The acculturated impact of the calendar is so deep that it can make us feel that
its demarcations are part of nature, but Ovid follows normal ancient learning in
reminding us that, for example, even such a powerful marker as 1 January is a con-
tingent one. Numerous ancient sources discuss the fact that there are many possi-
ble places to begin the circle of the year. Plutarch dedicates one of his “Roman
Questions” to “why the Romans begin the year in January”; using the same binary
pair of nature and convention, he remarks, “In general, by nature (fuvsei) there is
neither a first nor a last point for things that are revolving in a circle, and it is by
custom (novmw/) that different people adopt different beginnings of the year” (Mor.
268C).^161 Many states began the year in high summer, or in autumn, and one can
see why Samuel’s authoritative work on ancient calendars should describe the
Romans’ choice as an “arbitrary beginning point” as opposed to the “natural
beginning points” of many Greek states, keyed in to natural astronomical phe-
nomena such as solstices.^162 Plutarch, indeed, in the passage just quoted, ends by
saying that the best beginning of the year is the winter solstice, for it is somehow
“natural” (kata; fuvsin) for human beings, as the point at which the amount of light
shed by the sun begins to increase (Mor.268D).
Why, then, did the Romans begin the year in the dead of winter? The Romans
themselves were not sure why their civil year began in January, and the names of
the months after June (going from Sextilis to December) made it easy for them to
imagine that originally their calendar and civil year must have begun at the more
“natural” beginning time of the spring, with March as the first month.^163 Ovid asks
the god Janus a pointed question in the first book of the Fasti: dic age frigoribus
quare nouus incipit annus,/qui melius per uer incipiendus erat? (“Tell me, how come
the new year begins in the cold season, when it would have been better for it to
start in spring?” 1.149 – 50).^164 Ovid highlights his point by marking the discrep-
ancy between the natural newness of spring and the newness of the civil appurte-
nances that are on display on the state ’s artificial beginning point of 1 January. In
his description of the year’s opening ceremonials, the fasces,purple, and rumps of
the consuls are all new (iamque nouipraeeunt fasces, nouapurpura fulget,/et noua
conspicuum pondera sentit ebur,1.81 – 82); when he describes to Janus the newness
of spring, which would have been an ideal beginning for the year and for his poem,
all the newness of nature is wistfully signposted with repeated “then”: omnia tunc
florent, tuncest noua temporis aetas,/et noua de grauido palmite gemma tumet,...
tumblandi soles... tumpatitur cultus ager(151 – 59). “This,” he says, “should by
rights have been called the newness of the year” (haec anni nouitas iure uocanda
fuit,1.160).^165
- Years, Months, Days II: Grids of the Fasti