§ 1.1  Gifts that shine with gold and silver, more expensive from the carving than the material, and all other such blandishments of fortune, may impress someone ordinary people like to call a rich man. But such things have no hold on you, Quintus Caerellius, who are no less rich in virtue than you are in money, thus rich indeed. Not that you would altogether reject the ownership and even the use of such things, but trained by the discipline of the wise you have learned clearly that things on this slippery slope are not good or bad in themselves, but are to be considered των μέσων, that is midway between good and bad things. As the comic poet Terence says,
"These things accord with the mind of their owner, good for those who know how to use them, bad for those who misuse them."

§ 1.4  Donc, puisque, je ne dirai point plus on possède, mais moins on désire, plus on est riche, ton âme est riche des biens les plus grands, de ces biens qui non-seulement l'emportent sur tous les biens d'ici-bas, mais qui encore nous rapprochent le plus des dieux immortels. Car, ainsi que le dit Xenophon, ce disciple de Socrates: "N'avoir besoin de rien, c'est le propre des dieux; manquer du moins possible, c'est être le plus près de la divinité.".
Puis donc que, par ta sagesse, tu ne manques point de biens précieux, et que, par l'exiguité de ma fortune, moi, je n'ai rien de trop, ce livre, fruit de mon travail, je te l'adresse, quel qu'il soit, à titre de cadeau natal.
Tu n'y trouveras point, suivant le plus commun usage, ni des préceptes pour bien vivre, empruntés à la partie morale de la philosophie; ni, pour célébrer tes louanges, ces lieux communs puisés dans les traités de rhétorique (tu t'es, en effet, élevé si haut dans le culte de toutes les vertus, que toutes les leçons des philosophes comme tous les éloges des rhéteurs pâliraient devant ta vie et tes moeurs); mais c'est dans les commentaires philologiques que j'ai glané quelques petites questions qui par leur ensemble pussent composer un petit volume.

§ 1.7  And this not from any desire to teach or show off, I swear, lest it be justly said, using that old saying, the sow [teaches] Minerva. But I know how much your society has taught me, and so as not to seem ungrateful for all the benefits you have shared, I will follow the example of our most pious old men. For they regarded food, fatherland, light, they themselves even, as a gift of the gods and when they sacrificed anything to the gods, it was more to show gratitude than because they thought the gods lacked for something. Thus when they harvested the fruit, before they ate it, they made an offering to the gods, and since they held their fields and cities as a gift of the gods, they set aside a certain part for temples and shrines where they would worship them. Some even used to consecrate their hair to god for the god health of the rest of their body. Thus I, who have gained so much from literature, return to you these modest first-fruits.

§ 2.1  Now, since the book is called "On Birthdays," let the auspices be taken beginning with a vow. Thus, as Persius says,
Mark off this day with a better pebble",
and I hope you will do this many, many times, and, what follows,
Pour a libation of unmixed wine to the Genius.
Here someone might ask why wine ought to be poured to the Genius, rather than an animal sacrificed. Because, as Varro attests in his book called 'Atticus' or 'On Gifts/Duties', our ancestors had the custom that when they were offering the yearly gift to the Genius, they kept their hand away from blood and slaughter, so as not to rob others of light on the day they themselves first saw it. Finally, as the author Timaeus recounts, no one slaughters a victim on the altar of Apollo Genitor on Delos. Another custom to be observed on this day is that no one taste what is offered to the Genius until the person does who offered it.

