The Prehistoric Roman Calendar Author(s): Van L. Johnson Reviewed work(s): Source: The American Journal of Philology, Vol.

84, No. 1 (Jan., 1963), pp. 28-35 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/293157 . Accessed: 28/10/2011 14:08
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The Johns Hopkins University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The American Journal of Philology.

http://www.jstor.org

THE PREHISTORIC ROMAN CALENDAR. In another paper I have tried to establish a view that goatbreeding represents one stage of development in the prehistoric Roman calendar; but if we explore a little further, we discover, I believe, that not even this is the very first stage. For one thing, if we review the localities of worship on the first nundinae of the 4-month year, it is clear that only the rites for two Pales were conducted at a place suitable for goats, viz. the slopes of the Palatine hill. All the other rites of this day appear to have taken place in the low-lying ground of the Circus Maximus or the Campus Martius. In particular, the latter area was the site 2 of the Caprae palus (Liv., I, 16, 1) or Caprea palus (Ovid, Fasti, II, 491) where the Poplifugia took place; and it is time, I believe, that someone questioned the meaning of this term. What have goats to do with a swamp or marsh? Columella (VII, 6, 1) puts the answer succinctly: Id auten genus dumeta potius quam campestremsitum desiderat. " This breed of animals wants brushwoodrather than a level habitat." He also comments (VII, 6, 5) on the weak health of goats and their susceptibility to the influence of the elements. Varro (R.R., II, 3, 6), for similar reasons, gives careful instructions about tiling the floors of goat-stalls; and in discussing terms of purchase, suggests that no seller can guarantee the health of a goat: Capras sanas nemo sanus promittit" (R.R., II, 3, 5). The animal which belongs in a marshy environment-at least in antiquity and down to very recent times (modern breeders give opposite instructions)-is the pig. Columella says (VII, 9, 6-7) that the best pasturage for hogs is swampy rather than dry fields-Pascitur melius tamen palustribus agris quam sitientibus-and that breeders should choose muddy rather than dry soil so that pigs can root up swampy ground, ut paludem rimantur, and roll in the mud-something very gratifying to this animal, quod est huic pecori gratissimum. Varro (R.R., II, 4, 5) makes a similar recommendation; and appropriately
XCI (1960), pp. 109-20. See Platner and Ashby, Topographical Dictionary (Oxford, 1929), s. v. caprae palus.
1T.A.P.A.,
2

of Ancient Rome

28

THE PREHISTORIC ROMAN CALENDAR.

29

Vergil has Aeneas find his great white sow in a palus (Aen., VIII, 88). Moreover,two products prominent in the rites of the Caprotine Nones-viz. figs (cf. Mac., Sat., I, 11, 36-40; Varro, L. L., VI, 18) and beans (cf. Ovid, Fasti, IV, 725-6; 731-4; 780-2)would seem more appropriate to pigs than goats which are and were (cf. Varro, R.R., I, 2, 18-20; II, 3, 7) in Roman times notoriously injurious to cultivated growth. For hogs Columella (VII, 9, 6-9) recommends as pasturage land planted with some nut-bearing tree like the oak or the beech, fagus (the Latin word is indeed a variant of faba, the word for bean), land with fruit trees like the ficus or fig, and finally the faba or bean. The implication too is that most of these things grow on low ground: in the case of the fig, Macrobius (Sat., III, 20, 1) supports this thought by identifying for us a ficus atra palusca, i.e. a black swamp fig; and Varro (R.R., I, 6, 4) tells us that mariscae fici, the cheapest variety of fig, are grown on low ground. Varro (R. R., II, 4, 6) likewise concurs in the general sentiment which I have expressed by stating that pigs are best fed on nuts, then on beans, deinde faba. In fact, he suggests (R.R., II, 4, 17) that pigs are called nefrendes after the suckling stage because they cannot yet crunch or munch beans, fabam frendere. Still another approach to our problem is the convincing statement of Ovid (Fasti, I, 33-4) that the 10-month calendar of Romulus was based on the gestation period of human beingsto which we can add the gestation period of cows (see Varro, R.R., II, 5, 13). If there is a similar correlation between the 4-month year and the gestation period of some animal, this animal cannot be the goat whose period is 156 days, though Varro's statement (R.R., II, 3, 8) that the goat bears post quartum menser may be a reminiscence of some attempt to explain the manifold connection of goats with the 4-month calendar. The gestation period of the goat-like that of the sheep which bears after 150 days (cf. Varro, R.R., II, 2, 14)would have been correlated with a 5-month year, and we have no evidence for a 5-month calendar. The pig is the animal whose gestation period is exactly 4 months (Varro, R.R., II, 4, 7; Columella, VII, 9, 3); moreover, the same sow can produce two litters a year (Varro, R. R., II, 4, 14; Columella, loc. cit.); and since the suckling period-

