Roman calendar

Amadeus · Post by **Amadeus** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 4:11 pm

This just popped into my head. Wouldn't it be great if someone could make a yearly calendar based on how the romans (or greeks, if your a greek geek

) used to count the days? Think of the neat mosaics that could illustrate every month: perhaps a Venus mosaic for februarius, a Â«Daedalus et IcarusÂ» for iunius (month of summer movies), a scary one for october, etc.

What do you think?

nostos · Post by **nostos** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 5:24 pm

'tis a good idea, Amadeus, but I think you'll find a paucity of customers

Deudeditus · Post by **Deudeditus** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 6:32 pm

I agree with nostro nostos. But I would buy one, if that makes any difference....

of course you couldn't have just the regular I,II,III,IIII(IV), etc., you'd have to involve the 'Kalendar' system. Maybe provide both as an option for consumers, e.g. MARTIVS I with KALENDAE MARTII on the bottom of the square or something. I like the idea.

GlottalGreekGeek · Post by **GlottalGreekGeek** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 6:40 pm

From what little I know of Ancient Greek calenders, each city state had its own system for marking time, whether based on Olypiads (in the third year of the tenth Olympiad) or the lifespans of kings (in the fifteenth year of the reign of King Kreon) and almost all of them were confusing.

Would this Roman calendar be an extrapolation of the Julian calendar (as in, it would mark time as if the Gregorian calendar did not exist)?

Amadeus · Post by **Amadeus** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 8:47 pm

Well, my first reaction when I saw the votes was:

But then, I realized that I should've phrased the question thus: "Would you buy one?" Anywho...

of course you couldn't have just the regular I,II,III,IIII(IV), etc., you'd have to involve the 'Kalendar' system. Maybe provide both as an option for consumers, e.g. MARTIVS I with KALENDAE MARTII on the bottom of the square or something. I like the idea.

Yes, that's what I meant, a yearly calendar with the whole roman system in place.

GlottalGreekGeek wrote:Would this Roman calendar be an extrapolation of the Julian calendar (as in, it would mark time as if the Gregorian calendar did not exist)?

I hadn't thought of that. Well, since this calendar is only a curiosity, I think a Julian calendar experience would be nice, but I don't know what the ramifications, if any, of that would be.

Silenus · Post by **Silenus** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 9:32 pm

I voted as if it said, will you buy one, although I actually do think it would sell.

Also, I think a more authentic version would be cooler than a Gregorian one.

nostos · Post by **nostos** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 9:53 pm

I was actually thinking of buying one of those blank calendars and writing out all the dates for myself (so I could have my own nearly-Julian calendar). The good thing about the Julian calendar is that the months have the same number of days as our motnhs; I think the major reason Gregory changed it was because everyone kept getting confused as to when to count leap years.

But that's fine, I mean since it's the same number of days per month, all you'd have to do is change the date to Julian reckoning (ignoring the fact that we're really going on the Gregorian calendar).

Lucius does this in his website.

I don't think I've made very much sense!

Democritus · Post by **Democritus** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 6:01 am

Here's a Roman calendar: http://www.aclclassics.org/tmrc/catalog ... ent=307&c=. It's not very pretty -- just one photo for the whole year, and 18 tear-off pages for each month. But it has the Roman dates.

A Greek (or Athenian) calendar would be cool. But I haver never seen anything like it for sale.

This calendar is the nicest one I have found online, but I have no idea how accurate it is: http://www.numachi.com/%7eccount/hmepa/. Here's another site: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/3310/.

Democritus · Post by **Democritus** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 6:03 am

People buy calendars mostly because they look cool. A Roman calendar with nice photos, or with some nice looking design, might sell very well.

Lucus Eques · Post by **Lucus Eques** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 11:23 am

The Julian Calendar is virtually identical to the Gregorian, including the leap years, I'm pretty sure; the only difference was a minor correction for a necessary loss of days that had accumulated over centuries. It's really the same calendar, just that the Julian one had an error imperceptable to the ancient Romans, though I feel certain they would have changed it as soon as they encountered it (in a way, through Gregory, they did).

The Roman means of dating, counting backwards with all the terms, has been used commonly well into the modern era; in the Renascence, it may be seen, Italians used the numbers and the days, according to Gregorian reckoning, on numerous gravestones and dedications, much as modern Latinists do (the Chapel of the Medici is prominent in my mind). I just read a little of Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius, wherein the dates are, again, Roman. The tradition of using the Roman calendar with Gregorian reckoning goes very far back; indeed, our present system may in truth have a shorter history than that of the Gregorio-Roman.

annis · Post by **annis** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 2:59 pm

If you use the Mac iCal program, you can already get Latin dates: http://homepage.mac.com/martijnk/.calendars/Fasti.ics

Not as pretty as a paper calendar, of course.

