46 B.C. annus confusionis ultimus

For Rome, the year which we call 46 B.C. is called by Macrobius the last year of the muddled reckoning, annus confusionis ultimus, and it was 445 days long, so much had the nominal dates got behind the real ones; with the next year began the Julian reckoning, albeit with sundry boggles on the part of the Roman officials, who did not quite understand it, and long delays before the whole Western world adopted it.

"The Pre-Caesarian Calendar: Facts and Reasonable Guesses"
H. J. Rose
The Classical Journal, Vol. 40, No. 2 (Nov., 1944), pp. 65-76

If this 1944 article were the first and last word on the subject, it would be closed. The last year of confusion, 46 B.C., would be fixed at 445 days long, based on the addition of a regular intercalation of 23 days, plus Caesar's extra 67 days.

A retired professor wrote me to ask whether the number of days in the last year of confusion should be 445 or 455 because I had both numbers on my site and he had found both numbers elsewhere, including in print. His OCD didn't inspire him with confidence because where it cited Censorinus, (which should be De Die Natali 20, 8) the entry listed it wrong. He thought the 355 number might be from people not realizing the basic year to which the extra days were added was not 365, but only 355 days long.

I told him that my 455 was a typing error since elsewhere on my site I had 445 and I am embarrassingly inclined to make such errors. He then pointed out some other references, including Mommsen whose observations might lead one to the conclusion that there were 422 or so days in 46 (before proofing, the 46 was 466, so wrong-number-typing is a serious problem I have to face). The reason for this is that Mommsen says only 67 extra days were added and 355+67=422:

Of a kindred nature was the reform of the calendar. The republican calendar, which strangely enough was still the old decemviral calendar--an imperfect adoption of the -octaeteris- that preceded Meton (117)--had by a combination of wretched mathematics and wretched administration come to anticipate the true time by 67 whole days, so that e. g. the festival of Flora was celebrated on the 11th July instead of the 28th April.
http://bulfinch.englishatheist.org/rome/Chapter62.htm

Mommsen seems either to have forgotten to mention the intercalation that normally occurred at regular intervals (albeit, missed recently) or to have followed ancient writers who either failed to pay attention to the February intercalation or considered it unremarkable. In all, the 23-day February intercalation may have been assumed, may not have been assumed, or may have been thought not to have happened. How Mommsen gets a 67 day gap between the floralia's proper and scheduled dates I don't understand, although a helpful forum poster said it's only by wretched mathematics, in this case, Mommsen's (although given his customary care, that seems improbable), because he's the one using the figures.

Further evidence for the loss of intercalation can be gleaned from Caesar's
correction of the calendar in 46. Dio says that there was a special supplement of sixty-seven days, while according to Censorinus the year 46 had a total of 445 days. I This implies that there had already been a normal intercalary month of twenty-three days. By his further addition of sixty-seven days Caesar was supplying three Republican intercalary months. Now in the period March 65-March 45 B.C. there had probably been only six intercalations-in 63, twice between 62 and 58, in 54, 52, and 46. At first sight this indicates the loss of four intercalary months, but intercalation every alternate year would have produced a surplus of twenty days after twenty years, and so Caesar's calculations would have only required the addition of three intercalary months to bring the calendar into order by March 45 B.C. It is also possible that the pontifices in the fifties were allowing for this and one of the intercalary months was omitted for the sake of the correctness of the calendar, not through negligence or for political purposes.
"Nundinae and the Chronology of the Late Roman Republic"
A. W. Lintott
The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 18, No. 1 (May, 1968), pp. 189-194

There is also some doubt as to whether the year 45 began on January 1 or 2, so the length of the preceding year of confusion might have gained a day at the very end.

My correspondence with the retired professor continued. Nothing was resolved. The professor thinks the reason for the confusion has to do with the fact that fully credentialed scholars are unwilling to put their reputations on the line by siding with Censorinus or Dio.

What are your thoughts on the length of the final year of confusion?

Another question: Based on the following passage from Rose's article, what does Rose think people should call the year?

2 Macrobius, Saturnalia I, 14, 3; no one, except moderns who should know better, ever calls it the annus confusionis simply. He does not give the date, but that is supplied by Censorinus, De Die Natali 20, 8, who says it was in Caesar's third consulate, and we know when that was from a number of other authors; cf. W. Fynes Clinton, Fasti Hellenici (Oxford, 1827-41), under the year 46 B.C.

Little Known Wars

Alan Axelrod's Little-Known Wars of Great and Lasting Impact sets out to earn its title. In the two chapters I read, which were the only ones of the 18 that were on the ancient world, Axelrod seems to meet his goal, or at least presents interesting points to consider.

The two ancient wars that make his list are Boudicca's and the Bar Kochba revolts. While Axelrod's look at Boudicca's war offers details on the weaponry that I had not read before and judges Boudicca an incapable strategist, a point I wasn't familiar with, Axelrod says the importance of the revolt was that it obliged the Romans to re-consider how it treated its provincials. No longer was it okay to rape the queen's daughters and rob the queen blind.

In the Bar Kochba revolt are far more points about which I was ignorant. Bar Kochba was considered the Messiah. In contrast with the earlier Jewish revolt where three groups of Jews fought each other as well as the Romans, Bar Kochba was in charge of all the Jewish forces.

Hadrian had promised to rebuild the city of Jerusalem, which sounds good and did to the Jews until they realized he meant to replace the Temple with a temple to the Roman gods. Such sacrilege was not to be countenanced and the Jews of Jerusalem revolted.

Axelrod attributes at least three enduring results to the Bar Kochba revolt. The first was that at the time Bar Kochba became known as the Messiah, the Jewish followers of Jesus split. That makes the revolt a starting point for the separate religion of Christianity. A second result was that when the Romans killed all the local Jews, those who survived were forced to flee and it was the start of the Diaspora. The third point was that the area was renamed Palestine deliberately honoring an ancient enemy of the ancient Hebrews.

