
Serviusad loc.); Pliny,Nat.Hist.18. 228, 275–7, 290–2, 308, 314, 318, 321–5 (cited in Lehoux
2007: 253–61), and esp. 347–50; Columella,ResRustica2. 10. 10, 8. 7. 4–5, 11. 2. 85, 11. 3. 22; and
generally, Tavenner (1918). Note, however, that in Manilius’Astronomica(early 1st c.CE, largely
astrological) the moon is not given any particular importance.
318 Calendars in Antiquity