ON SOME ETRUSCAN RELICS IN THE ROMAN CALENDAR

Author(s): A. W. J. Holleman and A. W. H. Holleman

Source: L'Antiquité Classique , 1984, T. 53 (1984), pp. 245-248
Published by: L'Antiquité Classique

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41657429

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 ON SOME ETRUSCAN RELICS IN THE ROMAN CALENDAR

Nowadays there can be no doubt about the Roman calendar, alike the Julia
and the pre-Julian, being deeply influenced by, and so in the time of, the
Etruscans dominating Italy and Rome. Best and intrinsic starting point for a
discussion of the facts is the Parentalia festival (Febr. 13-21) since, as the ve
only festival of the yearcycle, the Parentalia began at noon, as was still know
to Johannes Lydus (Mens., 4, 29), which was daybreak with the Etruscans
We may indeed expect the Etruscans to have honoured their dead most
devotedly, and particularly at the end of the year as the ancestors were
considered to preside over this period of "une douzaine de jours, chaos
intermédiaire entre la mort et la naissance" (J. Bayet, Hist. pol. et psychol. de la
reí. rom., Paris, 19692, 90). Yet, "une douzaine de jours" is not exact: in
Roman reckoning the period amounts to 1 1 ,5 days. According to the Etruscan
calendar now supposedly lying at the root of the Parentalia the period
amounted to 11 days : February 13th noon - 24th noon. It was the well-
known bridging period from the so-called lunisolar year (354 + 1 1 days)2.
That is why ever since February 24th - or however this day was called - was
treated as the final day of the yearcycle. In the Julian calendar it was doubled
for intercalary purposes - as, incidentally, continued to exist at least till 1582
(cf. Fr. and Engl, bissextile). Pope Gregory XIII, therefore, dated his Bull. Inter
gravíssimas on the 24th of February of that year. However, since he at the
same time ordained that the feast of S. Matthias (24th) in a leap-year was to be
celebrated at February 25th he invented the 29th of February - to H. J. Rose "a
modern absurdity" (OC D s. Calendars) - not meaning of course this new day to
become intercalary day, as it eventually did.
The Roman Parentalia amounted to 8,5 days, not 9 days as generally noted :
we may therefore well doubt all explanations of the number nine. The
Etruscan "Parentalia" must be supposed to have contained 8 days. Clearly this

1 So already Eisenhut in RE, Suppl., XII (1970), 979-82.

2 For this period in a lunisolar year see J. Frazer, Commentary on the Fasti of Ovid,
London, 1929, II, 42 ff. Plutarch, Numa, 18, and Solinus,* I, 37 ff. knew that the
Roman calendar once was based on a lunar year of 354 days. Up to now no one
thought of Etruscans !

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246 A. W. J. HOLLEMAN

period amounts to a Roman nundinum. Since we k

usually every eighth day sat down for a hearing, t
Roman calendars seem to be an Etruscan herita
tells a quite strange story about some time in the
were not celebrated :

At quondam, dum longa gerunt pugnacibus armis

bella, Parentales deseruere dies.
Non impune fuit, nam dicitur omine ab isto
Roma suburbanis incaluisse rogis.
Vix equidem credo ; bustis exisse feruntur
et tacitae questi tempore noctis avi,
perque vias Urbis latosque ululasse per agros
deformes animas, volgus inane, ferunt. (Fast ., II, 547 sqq.)

H. Le Bonniec notes : "On ne sait à quelles circonstances Ovide fait allusion"

(Ovide, Les Fastes , Catania, 1969, ad loc.). In his Commentary on Ovid s Fasti
Frazer is completely silent on the matter. To me, Ovids story goes back to the
years following 472 B.C. Macrobius, Sat ., I, 13, 20-21 : Quando autem
primům intercalatum sit varie refertur ... sed hoc arguii Varro scribendo
antiquissimam legem fuisse incisam in columna aenea a L. Pinario et Furio
consulibus, cui mensis intercalaris adscribitur. Quoting this text R. Werner
concluded that "der Ausgleich zwischen 355tägigem Mond- und 365,25tägi-
gem Sonnenjahr am Beginn der Republik vollzogen war" (Der Beginn der
römischen Republik , München, 1963, 35 N.). His calculations led him to
consider the years 472-70 B.C. to be the "Beginn der Republik". However, re-
dating the consuls (p. 29 1 ) he places Pinarius and Furius - to Varro consuls in
472 B.C. - in the year 459. Which is quite inconsistent. I prefer the Varronian
date of 472 B.C. while taking that year to be characteristic of the patrician
revolution against the Etruscan domination (though probably not in the form
of kingship 3). Revolutions used to be accompanied by calendar reforms. I
agree therefore to Werners dating the beginning of the Roman republic to 472-