Amadeus · Post by **Amadeus** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 5:32 pm

Hey Lucius! Where've you been? I was wondering where you went.

Lucus Eques · Post by **Lucus Eques** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 2:13 am

That's so fricking amazing, Will; χᾶ?ιν μεγάλην σοι ἔχω!

Salue, Amadeus! I responded to your last message, right?

Amadeus · Post by **Amadeus** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 3:27 pm

Lucus Eques wrote:Salue, Amadeus! I responded to your last message, right?

Non (or is it non ita?).

Lucus Eques · Post by **Lucus Eques** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 6:23 pm

There are a few ways to say "no."

Cicero marks the simplest as "n?n." But probably more common was to say "minimē," or even "minimē uēr?." There are lots of descriptive terms. The clearest is always to negate the verb; in this case, "minimē, n?n respondistī" sounds best to my ear.

cdm2003 · Post by **cdm2003** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 8:42 pm

I voted yes because I not only would buy one, but if it's marketed correctly, it could even be profitable. Think of how many men buy the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition calendar! Now, if you could market a Roman calendar in such a fashion, it could be viable:

Amadeus · Post by **Amadeus** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 9:26 pm

cdm2003 wrote:I voted yes because I not only would buy one, but if it's marketed correctly, it could even be profitable. Think of how many men buy the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition calendar! Now, if you could market a Roman calendar in such a fashion, it could be viable:

HaHaHae! That's very neat, nay, that's hella great! Let's see if the votes start to turn now.

By the way, did you make that one yourself?

Lucus Eques · Post by **Lucus Eques** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 1:45 am

Wow, that is the funniest thing I've seen in a long time; macte uirtute esto, cdm!

I hate to pick, but perhaps use of the gerund would be better than the participle, such as "iacendo" "legendo" etc? I think you meant a "fortibus" once there instead of "fortis." Still, hilarious. As for "that special someone," which made me laugh outloud, brilliant â€” "amantem" might be the only choice that makes direct sense in Latin. I reiterate the joyous magnitude of the above project.

And I love the fact that in Italian, "le poppe" means "boobs," not far from Poppea ipsa.

Democritus · Post by **Democritus** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 4:32 am

Nice job, cdm.

What is that system of markings in the center? I gather that it marks of the days of the month somehow, but I have never seen that before. Where did that come from? I am curious.

Carola · Post by **Carola** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 6:04 am

Aww c'mon! where's the one with the gladiator hunks?

Kopio · Post by **Kopio** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 6:18 am

That is quite possibly one of the funniest things I've ever seen here cdm!!

Well done!!

cdm2003 · Post by **cdm2003** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 4:59 pm

Thank you all for the generous complements. We should all start a line of publications, perhaps, for the "ludutor" and "ludutorix" amongst us.

Lucus Eques wrote:I hate to pick, but...

Yes...I know, I know...a little photoshop skill does not hide the holes in my knowledge of Latin grammar.

You can help clean up the copy before it goes to print.

As for "that special someone," I didn't think it would work in the Latin. Personally, I wanted to use the verb "to snuggle" in that statement, but alas, it wasn't in my English-Latin dictionary or on that short list available at the Vatican's site (go figure

).

Carola wrote:Aww c'mon! where's the one with the gladiator hunks?

To show that I am certainly no chauvanist and conscious of the lustfulness of both sexes, this one is for you:

It was hard to resist the temptation to make these pictures R-rated...after all, I'm assuming this is a "family fun" kinda board.

Imagine Graham Chapman in his famous role as Dominus Martis!

Democritus wrote:What is that system of markings in the center?

There are a couple of really nice sites that explain the Roman calendar and even give you graphical representations. I picked that one off of http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/w/x/w ... nCalendar/.

Anyway, I'm very glad I could brighten some of your days.

All the best,
Chris

Lucus Eques · Post by **Lucus Eques** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 5:38 pm

puellaribus!!! rofl

Carola · Post by **Carola** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 10:44 pm

To show that I am certainly no chauvanist and conscious of the lustfulness of both sexes, this one is for you:

Now that's more like it!

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Roman calendar

Do you think it would sell?

Roman calendar