30

VAN L. JOHNSON.

in antiquity at least-was two months in each case, the procreation cycle of the pig could be related not only to a 4-month year, but roughly, through three such years, with a solar year of 12 months.3 This means that a 4-month calendar was probably a better astronomical device than any later phase of the Roman calendar up to Caesar's time. One can, quite exactly, correlate the 4-month year with a solar year on the simple basis of Varro's rules for breeding and rearing swine. He says (R.R., II, 4, 7; cf. I, 28, 1-2) that the best time for breeding hogs is from the rising of Favonius to the vernal equinox, i.e. from February 7 to March 23 in Caesar's calendar. This means that one 4-month year in a cycle of three such years began about the time of our own month of March, and it may account for the eventual determination of this period as March in the 12-month calendar. Sows impregnated in March of Year I4 in the cycle of three 4-month years would have their first litter in March of Year II in this cycle, cur pabulo abundat terra (Varro, loc. cit.), i.e. in July of our own year. This litter would suck for two months, viz. March and April of Year II (July and August of our ealendar). In May (September of our calendar) the same sow might be impregnated again, have her second litter in May (January of our calendar) of Year III, suckle it for two months, viz. May and June (January and February of our calendar), and be ready for a third impregnation in March (March of our calendar) of Year I in a second cycle of three 4-month years. Pigs from the first litter would be sucklings during March and April of Year II; nefrendes, i.e. unable to crunch beans in May, but no doubt able to forage for such fodder in June. Boars from this litter would be gelded not later (Varro, R.R., II, 4, 21) than May of Year III, since otherwise they would be able to cover females at that time (Columella, VII, 9, 2). In this same month ungelded boars would be separated for breeding purposes two months hence (Varro, R.R., II, 4, 7), i. e. March of Year I in Cycle II. If the 4-month year was based on the breeding of pigs, as it
8 Cf. the observant remark of Varro (R. R., II, 4, 14): Natura divisus earum annus bifariam, quod bis pariat in anno: quaternis mensibus fert ventrem, binis nutricat. ASee Table appended, p. 35.

THE PREHISTORIC ROMAN CALENDAR.

31

seems to be, it is to swine that we should look in explaining the names of these original four months. March is clearly named for Mars, but March cannot be the original name for the first month, since no rites for Mars would belong to it.5 The only clue we have to its original name is, I believe, in the term Nonae Caprotinae, the name for the only ferial Nones in such a calendar and therefore probably named for the month in which it occurred, i.e. Caprotinus. The term Nonae Caprotinae bore at one time the meaning "Nones of the Goat"; so the name of the month, if Caprotinus, would certainly have come to mean "the month of the goat." which But capra or caper is a cognate of the Greek word Karpos' means not " goat" but " boar " or even "sow "; so it is possible that the Latin cognates bore this same meaning in primitive times.6 If that is true, then the first month of the Roman calendar was the month of the pig, and this may well explain the story of Aeneas' sow (Vergil, Aen., III, 390-4; VIII, 43-6, 81-5) and her litter of thirty white piglets. This sow and her brood would represent, it seems to me, the month and the thirty days of the month Caprotinus. When calendar changes had obscured this ancient symbolism, the thirty white pigs were taken to represent the thirty years between the landing of Aeneas
6 See A. J. P., LXXX (1959), p. 146 for the feriae of the 4-month year. My present view is that March was not so named before the introduction of the 10-month year, i.e. in the calendar of "Romulus," and I would associate this with Etruscan influence. Later, in the calendar of "Numa," March became the third month, partly under renewed Latin influence; cf. Ovid, Fasti, III, 87-100 for March as the third month at Aricia and Tusculum. It seems probable that June received its present name under this same influence; see Ovid, Fasti, VI, 59-62 for a month of June at Aricia and other Latin towns. Of course, one is never sure which way the influence worked, from Latium to Rome or vice versa. 6 On the basis of Sanscrit kaprt, meaning membrum virile, caper and Kaprpos have been derived from an Indo-European word, *qapros, signifying "male animal" (see Boisacq, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue grecque, s. v. Karpos, and Walde-Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches W6rterbuch, s. v. caper); but it is uncertain how, if at " animal" was specified: Latin aper, "boar," seems all, this generic to lack a "k" prefix which Greek KaIrpos and Latin caper retain (cf. Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire 6tymologique de la langue latine, s. v. caper), suggesting that caper too bore an original reference to swine rather than to goats. In that case capra, with its feminine suffix, must have meant "sow."

