Note 1 — INTRODUCTION

The difficult questions connected with this subject cannot be discussed here. Since Mommsen wrote his Römische Chronologie it has at least been possible to give an intelligible account of it, such as that in the Dict. of Antiquities (second edition), in Marquardt’s Staatsverwaltung, iii. 281 foll., and in Bouché-Leclercq, Pontifes, p. 230 foll. There is a useful summary in H. Peter’s edition of Ovid’s Fasti (p. 19). Mommsen’s views have been criticized by Huschke, Das Römische Jahr, and Hartmann, Der Röm. Kalender; the former a very unsafe guide, and the latter, unfortunately, an unfinished and posthumous work. The chief ancient authority is Censorinus, De die natali, a work written at the beginning of the third century A.D., on the basis of a treatise of Suetonius.