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[German version] A. The term Formed as an adjective from the Latin fās (‘divine right’; no etymological link with *fēs or *făs and their derivative terms fēriae, fēstus and fānum can be demonstrated [11. 134]), fastus in technical language is found only in association with dies, and in Rome then signifies those days on which certain public acts were held to be permitted. This concept gave a calendrical digest of such days ─ among which the dies fasti predominate ─ the name fasti. As regards both name and graphic form, the word displaced all other competing terms for  calenda…

Italian surname (Schulze, 355); according to Roman legend, Rome's war against Alba Longa under King Tullus Hostilius was decided through the fight between the triplet Curiatii brothers of Alba and the triplet Horatii brothers ( Horatius) of Rome, with the former being killed (Liv. 1,24f.; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 3,16-20). After the destruction of Alba, the family is said to have moved to Rome and to have been included among the Patricians (Liv. 1,30,2; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 3,29,7). The consul recorded in the fasti for 453 BC, member of the 1st collegium of the decemvirs for the d…

Roman family name, probably derived from Varus. Name-bearers first attested in the 1st cent. BC, but only in the Imperial period did they attain any prominence. Elvers, Karl-Ludwig (Bochum) I. Republican period [German version] [I 1] V. Cotyla, L. Aedile in 48, 47 or 44 BC (Cic. Phil. 13,26), emissary at Rome for M. Antonius [I 9] in 43, and his legate in Gallia transalpina (Cic. Phil. 5,5-7; 8,24-32; Plut. Antonius 18,8). Bartels, Jens (Bonn) [German version] [I 2] V. Rufus, L. Roman poet, c. 70-15 BC Renowned Roman poet (Hor. Ars P. 55) of the Augustan period (c. 70-15 BC). Wi…

Name of an old patrician family, probably connected with the name of the god  Jupiter [1. 281; 2. 729]. The gens was one of the so-called ‘Trojan families’, who were said to have moved from Alba Longa to Rome under king Tullus Hostilius [I 4] (see below). The Iulii were prominent in the 5th and 4th cents. BC. Their connection to the family branch of the Caesares, which rose to prominence from the 3rd cent. and whose outstanding member was the dictator  Caesar (with family tree), is unclear. Caesar's adoptive son,…

A. Basic Principles [German version] 1. Term Calendar developed its modern meaning in post-antiquity from the Latin word for ‘debt register’ (  Calendarium ). In the following, the term is taken as an element of  chronography within a culture which attempts to describe or regulate annual periodicities. Typically, a day represents the smallest unit of a calendar ( Clocks). Rüpke, Jörg (Erfurt) [German version] 2. Social Construction of Time Hunting and farming both demand a harmonization with seasonal variations ( Seasons), thus leading to annually repeated patte…

[German version] Continuous records (  acta ) in the nature of minutes, documenting the activities of official bodies and their agents (magistrates, collegia, city councils), but also perhaps commercial enterprises, i.e. large private households (Cic. Att. 7,3,7); but the term is not attested for actual balance sheets. The interests involved, and therefore the content (down to the private ‘notebook’, Cic. De or. 1,208), level of standardization and publication of records can vary greatly. Characteristic of the commentarius, as an individual record is that it is almost a…

Name of a plebeian family [1], perhaps from Cales, politically active from the 3rd cent. BC. I. Republican period [German version] [I 1] People's tribune in the mid-2nd cent. BC People's tribune (?) in the mid-2nd cent. BC, otherwise unknown author of a lex Fufia on the fixing of permissible days for public assemblies (usually mentioned together with the lex Aelia,  Aelius [I 1]). MRR 1,452f.; 3,3f. Elvers, Karl-Ludwig (Bochum) [German version] [I 2] F., L. Rom. orator in the 1st cent. BC Known as an orator in the 90s of the 1st cent. BC. Around 97 his speech in the prosecu…

[German version] A Latin textual genre attested by numerous mediaeval MSS. Lunaria provide compilations of prescriptions and prognoses for all the days of a lunar month. In content they follow ancient astrological rules (Cato Agr.; Verg. G.; Plin. HN), but the tradition can not be reconstructed without a discontinuity [2. 18]. They correspond to the selenodromia of Greek literature, which certainly do trace back to the ancient prognostica [3; 4]. In this form the lunaria can be classified into the (mostly astrologically based) hemerological calendars, which range from…

I. Introduction [German version] A. Definition of the concept 'Religion', the substantive for describing the religious, denotes a system of common practices, individual ideas about faith, codified norms and examples of theological exegesis whose validity is derived chiefly from an authoritative principle or being. For the academic study of religion, conversely, the word is a purely heuristic category in which those practices, ideas, norms and theological constructs are examined historically; however, the…

[German version] (ἐφημερίς; ephēmerís, pl. ephēmerídes). A diary for personal notes, as office or accounts journal. The common term for such notes is   hypomnḗma(ta) , Lat.   commentarii or   acta . Ephemeris is found as the title of literary works that have been passed down or used, i.a. for the ‘war journal’ of  Alexander [4] the Great used by the historian  Ptolemy I (FGrH 117) and the fictitious Ephemerìs toû Troikoû polémou, the Trojan War diary from the (fictitious)  Dictys Cretensis. Plutarch (Caes. 22) describes Caesar's commentarii as ephemeris; however, in the  Corpus Caesa…

