Censorinus: CENSORINI DE DIE NATALI LIBER AD Q. CAERELLIUM

I. Munera ex auro vel quae ex argento nitent, caelato opere quam materia cariora, ceteraque hoc genus blandimenta fortunae inhiet is, qui vulgo dives vocatur: te autem, Quinte Caerelli, virtutis non minus quam pecuniarum divitem, id est vere divitem, ista non capiunt: non quod eorum possessionem vel etiam usum a te omnino abegeris, sed quod sapientium disciplina formatus satis liquido conperisti huius modi sita in lubrico bona malave per se non esse, sed tw'n mevswn, hoc est bonorum malorumque media censeri. Haec, ut comicus ait Terentius, perinde sunt, ut illius est animus, qui ea possidet; qui uti scit, ei bona; illi, qui non utitur recte, mala. Igitur quoniam quisque non quanto plura possidet, sed quanto pauciora optat, tanto est locupletior, opes tibi in animo maximae, et eae quidem, quae non modo bona generis humani praecedant, sed quae ad deorum inmortalium aeternitatem penitus accedant.

I. Gifts of gold or those that shine from silver, more costly from embossed workmanship than from material, and the other blandishments of this sort that adhere to fortune, belong to him who is commonly called rich: but these do not seize you, Quintus Caerellius, who are as rich in virtue as in money, that is, truly rich. Not that you have wholly driven away the possession or even the use of such things from yourself, but because, formed by the discipline of the wise, you have learned sufficiently clearly that goods of this sort placed on a slippery foundation are not goods or evils in themselves, but tôn mesôn, that is to be reckoned the mean between goods and evils. These, as the comic poet Terence says, are equally such as the disposition of the man who possesses them is; to him who knows how to use them they are goods; to him who does not use them rightly they are evils. Therefore, since every one is richer not by how many more he possesses but by how many fewer he desires, you have the greatest riches in your mind, and indeed those which not only surpass the goods of the human race but which approach utterly to the eternity of the immortal gods.

Quod enim Xenophon Socraticus dicit: nihil egere est deorum, quam minime autem proximum a deis. Quare cum dona pretiosa neque tibi per animi virtutem desint, nec mihi per rei tenuitatem supersint, quodcumque hoc libri est meis opibus conparatum natalicii titulo tibi misi; in quo non, ut plerisque mos est, aut ex ethica parte philosophiae praecepta ad beate vivendum, quae tibi scriberem, mutuatus sum, aut ex artibus rhetorum locos laudibus tuis celebrandis persecutus—ad id enim virtutum omnium fastigium ascendisti, ut cuncta ista, quae vel sapienter monentur vel facunde praedicantur, vita moribusque superaveris—sed ex philologis commentariis quasdam quaestiunculas delegi, quae congestae possint aliquantum volumen efficere, idque a me docendi studio vel ostentandi voto non fieri praedico, ne in me, ut vetus adagium est, iure dicatur: sus Minervam. Iam vero cum tuo collatu scirem me plura didicisse, ne beneficiis tuis viderer ingratus, nostrorum veterum sanctissimorum hominum exempla sum secutus.

For what Xenophon the Socratic says: “the gods are in want of nothing” — yet how little of that, however, is proximate to the divine. Therefore, since costly gifts neither fail you through the virtue of your mind, nor remain to me through the slenderness of my estate, whatever of this little book has been prepared by my resources I sent to you under the title of a birthday-gift; in which I have not, as is the custom with many, either borrowed precepts from the ethical part of philosophy for living well, which I might have written to you, nor pursued passages from the arts of the rhetors to celebrate your praises—for you have climbed to that summit of all virtues that all those things which are wisely admonished or eloquently proclaimed you have surpassed in life and morals—but from philological commentaries I have selected certain little questions which, piled together, may make somewhat of a volume, and I declare that this is not done from zeal for teaching or from a vow to display, lest of me, as the old adage goes, it rightly be said: “to bring a sow to Minerva.” Now moreover, since by your liberality I knew that I had learned more, and so that I might not seem ungrateful for your favors, I have followed the examples of our most ancient and most holy men.

Illi enim quod alimenta patriam lucem se denique ipsos dono deorum habebant, ex omnibus aliquid deis sacrabant, magis adeo ut se gratos adprobarent, quam quod deos hoc arbitrarentur indigere. Itaque cum perceperant fruges, ante quam vescerentur, deis libare instituerunt, et cum agros adque urbes deorum munere possiderent, partem quandam templis sacellisque, ubi eos colerent, dicaverunt; quidam etiam pro cetera corporis bona valetudine crinem deo sacrum pascebant: ita ego, a quo plura litteris percepi, tibi haec exigua reddo libamina.

For they, because they held their food, their country, their light, and finally themselves as gifts of the gods, sacrificed something of everything to the gods, more so to show themselves grateful than because they judged the gods to be in need of it. Therefore when they had received the crops, before they fed on them they began to make libations to the gods, and since they possessed fields and cities by the gift of the gods, they dedicated a certain portion to the temples and shrines where they worshipped them; some also, in return for other bodily goods—health—kept a lock of hair sacred to a god and nourished it: thus I, from whom I learned many things in letters, restore to you these small libations.

II. Nunc quoniam liber DE DIE NATALI inscribitur, a votis auspicia sumantur. Itaque hunc diem, quod ait Persius, numera meliore lapillo, idque quam saepissime facias exopto et, quod idem subiungit: funde merum genio. Hic forsitan quis quaerat, quid causae sit, ut merum fundendum genio, non hostia faciendum putaverit.

II. Now since this book is inscribed DE DIE NATALI, let auspices be taken from vows. Therefore I wish that you mark this day, as Persius says, with a better pebble, and that you do this as often as possible, and, as the same adds: pour unmixed wine to the Genius. Here perhaps someone may ask what the reason is that he thought merum should be poured to the Genius, and not a victim offered.

Quod scilicet, ut Varro testatur in eo libro, cui titulus est Atticus id est de muneribus, id moris institutique maiores nostri tenuerunt, ut, cum die natali munus annale genio solverent, manum a caede ac sanguine abstinerent, ne die, qua ipsi lucem accepissent, alii demerent. Denique Deli ad Apollinis Genitoris aram, ut Timaeus auctor est, nemo hostiam caedit. Illud etiam in hoc die observandum, quod genio factum neminem oportet ante gustare quam eum, qui fecerit.

Which thing, certainly, as Varro testifies in that book entitled Atticus, that is, On Gifts, our ancestors held as a custom and institution: that when on their natal day they paid the annual munus to the genius, they withheld their hand from slaughter and blood, lest on the day on which they themselves had received light others should deprive them of it. Moreover, at Delos, at the altar of Apollo the Begetter, as Timaeus is the authority, no one slays a victim. Also to be observed on this day is that no one ought to taste what is made for the genius before him who made it.

III. Sed et hoc a quibusdam saepe quaesitum solvendum videtur, qui sit genius, curve eum potissimum suo quisque natali veneremur. Genius est deus, cuius in tutela ut quisque natus est vivit.

3. But this also is often asked and seems to demand a solution by some: who is the genius, and why should each one especially venerate him on his natal day. The genius is a god, in whose tutelage each man lives as he was born.

Hic sive quod ut genamur curat, sive quod una genitur nobiscum, sive etiam quod nos genitos suscipit ac tutatur, certe a genendo genius appellatur. Eundem esse genium et larem multi veteres memoriae prodiderunt, in quis etiam Granius Flaccus in libro, quem ad Caesarem de indigitamentis scriptum reliquit. Hunc in nos maximam quin immo omnem habere potestatem creditum est.

This one — whether because he cares that we be born, or because he is born together with us, or even because he receives and guards us once born — is certainly called genius from the act of begetting. Many ancient men of memory have handed down that the genius is the same as the lar, in which even Granius Flaccus in the book he left written to Caesar on the indigitamenta attests. This one is believed to have the greatest, nay rather the entire, power over us.

Nonnulli binos genios in his dumtaxat domibus, quae essent maritae, auctores putaverunt; Euclides autem Socraticus duplicem omnibus omnino nobis genium dicit adpositum, quam rem apud Lucilium in libro saturarum XVI licet cognoscere. Genio igitur potissimum per omnem aetatem quotannis sacrificamus, quamquam non solum hic sed et alii sunt praeterea dei conplures hominum vitam pro sua quisque portione adminiculantes, quos volentem cognoscere indigitamentorum libri satis edocebunt. Sed omnes hi semel in uno quoque homine numinum suorum effectum repraesentant, quocirca non per omne vita spatium novis religionibus arcessuntur: genius autem ita nobis adsiduus observator adpositus est, ut ne puncto quidem temporis longius abscedat, sed ab utero matris acceptos ad extremum vitae diem comitetur.

Some authorities have thought there are two genii in those, at least, houses that are married; Euclides Socraticus, however, says that a double genius is appointed to each and every one of us, which you may learn in Lucilius in his book of satires 16. To the genius, therefore, above all, we sacrifice annually through every age, although not only here but also many other gods besides sustain men’s lives each for his own portion, whom the books of indigitamenta will teach sufficiently to any who wish to know them. But all these at once in each single man represent the effect of their divinities, wherefore they are not summoned by new rites through the whole span of life: the genius, however, is so constant an attendant and observer set beside us that he does not depart even for a point of time, but accompanies those received from the mother’s womb to the last day of life.

Sed cum singuli homines suos tantum modo proprios colant natales, ego tamen duplici quotannis officio huiusce religionis adstringor: nam cum ex te tuaque amicitia honorem dignitatem decus adque praesidium cuncta denique vitae praemia recipiam, nefas arbitror, si diem tuum, qui te mihi in hanc lucem edidit, meo illo proprio neclegentius celebravero: ille enim mihi vitam, hic vitae fructum adque ornamentum pepererunt.

But although individual men celebrate only their own natal days, I am nevertheless bound by a double annual duty of this religion: for since from you and your friendship I receive honor, dignity, glory and protection, and finally all the prizes of life, I judge it nefas if I should celebrate your day, which brought you into this light for me, more negligently than my own: for that day produced life for me, this the fruit and ornament of life.

IV. Quoniam aetas a die natali initium sumit suntque ante hunc diem multa, quae ad hominum pertinent originem non alienum videtur de iis prius dicere, quae sunt natura priora. Igitur quae veteribus de origine humana fuerint opiniones, ex his quaedam breviter exponam. Prima et generalis quaestio inter antiquos sapientiae studiosos versata est, quod, cum constet homines singulos ex parentium seminibus procreatos successione prolis multa saecula propagare, alii semper homines fuisse nec umquam nisi ex hominibus natos adque eorum generi caput exordiumque nullum extitisse arbitrati sunt, alii vero fuisse tempus, cum homines non essent, et his ortum aliquem principiumque natura tributum.

4. Since life (aetas) takes its beginning from the natal day and there are many things before that day which pertain to the origin of men, it does not seem alien to speak first of those things which are prior by nature. Therefore I will briefly set forth some of the opinions the ancients held about the origin of mankind. The first and general question debated among seekers of wisdom was this: since it is certain that individual men are produced from the seeds of parents and that by the succession of offspring many ages propagate, some maintained that men have always existed and were never born except from other men, and that there was no head or beginning to their kind; others, however, held that there was a time when men did not exist, and that to them some origin and first principle was allotted by nature.

Sed prior illa sententia, qua semper humanum genus fuisse creditur, auctores habet Pythagoran Samium et Ocellum Lucanum et Archytan Tarentinum omnesque adeo Pythagoricos; sed et Plato Atheniensis et Xenocrates et Dicaearchus Messenius itemque antiquae Academiae philosophi non aliud videntur opinati; Aristoteles quoque Stagirites et Theophrastus multique praeterea non ignobiles peripatetici idem scripserunt, eiusque rei exemplo dicunt, quod negant omnino posse reperiri, avesne ante an ova generata sint, cum et ovum sine ave et avis sine ovo gigni non possit, itaque et omnium, quae in sempiterno isto mundo semper fuerunt futuraque sunt, aiunt principium fuisse nullum, sed orbem esse quendam generantium nascentiumque, in quo unius cuiusque geniti initium simul et finis esse videatur. Qui autem homines aliquos primigenios divinitus naturave factos crederent multi fuerunt, sed aliter adque aliter haec existimatione versari. Nam ut mittam, quod fabulares poetarum historiae ferunt, homines primos aut Promethei molli luto esse formatos aut Deucalionos Pyrrhaeque duris lapidibus enatos, quidam ex ipsis sapientiae professoribus nescio an magis monstruosas certe non minus incredibiles rationum suarum proferunt opiniones.

But that earlier sententia, by which the human genus is believed to have always existed, has as authors Pythagoras of Samos and Ocellus Lucanus and Archytas of Tarentum and indeed all the Pythagoreans; and Plato the Athenian and Xenocrates and Dicaearchus of Messene and likewise the philosophers of the old Academy seem to have thought nothing different; Aristotle the Stagirite and Theophrastus and many other not ignoble Peripatetics wrote the same, and as an example of the matter they say that it is utterly impossible to discover whether birds were generated before eggs or eggs before birds, since an egg cannot be begotten without a bird nor a bird without an egg, and therefore they say that there was no beginning of all things which in this sempiternal world always have been and will be, but that there is a certain orb or cycle of begetters and risers, in which the beginning and the end of each one born seem to be simultaneous. But many have believed that some men were first-made either divinely or by nature, and this view is handled in various and differing ways. For to pass over what the fabled histories of the poets relate, that the first men were fashioned by Prometheus from soft clay or that Deucalion and Pyrrha were born from hard stones, some among the very professors of wisdom — I know not whether more monstrous, certainly not less incredible — advance opinions of their reason.

Anaximander Milesius videri sibi ex aqua terraque calefactis exortos esse sive pisces seu piscibus simillima animalia; in his homines concrevisse, fetusque ad pubertatem intus retentos, tunc demum ruptis illis viros mulieresque, qui iam se alere possent, processisse. Empedocles autem egregio suo carmine, quod eius modi esse praedicat Lucretius, ut vix humana videatur stirpe creatus, tale quiddam confirmat: primo membra singula ex terra quasi praegnate passim edita, deinde coisse et effecisse solidi hominis materiam igni simul et umori permixtam. Cetera quid necesse est persequi, quae non capiant similitudinem veritatis?

Anaximander of Miletus thought that from water and earth warmed and baked there arose either fishes or animals very like fishes; in these men congealed, and the offspring, held within until puberty, then at last, those bonds having been broken, men and women who could already nourish themselves came forth. Empedocles, moreover, in his excellent poem — which Lucretius asserts to be of such a kind that it scarcely seems sprung from human stock — confirms something of this sort: at first single limbs were everywhere sent forth from the earth as if pregnant, then they united and produced the solid matter of a man mixed with fire and moisture. Why need I pursue the rest, which do not approach the likeness of truth?

Haec eadem opinio etiam in Parmenide Veliate fuit pauculis exceptis ab Empedocle dissensis. Democrito vero Abderitae ex aqua limoque primum visum esse homines procreatos. Nec longe secus Epicurus: is enim credidit limo calfacto uteros nescio quos radicibus terrae cohaerentes primum increvisse et infantibus ex se editis ingenitum lactis umorem natura ministrante praebuisse, quos ita educatos et adultos genus hominum propagasse.

This same opinion was also among Parmenides of Veleia, with a few dissenting from Empedocles. Democritus the Abderite held that men were first seen produced from water and slime. Not much otherwise Epicurus: for he believed that in warmed slime certain wombs, I know not what, adhering to the roots of the earth, first grew, and that when infants were brought forth from them nature supplied an innate moisture of milk, and that these, thus nourished and grown, propagated the human kind.

Zenon Citieus, stoicae sectae conditor, principium humano generi ex novo mundo constitutum putavit, primosque homines ex solo adminiculo divini ignis, id est di providentia, genitos. Denique etiam vulgo creditum est, ut plerique genealogiae auctores sunt, quarundam gentium, quae ex adventicia stirpe non sint, principes terrigenas esse, ut in Attica et Arcadia Thessaliaque, eosque autochthonas vocitari. In Italia, ut poeta cecinit, Nymphas indigenasque Faunos nemora quaedam tenuisse non difficile rudis antiquorum credulitas recepit.

Zenon Citieus, founder of the Stoic sect, held that the origin of the human race was constituted out of a new world, and that the first humans were born from the soil as a prop (adminiculum) to the divine fire, that is, to divine providence. Moreover it has even been commonly believed, as most authors of genealogies assert, that the founders of certain peoples who are not of foreign stock were earth-born — as in Attica, Arcadia, and Thessaly — and that they are called autochthones. In Italy, as the poet sang, that certain groves once held Nymphs and indigenous Fauns was readily received by the crude credulity of the ancients.

Nunc vero eo licentiae poeticae processit libido, ut vix auditu ferenda confingat: post hominum memoriam progeneratis iam gentibus et urbibus conditis homines e terra diversis modis editos, ut in Attica fertur regione Erichthonius ex Vulcani semine humo exortus, et in Colchide vel Boeotia consitis anguis dentibus armati spartoe, e quibus mutua caede inter se necatis pauci superasse traduntur, qui in conditu Thebarum Cadmo fuerint adiumento; nec non in agro Tarquiniensi puer dicitur divinitus exaratus nomine Tages, qui disciplinam cecinerit extispicii, quam lucumones tum Etruriae potentes exscripserunt.

