Note 520 — Chapter V · LUNAR SUPERSTITIONS AND FESTIVALS

Varro, De lingua Latina, 29; Ovid, Fasti, i, 59 sq.; Livy, vi, 1; Plutarch, Quæstiones Romanæ, 25; Gellius, Noctes Atticæ, iv, 9, 5; Macrobius, Saturnalia, i, 16, 18. These days were also described as atri vel vitiosi. The greater number of them were available for judicial business, but not for meetings of the assemblies (dies fasti non comitiales). Many Romans also regarded as ominous the fourth day before the Kalends, Nones, and Ides; according to one account because the battle of Cannæ took place on the fourth day before the Nones of the month Sextilis (Gellius, op. cit., v, 17, 3).