Further evidence of lunar calendar reckoning in the late-antique LatinWest
is the lunar column of the calendar of 354. This column, as we have seen
above, shows no sign of any astrological intent; the suggestion that its purpose
was to facilitate the calculation of the date of Easter (above, near n. 69) is
perhaps unlikely, as a single indication of theluna XIVdate preceding Easter
would have sufficed for this purpose.^85 A more simple explanation is that this
lunar column was intended as an alternative form of dating. The inclusion of a
lunar column in this Roman calendar, not attested infastifrom before 354CE,
may owe something to the Christian identity of its author and his interest in
the date of Easter, but it is also indicative of the resilience in Rome of ancient
lunar calendrical traditions.
Finally, and going back a few centuries, we may consider a latefirst-century
CEfunerary inscription from Rome commemorating a child who had lived
8 months and 26 days and died‘before she had lived nine full circuits of the
moon’.^86 If the count of 8 months and 26 days was in the Julian calendar, this
period would have amounted to just over nine full lunar months.^87 We must
therefore assume either that these 8 months and 26 days were lunar (hence
short of nine full lunar months), or on the contrary (and perhaps more likely)
that they were Julian months and metaphorically referred to as‘full circuits
of the moon’.^88 Either way, this lunar reference—in a thoroughly Roman
inscription—is further evidence of the enduring significance of lunar
reckoning in Roman culture.
The survival of various forms of lunar calendar reckoning, and more
specifically of lunar dating (with thelunaformula) in Latin inscriptions,
long after the institution of the Julian calendar and its wide diffusion in the
Italian peninsula and the LatinWest, may be interpreted as an expression of
parapegmataabove listed (the Pompeii calendar inscription, the Nîmesparapegma, and the
Dura-Europosparapegma), were similarly intended for calendrical use. Lehoux (2007) 46– 50
argues further that Latin lunarparapegmatacould not have been calendrical because the Roman
calendar (Republican and Julian) was not lunar and had never been so (a point which I would
dispute: see Ch. 4. 3); but this is to ignore that Italian calendars in the Roman Republican period
were mostly lunar.
(^85) Note also the absence of Easter, as indeed of any other Christian festival, in the last column
of the calendar, although this may arguably reflect the author’s respect for Roman calendrical
tradition (on which see Salzman 1990, 86 passim).
CILvi. 34114:vixit mensibus VIII diebus XXVI rapta sinumatris iacet hic miserabilis infans
ante no 87 vem plenos lunaequamviveret orbes...
I am assuming synodical lunar months of about 29½ days. Sidereal lunar months are
considerably shorter (about 27⅓days), nine such months being well under 8 months and 26 days
of the Julian calendar; but these lunar months are not normally used for time-reckoning.
(^88) This metaphorical usage, however, is hardly attested in literary sources. A striking parallel
to this inscription is Silius Italicus 3. 67:puer... bis senos lunae nondum compleverat orbes,‘the
child... had not yet completed twelve circuits of the moon’, which may follow from an implicit
assumption that the Punic calendar of Hannibal (the child’s father) was lunar (references
courtesy of David Levene).
Dissidence and Subversion 325