Now indeed the impulse of poetic license has advanced so far that it contrives things scarcely tolerable to hear: after the memory of men, with peoples already engendered and cities founded, men are said to have been produced from the earth in various ways; as in the region of Attica it is reported that Erichthonius, sprung from the seed of Vulcan, rose from the soil, and in Colchis or Boeotia serpents sown in the sward and armed with teeth, of which, by mutual slaughter, a few are said to have survived who were of service in the founding of Thebes to Cadmus; nor is it lacking that in the Tarquinian territory a boy is said to have been divinely turned up by the plough, named Tages, who taught the discipline of extispicy, which the then powerful lucumones of Etruria inscribed.

V. Hactenus de prima hominum origine; ceterum quod ad praesentes nostros pertinet natales eorumque initia, quam potero conpendio dicam.
Igitur semen unde exeat, inter sapientiae professores non constat. Parmenides enim tum ex dextris tum e laevis partibus id ire putavit.

5. Thus far concerning the first origin of men; but as to our present ones, their nativities and beginnings, I will relate as briefly as I can.
Therefore the seed from which it issues is not settled among the professors of wisdom. For Parmenides thought that it proceeded at times from the right parts and at times from the left.

Hipponi vero Metapontino, sive, ut Aristoxenus auctor est, Samio ex medullis profluere semen videtur, idque eo probari, quod post admissionem pecudum si quis mares interimat, medullas utpote exhaustas non reperiat. Sed hanc opinionem nonnulli refellunt, ut Anaxagoras Democritus et Alcmaeon Crotoniates: hi enim post gregum contentionem non medullis modo verum et adipe multaque carne mares exhauriri respondent. Illud quoque ambiguam facit inter auctores opinionem, utrumne ex patris tantum modo semine partus nascatur, ut Diogenes et Hippon stoicique scripserunt, an etiam ex matris, quod Anaxagorae et Alcmaeoni nec non Parmenidi Empedoclique et Epicuro visum est.

But to Hippon of Metapontum — or, as Aristoxenus is authority for, of Samos — the seed seems to flow forth from the marrows, and this is proved by the fact that after the admission of the flocks, if one castrates the males, he does not find the marrows, as it were exhausted. Yet some refute this opinion, as Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Alcmaeon of Croton: for they answer that after the contests of the herds the males are exhausted not only of marrows but also of fat and of much flesh. That also renders the opinion among the authors ambiguous, whether offspring are born solely from the father's seed, as Diogenes and Hippo and the Stoics wrote, or also from the mother's, which seemed to Anaxagoras and Alcmaeon and likewise to Parmenides, Empedocles, and Epicurus.

VI. De conformatione autem partus nihilo minus definite se scire Alcmaeon confessus est, ratus neminem posse perspicere, quid primum in infante formetur. Empedocles, quem in hoc Aristoteles secutus est, ante omnia cor iudicavit increscere, quod hominis vitam maxime contineat; Hippon vero caput, in quo est animi principale; Democritus alvum cum capite, quae plurimum habent ex inani; Anaxagoras cerebrum, unde omnes sunt sensus. Diogenes Apolloniates ex umore primum carnem fieri existimavit, tum ex carne ossa nervosque et ceteras partes enasci; at stoici una totum infantem figurari dixerunt, ut una nascitur aliturque.

6. Concerning the formation of the fetus, Alcmaeon nevertheless confessed that he knew nothing with greater definiteness, thinking that no one can perceive what is formed first in the infant. Empedocles, whom Aristotle followed in this, judged that above all the heart begins to grow, because it contains most of a man’s life; Hippon, however, the head, in which is the principal of the soul; Democritus the belly together with the head, which have most from the void; Anaxagoras the brain, whence all the senses. Diogenes of Apollonia supposed that flesh is first made from moisture, then from flesh bones and nerves and the other parts are born; but the Stoics said that the whole infant is shaped at once, so that it is born and nourished together.

Sunt qui id opinentur ipsa fieri natura, ut Aristoteles adque Epicurus; sunt qui potentia spiritus semen comitantis, ut stoici ferme universi; sunt qui aetherium calorem inesse arbitrentur, qui membra disponat, Anaxagoran secuti. Utcumque tamen formatus infans quem ad modum in matris utero alatur, duplex opinio est. Anaxagorae enim ceterisque conpluribus per umbilicum cibus administrari videtur; at Diogenes et Hippon existimarunt esse in alvo prominens quiddam, quod infans ore adprehendat et ex eo alimentum ita trahat, ut, cum editus est, ex matris uberibus.

There are those who suppose it to be made by nature itself, as Aristotle and Epicurus; there are those who hold it to be by the potency of the seed of an accompanying spirit, as almost all the Stoics; there are those who judge that an aetherial heat is present, which disposes the limbs, following Anaxagoras. However, in whatever way the formed infant is nourished while in the mother’s womb, there is a twofold opinion. For to Anaxagoras and many others the food seems to be administered through the umbilicus; but Diogenes and Hippon supposed that there is something projecting in the belly which the infant takes hold of with its mouth and thus draws nourishment from, so that when it is brought forth it feeds at the mother’s breasts.

Ceterum ut mares feminaeve nascantur, quid causae esset varie ab isdem philosophis proditum est. Nam ex quo parente seminis amplius fuit, eius sexum repraesentari dixit Alcmaeon; ex seminibus autem tenuioribus feminas, ex densioribus mares fieri Hippon adfirmat; utrius vero parentis principium sedem prius occupaverit, eius reddi naturam Democritus rettulit; at inter se certare feminae et maris, et penes utrum victoria sit, eius habitum referri auctor est Parmenides. Ex dextris partibus profuso semine mares gigni, at e laevis feminas, Anaxagoras Empedoclesque consentiunt, quorum opiniones, ut de hac specie congruae, ita de similitudine liberorum dispariles; super qua re Empedoclis disputata ratio talis profertur: si par calor in parentum seminibus fuit, patri similem marem procreari; si frigus, feminam matri similem.

Moreover, concerning whether males or females are born, the same philosophers have delivered varying causes. For Alcmaeon said that whichever parent supplied the greater share of seed, that parent's sex is represented; Hippon affirms that from thinner seeds females arise, from denser seeds males; Democritus reported that whichever parent's principle first occupies the seat, that nature is rendered; but Parmenides is the authority who says that the female and the male contend between themselves, and to whichever victory belongs, that form is ascribed. Anaxagoras and Empedocles agree that from the right parts, with the seed having been poured forth, males are begotten, but from the left, females, whose opinions, as appropriate about this kind, are likewise diverse about the resemblance of the children; on which matter Empedocles offers the following disputed account: if heat in the parents’ seeds was equal, a male like the father will be procreated; if cold, a female like the mother.

Quodsi patris calidius erit et frigidius matris, puerum fore, qui matris vultus repraesentet; at si calidius matris, patris autem fuerit frigidius, puellam futuram, quae patris reddat similitudinem. Anaxagoras autem eius parentis faciem referre liberos iudicavit, qui seminis amplius contulisset. Ceterum Parmenidis sententia est, cum dexterae partes semina dederint, tunc filios esse patri consimiles, cum laevae, tunc matri.

But if the father's seed is hotter and the mother's colder, there will be a boy who reproduces the mother's features; but if the mother's is hotter and the father's colder, there will be a girl who returns the father's likeness. Anaxagoras, however, judged that children reflect the face of whichever parent had contributed the greater portion of seed. Moreover Parmenides' opinion is that when the seeds of the right parts have been given, then the sons are like the father; when of the left, then like the mother.

Sequitur de geminis, qui ut aliquando nascantur, modo seminis fieri Hippon ratus est: id enim cum amplius est, quam uni satis fuit, bifariam deduci. Id ipsum ferme Empedocles videtur sensisse: nam causas quidem, cur divideretur, non posuit, partiri tantum modo ait, et si utrumque sedes aeque calidas occupaverit, utrumque marem nasci, si frigidas aeque, utramque feminam; si vero alterum calidiorem, alterum frigidiorem, dispari sexu partum futurum.

He proceeds concerning twins: Hippon thought that, so that they might sometimes be born, they are made from one seed; for when the semen is more abundant than would suffice for one, it is drawn off in twofold fashion. Empedocles likewise seems to have perceived this very thing: for he did not set forth the causes why it should be divided, he merely says that it is divided; and if both seats have occupied equally warm conditions, both males will be born, if equally cold, both females; but if one is warmer and the other colder, a birth of unlike sex will result.

VII. Superest dicere de temporibus, quibus partus soleant esse ad nascendum maturi; qui locus eo mihi cura maiore tractandus est, quod quaedam necesse est de astrologia musicaque et arithmetica attingere.
Iam primum quoto post conceptionem mense infantes edi soleant, frequenter agitatum inter veteres nondum convenit.

7. It remains to speak of the times at which births are wont to be mature for being born; this subject must be treated by me with greater care, because certain matters must be touched concerning astrology, music, and arithmetic.
Now first, in what month after conception infants are wont to come forth — a question much debated among the ancients — is not yet agreed upon.

Hippon Metapontinus a septimo ad decimum mensem nasci posse aestimavit: nam septimo partum iam esse maturum, eo quod in omnibus numerus septenarius plurimum possit, siquidem septem formemur mensibus, additisque alteris recti consistere incipiamus, et post septimum mensem dentes nobis innascantur, idemque post septimum cadant annum, quarto decimo autem pubescere soleamus. Sed hanc a septem mensibus incipientem maturitatem usque ad decem perductam, ideo quod in aliis omnibus haec eadem natura est, ut septem mensibus annisve tres aut menses aut anni ad consummationem accedant: nam dentes septem mensum infanti nasci et maxime decimo perfici mense, septimo anno primos eorum excidere, decimo ultimos, post quartum decimum annum nonnullos, sed omnes intra septimum decimum annum pubescere. Huic opinioni in parte aliqua repugnant alii, in parte consentiunt.

Hippon of Metapontum judged that one can be born from the seventh to the tenth month: for at the seventh the birth is already mature, because the septenary number has the greatest power in all things, since if we are formed in seven months, and with two added we begin to stand upright, and after the seventh month teeth are born in us, and those same teeth fall out after the seventh year, and at the fourteenth we are wont to reach puberty. But he extends this maturity, which begins at seven months, out to ten because in all other things the same nature is such that three months or years or months approach completion in seven months or years: for that teeth are born in the infant in the seventh month and completed most of all in the tenth month, that some of them fall out in the seventh year, the last in the tenth, that after the fourteenth year some, but all within the seventeenth year, reach puberty. To this opinion some oppose in part, others assent in part.

Nam septimo mense parere mulierem posse plurimi adfirmant, ut Theano Pythagorica, Aristoteles peripateticus, Diocles, Euenor, Straton, Empedocles, Epigenes multique praeterea, quorum omnium consensus Euryphonem Cnidium non deterret id ipsum intrepide pernegantem. Contra eum ferme omnes Epicharmum secuti octavo mense nasci negaverunt; Diocles tamen Carystius et Aristoteles Stagirites aliter senserunt. Nono autem et decimo mense cum Chaldaei plurimi et idem supra mihi nominatus Aristoteles edi posse partum putaverint, neque Epigenes Byzantius non fieri posse contendit, nec Hippocrates Cous decimo; ceterum undecimum mensem Aristoteles solus recipit, ceteri universi inprobarunt.

For the seventh month many affirm that a woman can bear, as Theano the Pythagorean, Aristotle the Peripatetic, Diocles, Euenor, Straton, Empedocles, Epigenes and many others besides, whose consensus does not deter Euryphon of Cnidus, who boldly denies that same thing. Against him almost all, following Epicharmus, denied that birth occurs in the eighth month; Diocles of Carystus and Aristotle of Stagira, however, judged otherwise. As for the ninth and tenth months, most Chaldaeans and the afore‑named Aristotle have thought that a birth may occur then, while Epigenes of Byzantium contends it cannot, nor does Hippocrates of Cos for the tenth; furthermore Aristotle alone accepts the eleventh month, all the others rejecting it.

VIII. Sed nunc Chaldaeorum ratio breviter tractanda est, explicandumque, cur septimo mense et nono et decimo tantum modo posse homines nasci arbitrentur. Ante omnia igitur dicunt actum vitamque nostram stellis tam vagis quam statis esse subiectam, earumque vario multiplicique cursu genus humanum gubernari, sed ipsarum motus schemataque et effectus a sole crebro inmutari.

VIII. But now the account of the Chaldaeans must be dealt with briefly, and it must be explained why they judge that men can be born only in the seventh, ninth, and tenth month. Above all, therefore, they say that our deeds and life are subjected to the stars, both wandering and fixed, and that the human race is governed by their varied and manifold course, but that their motions, schemata, and effects are often altered by the sun.

Nam ut aliae occasum, nonnullae stationem faciant nosque omnis hac sua disparili temperatura adficiant, solis fieri potentia. Itaque eum, qui stellas ipsas, quibus movemur, permovet, animam nobis dare, qua regamur, potentissimumque in nos esse moderarique, quando post conceptionem veniamus in lucem; sed hoc per tres facere conspectus. Quid autem sit conspectus et quot eius genera, ut liquido perspici possit, pauca praedicam.

For as some bring about setting, others a standing, and all of us they affect by their unequal temperament, so too is it the power of the sun. Therefore he who stirs and moves even the very stars by which we are moved, who gives us the animus by which we are governed, is the most potent in us and rules and moderates us when we come into light after conception; but he does this by three aspects. What an aspect is, and how many kinds of it there are, that it may be clearly perceived, I will say briefly.

Circulus est, ut ferunt, signifer, quem Graeci vocant zodiacon, in quo sol et luna ceteraeque stellae vagae feruntur. Hic in duodecim partes totidem signis redditas aequabiliter divisus est. Eum sol annuo spatio metitur: ita in unoquoque signo ferme unum mensem moratur.

There is a circle, as they say, a sign-bearing band, which the Greeks call zodiacon, in which the sun and moon and the other wandering stars are borne. This is evenly divided into twelve parts, made manifest by as many signs. The sun measures it through the annual span: thus in each sign he sojourns for about one month.

Sed signum quodlibet cum ceteris singulis habet mutuum conspectum, non tamen uniformem cum omnibus: nam validiores alii, infirmiores alii habentur. Igitur quo tempore partus concipitur, sol in aliquo signo sit necesse, et in aliqua eius particula, quem locum conceptionis proprie appellant. Sunt autem hae particulae in unoquoque signo tricenae, totius vero zodiaci numero CCCLX.

But each sign has a mutual aspect with every other individually, not however uniform with all: for some are regarded stronger, others weaker. Therefore at the time when a birth is conceived, the Sun must be in some sign, and in some part of that sign, which they properly call the place of conception. Now these parts in each sign are thirty, and of the whole zodiac their number is 360.

Has Graeci moeras cognominarunt, eo videlicet, quod deas fatales nuncupant Moeras, et eae particulae nobis velut fata sunt, nam qua potissimum oriente nascamur plurimum refert. Sol ergo cum in proximum signum transcendit, locum illum conceptionis aut inbecillo videt conspectu aut etiam nec conspicit: nam plures proximantia sibimet zodia invicem se videre omnino negaverunt; at cum in tertio est signo, hoc est uno medio interposito, tunc primum illum locum, unde profectus est, videre dicitur, sed valde obliquo et invalido lumine; qui conspectus vocatur kata` eJxavgwnon, quia sextam partem circuli subtendit. Nam si, ut a primo zodio ad tertium, sic a tertio ad quintum, inde porro ad septimum ac deinceps alternae lineae emittantur, hexagoni aequilateralis forma in eodem circulo scriberetur.

The Greeks gave them the surname Moeras, namely because they call the goddesses of fate Moerae, and those particles are to us as it were fates, for it is of greatest consequence in what degree we are born. Therefore when the sun passes into the next sign, it sees that place of conception either with a feeble sight or not at all: for many signs neighboring one another have wholly denied seeing one another; but when it is in the third sign, that is with one intervening between, then first it is said to see that place from which it set out, yet with a very oblique and weak light; that sight is called kata` eJxavgwnon, because it subtends a sixth part of the circle. For if, as from the first sign to the third, so from the third to the fifth, thence to the seventh and so on alternate lines were drawn, an equilateral hexagon would be inscribed in the same circle.

Hunc quidam conspectum non usquequaque receperunt, quod minimum ad maturitatem partus videbatur conferre; cum vero in quartum signum pervenit et media duo sunt, videt kata` tetravgwnon, quoniam linea illa, qua visus pertendit, quartam partem orbis abscidit. Cum in quinto autem est tribus interiacentibus mediis, kata` trivgwnon aspicit, nam tertiam signiferi partem visus ille metitur. Quae duae visiones tetragoni et trigoni perquam efficaces incrementum partus multum adminiculant.

Some have not always received this sight, because it seemed to contribute little to the maturity of the birth; but when the Sun reaches the fourth sign and there are two signs intervening, he sees kata` tetravgwnon, for that line along which the gaze is extended cuts off a fourth part of the circle. And when he is in the fifth, with three intervening signs between, he beholds kata` trivgwnon, for that sight measures a third part of the zodiac. These two visions, the tetragon and the trigon, are exceedingly effective aids in greatly promoting the growth of the birth.

Ceterum a loco sexto conspectus omni caret efficientia: eius enim linea nullius polygoni efficit laatus; at a septimo zodio, quod est contrarium, plenissimus potentissimusque conspectus quosdam iam maturos infantes educit, qui septemmestres appellantur, quia septimo mense nascuntur. At si intra hoc spatium maturescere uterus non potuerit, octavo mense non editur—ab octavo enim signo, ut a sexto, inefficax visus—sed vel nono mense vel decimo: sol enim a nono zodio particulam conceptionis rursum conspicit kata` trivgwnon et a decimo kata` tetravgwnon, qui conspectus, ut supra iam dictum est, perquam sunt efficaces. Ceterum undecimo non putant nasci, quia languido iam radio infirmum lumen kata` eJxavgwnon mittatur; multo minus duodecimo, unde conspectus pro nullo habetur.

