city.^79 Observers could not resist dwelling on the apparent irony that he was mur-
dered either the day before his birthday or the day after or — ideally — on the very
day itself.^80 The dramatic crises of the civil war produced other such striking birth-
day stories for historians and biographers to savor. Cicero relished the coincidence
whereby news of D. Brutus’s victory at Mutina on 21 April 43 b.c.e.was an-
nounced in Rome on the very day of Brutus’s birthday.^81 It was on his birthday that
Cassius suffered defeat at Philippi and committed suicide.^82 According to Plutarch
and Appian, M. Brutus was celebrating his birthday when he suddenly shouted out
a line from Homer: ajllav me moi'rÆ ojloh; kai; Lhtou'" e[ktanen uiJov"(“But destruc-
tive fate and Apollo the son of Leto have killed me,” Il.16.849).^83 There was no
rationale to this (ajlovgw"), says Appian; “for no reason” (ajpÆ oujdemia'" profavsew"),
says Plutarch: but Brutus is very likely to have been alluding to the birthday status
of his enemy Octavian, for it was highly important to Octavian, as we shall see
shortly, that he shared a birthday with Apollo.^84
The anniversary mentality is surprisingly rich and far-reaching. Any day can turn
into a significant day and have its date charged with meaning, unpredictably—
7 December, 11 September, 6 June. Days that are significant for one thing can fortu-
itously become significant for something else altogether, since there is no rhyme or
reason to the accumulated sedimentation of events clustered on a contingent daily
basis. As Beard (1987) demonstrated for the Roman calendar, taking as her test case
the Parilia, the birthday of Rome on 21 April, the new associations of a particular
day can overlap or compete with, or contradict, the old ones.^85 A. Barchiesi (1997)
has explored the implications for Ovid ’s Fasti,with a telling example from the Ides
of March. For centuries, this was the date for the popular picnic feast of Anna
Perenna, but then it became famous for another reason altogether, the death of
Caesar and, in Ovid ’s treatment in Fasti3 (705 – 10), the revenge of Caesar’s heir.
As Barchiesi puts it, “Which would you prefer, a jolly picnic in the open air, com-
plete with food, wine, and lovemaking, or the slaughter of the conspirators? The
calendar guarantees that the two options will always be open, on every new 15
March.”^86 Again, Horace opens Carm.3.8 with a question from Maecenas, asking
why Horace, a bachelor, should be celebrating the first day of March, the festival of
the matrons of Rome (Martiis caelebs quid agam Kalendis, 3.8.1). It is indeed bizarre
that he should be sacrificing on the Matronalia, which has a corporate meaning that
would appear to exclude a bachelor such as himself; but the contingency of the cal-
endar is radical, for this just happened to be the day that he was almost killed by the
falling tree, and he must now give thanks for his deliverance each year on 1 March
(Carm.3.8.6 – 9).
Anniversaries of Days. 149