§ 3.1  A question many people want answered is, what is a Genius and why should we venerate him more than the rest on our birthday. A Genius is a god under whose tutelage each of us lives from birth. This is either because he looks after us as we are being born, or because he is born together with us, or even because he takes up and guards our parents, but certainly a Genius is called that from 'genendo' (bearing or bringing forth).
Le Génie et le dieu Lare ne font qu'un seul et même dieu, suivant l'opinion de beaucoup d'anciens auteurs, au nombre desquels on peut compter Granius Flaccus, dans son livre à César, qui nous est parvenu avec ce titre: De Indigitamentis. Ce dieu, suivant la croyance commune, a sur nous, non pas seulement une grande influence, mais le pouvoir le plus entier.
Quelques-uns ont reconnu un double Génie, mais pour les maisons seulement des personnes mariées. Euclid même, ce disciple de Socrates, dit qu'un double Génie préside sans distinction à la vie de chacun: c'est un fait qu'on peut vérifier dans Lucilius, en son neuvième livre de Satires. C'est donc au Génie que, de préférence, à chaque anniversaire de notre naissance, nous offrons un sacrifice;
bien que, indépendamment de ce dieu, il en soit beaucoup d'autres qui, chacun sous un certain rapport, nous viennent en aide durant le cours de notre vie; et si l'on demandait à les connaître, nous renverrions aux livres des Pontifes qui en parlent avec assez de détails. Mais tous ces dieux n'exercent qu'une fois dans le cours de la vie de chaque homme l'influence de leur divinité: aussi ne leur rend-on point un culte de chaque jour.
Le Génie, au contraire, est un gardien si rigoureusement attaché à nos pas, qu'il ne s'éloigne point de nous un seul instant; mais, nous prenant au sortir du sein de nos mères, il nous accompagne jusqu'au tombeau. Du reste, si chaque homme n'a de jour natal à célébrer que le sien, c'est un culte qui m'est imposé à moi deux fois l'an.
Aussi bien, puisque c'est à toi et à ton amitié que je dois tout, honneur, dignité, considération, patronage, et toutes les aisances de la vie, regarderais-je comme un crime d'honorer avec moins de zèle que le mien l'anniversaire du jour où, pour mon bonheur, tu as reçu la naissance; car si l'un m'a donné la vie, l'autre m'a valu ce qui en fait le soutien et l'ornement.

§ 4.1  Mais puisque l'âge de l'homme date du jour de sa naissance, et qu'avant ce moment il y a bien des choses qui ont trait à son origine, il ne me semble point hors de propos de parler de ce qui se passe avant l'instant où il est mis au jour. Je dois donc exposer d'abord, en peu de mots, quelles ont été les opinions des anciens sur l'origine de l'homme.
Une première question, une question générale, a divisé les anciens philosophes, en présence de ce fait constant, que chaque homme, après avoir été engendré de la semence de son père, avait, à son tour, engendré des fils pendant une suite de siècles. Les uns donc ont pensé qu'il avait toujours existé des hommes, que jamais il n'en était né que d'autres hommes, et qu'on ne pouvait assigner au genre humain ni souche ni commencement. Suivant les autres, au contraire, un temps aurait été où les hommes n'existaient pas, et c'est la nature qui leur aurait d'abord donné l'être et la vie.

§ 4.3  The earlier opinion, which holds that the human race has always existed, has as its originators Pythagoras the Samian and Ocellus the Lucanian and Archytas the Tarantine and all the Pythagoreans henceforth. But also Plato the Athenian and Xenocrates and Dicearchus the Messenian and the philosophers of the ancient Academy seem to have had the same opinion. Also Aristotle the Stagirite and Theophrastus and many other eminent Peripatetics wrote the same, using this same example, that no one could ever discover whether birds were created first, or eggs, since an egg cannot be born without a bird, nor a bird without an egg.

§ 4.4  Aussi disent-ils que rien de ce qui existe ou existera dans ce monde, qui est éternel, ne peut avoir eu de commencement; mais que, dans cette masse sphérique d'êtres qui donnent ou reçoivent la naissance, on ne peut distinguer pour aucun être ni commencement ni fin.
Quant au système qui admet que quelques hommes aient été d'abord créés par la nature ou la divinité, il a aussi de nombreux partisans, mais dont les opinions se divisent en plusieurs nuances.
Car, pour ne point parler de ceux qui, suivant les récits fabuleux des poëtes, font naître les premiers hommes, ou du limon de Prométhée, ou des pierres de Deucalion et Pyrrha, au nombre des philosophes eux-mêmes, on en trouve qui, à l'appui de leur système, donnent des raisons, sinon aussi ridicules, du moins tout aussi incroyables.

