- I follow the interpretation of Dunn (1998a, 224) on this very vexed question;
he suggests that the date “according to the god” was meant to facilitate coordination
from city to city. - Dunn 1998a, 221 – 22.
- Samuel 1972, 61 – 64.
- On the failure to use, for example, the Metonic cycle as a control for the cal-
endar, see Bickerman 1980, 35; Samuel 1972, 52 – 55; Dunn 1998b, 42; Lehoux (forth-
coming), chap. 4. - Dunn 1998b, 43 – 46.
- Dunn 1998b, 47; Hannah 2005, 69 – 70.
- Again, on the extra ninety days Caesar had to add to the year 46 b.c.e., see
above, p. 281 n. 115. - Cf. Schiesaro 2003, 219, on how Caesar’s new calendar emblematizes his over-
all creation of a new order.
132.Naiv, ejk diatavgmato", Plut. Caes.59.3 — a translation of something like immo,
ex decreto.Similar jokes had their day after the introduction of the Gregorian reform in
England, where “it was observed that the Glastonbury thorn flowered on Old Christ-
mas Day, and not according to Act of Parliament” (Blackburn and Holford-Strevens
1989, 687). - For the Lyre ’s date of rising, Ov. Fast.1.315 – 16; Pliny HN18.234. Plutarch
himself misses the point of the joke, saying that “menwere compelled to accept even
this dispensation.” Rather, human power is seen as controlling the celestial move-
ments; Ovid catches at this also when he speaks of how we “shall fix to the wandering
stars their own days” (ponemusque suos ad uaga signa dies, Fast.1.310). - Rawson 1994, 454, on Caesar’s building works: “Thus Caesar imposed his
presence on the very heart of Rome, and in every public act of his life the Roman citi-
zen was to be reminded of him”; cf. 444 – 48 for his colonization plans, and 455 – 56 for
his overhauling of corn supply and transport. Suet. Jul.40 – 44 lists many such schemes;
cf. Momigliano 1990, 69: “There was never again a situation in which the discovery of
new facts was pursued so relentlessly and effectively as in the time of Caesar.” - My thanks to Neil Coffee for this intriguing suggestion, and to John Dugan for
a reference to Sinclair 1994, which brings out the systematizing and rationalizing
approach of the De Analogiato language (esp. 92 – 96). - Pliny HN18.211.
- Buchner 1982, 10.
- On Augustus’s correction of the errors introduced after Caesar’s death, see
Bennett 2003, esp. 232 – 33, for the convincing hypothesis that it was the travails of the
new Pontifex Maximus, Lepidus, that caused the problems. - Many of the detailed claims of Buchner (1982) have been impugned by Schütz
(1990).
notes to pages 195 – 197. 295