Moreover, from the 6th place the sight utterly lacks efficacy: for its line produces the side of no polygon; but from the 7th sign, which is opposite, a fullest and most potent sight brings forth some already mature infants, who are called septem-months, because they are born in the 7th month. But if the womb cannot mature within that span, the child is not born in the 8th month—for from the 8th sign, as from the 6th, the sight is ineffectual—but rather in the 9th or 10th month: for the sun in the 9th sign again beholds the particle of conception kata` trivgwnon and in the 10th kata` tetravgwnon, those sights, as has been said above, being very effective. Moreover they do not think births occur in the 11th, because by then a weak ray casts a feeble light kata` eJxavgwnon; much less in the 12th, whence the sight is held as nothing.

Itaque secundum hanc rationem eJptavmhnoi nascuntur kata` diavmetron, ejnneavmhvnoi autem kata` trivgwnon, dekavmhnoi vero kata` tetravgwnon.

Thus, according to this reasoning, seven-month infants are born per the diameter, nine-month infants per the triangle, and ten-month infants per the square.

IX. Hac Chaldaeorum sententia explicata transeo ad opinionem Pythagoricam Varroni tractatam in libro, qui vocatur "Tubero" et intus subscribitur "de origine humana"; quae quidem ratio praecipue recipienda ad veritatem proxime videtur accedere. Alii enim plerique, cum omnes partus non uno tempore fiant maturi, una tamen eademque tempora omnibus conformandis dederunt; ut Diogenes Apolloniates, qui masculis corpus ait quattuor mensibus formari et feminis quinque, vel Hippon, qui diebus LX infantem scribit formari, et quarto mense carnem fieri concretam, quinto ungues capillumve nasci, septimo iam hominem esse perfectum; Pythagoras autem, quod erat credibilius, dixit partus esse genera duo: alterum septem mensum, alterum decem, sed priorem aliis dierum numeris conformari, aliis posteriorem. Eos vero numeros, qui in uno quoque partu aliquid adferunt mutationis, dum aut semen in sanguinem aut sanguis in carnem aut caro in hominis figuram convertitur, inter se conlatos rationem habere eam, quam voces habent, quae in musice suvmfwnoi vocantur.

IX. Having expounded this opinion of the Chaldaeans I pass to the Pythagorean opinion of Varro treated in the book called "Tubero" and inscribed within "On the Origin of Man"; which account indeed seems especially to be received as approaching most nearly to the truth. For many others, since not all births come to maturity at the same time, nevertheless assigned one and the same times for all to be formed; as Diogenes Apolloniates, who says that the body in males is formed in four months and in females in five, or Hippon, who writes that an infant is formed in 60 days, and in the fourth month the flesh becomes congealed, in the fifth the nails or hair are born, in the seventh already a man is perfect; Pythagoras, however, which was more credible, said that births are of two kinds: one of seven months, the other of ten, yet the former is conformed to some numbers of days, the latter to others. Those numbers, moreover, which in each birth bring about some change, while either seed is turned into blood or blood into flesh or flesh into the figure of a man, when compared among themselves have the same ratio that the voices have which in music are called symphōnoi (consonances).

X. Sed haec quo sint intellectu apertiora, prius aliqua de musicae regulis huic loco necessaria dicentur, eo quidem magis, quod ea dicam, quae ipsis musicis ignota sunt. Nam sonos scienter tractavere et congruenter ordinem reddidere illorum, ipsis autem sonis motuum modum mensuramque invenere geometrae magis quam musici. Igitur musica est scientia bene modulandi; haec autem est in voce, sed vox alias gravior mittitur, alias acutior.

X. But that these things may be more manifest to understanding, first some matters about the rules of music necessary to this place will be spoken, all the more because I shall say things which are unknown even to the musicians themselves. For those who have handled sounds intelligently rendered a fitting order of them, but the measure and mode of the motions of those very sounds were found by geometers rather than by musicians. Therefore music is the science of well modulating; and this is in the voice, but the voice at times is sent more grave, at other times more acute.

Singulae tamen voces simplices et utcumque emissae fqovggoi vocantur; discrimen vero, quo alter fqovggoV acutior est, alter gravior, appellatur diavsthma. Inter infimam summamque vocem multa esse possunt in ordine positaque diastemata alia aliis maiora minorave, ut est illud, quod tonon appellant, vel hoc minus hemitonion, vel duorum triumve ac deinceps aliquot tonorum intervallum. Sed non promisce voces omnes cum aliis ut libet iunctae concordabiles in cantu reddunt effectus: ut litterae nostrae, si inter se passim iungantur et non congruenter, saepe nec verbis nec syllabis copulandis concordabunt, sic in musica quaedam certa sunt intervalla, quae symphonias possint efficere.

Individual voices, however, simple and however emitted, are called fqovggoi; the distinction by which one fqovggoV is sharper, another deeper, is called diavsthma. Between the lowest and the highest voice many diastemata placed in order can be, some greater, some smaller than others, as for example that which they call tonon, or the lesser hemitonion, or the interval of two or three and thereafter several tones. But not all voices, promiscuously joined with others as one wishes, render concordant effects in song: just as our letters, if joined here and there among themselves and not suitably, will often fail to agree in composing words or syllables, so in music certain intervals are fixed which can produce symphonies.

Est autem symphonia duarum vocum disparium inter se iunctarum dulcis concentus. Symphoniae simplices ac primae sunt tres, quibus reliquae constant: una duum tonorum et hemitonni habens diavsthma, quae vocatur dia tessaron, alia trium et hemitonii, quam vocant dia pente; tertia est dia pason, cuius diastema continet duas priores. Est enim vel sex tonorum, ut Aristoxenus musicique adseverant, vel quinque et duorum hemitoniorum, ut Pythagoras geometraeque, demonstrantes II hemitonia tonum conplere non posse; quare etiam huius modi intervallum Plato abusive hemitonion, proprie autem dialeimma appellat.

A symphonia, moreover, is a sweet concord of two dissimilar voices joined together. Simple and primary symphonies are three, of which the others consist: one having a diastema of two tones and a hemitonion, which is called dia tessaron; another of three tones and a hemitonion, which they call dia pente; the third is dia pason, whose diastema contains the two foregoing. For it is either of six tones, as Aristoxenus and the musicians affirmed, or of five tones and two hemitonia, as Pythagoras and the geometers maintained, demonstrating that 2 hemitonia cannot complete a tone; wherefore Plato likewise calls an interval of this sort abusively hemitonion, properly however dialeimma.

Nunc vero, ut liquido appareat, quem ad modum voces nec sub oculos nec sub tactum cadentes habere possint mensuras, admirabile Pythagorae referam commentum, qui secreta naturae reserando repperit phthongos musicorum convenire ad rationem numerorum. Nam chordas aeque crassas parique longitudine diversis ponderibus tetendit, quibus saepe pulsis nec phthongis ad ullam symphonian concordantibus pondera mutabat, et identidiem frequenter expertus postremo deprehendit tunc duas chordas concinere id quod est dia tessaron, cum earum pondera inter se collata rationem haberent, quam tria ad quattuor, quem phthongon arithmetici Graeci epitriton vocant, Latini supertertium. At eam symphonian, quae dia pente dicitur, ibi invenit, ubi ponderum discrimen in sescupla erat portione, quam duo faciunt ad tria conlata, quod hemiolion appellant.

Now therefore, that it may plainly appear in what manner voices, falling under neither the eyes nor the touch, can have measures, I will relate the admirable contrivance of Pythagoras, who by unclosing the secrets of nature discovered that the phthongoi of musicians conform to the ratio of numbers. For he stretched strings equally thick and of equal length with different weights, and often, when struck, and when the phthongoi did not together yield any symphonia, he altered the weights; and having frequently tested identity he at last perceived that then two strings sounded together what is called dia tessaron, when their weights compared with one another had the ratio which three to four, which the Greek arithmeticians call epitriton, the Latins supertertium. But he found that symphonia called dia pente where the difference of the weights was in the sesquialter portion, which two make to three when compared, which they call hemiolion.

Cum autem altera chorda duplo maiore pondere quam altera tenderetur et esset diplasion logus, dia pason sonabat. Hoc et in tibiis si conveniret temptavit, nec aliud invenit. Nam quattuor tibias pari cavo paravit, inpares longitudine: primam verbi causa longam digitos sex, secundam tertia parte addita, id est digitorum VIII, tertiam digitorum VIIII, sescuplo longiorem quam primam, quartam vero XII digitorum, quae primam longitudine duplicaret.

But when one string was stretched with a weight twice that of the other, and the ratio was diplasion logus, the dia pason sounded. He tried whether this would likewise agree in pipes, and found nothing else. For he made four pipes of the same bore and equal in thickness but unequal in length: the first, for example, long six fingers; the second, with a third part added, that is 8 fingers; the third, 9 fingers, one and a half times as long as the first; and the fourth 12 fingers, which would double the length of the first.

His itaque inflatis et binarum facta conlocatione omnium musicorum auribus adprobavit primam et secundam reddere eam convenientiam, quam reddit dia tessaron symphonia, ibique esse portionem supertertiam; inter primam vero ac tertiam tibiam, ubi sescupla portio est, resonare dia pente; primae autem quartaeque intervallum, quod habet duplam portionem, diastema facere dia pason. Sed inter tibiarum chordarumque naturam hoc interest, quod tibiae incremento longitudinis fiunt graviores, chordae autem augmento additi ponderis acutiores: utrubique tamen eadem portio est.

Therefore, with these blown and by the pairing of two arranged, he approved to the ears of all musicians that the first and the second render that concord which the dia tessaron symphonia renders, and there to be the supertertium portion; between the first and the third pipe, where the sescupla portion is, to sound the dia pente; but the interval of the first and the fourth, which has a double portion, to make the dia pason. Yet between the nature of the pipes and of the chords this difference is found: the pipes, by an increase of length, become heavier, whereas the chords, by the addition of weight, become sharper; nevertheless in both the same portion is present.

XI. His expositis forsitan quidem obscure, sed quam potui lucidissime, redeo ad propositum, ut doceam, quid Pythagoras de numero dierum ad partus pertinentium senserit. Primum, ut supra memoravi generaliter, duos esse partus omnino dixit: alterum minorem, quem vocant septemmestrem, qui decimetducentesimo die post conceptionem exeat ab utero, alterum maiorem decemmestrem, qui edatur die ducentesimo septuagesimo quarto. Quorum prior ac minor senario maxime continetur numero; nam quod ex semine conceptum est, sex, ut ait, primis diebus umor est lacteus, deinde proximis octo sanguineus: qui octo cum ad primos sex accesserunt, faciunt primam symphonian dia tessaron.

11. Having set forth these things, perhaps obscurely indeed but as clearly as I could, I return to the proposed matter, to teach what Pythagoras thought concerning the number of days pertaining to births. First, as I mentioned above in general, he said there are two births altogether: one smaller, which they call the septemmester, which comes forth from the womb on the 140th day after conception, the other greater, the decemmester, which is born on the 274th day. The former and lesser is contained chiefly in the number six; for that which is conceived from seed, he says, for the first days is a milky humour, then for the next eight a sanguineous one: those eight, when they have joined to the first six, make the first symphonia dia tessaron.

Tertio gradu novem dies accedunt iam carnem facientes: hi cum sex illis primis collati sescuplam faciunt rationem et secundam symphonian dia pente. Tum deinceps sequentibus duodecim diebus fit corpus iam formatum; horum quoque ad eosdem sex collatio tertiam dia pason reddit symphonian duplici rationi subiectam. Hi quattuor numeri VI, VIII, VIIII, XII coniuncti faciunt dies XXXV.

Thirdly, to the degree nine days are added now, making flesh: these, when compared with the first six, make a sescupla ratio and render the second symphony, dia pente. Then, subsequently, in the following twelve days a body is already formed; the comparison of these likewise to those same six returns the third symphony, dia pason, subjected to a double ratio. These four numbers 6, 8, 9, 12 joined make 35 days.

Nec inmerito senarius fundamentum gignendi est: nam eum tevlion Graeci, nos autem perfectum vocamus, quod eius partes tres: sexta et tertia et dimidia, id est unus et duo et tres, eundem ipsum perficiunt. Sed ut initia seminis et lacteum illud conceptionis fundamentum primitus hoc numero absolvitur, sic hoc initium formati hominis et velut alterum maturescendi fundamentum, quod est quinque et triginta dierum, sexies ductum, cum ad diem ducentesimum decimum pervenit, maturum procreatur. Alter autem ille partus, qui maior est, maiori numero continetur, septenario scilicet, quo tota vita humana finitur, ut et Solon scribit et Iudaei in dierum omnium numeris secuntur Etruscorumque libri rituales videntur indicare.

Not without reason the sixfold number is the foundation of begetting: for the Greeks call it tevlion, and we call it perfect, because its three parts — the sixth, the third, and the half, that is, one and two and three — complete the same whole. But just as the beginnings of the seed and that milky foundation of conception at first are fulfilled by this number, so this beginning of the formed man and, as it were, the second foundation of ripening, which is thirty‑five days, being taken six times, when it reaches the 210th day, is procreated mature. The other birth, however, which is the greater, is contained by a greater number, namely the sevenfold, by which the whole human life is ended, as Solon writes and the Jews follow in the numbers of all their days, and the ritual books of the Etruscans also seem to indicate.

Hippocrates quoque aliique medici in corporum valitudinibus non aliud ostendunt: nam septimum quemque diem crisimon observant. Itaque ut alterius partus origo in sex est diebus, post quos semen in sanguinem vertitur, ita huius in septem; et ut ibi quinque et triginta diebus infans membratur, ita hic pro portione diebus fere quadraginta; quare in Graecia dies habent quadragensimos insignes. Namque praegnans ante diem quadragensimum non prodit in fanum, et post partum quadraginta diebus pleraeque fetae graviores sunt nec sanguinem interdum continent, et parvoli ferme per hos fere morbidi sine risu nec sine periculo sunt.

Hippocrates likewise and other medici in the valitudes of bodies show nothing different: for they observe every seventh day as the crisis. Thus, just as the origin of the other birth is in six days, after which the seed is turned into blood, so in this case it is in seven; and just as there in thirty‑five days the infant is limbed, so here in proportion it is about forty days; therefore in Graecia they mark the forty notable days. For a woman pregnant who gives birth before the fortieth day does not come forth into the fanum, and after birth for forty days most foetuses are heavier and sometimes do not retain their blood, and the little ones are generally through these days sickly, without cry and not without danger.

Ob quam causam, cum is dies praeteriit, diem festum solent agitare, quod tempus appellant tesserakosthvn. Hi igitur dies quadraginta per septem illos initiales multiplicati fiunt dies ducenti octoginta, id est hebdomadae quadraginta; sed quoniam ultimae illius hebdomadis primo die editur partus, sex dies decedunt et ducentesimus septuagensimus quartus observatur; qui numerus dierum ad tetragonum illum Chaldaeorum conspectum subtiliter congruit: nam cum signiferum orbem diebus CCCLXV et aliquot horis sol circumeat, quarta necesse est parte dempta, id est diebus LXXXXI aliquotque horis, tres quadras reliquis diebus CCLXXIIII non plenis percurrat, usque dum perveniat ad id loci, unde conceptionis initium quadratus aspiciat. Unde autem mens humana dies istos commutationis speculari et arcana naturae rimari potuerit, nemo miretur.

For which reason, when that day has passed, they are wont to keep a festival day, which time they call tesserakosthvn. These days, therefore, forty multiplied by those seven initial ones become 280 days, that is, forty weeks; but because the birth is brought forth on the first day of that final week, six days fall away and the 274th day is observed; this number of days subtly agrees with that tetragon of the Chaldaeans’ view: for since the sign-bearing orb is circled by the sun in 365 days and some hours, when a fourth part is taken away, that is, in 91 days and some hours, three quarters in the remaining 274 days do not run their course fully, until it comes to that place of the sky whence the square looks upon the beginning of conception. Whence if the human mind could behold and probe these days of change and the mysteries of nature, let no one marvel.

Haec enim frequens medicorum experientia pervidit, qui cum multas animadverterent semen non retinere conceptum, conpertum habuerunt id, quod intra sex dies septemve eiciebatur, esse lacteum, et vocaverunt e[krusin, quod postea autem sanguineum, idque ejktrwsmovV appellatur. Quod vero ambo partus videntur paribus dierum numeris contineri, Pythagoras inparem laudat, tamen a secta non discrepat: duo enim inpares CCVIIII et CCLXXIII dicit expleri, ad quorum consummationem aliquid ex sequentibus accedere, quod tamen diem solidum non adferat; cuius exemplum videmus tam in anni quam mensis spatio servasse naturam, cum et anni inparem dierum trecentorum sexaginta quinque numerum aliquanto cumulaverit et mensi lunari ad dies undetriginta aliquid addiderit.

For this frequent experience of physicians has thoroughly observed: when they noticed many conceptions did not retain the semen, they found that that which was expelled within six or seven days was milky, and they called it ekrusin; but that which afterwards was sanguineous they call ektrōsmon. Now although both kinds of births seem to be contained within equal numbers of days, Pythagoras praises the odd (number), yet he does not differ from the school: for he says two odd numbers, 209 and 273, are completed, to whose consummation something from the subsequent (cycles) attaches, which nevertheless does not bring a whole day; an example of which we see nature preserving both in the span of the year and of the month, since the odd number of the year, 365 days, has accumulated somewhat and has added something to the lunar month beyond the 31 days.

