- Years, Months, Days I: Eras and Anniversaries
saeculumof nature to the moment of city foundation, so that the natural is indis-
solubly associated with the civil: according to Etruscan lore, which ultimately lies
behind these Roman obsessions, the end of a city’s first saeculumcomes with the
death of the last person who was born on the day of the city’s foundation, at which
point another saeculumbegins, to terminate in its turn with the death of the last
member of the second cohort (17.5). The Etruscan saeculaof this tradition, then,
vary in length, with the first four lasting 100 years, the fifth 123, the sixth and sev-
enth 119: at the time of Varro, whom Censorinus is using here, the eighth was now
in progress, and the end of the Etruscan name would come with the end of the
tenth (17.6).
The eschatological power of this secular scheme is very clear. It must have
emerged from some Etruscans’ contemplation of their impending cultural obliter-
ation after their absorption into the Roman commonwealth, a contemplation given
new focus especially after the definitive annihilation of their military capacity in
the Social and Sullan wars.^56 This environment, so hospitable to eschatological
speculation, produced the memorable moment in 88 b.c.e.when a celestial trum-
pet blast and other portents were interpreted by Etruscan specialists summoned by
the Senate as announcing “a change to another generation and a change in condi-
tion” (metabolh;n eJtevrou gevnou" .Ê.Ê. kai; metakovsmhsin, Plut. Sull.7.3). As
Plutarch goes on to explain, the Etruscans believed that there were eight ages (not
ten, as in the reports of Varro and Censorinus), differing in quality, whose ends
were announced by a wonderful sign from earth or heaven.^57
The same period and environment have regularly been seen as the most likely
general setting for the “prophecy of Vegoia,” an intriguing text that most scholars
have taken to be an early first-century b.c.e.translation from Etruscan into Latin.^58
The “prophecy” displays knowledge of the Etruscan secular scheme, opening
with cosmogony and speaking of “the greed of the eighth saeculumnow almost at
its end.”^59 J. N. Adams, however, does not believe that the “prophecy” is a first-
century translation, concluding that “the piece on linguistic grounds appears to be
imperial, and has no place in a discussion of Latin-Etruscan bilingualism.”^60 On the
assumption that Adams is right, the text still remains important as confirmation of
the Romans’ abiding fascination with the Etruscan secular schemes. Roman inter-
est in this secular eschatology was activated especially in the crisis-ridden atmos-
phere of the collapsing Republic. In 44 b.c.e.another spectacular sign from
heaven, the comet following Caesar’s death, was interpreted by an Etruscan harus-
pex as portending the end of the ninth saeculumand the beginning of the tenth.^61