Fasti - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

, the fasti (Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

plural) were chronological

Chronology

Chronology is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time, such as the use of a timeline or sequence of events. It is also "the determination of the actual temporal sequence of past events".Chronology is part of periodization...

or calendar

Calendar

A calendar is a system of organizing days for social, religious, commercial, or administrative purposes. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months, and years. The name given to each day is known as a date. Periods in a calendar are usually, though not...

-based lists, or other diachronic records or plans of official and religiously sanctioned events. The word fasti continued to be used for similar records in Christian Europe and later Western culture

Western culture

Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...

.

Public business, including the official business of the Roman state, had to be transacted on dies fasti, "allowed days". The fasti were the records of this business. In addition to the word's general sense, there were fasti that recorded specific kinds of events, such as the fasti triumphales, lists of triumphs

Roman triumph

The Roman triumph was a civil ceremony and religious rite of ancient Rome, held to publicly celebrate and sanctify the military achievement of an army commander who had won great military successes, or originally and traditionally, one who had successfully completed a foreign war. In Republican...

celebrated by Roman generals. The divisions of time used in the fasti were based on the Roman calendar

Roman calendar

The Roman calendar changed its form several times in the time between the founding of Rome and the fall of the Roman Empire. This article generally discusses the early Roman or pre-Julian calendars...

.

The yearly records of the fasti encouraged the writing of history in the form of chronological annales

Annalists

Annalists , is the name given to a class of writers on Roman history, the period of whose literary activity lasted from the time of the Second Punic War to that of Sulla...

, "annals," which in turn influenced the development of Roman historiography

Roman historiography

Roman Historiography is indebted to the Greeks, who invented the form. The Romans had great models to base their works upon, such as Herodotus and Thucydides. Roman historiographical forms are different from the Greek ones however, and voice very Roman concerns. Unlike the Greeks, Roman...

. The Fasti
Fasti (poem)
The Fasti is a six-book Latin poem by Ovid believed to have been left unfinished when the poet was exiled to Tomis by the emperor Augustus in the year 8...

of the Augustan

Augustan literature (ancient Rome)

Augustan literature is the period of Latin literature written during the reign of Augustus , the first Roman emperor. In literary histories of the first part of the 20th century and earlier, Augustan literature was regarded along with that of the Late Republic as constituting the Golden Age of...

poet Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

is a six-book elegiac

Elegiac couplet

The elegiac couplet is a poetic form used by Greek lyric poets for a variety of themes usually of smaller scale than the epic. Roman poets, particularly Ovid, adopted the same form in Latin many years later...

poem on Roman religion

Religion in ancient Rome

Religion in ancient Rome encompassed the religious beliefs and cult practices regarded by the Romans as indigenous and central to their identity as a people, as well as the various and many cults imported from other peoples brought under Roman rule. Romans thus offered cult to innumerable deities...

and customs structured by the sequence of Roman holidays from January to June.

Etymology

Fasti is the plural of the Latin adjective fastus, most commonly used as a substantive. The word derives from fas, meaning "that which is permitted," that is, "that which is legitimate in the eyes of the gods." Fasti dies were the days on which business might be transacted without impiety, in contrast to dies nefasti, days on which assemblies and courts could not convene. The word fasti itself came to denote lists organized by time. The temporal structure distinguished fasti from regesta
Regesta
Papal regesta are the copies, generally entered in special registry volumes, of the papal letters and official documents that are kept in the papal archives...

, which were simple lists of property, or assets, such as land or documents, or transactions transferring property.

Calendaria

Fasti Diurni, divided into urbani and rustici, were a kind of official year-book, with dates and directions for religious ceremonies, court-days, market-days, divisions of the month, and the like. As the Roman populace who had to rely on this information was basically illiterate, the information was called out in the forum at the beginning of each month, which on that account was designated the calendae, the "calling out." Calendaria thus officially called out were the exclusive responsibility of the College of Pontiffs

College of Pontiffs

The College of Pontiffs or Collegium Pontificum was a body of the ancient Roman state whose members were the highest-ranking priests of the polytheistic state religion. The college consisted of the Pontifex Maximus, the Vestal Virgins, the Rex Sacrorum, and the flamines...