XII. Nec vero incredibile est ad nostros natales musicam pertinere. Haec enim sive in voce tantum modo est, ut Socrates ait, sive, ut Aristoxenus, in voce et corporis motu, sive in his et praeterea in animi motu, ut putat Theophrastus, certe multum obtinet divinitatis et animis permovendis plurimum valet.

12. Nor indeed is it incredible that music pertains to our natal days. For this thing, whether it is only in the voice, as Socrates says, or, as Aristoxenus, in voice and the body's motion, or in these and moreover in the motion of the soul, as Theophrastus thinks, certainly it possesses much of divinity and is of the greatest efficacy in moving souls.

Nam nisi grata esset deis inmortalibus, qui ex anima constant divina, profecto ludi scenici placandorum deorum causa instituti non essent, nec tibicen omnibus supplicationibus in sacris aedibus adhiberetur, non cum tibicine Marti triumphus ageretur, non Apollini cithara, non Musis tibiae ceteraque id genus essent adtributa, non tibicinibus, per quos numina placantur, esset permissum aut ludos publice facere ac vesci in Capitolio, aut Quinquatribus minusculis, id est idibus Juniis urbem vestitu, quo vellent, personatis temulentisque pervagari. Hominum quoque mentes et ipsae, quamvis Epicuro reclamante, divinae suam naturam per cantus agnoscunt. Denique quo facilius sufferant laborem, vel in navis meatu a rectore sumphonia adhibetur; legionibus quoque in acie dimicantibus etiam metus mortis classico depellitur.

For if they were not pleasing to the immortal gods, who dwell in the divine within the soul, certainly the scenic games would not have been instituted for the sake of placating the gods; nor would a tibicen be employed in all supplications within sacred temples, nor would triumphs be celebrated with a tibicen for Mars, nor a cithara for Apollo, nor pipes and the like be attributed to the Muses; nor would it have been permitted for the tibicines, through whom the numina are appeased, either to hold public games and banquet on the Capitol, or to range the city in whatever dress they wished at the Quinquatrus minor — that is, the Ides of June — loudly personating and drunken. The minds of men themselves also recognize their divine nature through songs, however Epicurus may object. Finally, that they may more easily endure toil, a symphony leader is used to keep rhythm on shipboard; and among legions fighting in battle even the trumpet drives away the fear of death.

Ob quam rem Pythagoras, ut animum sua semper divinitate imbueret, priusquam se somno daret et cum esset expergitus, cithara, ut ferunt, cantare consueverat, et Asclepiades medicus phreneticorum mentes morbo turbatas saepe per symphonian suae naturae reddidit. Herophilus autem, artis eiusdem professor, venarum pulsus rhythmis musicis ait moveri. Itaque si et in corporis et in animi motu est harmonia, procul dubio a natalibus nostris musica non est aliena.

For which reason Pythagoras, that he might always imbue his mind with his divinity, used, so they say, to sing on the lyre both before he gave himself to sleep and when he was awakened; and Asclepiades the physician often restored the minds of the phrenetic, disturbed by disease, through a symphony suited to their nature. Herophilus, however, a teacher of the same art, says that the pulses of the veins are stirred by musical rhythms. Therefore, if there is harmony in both the motion of the body and of the mind, without doubt music is not alien to our births.

XIII. Ad haec accedit quod Pythagoras prodidit hunc totum mundum musica factum ratione, septemque stellas inter caelum et terram vagas, quae mortalium geneses moderantur, motum habere enrythmon et intervalla musicis diastematis congrua, sonitusque varios reddere pro sua quaeque altitudine ita concordes, ut dulcissimam quidem concinant melodian, sed nobis inaudibilem propter vocis magnitudinem, quam capere aurium nostrarum angustiae non possint. Nam ut Eratosthenes geometrica ratione collegit maximum terrae circuitum esse stadiorum ducentum quinquaginta duum milium, ita Pythagoras, quot stadia inter terram et singulas stellas essent, indicavit.

13. To this is added what Pythagoras handed down: that this whole world was made by music, and that the seven wandering stars between heaven and earth, which govern the generation of mortals, have an enrythmon motion and intervals fitting the musical diastema, and render various sonorous tones according to their several altitudes so concordant that they together make a most sweet melodian, yet inaudible to us because of the magnitude of their voices which the narrowness of our ears cannot grasp. For just as Eratosthenes by geometric reason collected that the greatest circumference of the earth is 252,000 stadia, so Pythagoras indicated how many stadia there are between the earth and each star.

Stadium autem in hac mundi mensura id potissimum intellegendum est, quod Italicum vocant, pedum sescentum viginti quinque; nam sunt praeterea et alia longitudine discrepantia, ut Olympicum, quod est pedum sescentum, item Pythicum pedum M. Igitur ab terra ad lunam Pythagoras putavit esse stadiorum circiter centum viginti sex milia, idque esse toni intervallum; a luna autem ad Mercuri stellam, quae stilbon vocatur, dimidium eius, velut hemitonion; hinc ad phosphoron, quae est Veneris stella, fere tantundem, hoc est aliud hemitonion; inde porro ad solem ter tantum, quasi tonum et dimidium; itaque solis astrum abesse a terra tonos tres et dimidium, quod vocatur dia pente, a luna autem duos et dimidium, quod est dia tessaron. A sole vero ad stellam Martis, cui nomen est pyrois, tantumdem intervalli esse, quantum a terra ad lunam, idque facere tonon; hinc ad Jovis stellam, quae phaethon appellatur, dimidium eius, quod faciat hemitonion; tantundem a Jove ad Saturni stellam, cui phaenon nomen est, id est aliud hemitonion; inde ad summum caelum, ubi signa sunt, perinde hemitonion. Itaque a caelo summo ad solem diastema esse dia tessaron, id est duorum tonorum et dimidi, ad terrae autem summitatem ab eodem caelo tonos esse sex, in quibus sit dia pason symphonia.

In this measure of the world the stadium is to be understood above all as that which they call the Italian, of 625 feet; for there are also other differing lengths, as the Olympic, which is 600 feet, likewise the Pythic of 1000 feet. Therefore Pythagoras thought that from the earth to the moon there were about 126,000 stadia, and that this made an interval of a tone; from the moon to the star Mercury, called stilbon, half of that, as a hemitonion; from there to Phosphorus, which is Venus’ star, almost the same amount, that is another hemitonion; thence to the sun three times as much, as if a tone and a half; so that the sun’s star is removed from the earth by three and a half tones, which is called dia pente, and the moon by two and a half, which is dia tessaron. From the sun to the star of Mars, named pyrois, is the same interval as from the earth to the moon, and that makes a tone; from here to Jupiter’s star, which is called phaethon, half of that, making a hemitonion; as much again from Jupiter to Saturn’s star, called phaenon, that is another hemitonion; thence to the highest heaven, where the signs are, likewise a hemitonion. Thus from the highest heaven to the sun the diastema is dia tessaron, that is two tones and a half; and from the same heaven to the summit of the earth there are six tones, in which is the dia pason symphonia.

Praeterea multa, quae musici tractant, ad alias rettulit stellas et hunc omnem mundum enarmonion esse ostendit; quare Dorylaus scripsit esse mundum organum dei; alii addiderunt esse id eJptavcordon, quia septem sint vagae stellae, quae plurimum moveantur. Sed his omnibus subtiliter tractandis hic locus non est; quae si vellem in unum librum separatim congerere, tamen in angustiis versarer. Quin potius, quoniam me longius dulcedo musicae abduxit, ad propositum revertor.

Moreover many things that musicians treat he ascribed to the other stars and showed this whole world to be enarmion; wherefore Dorylaus wrote that the world is the organ of God; others added that it is the heptachordon, because there are seven wandering stars which move most. But this is not the place to handle all these matters subtly; and if I wished to gather them separately into one book, yet I would be entangled in straits. Nay rather, since the sweetness of music has drawn me too far afield, I return to my intended purpose.

XIV. Igitur expositis iis, quae ante diem natalem sunt, nunc ut climactericoe anni noscantur, quid de gradibus aetatis humanae sensum sit, dicam. Varro quinque gradus aetatis aequabiliter putat esse divisos, unumquemque scilicet praeter extremum in annos XV. Itaque primo gradu usque annum XV pueros dictos, quod sint puri, id est inpubes.

14. Therefore, those things which are before the natal day having been set forth, I will now say, so that they may be known as climacteric years, what is meant about the degrees of human age. Varro thinks five degrees of age are equally divided, each, that is to say except the last, into 15 years. Thus in the first degree up to the 15th year they are called boys, because they are pure, that is, not yet pubescent.

Secundo ad tricensimum annum adulescentes, ab alescendo sic nominatos. In tertio gradu qui erant usque quinque et quadraginta annos, iuvenis annos appellatos eo quod rem publicam in re militari possent iuvare. In quarto autem adusque sexagensimum annum seniores vocitatos, quod tunc primum senescere corpus inciperet.

Secondly, to the 30th year those called adulescentes, so named from alescendo. In the third grade, which was up to 45 years, those called iuvenes (young men), so named because they could aid the republic in military affairs. In the fourth, however, up to the 60th year those called seniores, because then the body first begins to grow old.

Inde usque finem vitae uniuscuiusque quintum gradum factum, in quo qui essent, senes appellatos, quod ea aetate corpus iam senio laboraret. Hippocrates medicus in septem gradus aetates distribuit. Finem primae putavit esse septimum annum, secundae quartum decimum, tertiae duodetricensimum, quartae tricensimum quintum, quintae duoetquadragensimum, sextae quinquagensimum sextum, septimae novissimum annum vitae humanae.

Thence to the end of each life he makes a fifth stage, in which those were called senes, because at that age the body already labors under old age. Hippocrates the physician divides the ages into seven stages. He thought the end of the first to be the 7th year, of the second the 14th, of the third the 23rd, of the fourth the 35th, of the fifth the 42nd, of the sixth the 56th, and of the seventh the last year of human life.

Solon autem decem partes fecit, et Hippocratis gradum tertium et sextum et septimum singulos bifariam divisit, ut unaquaeque aetas annos haberet septenos. Staseas peripateticus ad has Solonis decem hebdomadas addidit duas, et spatium plenae vitae quattuor et octoginta annorum esse dixit; quem terminum si quis praeterit, facere idem quod stadiodromoe ac quadrigae faciunt, cum extra finem procurrunt. Etruscis quoque libris fatalibus aetatem hominis duodecim hebdomadibus discribi Varro commemorat; quae dum annos habent quattuor et octoginta, tamen homines aetatem suam ad decies septenos annos posse fatalia deprecando rebus divinis proferre, ab anno autem LXX nec postulari debere nec posse ab deis impetrari; ceterum post annos LXXXIIII a mente sua homines abire, neque his fieri prodigia.

Solon, moreover, made ten parts, and Hippocrates divided the third, the sixth, and the seventh stage each in two, so that each age would have seven years. Staseas the Peripatetic added to these ten weeks of Solon two, and said that the span of a full life is 84 years; whoever passes that limit does the same as the stadion-runner and the quadriga do, when they run beyond the finish. Varro recalls in the Etruscan fatal books that the life of man is divided into twelve weeks; which, although they contain 84 years, nevertheless men by supplicating the fatal things of the gods can prolong their life to ten seven-year periods (70 years); but beyond the year 70 it ought not to be demanded nor can it be obtained from the gods; moreover after 84 years men depart from their mind, and prodigies do not occur in them.

Sed ex eis omnibus proxime videntur adcessisse naturam, qui hebdomadibus humanam vitam emensi sunt. Fere enim post septimum quemque annum articulos quosdam et in his aliquid novi natura ostendit, ut et in elegia Solonis cognoscere datur. Ait enim in prima hebdomade dentes homini cadere, in secunda pubem apparere, in tertia barbam nasci, in quarta vires, in quinta maturitatem ad stirpem reliquendam, in sexta cupiditatibus temperari, in septima prudentiam linguamque consummari, in octava eadem manere—in qua alii dixerunt oculos albescere—in nona omnia fieri languidiora, in decima hominem morti fieri maturum.

But of all these those seem to have most nearly approached nature who measured human life by hebdomads. For almost after each seventh year nature shows certain joints and in these something new, as is also allowed to be known from Solon’s elegy. For he says: in the first hebdomad the teeth fall from a man, in the second pubescence appears, in the third a beard is born, in the fourth strength, in the fifth maturity for leaving offspring, in the sixth to be restrained by desires, in the seventh prudence and the tongue are perfected, in the eighth to remain the same—in which some have said the eyes grow white—in the ninth all things become more languid, in the tenth a man becomes ripe for death.

*** tamen in secunda hebdomade vel incipiente tertia vocem crassiorem et inaequabilem fieri, quod Aristoteles appellat tragizin, antiqui nostri irquitallire, et ipsos inde putant irquitallos appellari, quod tu corpus ircum olere incipiat. De tertia autem aetate adulescentulorum tres gradus esse factos in Graecia priusquam ad viros perveniatur, quod vocent annorum XIIII pai'da, mellevfhbon autem XV, dein sedecim e[fhbon, tunc septemdecim ejxevfhbon. Praeterea multa sunt de his hebdomadibus, quae medici ac philosophi libris mandaverunt, unde apparet, ut in morbis dies septimi suspecti sunt et crisimoe dicuntur, ita per omnem vitam septimum quemque annum periculosum et velut crisimon esse et climactericum vocitari; sed ex his genethliaci alios aliis difficiliores esse dixerunt, et nonnulli eos potissimum, quos ternae hebdomades conficiunt, putant observandos, hoc est unum et vicensimum, et quadragensimum secundum, dein tertium et sexagensimum, postremum octogensimum et quartum, in quo Staseas terminum vitae defixit.

*** yet in the second hebdomad or at the beginning of the third the voice becomes coarser and unequal, which Aristotle calls tragizin, our ancients irquitallire, and they even think that the irquitallos are so named because the body begins to smell of ircum. From the third age of youths there are said to have been made three grades in Greece before one reaches manhood, which they called paida at the age of 14, melleuphbon at 15, then sedecim ephēbon at 16, then septendecim exephēbon at 17. Moreover there are many things about these hebdomads which physicians and philosophers have committed to books, whence it appears, just as in diseases the seventh days are suspected and called crises, so through the whole life every seventh year is perilous and is called a crisis or climacteric; but among these the genethliacs said some years are harder than others, and some especially think those years to be observed which are completed by three hebdomads, that is the 21st, and the 42nd, then the 63rd, lastly the 84th, in which Staseas fixed the limit of life.

Alii autem non pauci unum omnium difficillimum climactera prodiderunt, anno scilicet undequinquagensimo, quem conplent anni septies septeni; ad quam opinionem plurimorum consensus inclinat: nam quadrati numeri potentissimi ducuntur. Denique Plato ille veniat, veteris philosophiae sanctissimus, qui quadrato numero annorum vitam humanam consummari putavit, sed novenario, qui conplet annos octoginta et unum. Fuerunt etiam qui utrumque reciperent numerum, undequinquagensimum et octogensimum unum, et minorem nocturnis genesibus, maiorem diurnis scriberent conpleri; plerique aliter moti duos istos numeros subtiliter dicreverunt, dicentes septenarium ad corpus, novenarium ad animum pertinere; hunc medicinae corporis et Apollini adtributum, illum Musis, quia morbos animi, quos appellant pathe, musice lenire ac sanare consueverit.

But quite a few others have proposed one climacteric most difficult of all, namely the forty-fifth year, which completes years seven times seven; the consensus of many leans toward this opinion: for square numbers are considered most potent. Finally let that Plato come, most holy of the old philosophy, who thought human life consummated by a square number of years, but by the novenary, which completes eighty-one years. There were also those who accepted both numbers, the forty-fifth and the eighty‑first, and wrote that the lesser is fulfilled by nocturnal births, the greater by diurnal; many, moved otherwise, subtly distinguished those two numbers, saying that the septenary pertains to the body, the novenary to the soul; the former is attributed to the medicine of the body and to Apollo, the latter to the Muses, because the maladies of the soul, which they call pathē, are wont to be soothed and healed by music.

Itaque primum climactera annum quadragensimum et nonum esse prodiderunt, ultimum autem octogensimum et unum; medium vero ex utroque permixtum anno tertio et sexagensimo, vel quem hebdomades novem vel septem enneades conficiunt. Hunc licet quidam periculosissimum dicant, quod ad corpus et ad animum pertineat, ego tamen ceteris duco infirmiorem. Nam utrumque quidem supra dictum continet numerum, sed neutrum quadratum, et ut est ab utroque non alienus, ita in neutro potens.

Therefore they first set forth the climacteric year to be the forty‑ninth, and the last the eighty‑first; the middle, however, of the two mixed, in the sixty‑third year, or that which nine hebdomads or seven enneads complete. Although some call this most perilous because it pertains both to body and mind, I nevertheless reckon it weaker than the others. For it indeed contains the number mentioned above in both respects, yet is neither a square number, and while it is not alien to either, it is powerful in neither.

Nec multos sane, quos vetustas claro nomine celebrat, hic annus absumpsit: Aristotelen Stagiriten reperio; sed hunc ferunt naturalem stomachi infirmitatem crebrasque morbidi corporis offensiones adeo virtute animi diu sustentasse, ut magis mirum sit ad annos LXIII eum vitam pertulisse, quam ultra non protulisse.

