1900 became common” (682); the new system, then, “saves” three days every 400 years,
which is enough to keep us on track until the year 4000 c.e.(M. L. West 1978, 376 n. 1).
- As remarked above, “days that are significant for one thing can fortuitously
become significant for something else altogether” (p. 149). - As of 1999, at any rate: Blackburn and Holford-Strevens (1999, 883) report that
the year “is decreasing by about 0.53 seconds in a century.” - Blackburn and Holford-Strevens 1999, 670; cf. Suerbaum 1980, 336 – 37.
- The date 2 September was immediately followed by the fourteenth, leading to
the famous cry “Give us back the eleven days we were robbed of ”: Blackburn and
Holford-Strevens 1999, 373. One more day needed to be dropped than in 1582 (eleven
instead of ten) because of the extra accumulated error in the meanwhile. - A rich and diverting account in Blackburn and Holford-Strevens 1999, 87 – 88
(although one of the book’s extremely few misprints gives “1752” as the year Wash-
ington came of age, not 1753). The issue confronted Russians after the Revolution;
indeed, as Nicholas Horsfall points out to me, Rostovtzeff, as a practicing Orthodox,
preferred the old Julian calendar in general, especially for celebrating his birthday: J.
Andreau makes the point in his introduction to Rostovtzeff(1988, xxvi). - On the positioning of festivals in Caesar’s reform, see Michels 1967, 180 – 81;
Suerbaum 1980, esp. 330 – 31; Rüpke 1995b, 376 – 77; Hannah 2005, 122 – 24. - Bickerman 1980, 47.
- Valuable introductions in Michels 1967, 18 – 22; Blackburn and Holford-
Strevens 1999, 672. - So — to simplify drastically — did the Greeks, at least for the first two-thirds of
their month, at which point they generally started counting down backwards to the
beginning of the next month. For a lucid account of the many diverse Greek practices,
see M. L. West 1978, 349 – 50; and Hannah 2005, 43 – 44, for Athens. - Macr. Sat.1.15.17; cf. Horace ’s pun on this etymology in Carm.4.11.14 – 16,
addressed to the Etruscan Maecenas: Idus... /qui dies mensem Veneris marinae/findit
Aprilem. - This is notthe ninth day intothe month.
- Named, so the Romans believed (probably correctly), from a verb kalare
meaning “to call” or “to announce,” relating to the fact that the priests used to
“announce” on this first day when the Nones would fall in the coming month: Varro
Ling.6.27. - As Joshua Katz reminds me, by this way of counting the Romans called “the
day before yesterday” nudius tertius. - I give them in that order according to the old mnemonic: “In March, July,
October, May, the Ides fall on the fifteenth day.” In the Republic, it goes without say-
ing, July was not July, but Quintilis, “Month Number Five”: it was renamed after
Julius Caesar in 44 b.c.e.
notes to pages 150 – 153. 279