mere contingent digits. Readers who lived through the hysteria of Y2K will be able
to remind themselves that, on occasion, mere numbers become talismanic to any
audience.^68
ANNIVERSARIES OF DAYS
The anniversaries we have been considering so far all fall under the heading of
what Grant calls “anniversary years.”^69 We turn now to the kind of anniversary
that links days. Any given day can acquire meaning or resonance by being the
anniversary of another day on which something memorable took place, and any
society with a calendar pays some attention to marking the recurrence of days that
bear the stamp of important past events.^70 The Greeks certainly had an interest in
significant days and their commemoration;^71 but the Roman fascination with an-
niversary days goes deeper, a reflex of their deeper investment in the annual cal-
endar as a unifying grid for their culture.^72 The impact of the calendar with its
annually recurring opportunities for anniversary commemorations made itself felt
both in everyday life and in public contexts.^73 Tombs were important venues for
anniversary sacrifices, and Virgil devotes the fifth book of the Aeneidto the games
commemorating the anniversary of Anchises’ death.^74 Temples had their dedica-
tion days, to be celebrated with care every year: very significantly, the Romans
called this day the temple ’s “birthday,” dies natalis.^75 As individuals, too, the
Romans devoted great attention to the observing of annual birthdays, unlike the
Greeks, who regularly had no anniversary at all, and marked only the day of the
month.^76 If you were a Greek and were born on the twelfth day of the month, then
each month on the twelfth day you might have an extra bowl of wine and pour a
libation; but if you were a Roman you celebrated an annual birthday, just as we do.
Centered for men around the cult of their geniusand for women around the cult of
their iuno,the birthday was a significant moment in the year for any free individ-
ual, and friends likewise joined in honoring the occasion.^77
Romans were alert to the potential symbolic power of birthdays in many con-
texts. Cicero and the people of Brundisium dwelt on the apparently significant
concatenation of birthdays that clustered on the day he arrived there on his return
from exile. The birthday of the colony of Brundisium itself was 5 August; it was
founded on that day in 244 b.c.e.; it was likewise the birthday of Cicero’s daugh-
ter Tullia, who welcomed him there, and of the temple of Salus.^78 Pompey care-
fully planned his triumph in 61 b.c.e.to coincide with his forty-fifth birthday on 29
September, waiting seven months after his return from the East before entering the
- Years, Months, Days I: Eras and Anniversaries