Abstract
Six thousand, five hundred and eighty five days—one Saros Cycle!—elapse between 1 March in year one of the Numan cycle and 15 March in year nineteen.
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Notes
- 1.
Ovid, Fasti, 3.523: Idibus est Annae festum geniale Perennae. The standard translation is by J.G. Frazer, who interprets the Latin term geniale as “jovial”—he is mistaken: the adjective geniale comes from the same root as the verb gignere, “to generate”, and means “of generation, of conception”. In Ars Amatoria, 1.125, Ovid writes genialis praeda in reference to the Sabine virgins who have been chosen to conceive children for the Romans.
- 2.
Ovid, Fasti, 3.543-4 and 675-96: Quae tamen haec dea sit, quoniam rumoribus errat, / fabula proposito nulla tegenda meo […] / Nunc mihi cur cantent superest oscena puellae / dicere; nam coeunt certaque probra canunt. / Nuper erat dea facta; venit Gradivus ad Annam / et cum seducta talia verba facit: / ‘Mense meo coleris, iunxi mea tempora tecum; / pendet ab officio spes mihi magna tuo. / Armifer armiferae correptus amore Minervae / uror et hoc longo tempore volnus alo. / Effice, di studio similes coeamus in unum. / Conveniunt partes haec tibi, comis anus.’ / Dixerat; illa deum promisso ludit inani / et stultam dubia spem trahit usque mora. / Saepius instanti: ‘Mandata peregimus’, inquit, / ‘evicta est; precibus vix dedit illa manus.’ / Credit amans thalamosque parat. Deducitur illuc / Anna tegens voltus, ut nova nupta, suos. / Oscula sumpturus subito Mars aspicit Annam: / nunc pudor elusum, nunc subit ira deum. / Ludis amatorem; cara es, nova diva, Minervae / nec res hac Veneri gratior ulla fuit. / Inde ioci veteres obscenaque dicta canuntur / et iuvat hanc magno verba dedisse deo.
- 3.
Plutarch, de Facie, 934C and 944E, explains that the Moon, “if she is eclipsed when dawn is already near, she takes on a bluish or azure hue, from which especially it is that the poets… give her the epithet ‘bright-eyed’ [or ‘blue-eyed’]. […] for it must be out of love for the Sun that the Moon herself goes her rounds and gets into conjunction with him in her yearning [to receive] from him what is most fructifying”. “Bright-eyed” or “blue-eyed”—better, “Owl-eyed” (Glaukopis)—is an attribute of Athena, the Greek corollary to the Etruscan/Roman goddess Minerva.
- 4.
Fasti, 3.523-696. Quoted here is line 657: Sunt quibus haec Luna est, quia mensibus impleat annum.
- 5.
Macrobius, Saturnalia, 1.14.4-5: Nam, sicut lunaris annus mensis est, quia luna paulo minus quam mensem in zodiaci circumitione consumit, ita solis annus hoc dierum numero colligendus est quem peragit dum ad signum se denuo vertit ex quo digressus est; unde annus vertens vocatur, et habetur magnus, cum lunae annus brevis putetur […] Hinc et Ateius Capito annum a circuitu temporis putat dictum.
- 6.
See Torelli 1984, pp. 57–71 and 105–15; a different view.
- 7.
Martial, Epigrams, 4.64.16-7: et quod virgineo cruore gaudet / Annae pomiferum nemus Perennae.
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Magini, L. (2015). The Saros Cycle and the Feast Days of Feriae Martis and Anna Perenna . In: Stars, Myths and Rituals in Etruscan Rome. Space and Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07266-1_14
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