to follow up Griffin’s acute pinpointing of differences between poets and genres in this
regard: no calendar dates of any kind in the first three books of Propertius, for exam-
ple (55 – 56, 59).
A. Barchiesi 2005b, 28 – 29. Horsfall (2006), on Virg. Aen.3.301, collects much
valuable material on such ceremonies, with Andromache ’s sacrifice to Hector as the
point of departure: Servius ad loc. takes sollemnisto mean anniuersarias.
Wissowa 1912, 56 – 57.
Schmidt 1908, 12 – 14; Burkhard 1991, 13 – 14; Mikalson 1996 for the unusual
cases of annual birthday celebrations (often posthumous) for outstanding individuals
such as Plato, Epicurus, Aratus of Sicyon, or the Hellenistic monarchs, all of whom
regularly had monthly celebrations anyhow: on the revealing case of Epicurus, see
Sider 1997, 156. Argetsinger (1992, 192) well remarks on the significance of the fact that
“in the West, the emperor’s birthday was always celebrated annually rather than
monthly, as those of the Eastern monarchs had been.”
Collection of evidence in RE13.1142 – 44; cf. Balsdon 1969, 121 – 22. For the
highly organized empire-wide celebrations of the imperial family’s birthdays, see
Weinstock 1971, 209 – 10.
Cic. Att.4.1.4 = Shackleton Bailey 1965 – 70, 73.4; Sest.131; cf. Argetsinger
1992, 176 n. 1; Hinds 2005a, 206 n. 5.
Weinstock 1971, 38; for the date, Pliny HN37.13. Caligula later certainly cele-
brated an ouatioon his birthday in 40 c.e.(Suet. Cal.49.2), and Messalla may have cel-
ebrated his triumph on his birthday in 27 b.c.e.(Tib. 1.7): Weinstock 1971, 209.
Vell. Pat. 2.53.3 (the day before); Plut. Pomp.79.4 (the day after); Plut. Quaest.
Conv.717c (either the day itself, as at Cam.19.7, or the day before).
Cic. Ad Brut.1.15.8 = Shackleton Bailey 1980, 23.8; cf. Fam.11.14.3 = Shack-
leton Bailey 1977, 413.3.
App. BCiv.4.113.
Plut. Brut.24.4 (in the year 44 b.c.e.); App. BCiv.4.134 (by whose dating it is,
symbolically, Brutus’s last birthday, celebrated on Samos); cf. Val. Max. 1.5.7.
Full discussion of the anecdotes in Moles 1983; my own “birthday” connection
with Apollo and Octavian by no means contradicts the meanings Moles suggests for
Brutus’s choice of quotation.
Cf. Hopkins 1991, on the changing meanings of the Lupercalia in the transition
to Christianity.
A. Barchiesi 1997, 130. We follow up this Ovidian clash between “traditional”
and contemporary imperial resonances in the next chapter.
Blackburn and Holford-Strevens 1999, 682. Once the initial correction of drop-
ping ten days had been made, the reform allowed much more precise accuracy by
ordaining that centennial years would only be leap years if they were divisible by 400:
“Thus 1600 (reassuringly) remained a leap year, and likewise 2000, but 1700, 1800, and
notes to pages 148 – 150