, an organization of priestly magistrates.

In 304 BC Gnaeus Flavius, a pontifical secretary, introduced the custom of publishing in the Forum

Roman Forum

The Roman Forum is a rectangular forum surrounded by the ruins of several important ancient government buildings at the center of the city of Rome. Citizens of the ancient city referred to this space, originally a marketplace, as the Forum Magnum, or simply the Forum...

tables engraved in stone, typically around the four faces of a rectangular solid, containing the requisite information, besides brief references to victories, triumphs, prodigies, and so forth. This list was the origin of the written calendarium, the Roman calendar

Roman calendar

, in which the days were divided into weeks of eight days each, and indicated by the letters A-H. Each day was marked by a certain letter to show its nature; thus the letters F., N., N.P., F.P., Q. Rex C.F., C., EN., stood for fastus, nefastus, nefastus priore ("unlawful before noon"), fastus priore ("lawful before noon"), quando rex (sacrorum) comitiavit fastus ("lawful after the rex sacrorum
Rex Sacrorum
In ancient Roman religion, the rex sacrorum was a senatorial priesthood reserved for patricians. Although in the historical era the pontifex maximus was the head of Roman state religion, Festus says that in the ranking of priests, the rex sacrorum was of highest prestige, followed by the flamines...

has appeared in the assembly"), comitialis ("assembly day") and intercisus ("divided" — having an unlawful time sometime within that day). The dies intercisi were partly fasti and partly nefasti.

Upon the cultivators fewer feasts, sacrifices, ceremonies and holidays were enjoined than on the inhabitants of cities; and the rustic fasti, such as the Calendarium Rusticum Farnesianum, contained little more than the ceremonies of the calends, nones and ides, the fairs, signs of zodiac, increase and decrease of the days, the tutelary gods of each month, and certain directions for rustic labors to be performed each month.

A considerable number of calendaria have been discovered; but none of them appear to be older than the time of Augustus

Augustus

Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...

. The Praenestine calendar, discovered in 1770, arranged by the famous grammarian Verrius Flaccus

Verrius Flaccus

Marcus Verrius Flaccus was a Roman grammarian and teacher who flourished under Augustus and Tiberius.-Life:He was a freedman, and his manumitter has been identified with Verrius Flaccus, an authority on pontifical law; but for chronological reasons the name of Veranius Flaccus, a writer on augury,...

, contains the months of January, March, April, and December, and a portion of February. The tablets give an account of festivals, as also of the triumphs of Augustus and Tiberius

Tiberius

Tiberius , was Roman Emperor from 14 AD to 37 AD. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla. His mother divorced Nero and married Augustus in 39 BC, making him a step-son of Octavian...

. There are still two complete calendars in existence, an official list by Philocalus (354), and a Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

version of the official calendar, made by Polemius Silvius

Polemius Silvius

Polemius Silvius was the author of an annotated Julian calendar that attempted to integrate the traditional Roman festival cycle with the new Christian holy days. His calendar, also referred to as a laterculus or fasti, dates to around 448–449...

(448).

The Roman official chronicles

Fasti Magistrales, Annales or Historici, were concerned with the several festivals, and everything relating to religious practice and the gods, and the magistrate

Magistrate

A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge or prosecutor. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a...

s; to the emperors

Roman Emperor

The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office although at any given time, a given title was associated with the emperor...

, their birthdays, offices, days consecrated to them, with feasts and ceremonies established in their honor or for their prosperity. They came to be denominated magni, "great," by way of distinction from the bare calendar, or fasti diurni ("everyday records"). The word fasti thus came to be used in the general sense of annals

Annals

Annals are a concise form of historical representation which record events chronologically, year by year. The Oxford English Dictionary defines annals as "a narrative of events written year by year"...

or historical records

Chronicle

Generally a chronicle is a historical account of facts and events ranged in chronological order, as in a time line. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, the purpose being the recording of events that occurred, seen from the perspective of the...

