of the intercalation to the pontiffs (possibly just to the‘minor pontiffs’), rather
than to the highest officials in the Senate (such as the consuls), and their
license to exercise some discretion in their calendrical decisions contributed to
the even distribution of power across the Senate and the priesthoods, which in
turn sustained political fair play within the Roman State.^182
It is no wonder, therefore, that Cicero—according to Plutarch’s account—
opposed the institution of the Julian calendar.^183 His stance was not merely
traditionalist. Cicero is likely to have sensed that Caesar’s rejection of the old
calendar on the grounds that the pontiffs had neglected or abused of the
intercalation was only an excuse to abolish yet another‘distributive’, fair-
handed institution of theres publica. By instituting afixed calendar and thus
removing it from the control of the pontiffs, Caesar was confirming and
strengthening—in symbolic as well as in real terms—his own, autocratic
position within the Roman State.
But if Caesar’s main purpose was to strip the pontiffs of their calendrical
powers, the complete abolition of the Republican calendar would appear to
have been a far too drastic measure. It would have been sufficient, for this
purpose, for Caesar to bring the intercalation under his own control; the
flexible year-length of the Republican calendar would have remained for
him a useful device of social and political control, which thefixed Julian
calendar would no longer be able to provide. It seems, however, that seizure
of control of the intercalation was an option that, in the political climate of the
late Republic—even in the years of his dictatorship—Caesar could not reason-
ably consider. The position he held as pontifex maximus, the highest ranking
pontiff, did not give him the legal right to interfere with or take over the
calendrical powers of his colleagues;^184 and although, in practical terms, the
pontifical college was by then well under his control,^185 a formal, explicit
takeover of the calendar would have met too much resistance from the
pontifical college and from the Senate. Caesar had tofind other, indirect
ways of depriving the pontiffs of the power that control of the 22- (or 23-)
day intercalation afforded. The scientific accuracy of a new, solar calendar
gave him a reasonable pretext for the old system to be abolished, and for the
pontiffs to be left only with the very small concession of having authority to
declare one-day intercalations in Julian leap years.^186
(^182) On the fragmentation and distribution of political and religious power within the Roman
Republican State, see Scheid (1984), Beard (1990) 42–3, 47, and Beard, North, and Price (1998)
i. 103–4.
(^183) Plutarch,Caesar59. Note that for Plutarch this illustrates Cicero’s general opposition to
Caesar’s rule.
(^184) This at least is likely in view of the strict differentiation and distribution of priestly tasks
within the pontifical college, on which see Beard, North, and Price (1998) esp. i. 18.
(^185) See Taylor (1942), Rüpke (1995) 372 n. 13.
(^186) The possibility that Caesar consulted a minor pontiff (see above, n. 153) or possibly even
the pontifical college as a whole (Van Haeperen 2002: 223) would not contradict, in any way, the
TheRise of the Fixed Calendars 221