3 The abolition of kingship at Rome was an internal Etruscan affair as I interpreted

the "Rape of Lucrece" rather as a Hieros Gamos at the end of the year (Febr. 24th) :
Lucretia und die Inschriften von Pyrgi , in Latomus, 40, 1981, 37-47, its Nachtrag, ibid.,
830-31, and Ovid and the story of Lucretia , in LCM , 6.9 (1981), 243-244. Some
irregularity in that celebration may have caused it to become a pretext for abolishing
kingship. The affair must be disconnected from the patrician revolution : kingship was
abolished in several Etruscan towns. Cf. P. Grimal in Fischer Weltgesch ., 6 (1965),
367-68, notes 128 and 131 concluding : "Man hätte also Grund, zwei Momente in der
'Revolution von 509' zu unterscheiden, die Vertreibung der Könige und, später, die
totale Machtergreifung der Patrizier".

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 ETRUSCAN RELICS IN THE ROMAN CALENDAR 247

70. As I see it, the Etruscan lunisolar calendar was by then still in operation 4.
The new intercalation with alternatively 23 and 22 days was ever so much
revolutionary since it meant every alternate year the suppression of the
bridging" period of 1 1 days in the existing lunisolar year. Which meant also
the suppression of the Parentalia, to the Etruscans certainly a social upheaval
as might be heard in the tradition duly handed down by Ovid. In the so-called
pre-Julian calendar, however, the Parentalia were annual part of the yearcycle,
as we have seen. To Ovid it must have been practically incredible that this
festival, once upon a time, had not been celebrated. We are bound to suppose
that the tradition is dating from the time the intercalary "month" existed
alongside the Etruscan lunar year (354 d.) ending at noon of February 13th.
The revolting and successful patricians who invented the biennal intercalation
evidently aimed at the heart of the Etruscan year, the 1 1 days so crucial for the
return of fertility and felicity. Meanwhile they actually corrected the calendar
by making the average length of the year 365,25 days. As they, however,
afterwards reformed it definitely into the so-called pre-Julian calendar -
"modern scholars mostly attribute the system to the Decemviri (mid-fifth
century B.C.)" says E. J. Bickerman (Chronology of the Ancient World ,
London, 1 968, 45) - they broke with the lunar system by introducing months
of 3 1 days and by deciding in favour of 355 days for the basic year. (In fact, a
year of 354 days is almost 9 hours shorter than the natural lunar year). In this
basic year the Parentalia festival was restored, obviously some compromise on
behalf of the superstitious people. Accordingly, I think, Ovid ends his story
thus :

Postea praeteriti tumulis redduntur honores,

prodigiisque venit funeribusque modus. (555-56)

Rightly H. Le Bonniec notes : "Normalement, on attendrait la mention de rit

expiatoires spéciaux en vue de la procuratio des prodiges" (Les Fastes , Livre //
Paris, 1969, ad loc.). Apparently, as there was no question of normal religious
inobservance, expiatory rites were not required.
Since the biennial intercalation was a patrician "patent" it was bound to
continue to exist for a long time, though it created havoc in the definitive
calendar. In this way the mistake consisting in a year of average length of
366,25 days may be historically, and satisfactorily, explained, and its long li
as well. It was the unfortunate consequence of a political choice. At the sam

4 We do not know whether the Etruscans intercalated for reaching 365,25 days
but in order to keep the seasons and festivals in their place it must have been the ca
indeed.

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248 A. W. J. HOLLEMAN

time it helps to date the patrician revolution and t

domination at Rome fairly in accordance with the arch
recent investigations 5.

Kersengaarde 221 A. W. J. Holleman.

22 72 Voorburg- Holland.

5 As is now generally agreed abolishing kingship at Rome did not necessarily

coincide with the end of Etruscan domination, as Werner (p. 481) takes it as a
consequence of the naval defeat off Cumae in 474/3 B.C. The "Rape of Lucrece" may
well have taken place about 500 B.C. Cumae probably caused the outbreak of the
patrician revolution. I do not believe in Gjerstad s suggestion of the fall of the
monarchy about 450 B.C., though his archaeological finds seem to be irrefutable. After
450 there is no trace of important Etruscans living at Rome. Cf. my Considerations
about the tomb of the Claudians at Cerveteri , forthcoming in Historia 1984 : on
Etruscans who afterwards faked a "Sabine" descent.

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