Calendrical Notes

[Clavdivs]

To-day is the seventeenth day before the Kalends of February (ANTE DIEM XVII KALENDAS FEBRVARII), in modern reckoning the sixteenth day of the month. Warde Fowler notes it to be C., DIES COMITIALIS.

We possess two reasonably intact historical notices, both capable of reconstruction:

''Business in Assembly. Imp. Caesar was called [Augustus], when he was consul for the 7th time and Agrippa [was consul for the 3rd time].''
The temple of Concordia Augusta [was dedicated] when P.Dolabella and C.Silvanus were consuls. Tiberius Caesar [dedicated] it when he returned from Pannonia.

A. The year of the seventh consulship of Augustus and the third of Agrippa was 27 B.C.E., the year of the City 727. In the thirty-fourth chapter of the RES GESTAE DIVI AVGVSTI we find:

''In my sixth and seventh consulships, when I had extinguished the flames of civil war, after receiving by universal consent the absolute control of affairs, I transferred the republic from my own control to the will of the senate and the Roman people. For this service on my part I was given the title of Augustus by decree of the senate, and the doorposts of my house were covered with laurels by public act, and a civic crown was fixed above my door, and a golden shield was placed in the Curia Julia whose inscription testified that the senate and the Roman people gave me this in recognition of my valour, my clemency, my justice, and my piety.''

Just as the God Augustus' title (PRINCEPS) denoted merely ''first citizen'', so AVGVSTVS was not in the beginning a monarchical title (he declined to be styled ROMVLVS) or the badge of a permanent Imperial office . It simply denotes ''the venerable one'' and so belongs to a long Republican tradition of honorary AGNOMINA being voted to successful generals as a sign of popular esteem, as Scipio AFRICANVS. Thus, in the beginning, Augustus' supreme power was seen as an exceptional and unique circumstance in a Republic, a temporary measure, rather than a new monarchy.

B. According to the Loeb commentary on Ovid's Fasti, the temple of CONCORDIA in the Forum was vowed by M. Furius Camillus, the captor of Veii, in the year 367 B.C.E., of the City 387, during the bitter Conflict of the Orders and intended as a symbol of reconciliation between patricians an plebeians. It was rebuilt by Tiberius in 10 C.E. (the year of the City 763 and of the consulship of Dolabella and Silvanus) with the spoils of his victorious war in Germany and rededicated as the AEDES CONCORDIAE AVGVSTAE.

See the first book of the Fasti, lines 638 et seq.

''Furius the vanquisher of the Etruscan folk, had vowed the ancient temple, and he kept his vow. The cause was that the common folk had taken up arms and seceded from the nobles, and Rome dreaded her own puissance. The recent cause was better: Germany presented her dishevelled locks at thy command, leader revered; hence didst thou offer the spoil of the vanquished people, and didst build a temple to that goddess whom thou thyself dost worship.''

Also Suetonius' ''Tiberius'' Chapter 20:

''After two years he returned to the city from Germany and celebrated the triumph which he had postponed [he had been voted a triumph for his defeat of the Illyrians or Pannonians, but this was delayed on account of the Varian disaster], accompanied also by his generals, for whom he had obtained the triumphal regalia. And before turning to enter the Capitol, he dismounted from his chariot and fell at the knees of his father, who was presiding over the ceremonies. He sent Bato, the leader of the Pannonians, to Ravenna, after presenting him with rich gifts; thus showing his gratitude to him for allowing him to escape when he was trapped with his army in a dangerous place. Then he gave a banquet to the people at a thousand tables, and a largess of three hundred sesterces to every man. With the proceeds of his spoils he restored and dedicated the temple of Concord, as well as that of Pollux and Castor, in his own name and that of his brother.''