Note 3619 — THE JULIAN CALENDAR AND THE CHRONOLOGY OF CAESAR’S INVASIONS OF BRITAIN

Matzat’s theory, Holzapfel insists (Philologus, xlix, 1890, pp. 71-2), forces him to contradict himself. First, he argues (Röm. Chron., i, 1883, p. 17) that Caesar fixed the time of his first intercalation simply with the object of preventing the Kalends of January, 711, from falling on a market-day; in other words, he holds that the intercalary day contemplated by Caesar was a movable one. But if so, we must disregard the testimony of Dion, who says that the intercalation of 713 was ‘contrary to the regulations’ (παρὰ τὰ καθεστηκότα). Accordingly in Hermes, xxiii, 1888, p. 51, Matzat silently abandons his earlier view, and assumes that Caesar intended to intercalate in 714, 718, 722, &c. But if this cycle had been observed, the 1st of January, 714, 717, 720, and so on, would have fallen on a market-day; and therefore Matzat’s revised theory is obviously irreconcilable with his original view, that Caesar intercalated in 710 in order to prevent the Kalends of January, 711, from falling on a market-day.

Matzat has not, so far as I can discover, made any rejoinder to Holzapfel’s article; but it is not impossible to answer this argument. Supposing that Caesar intercalated in 710 in order to prevent the Kalends of January, 711, from falling on a market-day, why should we disregard the testimony of Dion? Caesar’s regulation was that the intercalation should take place every four years. If, no matter for what reason, the first intercalation took place in 710, the second would fall due in 714. By transferring it to 713, Caesar’s regulation would be contravened. Nor is the theory that Caesar intended to intercalate in 714, 718, 722, &c., necessarily inconsistent with the view that he intercalated in 710 in order to prevent the Kalends of January, 711, from falling on a market-day; for, as I have remarked in the text, he may perhaps have failed to look ahead.