Not many, certainly, whom antiquity celebrates by a famous name, did this year consume: I find Aristotle the Stagirite; but they report that he, by the virtue of his spirit, long sustained the natural infirmity of his stomach and the frequent assaults of a morbific body, so that it is more marvelous that he bore life to 63 years than that he did not prolong it beyond.

XV. Quare, sanctissime Caerelli, cum istum annum, qui maxime fuerat corpori formidolosus, sine ullo incommodo transieris, ceteros, qui leviores sunt, climacteras minus tibi extimesco, praesertim cum in te animi potius, quam corporis, naturam sciam dominari, eosque viros, qui tales fuerunt, non prius vita excessisse, quam ad annum illum octogensimum et unum pervenerint, in quo Plato finem vitae et legitimum esse existimavit et habuit legitimum. Hoc anno et Dionysius Heracleotes, ut vita abiret, cibo abstinuit, et contra Diogenes cynicus cibi cruditate in choleram solutus est. Eratosthenes quoque ille orbis terrarum mensor et Xenocrates Platonicus veteris academiae princeps ad eundem annum vixerunt.

15. Therefore, most holy Caerellius, since you have passed that year, which had been most formidable for the body, without any harm, I dread the other climacterics less for you, especially since I know that the nature of your mind rather than of your body rules in you, and those men who were such did not leave life before they had come to that year eighty-one, in which Plato considered the end of life to be lawful and held it so. In that year Dionysius the Heracleote, that life might go, abstained from food, and conversely Diogenes the Cynic, undone by the rawness of food, was carried off by choler. Eratosthenes also, that measurer of the orb of the earth, and Xenocrates the Platonic prince of the old Academy, lived to the same year.

Non pauci etiam per animi spiritum molestiis corporis superatis limitem istum transgressi sunt, ut Carneades, a quo tertia academia est, quae dicitur nova, qui ad annum nonagensimum, vel Cleanthes, qui uno minus centum explevit. At Xenophanes Colophonius maior annorum centum fuit. Democritum quoque Abderiten et Isocraten rhetorem ferunt prope ad id aetatis pervenisse, quo Gorgian Leontinum, quem omnium veterum maxime senem fuisse et octo supra centum annos habuisse constat.

Not a few also, their bodily maladies overcome by the spirit of the mind, have passed beyond that limit, as Carneades, from whom is the third Academy called the New, who lived to the 90th year, or Cleanthes, who completed one less than a hundred. But Xenophanes of Colophon was older than 100 years. Democritus of Abdera and Isocrates the rhetor are reported to have nearly reached that age, to which Gorgias of Leontini — who is said to have been the oldest of all the ancients and to have lived 108 years — attained.

Quodsi cultoribus sapientiae sive per animi virtutem seu lege fati diutina obtigit vita, non despero, quin te quoque diu corpore adque animo valentem longior maneat senectus. Quem enim veterum nunc memoria suspicimus prudentia vel temperantia vel iustitia vel fortitudine tibi antestare dicimus? Quis eorum, si adesset, non in te omnium virtutum praedicationem conferret?

But if to cultivators of wisdom life, either by the virtue of the mind or by the law of fate, has fallen to long duration, I do not despair that a longer old age may remain for you also, strong both in body and in spirit. For whom of the ancients, in our memory, do we reckon to surpass you in prudence, or temperance, or justice, or fortitude? Which of them, if present, would not confer upon you the acclamation of all virtues?

Quis tuis laudibus se postponi erubesceret? Illud certe, ut arbitror, dignum est praedicatione, quod, cum illis ferme omnibus quamvis prudentissimis et procul a re publica amotis non contigerit sine offensione et odio plerumque capitali vitam degere, tu tamen officiis municipalibus functus, honore sacerdoti in principibus tuae civitatis conspicuus, ordinis etiam equestris dignitate gradum provincialium supergressus, non modo sine reprehensione et invidia semper fuisti, verum etiam omnium omnino amorem cum maxima gloria consecutus es. Quis a te nosci aut ex amplissimo senatus ordine non expetiit, aut ex humiliore plebis non optavit? Quis mortalium vel te vidit vel de tuo nomine accepit, quin et loco fratris germani diligat et vice parentis veneretur?

Who would blush to be set after your praises? That, certainly, I think, is worthy of proclamation: that, although with almost all those men, however most prudent and removed from public life, it did not happen to pass life without some offence and commonly mortal hatred, you nevertheless, having discharged municipal duties, conspicuous among the leading men of your city by the sacerdotal honour, and moreover having surpassed the provincial rank by the dignity of the equestrian order, were not only always free from reproach and envy, but even obtained the love of all with the greatest glory. Who, from the most ample order of the senate, did not seek to be known by you, or from the humbler plebs did not desire you? Who of mortals has either seen you or received news of your name, that would not both love you as a full brother and venerate you in the place of a parent?

Quis ignorat probitatem primam, fidem summam, benignitatem incredibilem, modestiam verecundiamque singularem ceteraque humanitatis officia penes te unum esse, et quidem maiora, quam possint digne a quoquam referri? Quare et ego his nunc commemorandis supersedebo. De eloquentia quoque sileo, quam omnia provinciarum nostrarum tribunalia, omnes praesides noverunt, quam denique urbs Roma et auditoria sacra mirata sunt.

Who does not know that probity first, supreme faith, incredible benignity, singular modesty and reverence, and the other duties of humanity reside in you alone, and indeed greater than can be worthily related by anyone? Wherefore I will desist from now recounting these things. Of eloquence also I am silent — which all the tribunals of our provinces, all the provincial governors have known, and which, finally, the city of Rome and the sacred auditoria admired.

Haec se et ad praesens et in futura saecula satis ipsa nobilitat.

These things themselves ennoble him sufficiently both for the present and for future ages.

XVI. Nunc vero quatenus de die natali scribo, meum munus inplere conabor, tempusque hodiernum, quo maxime flores, quam potero lucidissimis notis signabo; ex quo etiam primus ille tuus natalis liquido noscetur. Tempus autem non diem tantum modo vel mensem vel annum vertentem appello, sed et quod quidam lustrum aut annum magnum vocant, et quod saeculum nominant.

16. Now truly, insofar as I write about the natal day, I will endeavor to fulfill my duty, and I will mark the present time — in which the blooms are most abundant — with the clearest notes I can; from which also that first of your natal days will be plainly known. And by "time" I mean not only a day, or a turning month or year, but also what some call a lustrum or a great year, and what they name a saeculum.

Ceterum de aevo, quod est tempus unum et maximum, non multum est quod in praesentia dicatur. Est enim inmensum, sine origine, sine fine, quod eodem modo semper fuit et semper futurum est, neque ad quemquam hominum magis quam ad alterum pertinet. Hoc in tria dividitur tempora: praeteritum, praesens, futurum.

As for the aeon (aevo), which is one and the greatest time, there is not much to be said about it in the present. For it is immense, without origin, without end, which in the same way has always been and will always be, nor does it pertain to one person of men more than to another. This is divided into three times: the past, the present, the future.

E quibus praeteritum initio caret, exitu futurum; praesens autem, quod medium est, adeo exiguum et inconprehensibile est, ut nullam recipiat longitudinem, neque aliud esse videatur, quam transacti futurique coniunctio, adeo porro instabile, ut ibidem sit numquam, et, quidquid transcurrit, a futuro decerpit et adponit praeterito. Haec inter se tempora, ante actum dico et venturum, neque paria sunt, neque ita, ut alterum altero longius breviusve videatur: quidquid enim non habet finem, conlationem mensurae non recipit. Quapropter aevum neque annorum nec saeculorum numero nec denique ullo finiti temporis modulo metiri conabor: haec enim ad aetatem infinitam non sunt brumalis unius instar horae.

Of these, the past lacks a beginning, the future lacks an end; the present, however, which is the middle, is so scanty and incomprehensible that it receives no length, nor does it seem to be anything else than the junction of the past and the future, so moreover unstable that it is never really there, and whatever it lets pass tears from the future and appends to the past. These times among themselves — by which I mean the acted-before and the about-to-come — are not equal, nor is one seen as longer or shorter than the other: for whatever has no end admits no metric of comparison. Wherefore I will not attempt to measure aevum by the number of years or ages or, finally, by any finite measure of time: for these are, compared to infinite age, not even like the brief hour of winter.

Itaque ut saecula possim percurrere et hoc nostrum praesens designare, omissis aureis argenteisque et hoc genus poeticis, a conditu urbis Romae, patriae nostrae communis, exordiar, et quoniam saecula aut naturalia sunt aut civilia, prius de naturalibus dicam.

And so, that I may run through the saecula and mark this our present, laying aside the golden and silvery and that poetic sort of things, I will begin from the founding of the city of Rome, our common fatherland; and since saecula are either natural or civil, first I will speak of the natural.

XVII. Saeculum est spatium vitae humanae longissimum partu et morte definitum. Quare, qui annos triginta saeculum putarunt, multum videntur errasse.

17. A saeculum is the longest span of human life, bounded by birth and death. Therefore those who have taken a saeculum to be thirty years seem to have erred greatly.

Hoc enim tempus genean vocari Heraclitus auctor est, quia orbis aetatis in eo sit spatio. Orbem autem vocat aetatis, dum natura ab sementi humana ad sementim revertitur. Hoc quidem geneas tempus alii aliter definierunt: Herodicus annos quinque et viginti scribit dici genean, Zenon triginta.

For Heraclitus is the authority who says that this time is called a genean, because the orb of age lies within that span. He calls it the orb of age because nature returns from human seed back to seed. Yet others have defined the genean time differently: Herodicus writes that a genean is said to be twenty-five years, Zenon thirty.

Saeculum autem quid sit, usque adhuc arbitror ad subtile examinatum non esse. Poetae quidem multa incredibilia scripserunt, nec minus historici Graeci, quamvis eos a vero par non fuit decedere; ut Herodotus, apud quem legimus Arganthonion Tartessiorum regem centum et quinquaginta annorum fuisse, aut Ephorus, qui tradit Arcadas dicere apud se reges antiquos aliquot ad trecentos vixisse annos. Verum haec ut fabulosa praetereo; sed inter ipsos astrologos, qui in stellarum signorumque ratione verum scrutantur, nequaquam etiam convenit.

But what a saeculum is, I still judge not to have been examined with subtlety. Poets indeed have written many incredible things, nor were the Greek historians less prone to depart from the truth; as Herodotus, with whom we read that Arganthonios, king of the Tartessii, lived one hundred and fifty years, or Ephorus, who reports the Arcadians as saying that their ancient kings scarcely lived some three hundred years. Truly I pass these over as fabulous; yet even among the astrologers themselves, who search for truth in the rationale of the stars and signs, there is by no means agreement.

Epigenes in centum duodecim annis longissimam vitam constituit, Berosos autem centum sedecim; alii ad centum viginti annos produci posse, quidam etiam ultra crediderunt. Fuerunt qui non idem putarunt ubique observandum, sed varie per diversas regiones, prout in singulis sit caeli ad circulum finitorem inclinatio, quod vocatur clima.
Sed licet veritas in obscuro latet, tamen in unaquaque civitate quae sint naturalia saecula, rituales Etruscorum libri videntur docere, in quis scriptum esse fertur initia sic poni saeculorum: quo die urbes adque civitates constituerentur, de his, qui eo die nati essent, eum, qui diutissime vixisset, die mortis suis primi saeculi modulum finire, eoque die qui essent reliqui in civitate, de his rursum eius mortem, qui longissimam egisset aetatem, finem esse saeculi secundi.

Epigenes fixed the longest life at 112 years, Berosus at 116; others believed it could be prolonged to 120 years, and some even beyond. There were those who thought this not to be observed everywhere but to vary through diverse regions, according as in each the inclination of the heavens toward the bounding circle is, which is called a climate.
But although the truth lies hidden in obscurity, yet as to what the natural ages are in each city, the ritual books of the Etruscans seem to teach; in them it is said that the beginnings of the ages are placed thus: on the day on which towns and cities were established, of those who had been born on that day he who had lived the longest should, on his day of death, finish the measure (modulum) of the first age, and on that day those who remained in the city — of these again he who had lived the longest should, at his death, be the end of the second age.

Sic deinceps tempus reliquorum terminari. Sed ea quod ignorarent homines, portenta mitti divinitus, quibus admonerentur, unumquodque saeculum esse finitum. Haec portenta Etrusci pro haruspicii disciplinaeque suae peritia diligenter observata in libros rettulerunt.

Thus thereafter the times of the remaining ones were terminated. But because men did not know this, portents were sent divinely to admonish them that each saeculum was finite. These portents the Etruscans, by their skill in haruspicy and in their discipline, diligently observed and recorded in books.

Quare in Tuscis historiis, quae octavo eorum saeculo scriptae sunt, ut Varro testatur, et quot numero saecula ei genti data sint, et transactorum singula quanta fuerint quibusve ostentis eorum exitus designati sint, continetur. Itaque scriptum est quattuor prima saecula annorum fuisse centenum, quintum centum viginti trium, sextum undeviginti et centum, septimum totidem, octavum tum demum agi, nonum et decimum superesse, quibus transactis finem fore nominis Etrusci.
Romanorum autem saecula quidam ludis saecularibus putant distingui; cui rei fides si certa est, modus Romani saeculi est incertus: temporum enim intervalla, quibus ludi isti debeant referri, non modo quanta fuerint retro ignoratur, sed ne quanta quidem esse debeant scitur.

Wherefore in the Tuscan histories, which were written in their eighth century, as Varro testifies, is contained how many centuries were allotted to that people and how great each of the completed ones were, or by which omens their outcomes were marked. Thus it is written that the first four centuries were of one hundred years, the fifth of one hundred and twenty‑three, the sixth of one hundred and nineteen, the seventh the same, the eighth then at last being passed, the ninth and tenth remaining, after the passing of which the name Etruscan would come to an end.
As for the Romans, some think Roman centuries are distinguished by the saecular games; and if credence to that is certain, the measure of the Roman saeculum is uncertain: for the intervals of time to which those games should be referred are not only unknown as to how great they were in the past, but it is not even known how great they ought to be.

Nam ita institutum esse, ut centesimo quoque anno fierent, id cum Antias aliique historici auctores sunt, tum Varro "de scenicis originibus" libro primo ita scriptum reliquit: cum multa portenta fierent, et murus ac turris, quae sunt inter portam Collinam et Esquilinam, de caelo tacta essent, et ideo libros Sibyllinos XV viri adissent, renuntiarunt, uti Diti patri et Proserpinae ludi Tarentini in campo Martio fierent tribus noctibus, et hostiae furvae immolarentur, utique ludi centesimo quoque anno fierent. Item Titus Livius libro CXXXVI: eodem anno ludos saeculares Caesar ingenti apparatu fecit, quos centesimo quoque anno—his enim terminari saeculum—fieri mos fuit. Contra ut decimo centesimoque anno repetantur, tam commentarii XV virorum quam Divi Augusti edicta testari videntur, adeo ut Horatius Flaccus in carmine, quod saecularibus ludis cantatum est, id tempus hoc modo designaverit: certus undenos decies per annos | orbis ut cantus referatque ludos | ter die clara totiensque grata | nocte frequentes.

For it was so established that they should be held every hundred years; this Antias and other historical authors assert, and Varro in the first book of "On Scenic Origins" left it written thus: when many portents occurred, and the wall and tower that stand between the Collina and Esquiline Gates were struck from heaven, and therefore the fifteen men reviewed the Sibylline books, they proclaimed that the games to Dis the father and Proserpina, the Tarentine games, should be held in the Campus Martius for three nights, and that black victims should be sacrificed, and indeed that the games should be held every hundred years. Likewise Titus Livius in book 136: in that same year Caesar held the saecular games with enormous display, which by custom were to be held every hundred years—for thus the saeculum was terminated by them. On the other hand, that they should be repeated at the tenth and the hundredth year seem both the commentaries of the fifteen men and the edicts of the Divine Augustus to testify, so much so that Horatius Flaccus, in the song sung at the saecular games, designated that time in this manner: certus undenos decies per annos | orbis ut cantus referatque ludos | ter die clara totiensque grata | nocte frequentes. (a fixed span of eleven times ten years, that the cycle may bring back the songs and the games, thrice in the clear day and as often welcome by night, frequent.)

Quae dissensio, temporum si veterum revolventur annales, longe maris in incerto invenietur. Primos enim ludos saeculares exactis regibus con stat post Romam conditam annis CCXLV a Valerio Publicola institutos esse, at ad XV virorum conmentarios anno CCXCVIIII M. Valerio Spurio Verginio conss. Secundi fuerunt, ut * tradidit, ** coss.

That disagreement, if the annals of old times are turned over, will be found by far out at sea in uncertainty. For the first secular games, with the kings having been completed, are agreed to have been instituted 245 years after the founding of Rome by Valerius Publicola; but they are referred to the commentaries of the Fifteen Men in the year 299, when M. Valerius and Spurius Verginius were consuls — they were the second, as * handed down, ** consuls.

anno post urbem conditam octavo et quadringentesimo, ut vero in commentariis XV virorum scriptum est, anno CCCC et decimo M. Valerio Corvino II C. Poetilio cons. Tertii ludi fuerunt Antiate Livioque auctoribus P. Claudio Pulchro L. Junio Pullo cons. anno *, at ad XV virorum commentarios anno quingentesimo duodevicensimo P. Cornelio Lentulo C. Licinio Varo cons.

in the year 408 after the founding of the city; but as is written in the commentaries of the Fifteen Men, in the year 410 M. Valerius Corvinus and C. Poetilius, consuls. The third games were held, Antias and Livius being the authors, in the year when P. Claudius Pulcher and L. Junius Pullus were consuls, anno *; but according to the commentaries of the Fifteen Men, in the year 512 P. Cornelius Lentulus and C. Licinius Varus were consuls.

