Calendrical Notes

[Clavdivs]

To-day is the Ides of January (IDIBVS IANVARII), in modern terms the thirteenth day of the month. To-day is marked by Warde Fowler NP, sacred to a god not of earthly character.

The Ides are sacred to IVPPITER OPTIMVS MAXVMVS, Jupiter Greatest and Best, also known as Capitoline Jupiter, from his great temple with IVNO REGINA and MINERVA (the Capitoline Triad, TRIAS CAPITOLINVS), on the Capitoline Hill.

The Ides are the days of the full moon, and may be thus sacred to the king and greatest of the gods, the god of thunder, of the oak and of the heavens, because the two great heavenly lights, Sun and Moon, give light through the whole twenty-four hours. Warde Fowler (The Roman Festivals of the Republic, a standard text) gives this as a generally accepted explanation with a reference to the Mythologisches [sic.] Lexikon of Roscher.

There is a historical note partly preserved in the Fasti of Praeneste:

''Ides. No Business; Public Holiday . . .
[The senate decreed] that a chaplet of oak should be placed [above the door of the home of Imp. Caesar] Augustus, because he restored [the republic] to the Roman people.''

The ''chaplet of oak'' referred to is the civic crown (CORONA CIVICA), alluded to by Augustus himself in the thirty-fourth chapter of the RES GESTAE DIVI AVGVSTI:

''In my sixth and seventh consulates, after putting out the civil war, having obtained all things by universal consent, I handed over the state from my power to the dominion of the senate and Roman people. And for this merit of mine, by a senate decree, I was called Augustus and the doors of my temple were publicly clothed with laurel and a civic crown was fixed over my door and a gold shield placed in the Julian senate-house, and the inscription of that shield testified to the virtue, mercy, justice, and piety, for which the senate and Roman people gave it to me. After that time, I exceeded all in influence, but I had no greater power than the others who were colleagues with me in each magistracy. ''

The sixth and seventh consulships of Augustus were both shared with M. Vipsanius Agrippa, being the years of the City 726 and 727, in the current system of reckoning 28 and 27 B.C.E.

The return of the state to ''the dominion of the senate and the Roman people'' and the restoration ''[of] the republic to the Roman people.'', although they were mere figures and Augustus retained practical command, are tremendously important if we want to understand the Principate. Augustus' title, ''Princeps'', is essentially a democratic title, translatable as something like ''first citizen'', a primus inter pares and most certainly not either a dictator ruling by force, or a King by divine right. Augustus owed his power, at least in theory, to a democratic vote of the senate. The force that made that vote inevitable was carefully concealed, and the accretion of pseudo-divine honours, by vote of the senate, and increasing power, cause a steady slide towards monarchy while maintaining the outward appearance of a republic.