Fasti consulares

Fasti consulares were official chronicles in which years were denoted by the respective consul

Consul

Consul was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire. The title was also used in other city states and also revived in modern states, notably in the First French Republic...

s and other magistrates, often with the principal events that happened during their consulates, but sometimes not. An example is the fasti Capitolini, a modern name assigned because they were deposited in 1547 in the courtyard of the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitoline Hill

Capitoline Hill

The Capitoline Hill , between the Forum and the Campus Martius, is one of the seven hills of Rome. It was the citadel of the earliest Romans. By the 16th century, Capitolinus had become Capitolino in Italian, with the alternative Campidoglio stemming from Capitolium. The English word capitol...

on order of Alessandro Farnese, who kept them temporarily in his villa after their excavation from the Roman forum in 1545 or 1546 (funded by Farnese). Michelangelo

Michelangelo

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...

, who designed the complex of three palaces on the hill, also restored the tables of the fasti. The Palazzo today is one of the Capitoline Museums

Capitoline Museums

The Capitoline Museums are a group of art and archeological museums in Piazza del Campidoglio, on top of the Capitoline Hill in Rome, Italy. The museums are contained in three palazzi surrounding a central trapezoidal piazza in a plan conceived by Michelangelo Buonarroti in 1536 and executed over...

, which serve a double duty as museums and city government buildings. The fasti are located in the Sala della Lupa, the same room as the bronze wolf. More pieces discovered after the Renaissance were placed with it.

Discovery

The fasti consulares were discovered as 30 marble fragments in the forum. With them were 26 fragments of Acta Triumpharum, since called the fasti triumphales. Both lists were restored as distinct records. The restoration was based nearly entirely on the observations of Onofrio Panvinio

Onofrio Panvinio

The erudite Augustinian Onofrio Panvinio or Onuphrius Panvinius was an Italian historian and antiquary, who was librarian to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese....

and Pirro Ligorio

Pirro Ligorio

Pirro Ligorio was an Italian architect, painter, antiquarian and garden designer.-Biography:Ligorio was born in Naples. In 1534 he moved to Rome, where he developed his interest in antiquities, and was named superintendent to the ancient monuments by the Popes Pius IV and Paul IV...

, who were standing at the top of the trench in which a portion of wall was showing, featuring inscriptional material between pilaster

Pilaster

A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....

s. They conferred with Michelangelo. Pope Paul III

Pope Paul III

Pope Paul III , born Alessandro Farnese, was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1534 to his death in 1549. He came to the papal throne in an era following the sack of Rome in 1527 and rife with uncertainties in the Catholic Church following the Protestant Reformation...

had authorized the mining of stone for St. Peter's in 1540 and Michelangelo was in fact protestingly working on its design also. The pope was following the widespread convention that prevailed in the Renaissance of ripping up the structures of the past to reuse in building structures they considered even more magnificent. The scholars were collaborating to save what they could.

A resident colony of quarrymen did not pause in the slightest but went on dismantling buildings. All trace of structures in that part of the forum vanished between August 15 and September 14, 1546. The stone was sold to cutters for reuse or to lime burners for the creation of cement. None of these proceedings were in any way archaeological. Cardinal Farnese assigned the scholars to watch the diggings. Collecting a team they moved swiftly to rescue what they could, sinking tunnels to the side to search for fragments. Subsequently more fragments turned up embedded in buildings then in use, showing that the area had been less intensely mined previously, and casting doubt of the location of the original source of the fragments.

It has been estimated that the consular lists were in four entablatures several feet high: I covering AUC 1-364; II, 365-461; III, 462-600; IV, 601-745, running to 766 in the margin. They were not published, however, as two lists; instead, Marliani in 1549 (first publication, Rome), Sigonius in 1550 (Modena), Robortelli in 1555 (Venice) and others chose to combine the information into a unified list, which was carried forward under the name fasti capitolini. The editors took certain freedoms, such as filling in missing magistrates from other records as they thought best and filling in missing dates AUC to give the appearance of a continuous yearly chronicle, at the same time concealing the problems. Typically representations under the name capitolini are not that. There were in fact two different original lists placed under that name to which were added fragments found in 1816-1818, 1872-1878 and a final one from the Tiber river in 1888, unrestored. All the fragments became CIL

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum

The Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum is a comprehensive collection of ancient Latin inscriptions. It forms an authoritative source for documenting the surviving epigraphy of classical antiquity. Public and personal inscriptions throw light on all aspects of Roman life and history...