De quartorum ludorum anno triplex opinio est. Antias enim et Varro et Livius relatos esse prodiderunt L. Marcio Censorino M' Manilio cons. post Romam conditam anno DCV.

Of the year of the fourth games there is a threefold opinion. For Antias and Varro and Livius asserted that they were reported to have been under the consuls L. Marcius Censorinus and M’. Manilius, in the year 605 after the founding of Rome.

At Piso Censorius et Cn. Gellius sed et Cassius Hemina, qui illo tempore vivebat, post annum factos tertium adfirmant Cn. Cornelio Lentulo Lucio Mummio Achaico cons., id est anno DCVIII; in XV virorum autem commentariis notantur sub anno DCXXVIII M. Aemilio Lepido L. Aurelio Oreste cons. Quintos ludos C. Furnio C. Junio Silano conss. anno DCCXXXVII Caesar Augustus et Agrippa fecerunt; sextos autem fecit Ti. Claudius Caesar se IIII et L. Vitellio III cons.

But Piso Censorius and Cn. Gellius and also Cassius Hemina, who lived at that time, affirm that the third were celebrated in the consulship of Cn. Cornelius Lentulus and Lucius Mummius Achaicus, that is in the year 608; in the commentaries of the Fifteen Men, however, they are noted under the year 628, M. Aemilius Lepidus and L. Aurelius Orestes consuls. The fifth games were celebrated by Caesar Augustus and Agrippa in the consulship of C. Furnius and C. Junius Silanus in the year 737; the sixth, however, Tiberius Claudius Caesar celebrated when he was consul for the 4th time and L. Vitellius for the 3rd.

anno DCCC, septimos Domitianus se XIIII et L. Minucio Rufo cons. anno DCCCXLI, octavos imperatores Septimius et M. Aurelius Antoninus Cilone et Libone cons. anno DCCCCLVII.

in the year 800 the seventh were celebrated by Domitian, himself consul for the 14th time, and L. Minucius Rufus as consul; in the year 841 the eighth by the emperors Septimius and M. Aurelius Antoninus, with Cilone and Libone as consuls; in the year 957.

Hinc animadvertere licet neque post centum annos ut hi referrentur ludi statum esse, neque post centum decem. Quorum etiamsi alterutrum retro fuisset observatum, non tamen satis id argumenti esset, quo quis his ludis saecula discerni constanter adfirmet, praesertim cum ab urbis primordio ad reges exactos, annos CCXLIIII, factos esse auctor sit nemo, quod tempus procul dubio naturali maius est saeculo; quodsi quis credit ludis saecularibus saecula distingui, sola nominis origine inductus, sciat saeculares WATERdici potuisse, quod plerumque semel fiant hominis aetate, ut multa alia, quae rara sunt, post saeculum evenire loquentium consuetudo usurpat.
Sed nostri maiores, quod natura saeculum quantum esset, exploratum non habebant, civile ad certum modulum annorum centum statuerunt.

From this it may be noticed that neither after one hundred years, as these men relate, do the games have the status they describe, nor after one hundred and ten. And even if either of those had been observed in the past, that would still not be a sufficient argument by which anyone could firmly assert that ages are distinguished by these games, especially since no authority says that from the founding of the city until the kings were expelled 244 years were completed, that time being doubtless greater than a natural saeculum; and if anyone believes that the secular games distinguish saecula, led on merely by the origin of the name, let him know that the games could be called saecular, since they are for the most part held once in a man’s lifetime, as many other rare things come about after a saeculum, by the customary speech of those who talk. But our ancestors, not having explored what a saeculum is by nature, established the civil saeculum at a certain measure of about one hundred years.

Testis est Piso, in cuius annali septimo scriptum est sic: Roma condita anno DC septimum saeculum occipit his consulibus, qui proximi sunt consules: M. Aemilius M. filius Lepidus, C. Popilius II absens. Sed ut hunc annorum numerum constituerent nostri, non nihil causae fuit: primum quod multos suorum civium ad hunc aetatem perducere videbant, dein quod Etruscos, quorum prima saecula centenum fuerunt annorum, etiam hic ut in aliis plerumque imitari voluerunt. Praeterea fieri potest quod refert Varro, quod Dioscorides astrologus scribit, Alexandriae inter eos, qui mortuos sallunt, constare hominem plus centum annos vivere non posse, idque cor humanum declarare, eorum qui integri perierunt sine corporis tabe—ideo quod multis annis pendendo cor omnis aetatis incrementa et deminutiones conseruere: et anniculi pendere duas dragmas, bimi quattuor, et sic in annos singulos usque quinquaginta accedere binas; ab iis centum dragmis aque anno quinquagensimo item decedere in unoquoque binas; ex quo perspicuum sit, centesimo anno redire ad anni primi pondus nec longius vitam posse producere.

Piso is witness, in whose annal in the seventh year it is written thus: “Rome having been founded in the year 600, the seventh saeculum falls with these consuls, who are the nearest consuls: M. Aemilius Lepidus, son of M., C. Popilius 2, absent.” But that our ancestors fixed this number of years there was not no cause: first, because they saw many of their fellow citizens brought to this age; secondly, because the Etruscans, whose first saecula were a hundred years, wished here, as in many other things, to be imitated. Furthermore it may be what Varro reports, what Dioscorides the astrologer writes, that among those at Alexandria who handle the dead it is agreed that a man cannot live more than one hundred years, and that the human heart testifies to this in those who died intact without bodily wasting—because by hanging through many years the heart preserves all the increments and diminutions of age: and the yearly ones weigh two drachmas, the two-year (bimi) four, and so into single years up to fifty two are added; from those a hundred drachmas and in the four hundred and fiftieth year likewise two depart in each; whence it is clear that at the hundredth year one returns to the weight of the first year and cannot prolong life beyond that.

Quoniam igitur civile Romanorum saeculum centum annis transigitur, scire licet in decimo saeculo et primum natalem tuum fuisse et hodiernum esse. Quot autem saecula urbi Romae debeantur, dicere meum non est; sed quid apud Varronem legerim, non tacebo, qui libro antiquitatum duodevicensimo ait fuisse Vettium Romae in augurio non ignobilem, ingenio magno, cuivis docto in disceptando parem: eum se audisse dicentem, si ita esset, ut traderent historici de Romuli urbis condendae auguriis ac XII vulturis, quoniam CXX annos incolumis praeterisset populus Romanus, ad mille et ducentos perventurum.

Since, therefore, the civil century of the Romans is completed in one hundred years, it is allowable to know that in the tenth century and its first year your natal day was and is today. How many centuries are owed to the city of Rome I do not say; but I will not be silent about what I read in Varro, who in the 18th book of Antiquities says that there was at Rome a certain Vettius not ignoble in augury, of great genius, equal in disputation to any learned man: him he reports as saying that he had heard — if it were so, as the historians hand down concerning Romulus’s auguries for the founding of the city and the 12 vultures — that since the Roman people had passed 120 years unharmed, it would come to 1,200.

XVIII. Hactenus dictum de saeculo; nunc de annis maioribus dicam, quorum magnitudo adeo diversa etiam gentibus observata quam auctoribus tradita est, ut alii annum magnum esse in annis vertentibus duobus, alii in multis milibus annorum arbitrati sint. Quod quale sit, iam hinc conabor absolvere.

18. So far what has been said about the saeculum; now I will speak of the greater years, whose magnitude has been observed by peoples as well as handed down by authors, so that some have judged the great year to consist in years turning two by two, others have reckoned it in many thousands of years. Of what sort that is, I will now attempt to set forth.

Veteres in Graecia civitates cum animadverterent, dum sol annuo cursu orbem suum circumit, lunam novam interdum tridecies exoriri idque saepe alternis fieri, arbitrati sunt lunares duodecim menses et dimidiatum ad annum naturalem convenire. Itaque annos civiles sic statuerunt, ut intercalando facerent alternos duodecim mensum, alternos tredecim, utrumque annum separatim vertentem, iunctos ambo annum magnum vocantes; idque tempus trieterida appellabant, quod tertio quoque anno intercalabatur, quamvis biennii circuitus et re vera dieteris esset; unde mysteria, quae Libero alternis fiunt annis, trieterica a poetis dicuntur. Postea cognito errore hoc tempus duplicarunt et tetraeterida fecerunt; sed eam, quod quinto quoque anno redibat, pentaeterida nominabant, qui annus magnus ex quadriennio commodior visus est, nam notum est solis annum constare ex diebus CCCLXV et diei parte circiter quarta, quae I in quadriennium diem conficeret.

The ancients in Greece, when they observed the cities while the sun in its annual course circled its orb, and saw the new moon sometimes rise thirteen times and that this often happened in alternation, judged that twelve lunar months and a half corresponded to the natural year. Therefore they established civic years so that by intercalating they would make alternate years of twelve months and alternate years of thirteen months, each considered a separate year, both joined and called a great year; and they called that period trieterida, because it was intercalated also in the third year, although the circuit of two years in truth was dieteris; whence the mysteries which are celebrated for Liber in alternate years are called trieteric by poets. Afterwards, this error having been perceived, they doubled the period and made it tetraeteric; but some called it pentaeteric, because it returned also in the fifth year, whoever thought the great year more conveniently composed of four years — for it is known that the sun’s year consists of 365 days and about a fourth of a day, which in four years makes up one day.

Quare agon et in Elide Jovi Olympio et Romae Capitolino quinto quoque anno redeunte celebratur. Hoc quoque tempus, quod ad solis modo cursum nec ad lunae congruere videbatur, duplicatum est et octaeteris facta, quae tunc enneaeteris vocitata, quia primus eius annus nono quoque anno redibat. Hunc circuitum vere annum magnum esse pleraque Graecia existimavit, quod ex annis vertentibus solidis constaret, ut proprie in anno magno fieri par est.

Wherefore the agon is celebrated in Elis for Jupiter Olympian and at Rome on the Capitoline when the fifth year also returns. This time likewise, which seemed to agree neither with the course of the sun nor with the moon, was doubled and made an octaeteris, which then was nicknamed enneaeteris, because its first year returned on the ninth year as well. Most of Greece judged this circuit to be truly a great year, because it consisted of whole revolving years, as is proper to occur in a great year.

Nam dies sunt solidi IIDCCCCXXII, menses solidi uno minus centum, annique vertentes solidi octo. Hanc octaeterida vulgo creditum est ab Eudoxo Cnidio institutam, sed alii Cleostratum Tenedium primum ferunt conposuisse et postea alios aliter, qui mensibus varie intercalandis suas octaeteridas protulerunt, ut fecit Harpalus, Nauteles, Menestratus, item alii, in quis Dositheus, cuius maxime octaeteris Eudoxi inscribitur. Ob hoc in Graecia multae religiones hoc intervallo temporis summa caerimonia coluntur; Delphis quoque ludi, qui vocantur Pythia, post annum octavum olim conficiebantur.

For the days are a solid 2,922, the months a solid ninety-nine, and the revolving years a solid eight. This octaeteris was commonly believed to have been instituted by Eudoxus of Cnidus, but others report that Cleostratus of Tenedos first composed it, and afterwards others in different ways extended their own octaeterides by intercalating months variously, as Harpalus, Nauteles, Menestratus did, and likewise others, among whom Dositheus, to whom most especially the octaeteris of Eudoxus is ascribed. Because of this in Greece many religions observe their highest ceremonies by this interval of time; at Delphi too the games called the Pythia were once completed after the eighth year.

Proxima est hanc magnitudinem quae vocatur dodecaeteris ex annis vertentibus duodecim. Huic anno Chaldaico nomen est, quem genethliaci non ad solis lunaeque cursus, sed ad observationes alias habent adcommodatum, quod in eo dicunt tempestates frugumque proventus ac sterilitates, item morbos salubritatesque circumire. Praeterea sunt anni magni conplures, ut Metonicus, quem Meton Atheniensis ex annis undeviginti constituit, eoque enneadecaeteris appellatur et intercalatur septies, inque eo anno sunt dierum VI milia et DCCCXL.

Next in magnitude is that which is called the dodecaeteris, from twelve revolving years. To this year the Chaldaean name is given, which the genethliaci have fitted not to the courses of sun and moon but to other observations, for in it they say storms, the yields and sterilities of crops, and likewise diseases and healthfulnesss circulate. Furthermore there are many other great years, as the Metonic, which Meton of Athens established from nineteen years, and therefore is called an enneadecaeteris and is intercalated seven times, and in that year there are 6,840 days.

Est et Philolai Pythagorici annus ex annis quinquaginta novem, in quo sunt menses intercalares viginti et unus; item Callippi Cyziceni ex annis septuaginta sex, ita ut menses duodetriginta intercalentur; et Democriti ex annis LXXXII cum intercalaris perinde viginti octo; sed et Hipparchi ex annis CCCIIII, in quo intercaletur centies decies bis. Haec annorum magnitudo eo discrepat, quod inter astrologos non convenit, quanto vel sol plus quam CCCLXV dies in anno conficiat, vel luna minus quam triginta in mense. Ad Aegyptiorum vero annum magnum luna non pertinet, quem Graece kunikovn, Latine canicularem vocamus, propterea quod initium illius sumitur, cum primo die eius mensis, quem vocant Aegyptii Qwuqoiv, caniculae sidus exoritur.

There is also the year of Philolaus the Pythagorean of 59 years, in which the intercalary months are 21; likewise the Callippic of Cyzicus of 76 years, so that 32 months are intercalated; and that of Democritus of 82 years with likewise 28 intercalary months; and also that of Hipparchus of 304 years, in which is intercalated centies decies bis. This magnitude of years differs so much because among astrologers there is no agreement about how many days the sun completes more than 365 in a year, or how many fewer than 30 the moon makes in a month. But the great year of the Egyptians does not pertain to the moon, which in Greek they call kunikovn, in Latin we call canicular, because its beginning is taken when on its first day of the month which the Egyptians call Qwuqoiv the star of the little dog (canicula) rises.

Nam eorum annus civilis solidus habet dies CCCLXV sine ullo intercalari; itaque quadriennium aput eos uno circiter die minus est, quam naturale quadriennium; eoque fit ut anno MCCCCLXI ad idem revolvatur principium. Hic annus etiam heliacos a quibusdam dicitur, et ab aliis qeou' ejniautovV. Est praeterea annus, quem Aristoteles maximum potius, quam magnum appellat: quem solis et lunae vagarumque quinque stellarum orbes conficiunt, cum ad idem signum, ubi quondam simul fuerunt, una referuntur; cuius anni hiemps summa est cataclysmos, quam nostri diluvionem vocant, aestas autem ecpyrosis, quod est mundi incendium: nam his alternis temporibus mundus tum exignescere tum exaquescere videtur.

For their civil, solidus year has 365 days without any intercalation; therefore a quadrennium among them is about one day shorter than the natural quadrennium; and so it comes about that in the year 1461 the beginning returns to the same point. This year is also called heliacos by some, and by others qeou' ejniautovV. There is moreover a year which Aristotle calls maximum rather than magnum: which is composed of the orbs (courses) of the sun and moon and of the five wandering stars, when they are brought back together to the same sign in which once they were together; of that year the winter is the summa called cataclysmos, which our people call the deluge, and the summer ecpyrosis, which is the world’s conflagration: for in these alternating seasons the world seems at times to grow cold and at times to grow hot.

Hunc Aristarchus putavit esse annorum vertentium IICCCCLXXXIIII, Aretes Dyrrachinus VDLII, Heraclitus et Linus XDCCC, Dion XDCCCLXXXIIII, Orpheus CXX, Cassandrus tricies sexies centum milium; alii vero infinitum esse nec umquam in se reverti existimarunt. Sed horum omnium pentaeteridas maxime notandis temporibus Graeci observant, id est quaternum annorum circuitus, quas vocant olympiadas: et nunc apud eos ducentesima quinquagensima quarta olympias numeratur, eiusque annus hic secundus. Idem tempus anni magni Romanis fuit, quod lustrum appellabant, ita quidem a Servio Tullio institutum, ut quinto quoque anno censu civium habito lustrum conderetur; sed non ita a posteris servatum.

Aristarchus thought this to be 486 years in turning, Aretes of Dyrrachium 557, Heraclitus and Linus 790, Dion 874, Orpheus 120, Cassandrus thirty-six times one hundred thousand (3,600,000); others, however, held it to be infinite and never to return into itself. But above all these the Greeks observe the pentaeterides at notable times, that is, the fourfold circuits of years which they call Olympiads: and now with them the two hundred fifty-fourth Olympiad is being counted, and this year is the second of it. The same period of the great year was to the Romans the lustrum, so instituted by Servius Tullius that at the fifth year a census of the citizens was held and a lustrum was established; but it was not thus observed by posterity.

Nam cum inter primum a Servio rege conditum lustrum et id, quod ab imperatore Vespasiano V et T. Caesare III cons. factum est, anni interfuerunt paulo minus DCL, lustra tamen per ea tempora non plura quam LXXV sunt facta et postea plane fieri desierunt. Rursus tamen annus idem magnus per Capitolinos agonas coeptus est diligentius servari; quorum agonum primus a Domitiano institutus fuit die duodecimo eius et Servi Corneli Dolabellae consulatu.