Rüpke, Jörg (Erfurt) [German version] A. Traditions (CT) Of the many calendar systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity only the Jewish and the Julian Calendars survived in use beyond the late classical period. For many other systems, such as the Gaulish calendar, or that of Coligny, or the conventional lunisolar calendar of the Eastern Mediterranean, there are clear breaks in the tradition after the 4th cent. AD. The Julian Calendar, the system adopted by the Roman administration, was taken over by the Chri…

In early societies, largely based on family organizations, genealogy as a derivation of a person's descent in the form of a pedigree is often used as a means of legitimation and (pseudo-historical) memory, which was always also directed at publicity (genealogy from Greek γενεαλογεῖν; genealogeîn, ‘to talk about [one's] origin’). [German version] I. Near East and Egypt The purpose of lineage, transmitted in the form of a genealogy (generally patrilineal; exceptions in the case of Egyptian rulers), was to legitimate a claim to rulership, to tenure of a …

[German version] (Form of the name according to  CIL 11,5405, from Assisi). Roman elegiac and lyric poet of the late 1st cent. AD. He is known only from the letters of Pliny the Younger (Plinius [2] P. Caecilius Secundus, C. , Plin. Ep. 6,15,1; 9,22,1f.), who held him in great esteem as an elegiac and lyric poet and described him as an equestrian and descendant of the elegiac poet Propertius. His friendship with Pliny and with L. Iavolenus Priscus, the legal scholar and consul of AD 86, are indica…

[German version] A. General Αἱ χρονικαὶ, τὰ χρονικά; Hai chronikaì, tà chroniká, chronicon; Latin according to Isid. Orig. 5,37 series temporum. No antique or medieval description of the genre [1; 2]. Chronicles are written histories structured on a yearly basis. They vary from mere lists of dates to miniature narratives for individual years: it is then, as  annals -- retrospective in the Roman period, ongoing and contemporaneous in the Carolingian -- that they enter the realm of real  historiography. This progres…

('Age'). [German version] I. General Censorinus [4] takes up ancient theories on saeculum in ch. 17 of De die natali (AD 238) in the framework of chronographic remarks. His sources include Varro, who, according to Serv. Aen. 8,526, was the author of a text, De saeculis. Censorinus, DN 17,2, defined saeculum as 'the length of the longest possible human lifetime' ( spatium vitae humanae longissimum partu et morte definitum). Censorinus makes a clear distinction between Etruscan (17,5-6) and Roman traditions (17,7-15; Roman(or)um saeculum: 17,7): the ritual staging of the beginn…

[German version] Short, narrative form of  historiography and as such, distinct from the primarily non-narrative  chronicle. As detailed history, breviaria seek to entertain ( Velleius Paterculus), but instruction, leading to abbreviation as a didactic technique, is in the foreground: the target groups were above all the upwardly mobile classes that needed a means of educating themselves -- this explains the increase in that type of textual material in the 4th cent.; (rhetorical) education is often both the starti…

[German version] A. Term Feriale is the term used in the title of a Campanian inscription of AD 387, containing a list of seven annually celebrated rituals (InscrIt 13,2,283). From this text, known as the feriale Campanum, historians now apply this term to similar compilations within the Latin sphere: In contrast with actual calendars (  fasti ), ferialia do not list all of the days within a year, but only those associated with certain specific rituals. It makes sense to extend the academic application of the term feriale to include comparable written compilations in other culture…

Widespread Italic nomen gentile. I. Republican period [German version] [I 1] V., L. Roman equestrian from Picenum, c. 106-59 BC. In 89 BC, V. probably served on the staff of Cn. Pompeius [I 8] Strabo (ILS 8888; [1. 161 f.]) and subsequently enriched himself as a favourite of L. Cornelius [I 90] Sulla (Sall. Hist. 1,55,17). He later joined the conspiracy of Catilina (Q. Tullius Cic. commentariolum petitionis 10), but betrayed it to Cicero in 63 BC (Cass. Dio. 37,41; Oros. 6,6,7). In 62, it seems that opponents o…

[English version] (etym. “neun Tage”), röm. Bezeichnung für die alle acht Tage (also jeden neunten Tag) erfolgenden Markttage bzw. Märkte und damit auch eine Form öffentlicher und privater Zeitrechnung. Markt (II.B.); Woche Rüpke, Jörg (Erfurt)

[English version] I. Griechisch Die g.D. kann als bes. Strömung jener parodistischen Dichtung angesehen werden, die gegen Ende des 5. Jh. v.Chr. mit Hegemon von Thasos zu einer echten lit. Gattung wurde: eine leichte, scherzhafte Dichtung (Ergebnis jedoch eines künstlerischen Engagements) besingt die Freuden des Bauches und des Tisches. Bei dem verlorenen Δεῖπνον ( Deípnon, ‘Gastmahl) des Hegemon handelte es sich um eine Bankettbeschreibung ( anagraphḗ, Athen. 1,5a; s. auch Symposienliteratur), ebenso bei den gleichnamigen Werken des Numenios von Herakleia (…