Model for 86-45

The analysis of individual years in the period A.U.C. 696 = 58 to A.U.C. 708 = 46 leads to the following results:

• A.U.C. 708 = 46 was 445 days long
  

• A.U.C. 697 = 57, A.U.C. 698 = 56, A.U.C. 700 = 54, A.U.C. 701 = 53, A.U.C. 703 = 51, A.U.C. 704 = 50, A.U.C. 705 = 49, A.U.C. 706 = 48 and A.U.C. 707 = 47 were all regular years
  
• A.U.C. 702 = 52 was 378 days long
  
• A.U.C. 699 = 55 was 377 days long
  
• A.U.C. 696 = 58 was intercalary

Given that the first day of the Julian calendar, Kal. Ian. A.U.C. 709 = 31 December 46, these results give an absolute chronology completely determined by dead reckoning back to Kal. Mart. A.U.C. 696 = 24 February 58. This conversion is two days earlier than that developed by P. Brind'Amour, Le calendrier romain, 35-51, since he estimates that the start of Julian calendar was on Kal. Ian. A.U.C. 709 = 2 January 45.

The data for the years A.U.C. 668 = 86 to A.U.C. 696 = 58 give the following results:

• There were two intercalary months between Kal. Mart. A.U.C. 691 = 63 and Kal. Mart. A.U.C. 696 = 24 February 58
  

• There was one intercalary year between Kal. Mart. A.U.C. 686 = 66 and Kal. Mart. A.U.C. 691 = 63
  
• a.d. V Id. Oct. A.U.C. 687 = 1 October 67
  
• There were three intercalary months between a.d. XV Kal. Oct. A.U.C. 687 = 28 or 29 September 67 and Kal. Mart. A.U.C. 696 = 24 February 58
  
• Either all three or two out of three were 23 days long
  
• A.U.C. 687 = 67 was very probably intercalary
  
• There were two or three intercalary months between Kal. Mart. A.U.C. 683 = 71 and a.d. XV Kal. Oct. A.U.C. 687 = 28 or 29 September 67
  
• Kal. Ian. A.U.C. 677 = 17 December 78 or Kal. Ian. A.U.C. 677 = 10 January 77
  
• There were five or six intercalary months between Kal. Ian. A.U.C. 677 = 17 December 78 and a.d. V Id. Oct. A.U.C. 687 = 1 October 67
  
• A.U.C. 671 = 83 was an intercalary year
  
• There were four intercalary years between Kal. Mart. A.U.C. 668 = 86 and Kal. Ian. A.U.C. 677 = 77

The great preponderance of 378-day intercalary years in this period is one of the chief points of evidence for the inferred Lex Acilia. If this reconstruction is correct, we can infer that:

• Every odd year from A.U.C. 669 = 85 to A.U.C. 687 = 67 was a 378 day year
  

• Every third year from A.U.C. 687 = 67 to A.U.C. 696 = 58 was a 378 day years
  
• All other years from A.U.C. 668 = 86 to A.U.C. 696 = 58 were regular

Thus, assuming the inferred Lex Acilia is correct, we have a complete reconstruction from Kal. Mart. A.U.C. 667 = 22 February 87 to prid. Kal. Ian. A.U.C. 708 = 30 December 46.

There is one important crosscheck on this reconstruction. There are strong indications that the correct conversion should avoid solutions which place a market day on Kal. Ian. in the period between A.U.C. 677 = 77 and A.U.C. 746 = 8. These limits mark the period in which this particular superstition can be proved to have been current, but its origins are not well understood and it may well have been older. The conversion table offered here, which combines results obtained by dead reckoning with the application of the inferred Lex Acilia to earlier synchronisms, gives complete conversions after Kal. Mart. A.U.C. 667 = 22 February 87. Kal. Ian. was a market day in the following year: A.U.C. 674 = 80, A.U.C. 677 = 77, A.U.C. 702 = 52 and A.U.C. 705 = 49. Of these, the first is before the documented period of the superstition, the next two cases are documented, and only the last is not

 

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