For when between the first lustrum established by King Servius and that which was made in the consulship of the emperor Vespasian (5) and T. Caesar (3) there intervened a little less than 650 years, yet lustra in those times were made no more than 75 and afterwards plainly ceased to be made. Again, however, the same great year began to be observed more diligently through the Capitolian agones; the first of those agones was instituted by Domitian on the twelfth day of his and of Servius Cornelius Dolabella’s consulship.

Itaque hoc nunc anno qui celebratus est agon undequadragensimus numeratur. Quod ad annos pertinet magnos in praesentia satis dictum: nunc de annis vertentibus dicendi locus.

Therefore this present year, in which the agon was celebrated, is counted the 41st. As to the great recurring years, enough has been said for the moment: now there is room to speak of the revolving years.

XIX.

19.

Annus vertens est natura, dum sol percurrens XII signa eodem, unde profectus est, redit. Hoc tempus quot dierum esset, ad certum nondum astrologi reperire potuerunt. Philolaus annum naturalem dies habere prodidit CCCLXIIII et dimidiatum, Aphrodisius CCCLXV et partem diei octavam, Callippus autem CCCLXV, et Aristarchus Samius tantumdem et praeterea die partem MDCXXIII, Meton vero CCCLXV et dierum quinque undevicensimam partem, Oenopides CCCLXV et dierum duum et viginti partem undesexagensimam, Harpalus autem CCCLXV et horas aequinoctiales XIII, at noster Ennius CCCLXVI.

The turning year is by nature, while the sun, running through the same 12 signs from which it set out, returns. How many days this season contains the astrologers have not yet been able to determine with certainty. Philolaus declared the natural year to have 364 and a half days, Aphrodisius 365 and an eighth of a day, Callippus 365, and Aristarchus of Samos the same and moreover a part of a day 1623 (i.e., 1/1623 of a day). Meton, however, 365 and five nineteenth parts of a day, Oenopides 365 and 22/59 of a day, Harpalus 365 and 13 equinoctial hours, but our Ennius 366.

Plerique praeterea inconprehensibile quiddam et inenuntiabile esse existimarunt, sed pro vero, quod proximum putabant, amplexi sunt: dies scilicet CCCLXV.
Igitur cum tanta inter viros doctissimos fuerit dissensio, quid mirum, si anni civiles, quos diversae civitates rudes etiam tum sibi quaeque statuebant, tam inter se discrepent, quam cum illo naturali non congruant? Et in Aegypto quidem antiquissimum ferunt annum menstruum fuisse, post deinde ab Isone rege quadrimenstrem factum, novissime Arminon ad XIII menses et dies quinque perduxisse.

Moreover most besides judged that there was something incomprehensible and inenunciable, but they embraced as true what they thought nearest: days, namely 365.
Therefore, since there was so great a dissension among the most learned men, what wonder if the civil years, which the various cities — then still rustic — each set for themselves, differ so much among themselves and do not agree with that natural year? And in Egypt indeed they report the most ancient year to have been a year of months, afterward by King Ison made quadrimestral, and finally Arminon extended it to 13 months and 5 days.

Item in Achaia Arcades trimestrem annum primo habuisse dicuntur, et ob id proselenoe appellati, non, ut quidam putant, quod ante sint nati quam lunae astrum caelo esset, sed quod prius habuerit annum, quam is in Graecia ad lunae cursum constitueretur. Sunt qui tradunt hunc annum trimestrem Horon instituisse, eoque ver aestatem autumnum hiemem horas et annum horon dici, et Graecos annales horus, eorumque scriptores horographos. Itaque quattuor annorum circuitum in modum pentaeteridis annum magnum dicebant.

Likewise in Achaia the Arcadians are said to have had at first a trimestial year, and for that reason to have been called Proselenoi, not, as some think, because they were born before the moon’s orb was in the sky, but because they possessed a year earlier than the moon’s course was established in Greece. There are those who relate that this trimestial year was instituted by Horon, and for that reason summer, autumn, winter, the hours and the year were called horon, and the Greeks their annals horus, and their writers horographi. Thus they called the circuit of four years a great year, after the fashion of the pentaeteris.

Cares autem et Acarnanes semenstres habuerunt annos et inter se dissimiles, quibus alternis dies augescerent aut senescerent, eosque coniunctos velut trieterida annum magnum.

The Carians and the Acarnanians, moreover, had six‑month years and ones unlike each other, by which on alternate days the days would lengthen or grow old, and those joined together made, as it were, a great trieterid year.

XX. Sed ut hos annos omittam caligine iam profundae vetustatis obductos, in his quoque, qui sunt recentioris memoriae et ad cursum lunae vel solis instituti, quanta sit varietas, facile est cognoscere, si quis vel in unius Italiae gentibus, ne dicam peregrinis, velit inquirere. Nam ut alium Ferentini alium Lavinii itemque Albani vel Romani habuerunt annum, ita et aliae gentes. Omnibus tamen fuit propositum suos civiles annos varie intercalandis mensibus ad unum illum verum naturalemque corrigere.

20. But lest I omit those years now overlaid by the gloom of very deep antiquity, it is easy to perceive how great a variety there is even among those of more recent memory and established by the course of the moon or of the sun, if anyone wishes to inquire even among the peoples of a single Italia, not to say foreigners. For just as the Ferentini had one year, the Lavinii another, and likewise the Albani or the Romani had (their) year, so too did other peoples. Yet it was the design of all to correct their civil years by variably intercalating months to that one true and natural year.

De quibus omnibus disserere quoniam longum est, ad Romanorum annum transibimus.
Annum vertentem Romae Licinius quidem Macer et postea Fenestella statim ab initio duodecim mensum fuisse scripserunt; sed magis Junio Gracchano et Fulvio et Varroni sed et Suetonio aliisque credendum, qui decem mensum putarunt fuisse, ut tunc Albanis erat, unde orti Romani. Hi decem menses dies CCCIIII hoc modo habebant: Martius XXXI, Aprilis XXX, Maius XXXI, Junius XXX, Quintilis XXXI, Sextilis et September tricenos, October XXXI, November et December XXX; quorum quattuor maiores pleni, ceteri sex cavi vocabantur.

Since it would be long to discourse on all these things, we will pass to the year of the Romans.
Licinius Macer indeed and afterwards Fenestella at once wrote that the year turning at Rome was from the beginning twelve months; but more to be believed are Junius Gracchanus and Fulvius and Varro and also Suetonius and others, who judged it to have been ten months, as then among the Albans was, from whom the Romans sprang. These ten months had days totaling 304 in this manner: March 31, April 30, May 31, June 30, Quintilis 31, Sextilis and September thirty, October 31, November and December 30; of which four larger were called full, the remaining six hollow.

Postea sive a Numa, ut ait Fulvius, sive, ut Junius, a Tarquinio XII facti sunt menses et dies CCCLV, quamvis luna XII suis mensibus CCCLIIII dies videbatur explere. Sed ut dies unus abundaret, aut per inprudentiam accidit, aut, quod magis credo, ea superstitione, qua inpar numerus plenus et magis faustus habebatur. Certe ad annum priorem unus et quinquaginta dies accesserunt; qui quia menses duo non explerent, sex illis cavis mensibus dies sunt singuli detracti et ad eos additi, factique dies LVII, et ex his duo menses: Januarius undetriginta dierum, Februarius duodetriginta.

Thereafter, whether by Numa, as Fulvius says, or, as Junius, by Tarquin, the months and days were made 355, although twelve moons seemed to fill 354 days with their months. But since one day was in excess, it happened either through inadvertence, or, which I more believe, by that superstition whereby an odd number was held full and more auspicious. Certainly fifty‑one days were added to the former year; because two months would not be filled by these, one day was taken away from each of those six hollow months and added to them, and the days became 57, and of these two months: January of 29 days, February of 28 days.

Adque ita omnes menses pleni et inpari dierum numero esse coeperunt, excepto Februario, qui solus cavus et ob hoc ceteris infaustior est habitus. Denique cum intercalarium mensem viginti duum vel viginti trium dierum alternis annis addi placuisset, ut civilis annus ad naturalem exaequaretur, in mense potissimum Februario inter Terminalia et Regifugium intercalatum est, idque diu factum, prius quam sentiretur annos civiles aliquanto naturalibus esse maiores. Quod delictum ut corrigeretur, pontificibus datum negotium eorumque arbitrio intercalandi ratio permissa.

And so all the months began to be full and unequal in number of days, except February, which alone was hollow (cavus) and on that account considered more inauspicious (infaustior) than the others. Finally, since it was resolved that an intercalary month (intercalarium) of twenty-two or twenty-three days should be added in alternate years, so that the civil year might be matched to the natural, it was especially intercalated into the month February between the Terminalia and the Regifugium, and this was done for a long time before it was perceived that the civil years were somewhat larger than the natural. To correct that fault, the business was committed to the pontiffs and the method (ratio) of intercalation was entrusted to their discretion.

Sed horum plerique ob odium vel gratiam, quo quis magistratu citius abiret diutiusve fungeretur aut publici redemtor ex anni magnitudine in lucro damnove esset, plus minusve ex libidine intercalando rem sibi ad corrigendum mandatam ultro quod depravarunt, adeo aberratum est, ut C. Caesar pontifex maximus suo III et M. Aemilii Lepidi consulatu, quo retro delictum corrigeret, duos menses intercalarios dierum LXVII in mensem Novembrem et Decembrem interponeret, cum iam mense Februario dies III et XX intercalasset, faceretque eum annum dierum CCCCXLV, simul providens in futurum, ne iterum erraretur: nam intercalario mense sublato annum civilem ad solis cursum formavit. Itaque diebus CCCLV addidit decem, quos per septem menses, qui dies undetricenos habebant, ita discriberet, ut Januario et Sextili et Decembri bini accederent, ceteris singuli; eosque dies extremis partibus mensium adposuit, ne scilicet religiones sui cuiusque mensis a loco summoverentur. Quapropter nunc cum in septem mensibus dies singuli et triceni sint, quattuor tamen illi ita primitus instituti eo dinoscuntur, quod nonas habent septimanas, ceteri tres omnes alii reliqui quintanas.

But most of these, out of hatred or favour — by which a man might leave office sooner or serve longer, or a public contractor stand to gain or lose from the length of the year — more or less at will by intercalating altered the thing entrusted to them for correction, and so deviated that Gaius Caesar, pontifex maximus, in his third and the consulship of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, in order to correct the previous error, inserted two intercalary months of 67 days into the months November and December, when already in the month February he had intercalated days 3 and 20, and made that year one of 445 days, at the same time providing for the future that it should not err again: for with the intercalary month removed he formed the civil year to the course of the sun. Therefore he added ten days to the 355 days, which he distributed through seven months that had thirteen days each, so that to January and Sextilis and December two days were added, to the others one each; and he placed those days at the extreme parts of the months, lest the rites of any month be displaced from their place. Wherefore now, although in seven months the days are single and thirty, nevertheless those four originally instituted are known by this, that their nones fall on the seventh day, the remaining three others all have nones on the fifth.

Praeterea pro quadrante diei, qui annum verum suppleturus videbatur, instituit, ut peracto quadrienni circuitu dies unus, ubi mensis quondam solebat, post Terminalia intercalaretur, quod nunc bis sextum vocatur. Ex hoc anno ita a Julio Caesare ordinato ceteri ad nostram memoriam Juliani appellantur, eique consurgunt ex quarto Caesaris consulatu. Qui etiam si optimo modulo, non soli tamen ad annum naturae aptati sunt: nam et priores anni, etiam si qui decemmenstres fuerunt, nec Romae modo vel per Italiam, sed et aput gentes omnes, quantum poterat, idem fuerunt correcti.

Furthermore, in place of the quarter of a day, which seemed destined to make up the true year, he instituted that, after the completion of a four‑year circuit, one day — where once a month used to be — should be intercalated after the Terminalia, which is now called the bissextile. From this year thus ordered by Julius Caesar the subsequent years in our memory are called Julian, and they take their rise from Caesar’s fourth consulship. Which, although arranged in the best manner, were not alone adapted to the natural year: for the earlier years, even if some were ten‑month years, were likewise corrected, not only at Rome or through Italy, but among all peoples, as far as was possible.

Itaque cum de aliquo annorum numero hic dicetur, non alios par erit, quam naturales, accipere.

Therefore, when here any number of years is spoken of, it is fitting to accept no others than the natural years.

XXI. Et si origo mundi in hominum notitiam venisset, inde exordium sumeremus; nunc vero id intervallum temporis tractabo, quod historicon Varro appellat. Hic enim tria discrimina temporum esse tradit: primum ab hominum principio ad cataclysmum priorem, quod propter ignorantiam vocatur adelon, secundum a cataclysmo priore ad olympiadem primam, quod, quia multa in eo fabulosa referuntur, mythicon nominatur, tertium a prima olympiade ad nos, quod dicitur historicon, quia res in eo gestae veris historiis continetur.

21. And if the origin of the world had come into men's knowledge, from that we would take our beginning; but now I will treat that interval of time which Varro calls historiocon. For he hands down that there are three divisions of time: first, from the beginning of men to the earlier cataclysm, which, on account of ignorance, is called adelon; second, from the earlier cataclysm to the first Olympiad, which, because many fabulous matters are reported in it, is called mythicon; third, from the first Olympiad to us, which is called historicon, because the deeds done in it are contained in true histories.

Primum tempus, sive habuit initium, seu semper fuit, certe quot annorum sit, non potest conprehendi. Secundum non plane quidem scitur, sed tamen ad mille circiter et sescentos annos esse creditur: a priore scilicet cataclysmo, quem dicunt et Ogygii, ad Inachi regnum annos circiter CCCC computarunt, hinc ad excidium Troiae annos DCCC, hinc ad olympiadem primam paulo plus CCCC; quos solos, quamvis mythici temporis postremos, tamen quia a memoria scriptorum proximos, quidam certius definire voluerunt. Et quidem Sosibius scripsit esse CCCXCV, Eratosthenes autem septem et quadringentos, Timaeus CCCCXVII, Aretes DXIIII, et praeterea multi diverse, quorum etiam ipsa dissensio incertum esse declarat.

The first time, whether it had a beginning or always was, certainly how many years it comprises cannot be grasped. The second is not precisely known either, but is nevertheless believed to be about 1,600 years: from the earlier cataclysm, which they also call that of Ogyges, to the reign of Inachus they reckoned about 400 years, from thence to the destruction of Troy 800 years, from thence to the first Olympiad a little more than 400; those alone, although the latest of the mythical time, yet because nearest to the memory of writers, some wished to define more surely. And indeed Sosibius wrote it to be 395, Eratosthenes however 407, Timaeus 417, Aretes 514, and besides many others variously, whose very disagreement proclaims it uncertain.

De tertio autem tempore fuit quidem aliqua inter auctores dissensio in sex septemve tantum modo annis versata; sed hoc quodcumque caliginis Varro discussit, et pro cetera sua sagacitate nunc diversarum civitatium conferens tempora, nunc defectus eorumque intervalla retro dinumerans eruit verum lucemque ostendit, per quam numerus certus non annorum modo, sed et dierum perspici possit. Secundum quam rationem nisi fallor hic annus, cuius velut index et titulus quidam est V. C. Pii et Pontiani consulatus, ab olympiade prima millensimus est et quartus decimus, ex diebus dumtaxat aestivis, quibus agon Olympicus celebratur; a Roma autem condita nongentesimus nonagensimus primus, et quidem ex Parilibus, unde urbis anni numerantur; eorum vero annorum, quibus Julianis nomen est, ducentesimus octogensimus tertius, sed ex die kal. Januariarum, unde Julius Caesar anni a se constituti fecit principium; at eorum, qui vocantur anni Augustorum, ducentesimus sexagensimus quintus, perinde ex kal.

Of the third period there was indeed some disagreement among authors, limited to only six or seven years; but Varro, having dispelled that whatever mist there was, and now, by his sagacity, comparing the times of different cities, now counting back their lapses and the intervals between them, has brought forth and shown the true light, by which a certain number can be perceived not only of years but also of days. According to that reckoning, unless I err, this year — which is in a sense the index and title 5th consulship of Pius and Pontian — is the 1,014th from the first Olympiad, counted strictly from the summer days on which the Olympic contest is celebrated; from the founding of Rome it is the 991st, and indeed from the Parilia, whence the years of the city are reckoned; of those years which bear the name Julian it is the 283rd, but counted from the kalends of January, whence Julius Caesar made the beginning of the year he established; and of those called the years of the Augusti it is the 265th, likewise from the kalends.

Januariis, quamvis ex ante diem XVI kal. Febr. imperator Caesar, Divi filius, sententia L. Munati Planci a senatu ceterisque civibus Augustus appellatus est se VII et M. Vipsanio Agrippa III cons.

Januaries, although on the 16th day before the Kalends of February the emperor Caesar, son of the Divine, by the motion of L. Munatius Plancus was named Augustus by the senate and the other citizens, (this was) in the consulship of VII and M. Vipsanius Agrippa, the 3rd.

Sed Aegyptii, quod biennio ante in potestatem dicionemque populi Romani venerunt, hunc Augustorum annum ducentesimum sexagensimum septimo (numerant). Nam ut a nostris ita ab Aegyptiis quidam anni in litteras relati sunt, ut quos Nabonnazaru nominant, quod a primo imperii eius anno consurgunt, quorum hic nongentesimus octogensimus sextus est; item Philippi, qui ab accessu Alexandri Magni numerantur et ad hunc usque perducti annos DLXII consummant. Sed horum initia semper a primo die mensis eius sumuntur, cui apud Aegyptios nomen est Thouth, quique hoc anno fuit ante diem VII kal. Jul., cum abhinc annos centum imperatore Antonino Pio II Bruttio Praesente Romae consulibus idem dies fuerit ante diem XIII kal.