After I read Axelrod's chapter on the Bar Kochba War, I read "The bar Kokhba Revolt: The Roman Point of View," by Werner Eck (The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 89 (1999), pp. 76-89). Here's what Eck says about the renaming of Judaea:

But never before (or after) was the old name of a province changed as a corollary of a revolt. Not that revolts were not frequent in other provinces as well: the Germani in Germania, the Pannonii in Pannonia, and the Brittones in Britannia all revolted against Rome at one time or another. Yet none of these provinces lost its original name derived from the name of its people. But Judaea, derived from Iudaei, ceased to exist for the Roman government after the Bar Kokhba revolt. It was not because the Jewish population was much reduced as a result of losses suffered during the war that the name of the province was changed; the same was true, for example, of Pannonia, and yet the old name was kept. The change of name was part of the punishment inflicted on the Jews; they were punished with the loss of a name.

As I said, the rest of Little-Known Wars of Great and Lasting Impact is on wars after the ancient period, beginning with one involving Islam. Although I read with pleasure Craughwell's work on the Mongols, the Middle Ages are not my bailiwick, so that's all I can comment on in Alan Axelrod's Little-Known Wars.

Meat From Hell

As I plod along in Craughwell's book on the second greatest empire -- plod because Genghis has died and his successors have none of his charm -- historical or etymological points made continually jump out at me. Today's lesson to share is on the connection between that ground beef brave carnivores eat raw and the Greco-Roman Hell. Craughwell says the Mongols would put a piece of meat they had no time to cook or dry under their saddle so that it was tenderized or macerated by day's end. This became Steak Tartare because the Mongols were known as Tartars (as well as Mongols) in Europe. They were called Tartars because it was thought they must be spawns of the infernal region of Tartarus.

Don't know if it's true, but it sounds good.

Molten Silver - Genghis Khan Continued

Since you're a fan of ancient history, you are probably familiar with tales of molten gold being poured down the gullet of greedy administrators. Craughwell shows that this punishment survived into the medieval period, but with a twist. When Inalchuq, a greedy Muslim administrator along the Silk Road, in Otrar, was finally captured after a siege of his city and another of his citadel -- great pains were taken to keep him alive -- Genghis Khan ordered his execution by molten silver poured into his eyes and ears.

3 Notes on the Mongols' Language

Thomas J. Craughwell reveals tidbits about the Mongolian language as he tells the biography of the Mongols' greatest leader, Genghis Khan.

1. He explains that the Mongol tent, which we call a yurt was a ger, with hard g and rhyming with dare.
2. Before Genghis (then, Temujin) became the great khan, when he was but a minor khan, he assembled his inner circle around him when he camped. This inner circle was known as an ordu and it is from this word that we get the "horde". Temujin's ordu included more than those of other khans. In addition to the usual family and relatives, Temujin added friends to the number of 150 of the best warriors.
   
3. The traditional title for Khan of All Khans was Gur Khan, but Temujin picked the name Genghis from the Mongol word for chin, meaning strong and fearless, and related to the Mongol word for wolf.

Thomas J. Craughwell

Thomas J. Craughwell wrote another book on the barbarians for Fair Winds Press. This one is on Genghis Khan. It's called The Rise and Fall of the Second Largest Empire in History. Lavishly illustrated and blessedly not-too heavy, it is an easy read. Without even noticing, I just read the first 55 pages. The time period is way too recent for me, but it's an exciting story based on a secret history of the Mongols. It starts with the theft of a bride by Genghis Khan's father. The woman he took had just been married, but that didn't matter. She became Genghis' father's second wife and soon produced the future great leader. He had to contend with a medieval version of Home Alone and then when still a tween, he was betrothed, lost his father, and obliged to kill his older half-brother in order to survive. That his family would have starved to death didn't matter. Revenge for the murder came in the form of a torture device known as a canque that rendered the victims hands useless.

Craughwell capably fills in the areas where the details are missing, forcing me once again to wonder where the border is between historical fiction and biography.

The Weighty Landmark Xenophon

While the Landmark Xenophon is meticulously annotated and contains all the reference materials one could wish, the translation is quite readable, and the very frequent maps useful, I haven't been able to get very far in it. It isn't a time problem or that dozens of other books are competing for my attention. No, the problem is the book is not meant for small women of a certain age.

I'm not talking about the topic.

I left the book at the Y yesterday because I couldn't carry it any more. It is just too heavy and when reading it, it's hard to balance because it's so wide. I understand from the Amazon reviews of the other recent Landmark projects that the paperback editions fall apart almost instantly, so the hardback is necessary, but I can't carry it to coffee shops and to AND from the Y, and so I can't read it.

The page notes vie for attention with reading the prose; since the note numbers are written in too small a font for aging eyes, figuring out which note and where to look takes time and breaks the flow, making re-reading incessant. Probably each sentence has a note or more. The first in each sentence is marked with a minuscule superscript "a". You then need to take note of the sentence number to find the specific "a" among the welter of page-bottom notes. This attests to how complete it is, but also how time-consuming. The contextual notes in the outside margins, while useful, are so frequent that, again, they, too, distract from the reading. Losing one's place physically and mentally, being sent off to notes that weren't worth the distraction (because everything is annotated), and the aforementioned note font size and book weight make me think this would be an excellent book to have online. I may even try to use it as a reference while reading the distraction-free, public domain Gutenberg Hellenica online -- once I get the dead weight home again.

There are lots of non-traditional students attending colleges and universities. Books like this, which are clearly intended to be part of classes in Greek history, should be formatted without ignoring our physical needs.