I under Fragmenta Quae Dicuntur Capitolini, "Fragments Called Capitolini" and Cetera Quae Supersunt Fragmenta, "Other Remaining Fragments."

Content

The unified list states the magistrates for each AUC

Ab urbe condita

Ab urbe condita is Latin for "from the founding of the City ", traditionally set in 753 BC. AUC is a year-numbering system used by some ancient Roman historians to identify particular Roman years...

from the first year of the first king to the death of Augustus

Augustus

. The marble entablatures were erected at the order of Augustus, based on information available to the Romans then, although the nature and validity of this information remains unknown. The degree of detail suggests that they were based on previous republican chronicles. The identification of their ancient location is controversial. The two theories are that they were in or part of the regia, or palace, of the College of Pontiffs

College of Pontiffs

, or that they were on a commemorative arch Augustus had constructed.

The fasti state a list of kings followed by the republican consuls for each year, with the magistri equitum and the tribuni militares for years in which these magistrates were eponymous instead of consuls; that is, once the practice of naming the year after the heads of state began, there had to be a head of state whether king, dictator, consul, master or tribune, regardless of what body held the power. The list features multiple dating schemes. To the right are years from the beginning of the republic preceded by an. or ann. for anno, "in the year." To the left every ten years is a numeral stating the AUC

Ab urbe condita

Ab urbe condita is Latin for "from the founding of the City ", traditionally set in 753 BC. AUC is a year-numbering system used by some ancient Roman historians to identify particular Roman years...

year starting with CCXC (the editors typically fill out these schemes; the list is seldom quoted as is). The length of reign is given for the kings (the sum does not match the first republican AUC). In addition 5-year lustrations ("purgation", a ceremony cleaning the city of sin) and the censor

Censor

Censor may refer to:*Censorship, the control of speech and other forms of human expression*Roman censor, a magistrate for maintaining the census, supervising public morality, etc*Cato Censor , Roman statesman...

s conducting them are stated, which list is sometimes called the fasti censorii by moderns and stated as a third fasti capitolini.

Feeney argues that the multiple scheme is evidence that the fasti were Augustan rather than republican. The kings are given precedence at the top (Augustus regarded the empire as an extension of the monarchy and required such views of his subjects) and the AUC at the left as though they were superimposed on a formerly republican fasti. Moreover the 5-year lustra date to 28 BC when the temple of Mars Ultor ("Mars the Avenger"), the imperial god, was constructed and took precedence over the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline. After that time the emperor must be one of the censors, who now presided over banging in the yearly nail at Mars Ultor instead of Jupiter (the setting of this nail marked the transition of the year).

Dating

The republican dates given to the right are those of the Varronian chronology; that is, those calculated by the scholar, Marcus Terentius Varro

Marcus Terentius Varro

Marcus Terentius Varro was an ancient Roman scholar and writer. He is sometimes called Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus.-Biography:...

. His republic begins in the year 510/509 BC by modern calculation. These were the official imperial dates. Many other dates and chronologies existed, notably those of Livy

Livy

Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...

, with which the emperor must have been familiar, but he did not forbid their use in unofficial contexts. The AUC chronology does not exactly correspond; it is later than the Varronian by a year. Censorinus

Censorinus

Censorinus, Roman grammarian and miscellaneous writer, flourished during the 3rd century AD.He was the author of a lost work De Accentibus and of an extant treatise De Die Natali, written in 238, and dedicated to his patron Quintus Caerellius as a birthday gift...

, who went over Varro's calculations, he says, explains that Ulpius and Pontianus were consuls in the 1014th year from the re-founding of the Olympic games

Olympic Games

The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...

(776 BC); that is, Olympiad

Olympiad

An Olympiad is a period of four years, associated with the Olympic Games of Classical Greece. In the Hellenistic period, beginning with Ephorus, Olympiads were used as calendar epoch....

254.2 (second year of the 254th Olympiad) and that this year was AUC 991, starting by modern calculations January 1, 238 AD. Varro's AUC 1 therefore was 754/753 BC. The further identifications of Ulpius and Pontianus remain a mystery, as they are only named by Censorinus, but the names are irrelevant to the argument. The republic began in Varro's view in AUC 245.