But the Egyptians, because two years before they came into the power and dominion of the Roman people, reckon this Augustan year the two hundred sixty-seventh. For as among our people certain years are recorded in letters, so among the Egyptians those which they call Nabonnazaru, which rise from the first year of his reign, of which this is the nine hundred eighty-sixth; likewise those of Philip, which are reckoned from the accession of Alexander the Great and amount down to this to 562 years. But the beginnings of these are always taken from the first day of that month which among the Egyptians is called Thouth, and which in this year fell on the 7th day before the Kalends of July, when one hundred years earlier, with Antoninus Pius as emperor and Bruttio and Praesente consuls at Rome, the same day was the 13th day before the Kalends.

Aug., quo tempore solet canicula in Aegypto facere exortum. Quare scire etiam licet anni illius magni, qui, ut supra dictum est, solaris et canicularis et dei annus vocatur, nunc agi vertentem annum centensimum. Initia autem istorum annorum propterea notavi, ne quis eos aut ex kal.

In August, at which time the dog-star is wont to rise in Egypt. Wherefore it is also allowable to know that that great year, which, as was said above, is called the solar, the canicular, and the year of the god, is now turning its one hundredth year. I have, however, noted the beginnings of those years for this reason, lest anyone take them either from the kalends.

Januariis aut ex aliquo tempore simul putaret incipere, cum in iis conditorum voluntates non minus diversae sint, quam opiniones philosophorum: idcirco aliis a novo sole, id est a bruma, aliis ab aestivo solstitio, plerisque ab aequinoctio verno, partim ab autumnali aequinoctio, quibusdam ab ortu vergiliarum, nonnullis ab earum occasu, multis a canis exortu incipere annus naturalis videtur.

Some think it begins in January or at some other time, since in those who established them the wills are no less diverse than the opinions of philosophers: therefore for some the natural year seems to begin from the new sun, that is from the winter solstice; for others from the summer solstice; for the majority from the vernal equinox, for some from the autumnal equinox, for certain persons from the rising of the Vergiliae, for a few from their setting, and for many from the rising of the Dog‑star.

XXII. Mensium genera duo: nam alii sunt naturales, alii civiles. Naturalium species duae, quod partim solis, partim lunae esse dicuntur.

22. Two kinds of months: for some are natural, others civil. The kinds of the natural are two, because partly they are said to belong to the sun, partly to the moon.

Secundum solem fit mensis, dum sol unum quodque in zodiaco orbe signum percurrit; lunaris est autem temporis quoddam spatium a nova luna. Civiles menses sunt numeri quidam dierum, quos una quaeque civitas suo instituto observat, ut nunc Romani a kalendis in kalendas. Naturales et antiquiores et omnium gentium communes sunt, civiles et posterius instituti et ad unam quamque pertinent civitatem.

A month is made according to the sun, while the sun runs through one sign in the zodiac in each; a lunar month, however, is a certain span of time from the new moon. Civil months are certain numbers of days which each city observes by its own institute, as now the Romans from the Kalends to the Kalends. Natural months are earlier and common to all nations, civil months are instituted later and pertain to each particular city.

Qui sunt caelestes, sive solis seu lunae, neque peraeque inter se pares sunt, nec dies habent totos: quippe sol in aquario moratur circiter undetriginta, in pisce fere triginta, in ariete unum et triginta, in geminis prope triginta et duos, et sic in ceteris inaequabiliter; sed usque adeo non totos dies in singulis, ut annum suum, id est dies CCCLXV et portionem nescio quam adhuc astrologis inexploratam, in XII suos dividat menses. Luna autem singulos suos menses conficit diebus undetriginta circiter et dimidiato, sed et hos inter se dispares: alias longiores, alias breviores. At civitatium menses vel magis numero dierum inter se discrepant, sed dies ubique habent totos.

Those that are celestial, whether of the Sun or of the Moon, are not equal one to another, nor do they have whole days: for the Sun dwells in Aquarius for about 29 days, in Pisces almost 30, in Aries 31, in Gemini nearly 32, and so unequally in the others; yet not so much that in each it makes whole days, but that it divides its year, that is 365 days and some portion — I know not what — still unexplored by astrologers, into its 12 months. The Moon, however, completes her own months in about 29 and a half days, but these too are unequal among themselves: some longer, some shorter. The months of cities differ rather in the number of days from one another, but their days everywhere are whole.

Apud Albanos Martius est sex et triginta, Maius viginti duum, Sextilis duodeviginti, September sedecim; Tusculanorum Quintilis dies habet XXXVI, October XXXII, idem October apud Aricinos XXXVIIII. Minime videntur errasse, qui ad lunae cursum menses civiles adcommodarunt, ut in Graecia plerique, apud quos alterni menses ad tricenos dies sunt facti. Maiores quoque nostri idem sunt aemulati, cum annum dierum CCCLV haberent.

Among the Albans March has 36 days, May 22, Sextilis 18, September 16; the Tusculans’ Quintilis has 36 days, October 32, and the same October among the Aricini 39. They seem least to have erred who adapted the civil months to the moon’s course, as in Greece most do, among whom alternating months were made of thirty days. Our elders likewise imitated this, when they had a year of 355 days.

Sed Divus Julius cum videret hac ratione neque ad lunam menses, ut oportebat, neque annos ad solem convenire, maluit annum corrigere, ut sic etiam menses civiles cum veris illis solaribus, etsi non singuli, tamen universi ad anni finem necessario concurrerent.
Nomina decem mensibus antiquis Romulum fecisse Fulvius et Junius auctores sunt: et quidem duos primos a parentibus suis nominasse, Martium a Marte patre, Aprilem ab Aphrodite id est id est Venere, unde maiores eius oriundi dicebantur; proximos duos a populo: Maium a maioribus natu, Junium a iunioribus; ceteros ab ordine quo singuli erant: Quintilem usque Decembrum perinde a numero. Varro autem Romanos a Latinis nomina mensum accepisse arbitratus auctores eorum antiquiores, quam urbem, fuisse satis argute docet.

But the Divine Julius, when he saw that by this reckoning neither the months fitted the moon, as they ought, nor the years the sun, preferred to correct the year, so that thus the civil months would also, even if not individually, yet all together necessarily concur with the end of the year of those true solar months.
Fulvius and Junius are authorities who say that Romulus made ten names for the ancient months: and indeed that he named the first two after their parents, Martius from Mars the father, Aprilis from Aphrodite—that is, Venus—whence his ancestors were said to be sprung; the next two after the people: Maius from the maiores by age, Junius from the iuniores; the rest from the order in which each was placed: Quintilis through December accordingly from their number. Varro, however, having thought that the Romans received the names of the months from the Latins, teaches rather neatly that their authors were older than the city.

Itaque Martium mensem a Marte quidem nominatum credit, non quia Romuli fuerit pater, sed quod gens Latina bellicosa; Aprilem autem non ab Aphrodite, sed ab aperiendo, quod tunc ferme cuncta gignantur et nascendi claustra aperiat natura; Maium vero non a maioribus, sed a Maia nomen accepisse, quod eo mense tam Romae, quam antea in Latio res divina Maiae fit et Mercurio; Junium quoque a Junone potius, quam iunioribus, quod illo mense maxime Junoni honores habentur; Quintilem, quod loco iam apud Latinus fuerit quinto, item Sextilem ac deinceps ad Decembrem a numeris appellatos. Ceterum Januarium et Februarium postea quidem additos, sed nominibus iam ex Latio sumptis: et Januarium ab Jano, cui adtributus est, nomen traxisse, Februarium a februo: est februum quidquid piat purgatque, et februamenta purgamenta, item februare purgare et purum facere. Februum autem non idem usquequaque dicitur: nam aliter in aliis sacris februatur, hoc est purgatur.

Therefore the month Martius is thought to have been named from Mars indeed, not because he was the father of Romulus, but because the Latin gens was warlike; Aprilis however not from Aphrodite, but from aperire, opening, since at that time almost all things sprout and nature opens the enclosures of birth; Maius indeed did not take its name from the maiores, but from Maia, because in that month a divine rite to Maia and to Mercury is held both at Rome and formerly in Latium; Iunius likewise from Juno rather than from the younger ones, since in that month honors are most chiefly paid to Juno; Quintilis, because it was already fifth in place among the Latins, likewise Sextilis and thence forward to December are called from their numbers. Moreover Ianuarius and Februarius were added later, but their names were already taken from Latium: Ianuarius drew its name from Janus, to whom it was ascribed, Februarius from februo: februum is whatever appeases and purges, and februamenta are purgations, likewise februare to cleanse and make pure. Februum, however, is not always said in the same sense: for it is purged differently in other sacred rites, that is, it is cleansed.

In hoc autem mense Lupercalibus, cum Roma lustratur, salem calidum ferunt, quod februum appellant, unde dies Lupercalium proprie februatus et ab eo porro mensis Februarius vocitatur. Ex his duodecim mensibus duorum tantum nomina inmutata: nam Quintilis Julius cognominatus est C. Caesare V et M. Antonio cons. anno Juliano secundo; qui autem Sextilis fuerat, ex SC. Marcio Censorino C. Asinio Gallo cons.

In this month, however, at the Lupercalia, when Rome is lustrated, they bear warm salt, which they call februum, whence the day of the Lupercalia is properly februated and from that thereafter the month is called Februarius. Of these twelve months only two names have been changed: for Quintilis was surnamed Julius by C. Caesar, consul with M. Antony in the 5th year, in the second Julian year; and as for what had been Sextilis, by the senatorial decree of Marcius Censorinus, in the consulship of C. Asinius Gallus.

in Augusti honorem dictus est Augustus anno Augusti vicensimo, quae nomina etiam nunc ad hanc permanent memoriam. Postea vero multi principes nomina quaedam mensium inmutaverunt suis nuncupando nominibus: quod aut ipsi postmodum mutaverunt, aut post obitum eorum illa nomina pristina suis reddita mensibus.

The month was called Augustus in honor of Augustus in the 20th year of Augustus, and those names even now remain to this memory. Afterwards indeed many princes altered certain names of the months by bestowing their own names: which either they themselves afterwards changed, or, after their death, those former names were restored to the months.

XXIII. Superest pauca de die dicere, qui, ut mensis aut annus, partim naturalis partim civilis est. Naturaliter dies est tempus ab exoriente sole ad solis occasum, cuius contrarium tempus est nox ab occasu solis ad exortum.

23. A few things remain to be said about the day, which, like a month or a year, is partly natural, partly civil. Naturally, the day is the time from the sun’s rising to the sun’s setting, whose contrary time is night, from the sun’s setting to its rising.

Civiliter autem dies vocatur tempus, quod fit uno caeli circumactu, quo dies verus et nox continetur, ut cum dicimus aliquem dies XXX tantum vixisse, relinquitur enim etiam noctes intellegere. Huius modi dies ab astrologis et civitatibus quattuor modis definitur. Babylonii quidem quidem a solis exortu ad exortum eiusdem astri diem statuerunt, at in Umbria plerique a meridie ad meridiem, Athenienses autem an occasu solis ad occasum; ceterum Romani a media nocte ad mediam noctem diem esse existimarunt: indicio sunt sacra publica et auspicia etiam magistratuum, quorum si quid ante medium noctis est actum, diei, qui praeteriit, adscribitur; si quid autem post mediam noctem et ante lucem factum est, eo die gestum dicitur, qui eam sequitur noctem.

Civilly, however, a day is called the time made by one circuit of the heavens, in which true day and night are contained; so that when we say that someone lived only thirty days, it is to be understood that the nights are included as well. Days of this sort are defined by astrologers and by cities in four modes. The Babylonians, indeed, fixed the day from the rising of the sun to the rising of the same star; in Umbria most reckon it from midday to midday; the Athenians from sunset to sunset; but the Romans considered the day to be from midnight to midnight: public sacra and the auspices of magistrates are evidence of this, for if anything is done before midnight it is ascribed to the day that has passed; if, however, anything is done after midnight and before dawn, it is said to have been done on the day which follows that night.

Idem significat quod, qui a media nocte ad proximam mediam noctem in his horis quattuor et viginti nascuntur, eundem diem habent natalem. In horas XII diem divisum esse noctemque in totidem vulgo notum est; sed hoc credo Romae post reperta solaria observatum. Quorum antiquissimum quod fuerit, inventu difficile est: alii enim apud aedem Quirini primum statutum dicunt, alii in Capitolio, nonnulli ad aedem Dianae in Aventino.

The same indicates that those who are born from midnight to the next midnight, within those twenty-four hours, have the same natal day. It is commonly known that the day is divided into twelve hours and the night into as many; but I believe this was observed at Rome after the discovery of sundials. Which of these was the most ancient is difficult to find out: for some say it was first fixed at the temple of Quirinus, others on the Capitoline, and some at the temple of Diana on the Aventine.

Illud satis constat, nullum in foro prius fuisse, quam id, quod M'. Valerius ex Sicilia advectum ad rostra in columna posuit; quod quoniam ad clima Siciliae descriptum ad horas Romae non conveniret, L. Philippus censor aliud iuxta constituit. Deinde aliquanto post P. Cornelius Nasica censor ex aqua fecit horarium, quod et ipsum ex consuetudine noscendi a sole horas solarium coeptum vocari. Horarum nomen non minus annos trecentos Romae ignoratum esse credibile est: nam XII tabulis nusquam nominatas horas invenies, ut in aliis postea legibus, sed ante meridiem, eo videlicet, quod partes diei bifariam tum divisi meridies discernebat.

It is sufficiently certain that there was nothing in the forum before that which M'. Valerius, brought from Sicily, set upon the rostra in a column; and because that had been marked according to the climate of Sicily and did not agree with the hours at Rome, L. Philippus, censor, set another one beside it. Somewhat later P. Cornelius Nasica, censor, made a water clock (horarium), which itself, from the custom of knowing the hours by the sun, began to be called a sundial. It is credible that the name “hours” was unknown at Rome for not less than three hundred years: for you will nowhere find the 12 hours named in the Tables, as in later laws, but only “before midday,” namely because noon then distinguished the day’s parts, which were divided into two.

Alii diem quadripertito, sed et noctem similiter dividebant; idque similitudo testatur militaris, ubi dicitur vigilia prima, item secunda et tertia et quarta.

Others divided the day quadripartite, and likewise divided the night; and this similarity is testified by the military usage, where one says the first watch, likewise the second and the third and the fourth.

XXIV. Sunt etiam plura noctis et diei tempora aliis subnotata propriisque discreta nominibus, quae apud veteres poetas passim scripta inveniuntur: ea omnia ordine suo exponam. Incipiam a nocte media, quod tempus principium et postremum est diei Romani.

24. There are also several other periods of night and day, noted by some and distinguished by their own particular names, which are found written throughout the ancient poets: I will set forth all these in their proper order. I will begin with the middle of the night, which time is the beginning and the end of the Roman day.

Tempus, quod huic proximum est, vocatur de media nocte; sequitur gallicinium, cum galli canere incipiunt, dein conticinium, cum conticuerunt; tunc ante lucem, et sic diluculum, cum sole nondum orto iam lucet. Secundum diluculum vocatur mane, cum lux videtur sole orto; post hoc ad meridiem, tunc meridies, quod est medii diei nomen, inde de meridie; hinc suprema: quamvis plurimi supremam post occasum solis esse existimant, quia est in XII tabulis scriptum sic: solis occasus suprema tempestas esto; sed postea M. Plaetorius tribunus plebiscitum tulit, in quo scriptum est praetor urbanus, qui nunc est quique posthac fuat, duo lictores apud se habeto iusque ad supremam—ad solem occasum usque—inter cives discito. Post supremam sequitur vespera, ante ortum scilicet eius stellae, quam Plautus vesperuginem, Ennius vesperum, Vergilius hesperon appellat.

The time next to this is called midnight; next follows the gallicinium, when the cocks begin to crow, then the conticinium, when they have fallen silent; then before dawn, and so diluculum, when the sun not yet risen already gives light. The second diluculum is called morning, when light is seen with the sun risen; after this toward midday, then meridies, which is the name of the middle of the day, thence from midday; hence the suprema: although very many think the suprema to be after the setting of the sun, because it is written so in the Twelve Tables: let the supreme time be the setting of the sun; but afterward Marcus Plaetorius, tribune, carried a plebiscite, in which it is written: let the urban praetor, who now is and who hereafter shall be, have two lictors with him and decide rights up to the suprema—up to the setting of the sun—among citizens. After the suprema follows vespera, that is before the rising of its star, which Plautus calls vesperuginem, Ennius vesperum, Vergil hesperon.

Inde porro crepusculum, sic fortasse appellatum, quod res incertae creperae dicuntur idque tempus noctis sit an diei incertum est. Post id sequitur tempus, quod dicimus luminibus accensis, antiqui prima face dicebant; deinde concubium, cum itum est cubitum; exinde intempesta—id est multa—nox, qua nihil agi tempestivum; tunc cum ad mediam noctem dicitur, et sic media nox * * *

Thereafter twilight (crepusculum), so perhaps called because uncertain things are called creperae, and whether this is a time of night or of day is uncertain. After that follows the time which we call “lights kindled” (luminibus accensis); the ancients called it prima face, then concubium, when one went to bed; thence intempesta — that is, untimely or late — night, in which nothing is done seasonably; then when it is said toward midnight (ad mediam noctem), and thus media nox * * *

(Deest epilogus)

(The epilogue is missing)