- Years, Months, Days II: Grids of the Fasti
What we see on the consular fastierected by Augustus are a number of subtle
but profound realignments of how the viewer is meant to apprehend the lists. They
look like Republican fasti,but they are Augustan, imperial, fasti.^43 One apparently
small innovation, with far-reaching repercussions, is the addition of years from the
foundation of the city in the left-hand margin. Every ten years a numeral stands
for the number of years that have elapsed since a foundation date of “752 b.c.e.”:
beside the names of the consuls for 173 b.c.e., then, one sees DXXC, counting the
580th year since the foundation (fig. 7, line 2; fig. 8, line 1). For a start, this inno-
vation compromises the independent character of the list of eponyms as an instru-
ment of time reckoning, for the numbering system is at the very least competing
with, and at worst supplanting, the list of names for the purposes of charting past
time.^44 Further, since the city was founded by Romulus on 21 April, a count of
years from the foundation of the city goes from 21 April to 20 April, not from 1
January to 31 December.^45 As a result, there are actually two concepts of the year
Figure7.
The Capitoline Fasti for the years 173 – 154 b.c.e., a drawing of a portion offigure 6.
Degrassi 1947, 50.