32

VAN L. JOHNSON.

and the founding of Alba Longa. The tradition is more than the figment of a poet's imagination, for Varro (R. R., II, 4, 18) tells us that the body of this sow was preserved in brine by the priests, and that bronze images of her brood existed in his time. A "month of the sow" would also explain the termination in the word caprotinus which, with analogues in annotinus and diutinus, appears to have a temporal connotation. Though we have no definite indication that the sacrifice of a sow characterizes any rite of the Caprotine Nones, it appears possible to me that the capra sacrificed to Vediovis (concurrently with the Caprotine Nones in the 4-month year) may, originally, have been a sow. In historical times a sow, porca (or a lamb) was sacrificed to Juno by the Regina Sacrorum on every Kalends (Mac., Sat., I, 15, 19; cf. Vergil, Aen., VIII, 84-5 for Aeneas' sacrifice of the brood-sow to Juno); and this may well be the vestige of something which once happened on the first nundinae of the year, i.e. on the Caprotine Nones in the 4-month year. Moreover, Juno was invoked on the Kalends under the strange title Covella (Varro, L.L., VI, 27; Mac., Sat., I, 15, 10-11) which false hyphenation, I believe, has made us connect with covus (cavus) or emend to Novella (as if from novus) on the ground that Juno was always a moon goddess and should be addressed as "Hollow" or "New" on the first of the month. It appears to me that in this word covella we may rather have the root found in vellus, "hide" or " fleece," and in villus, "hair" or "bristle"; and that Covella (i.e. Convella), like Caprotina, refers to Juno dressed in the skin of some animal, in the beginning a sow and later a goat or a sheep, or to some animal which embodied Juno. Varro (R.R., II, 4, 9) rightly reminds us that pigs were the first sacrificial victims, ab suillo enim pecore immolandi initium primum sumptum videtur; and he traces (L. L., V, 54) the etymology of vellus to the activities of certain pastores Palatini who plucked (thus vellus from vellere) their animals. He comments too (R.R., II, 1, 10; 4, 9) on the antiquity of pig-sacrifices in the rites of Ceres, in the striking of a foedus or treaty, and of course in the suovetaurilia (where the order of animals-pig, sheep, ox-would seem to be historically accurate). And 10-day-old pigs, he says (R.R., II, 4, 16) were commonly called sacres because they were fit for sacrifice.

THE PREHISTORIC ROMAN CALENDAR.

33

It is my belief, therefore, that March, originally Caprotinus, was the month of the sow. April, the second month in the 4month year, has, I think, retained its original name; and a derivation from aper or " boar " is at least as convincing as those current in antiquity and quoted in modern literature on the subject. Certainly a derivation from the Greek aphros, "foam" (Varro, L. L., VI, 33; Mac., Sat., I, 12, 12-15; Ovid, Fasti, IV, 61-2) must be ruled out; and since April did not always come in the spring-in any calendar before Caesar's-we cannot accept Varro's suggestion that April is the month when things open (as if from aperire). In the historical period there is no evidence for a boar-sacrificein the month of April; but in a 4-month year, the Volcanalia of August 23 would have come on the third nundinae in April, and we do have evidence (C.I. L., VI, 826) that a boar was then sacrificed to Vulcan as late as the time of Domitian. May too retains its original name, I believe, and is not to be derived (cf. Mac., Sat., I, 12, 18; Varro, L.L., VI, 33; Ovid, Fasti, V, 1-110) from maiores, "elders," or from Maia, the Greek name for the mother of Hermes. But there is a hint of its meaning in the fact that maius is clearly the base of maialis, the Latin word for a gelding boar (Varro, R. R., II, 4, 21; cf. the curious fact that maiale is still an Italian word for pig). In historical times there was a sacrifice to the Roman goddess Maia by the flamen of Vulcan on the Kalends of May, and this may be identical with the sacrifice of a pig to her or to Bona Dea on the same day (Mac., Sat., I, 12, 16; Juvenal, Sat., II, 86; Festus, 68). When we recall that May was a month for breeding and bearing pigs, as well as for gelding boars, we may certainly conjecture that Maius was named for one of these animals, and even that the Roman goddess Maia was herself a sow.7 As for June, Macrobius (Sat., I, 12, 30) quotes opinions
7 It seems likely too that the Jupiter Maius worshipped at Tusculum (Macrobius, Sat., I, 12, 17) was originally a boar, and that maiestas in the beginning was simply "pigness," i. e. the goodness of a pig; hence Maia's possible identification with Bona Dea. In this form Maia would have been another form of the Juno worshipped in Picenum and Umbria as the goddess Cupra (cf. Strabo, V, 4, 2) which Varro (L. L., V, 159) explains as a Sabine word for "good" and which Buck (Grammar of Oscan and Umbrian, s.v. Cubrar) lists as an Umbrian word for "good."