Solinus

Gaius Julius Solinus

Gaius Julius Solinus, Latin grammarian and compiler, probably flourished in the early third century. Historical scholar Theodor Mommsen dates him to the middle of the third century....

observed that Gaius Pompeius Gallus and Quintus Verranius

Quintus Veranius

Quintus Veranius was the name of two notable Roman politicians of the 1st century.-Quintus Veranius:The elder Quintus Veranius was governor of Cappadocia in 18. He was involved in the prosecution of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, who was accused of poisoning Germanicus, in 20...

were consuls in Olympiad 207.1, and that this year was 801 AUC, counting from the foundation of Rome at Olympiad 7.1. By modern calculation this is 49 AD. He was relying on the official dating scheme, which must have been the fasti consulares. In Varro's chronology this is AUC 802. Simple subtraction shows that AUC 1 in Augustus' fasti is 753/752 BC. The fasti give to the start of the republic a date of 244 AUC, but some editors "correct" all the AUC to Varronian. Similarly the fasti run to the death of Augustus in 13 BC (14 in the Varronian). This is not a difference in the starting date of the republic or the year of Augustus' death, which remain in the same years relative to surrounding events in either case; instead, the year of AUC 1 differs.

Fasti triumphales

Fasti triumphales contained a list in chronological order of persons who had obtained a triumph

Roman triumph

, together with the name of the conquered people, and of the priests. Fragments of such a list were found mixed in with the fragments of the fasti capitolini, were also restored by Michelangelo

Michelangelo

and are in the same room at the Palazzo dei Conservatori. The acta triumphorum were on fours panels, I covering AUC 1-452; II, 453-532; III, 533-625 and IV, 628-735, ending in 19 BC. The triumphs begin with those of Romulus

Romulus

- People:* Romulus and Remus, the mythical founders of Rome* Romulus Augustulus, the last Western Roman Emperor* Valerius Romulus , deified son of the Roman emperor Maxentius* Romulus , son of the Western Roman emperor Anthemius...

Priestly fasti

The Annales Pontificum, "Annals of the Priests

College of Pontiffs

," were annually exhibited in public on a white table, on which the memorable events of the year, with special mention of the prodigies, were set down in abbreviated manner. Other fasti sacerdotales ("priestly fasti") include the fasti augurales of the augur

Augur

The augur was a priest and official in the classical world, especially ancient Rome and Etruria. His main role was to interpret the will of the gods by studying the flight of birds: whether they are flying in groups/alone, what noises they make as they fly, direction of flight and what kind of...

Modern fasti

In modern times the word fasti and its reflexes in modern languages have been used formally for quasi-official writings of a diachronic character. Some examples are the official history and traditions of a regiment, in Scotland the Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae: the succession of ministers in the Church of Scotland from the reformation, the first volume of which was produced in 1915 and which is still updated at irregular intervals. Between 1946 and 1987 the International Association for Classical Archaeology (AIAC) published the Fasti Archaeologici. It contained summary notices of excavations through the area of the Roman Empire.The Fasti went online and discontinued paper publication in 2000: the Fasti Online now contains reports on excavations since the year 2000 in 13 countries, particularly Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, Malta and Albania. It is accompanied by an online journal, Fasti Online Documents & Research, which publishes full and interim reports on archaeological sites in Italy. See under "External links" below.

Fictional fasti

The HBO

Home Box Office

HBO, short for Home Box Office, is an American premium cable television network, owned by Time Warner. , HBO's programming reaches 28.2 million subscribers in the United States, making it the second largest premium network in America . In addition to its U.S...

television series "Rome

Rome (TV series)

Rome is a British-American–Italian historical drama television series created by Bruno Heller, John Milius and William J. MacDonald. The show's two seasons premiered in 2005 and 2007, and were later released on DVD. Rome is set in the 1st century BC, during Ancient Rome's transition from Republic...

" features a pontiff calling out the fasti in the Forum at the beginning of each episode.

Etymology

Calendaria

The Roman official chronicles

Fasti consulares

Discovery

Content

Dating

Fasti triumphales

Priestly fasti

Modern fasti

Fictional fasti

See also