Note 3614 — THE JULIAN CALENDAR AND THE CHRONOLOGY OF CAESAR’S INVASIONS OF BRITAIN

Cf. Th. Mommsen, Die röm. Chron. bis auf Caesar, 1859, pp. 25, 286. Unger remarks (Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie, &c., cxxix, 1884, p. 760) that the outburst of 676 [or rather 677] was too insignificant to have been selected by Macrobius as an illustration. Moreover, says Holzapfel, the particular tumultus owing to which the superstitious dread of the coincidence of nundinae with the Kalends of January was intensified must have been preceded by other calamities associated with the same coincidence. In the earlier part of 702, when the Kalends of January fell on a market-day, there were no consuls, which might well awaken apprehensions. In 705, when the same coincidence occurred, the Civil War broke out. The Lepidianus tumultus of 711 was accompanied by proscriptions; therefore the superstition would have been confirmed, as Macrobius says, by that tumultus.

Undoubtedly,—if, as Holzapfel maintains, it is true that in 711 the Kalends of January fell upon a market-day. But this is the very point at issue; and Holzapfel seems to ignore the possibility that the Lepidianus tumultus of 677 may also ‘have been preceded by other calamities associated with the same coincidence’. Moreover, Matzat objects that of the events of 711 the outbreak of Lepidus was the least important, and that if Macrobius had intended to refer to that year, he would have said tumultus Antonianus. Holzapfel replies that when Lepidus joined Antony, the war which the latter had begun assumed a new phase, and Lepidus became commander-in-chief of the united armies (Velleius Paterculus, ii, 63, § 1; Appian, B. C., iii, 84), a fact which justifies the phrase, Lepidianus tumultus. Further, to show how flagitious the conduct of Lepidus appeared to contemporaries, he refers to Cicero, Fam., xii, 8, § 1 (Scelus adfinis tui Lepidi ... cognosse te arbitror), 9, § 2 (Nos, confectum bellum quom putaremus, repente a Lepido tuo in summam sollicitudinem sumus adducti), and 10, § 3 (Praeclare viceramus, nisi spoliatum, inermem, fugientem Lepidus recepisset Antonium. Itaque numquam tanto odio civitati Antonius fuit quanto est Lepidus; ille enim ex turbulenta re p., hic ex pace et victoria bellum excitavit).