34

VAN L. JOHNSON.

which show that its word-form, if Latin, should have been Junonius; and it has been suggested 8 that Junius is an Etruscanized form of a Latin word. Since the 4-month year-or at least the feriae in it-appears to be thoroughly Latin (or at any rate Italic), and since Juno already had the first month, Caprotinus, named for her, it seems plausible that June at one time bore another designation. Our only clue to this former name lies once more, I believe, in a named day, Kalendae fabariae, "the Kalends of the bean." That beans may have had something to do with naming the month is indicated by the twisted tale which Macrobius tells (Sat., I, 12, 31-2) of Junius Brutus naming the month for himself-presumably renaming it-because Tarquin was expelled on the Kalends of June and Brutus made offerings to Carna, a goddess of the vital organs, who regularly received offerings of bean pulse, puls fabaria, and lard on the Kalends of June. He then adds (Sat., I, 12, 33) that this Kalends 9 was commonly called fabariae because ripe beans, adultae fabae, were used for sacred purposes in this month, hoc mense. It seems to me that we have here a scrambled version of what really happened, viz. that the month was originally called fabarius from the fact that beans, as we have noted, were common diet for pigs; that some reminiscence of this fact lurked in the rites for Carna; and that efforts to explain the name Junius in reference to these rites ended in the clumsy story about Junius Brutus. The offering of lard in addition to bean pulse is certainly good evidence that we are dealing with elements connected with the kind of hog-cycle on which the 4-month year appears to have been based. In Gellius (X, 15. 12) there is an interesting list of four things which might not be touched or named by the flamen Dialis: they are she-goat, capra, uncooked meat, carnis incocta, ivy, hedera, and beans, faba. Plutarch (Quaest. Rom., 111) adds the dog, so we cannot be sure how long the list really was nor exactly what were the original elements in it; but the fact that
8 Cf. Rose, Ancient Roman Religion (London, 1948), pp. 69-70, and Altheim, History of Roman Religion (New York, 1937), pp. 162-3. 9 The Kalends-of not have existed June or any other month-may as a day of special import in the 4-month calendar; but the adjective fabarius may have clung to the first day of the month even after the month of Fabarius had changed its name to Junius.

THE PREHISTORIC ROMAN CALENDAR.

35

capra is first on Gellius' list and faba fourth, while carnis incocta -which might cover raw pork from a boar or aper-is the second item, leads me to think that here we have, with minor alterations, a list of those things for which the original four months were named, and indeed in the proper order: i. e. capra for Caprotinus, aper for April, an unidentifiable product10 for May, and faba for Fabarius.11
VAN L. JOHNSON.
TUFTS UNIVERSITY.

I cannot explain the strange hedera; it may be a corruption. 11Since every day in the 4-month year might be tagged with the adjectival form of one of these original month names, we can now well understand why the Flamen Dialis was feriatus or subject to his restrictions every day, cotidie (Gellius, X, 15). If, in the beginning, every day in the calendar was associated with some tabooed object, an overwhelming tradition was established.
10

FOUR-MONTH YEAR BASED ON BREEDING CYCLE OF PIGS CYCLEI Year I (begins in March of solar year) March April May June March April May June March April May June Breeding of first litter.

Year II (begins in July of solar year) Bearing and suckling of first litter. Suckling of first litter. First litter nefrendes. Breeding of second litter. First litter able to munch fabae. Year III (begins in November of solar year)

Bearing and suckling of second litter. Gelding and separation of boars (maiales and verres) from first litter. Suckling of second litter. CYCLEII Year I (begins in March of solar year) Breeding of third litter.

March