§ 4.7  Anaximander the Milesian thought they arose out of warmed up water and earth, as fish or animals like fish, inside which humans formed, keeping the fetus inside until puberty, and these burst and men and women emerged, already able to nourish themselves. Empedocles, in that outstanding poem which Lucretius praised as "hardly seeming to be created of human stock", affirmed something like this: first individual body parts emerged from the earth, as if in labor, here and there, and then they came together and mixed with earth and fire made the material of a solid man. Why must I follow other ideas that hold no likeness of truth. This was the opinion of Parmenides the Velian also, with a few minor things where he disagreed with Empedocles. But Democritus the Abderite saw the first men created from water and mud. Nor was Epicurus far from that opinion. For he believed that from heated mud uteri formed somehow clinging to earth with roots and with nature's ministrations provided some kind of milk to the infants it produced, who raised thus to adulthood propagated the human species.

§ 4.10  Zeno the Cittian, founder of the Stoic sect, thought that the first principle of the human race was constituted from the new world, and that the first humans were born from the soil, propped up by the divine fire, that is by divine providence. It is even widely believed, including by many authors of genealogies, that the stock of certain races is not from outside but their chiefs were earth-born, as in Attica, Arcadia, and Thessaly, and those are called autochthonous. In Italy, the simple credulity of the ancients made it easy to believe, as the poet sang, that indigenous nymphs and fauns once occupied certain woods. But poetic license goes further to where it invents things one can scarcely bear to listen to, in the memory of men, with peoples already begotten and cities founded, men came out of the ground in various ways, as in Attica they say Erichthonius emerged from the soil by the semen of Vulcan, and in Colchis or Boeotia armed Spartoi came from the scattered serpents' teeth, and that after their mutual slaughter the few who survived aided Cadmus in founding Thebes.
And don't they say that a divine boy by the name of Tages emerged in the Tarquinian field, who taught the art of reading entrails, which was transcribed by the Lucumons, then masters of Etruria?

§ 5.1  C'en est assez sur la première origine des hommes. Je vais maintenant exposer, aussi brièvement que je pourrai, ce qui a rapport à notre présent anniversaire, aux premiers moments de notre existence.
Et d'abord, quant à la source de la semence, c'est un point sur lequel les philosophes ne sont pas d'accord. Parménide a pensé qu'elle sortait tantôt du testicule droit, tantôt du gauche. Quant à Hippon of Metapontum, ou, comme Aristoxène nous l'assure, de Samos, il croit que c'est des canaux médullaires que vient la semence: ce qui le prouve, selon lui, c'est que si on tue un mâle immédiatement après le coït, on pourra voir qu'il ne lui reste pas de moelle. Mais cette opinion est rejetée par quelques auteurs, et, entre autres, par Anaxagoras, Democritos et Alcméon de Croton.
Ceux-ci répondent, en effet, qu'après le coït ce n'est point la moelle seulement, mais encore la graisse et la chair même qui s'épuisent chez les mâles.
Une autre question encore arrête les auteurs, celle de savoir si la semence du père seul est prolifique, comme l'ont écrit Diogenes, Hippon et les Stoïciens; ou s'il en est de même de celle de la mère, comme l'ont pensé Anaxagoras et Alcméon, Parménide, Empédocle et Épicure. Sur ce point, toutefois, Alcméon avoua qu'il ne se prononçait point d'une manière bien positive, persuadé que personne ne pouvait s'assurer de la réalité du fait.

§ 6.1  Qu'est-ce qui se forme le premier dans l'enfant, et comment se nourrit-il dans le sein de la mère ? Ce qui fait que c'est un garçon ou une fille. Raison de la naissance des jumeaux. De la conformation du foetus.
Empédocle, en cela suivi par Aristote, pensa qu'avant tout se développait le coeur, parce qu'il est la principale source de la vie de l'homme; suivant Hippon, c'était la tête, attendu qu'elle est le siége de l'âme; selon Démocrite, c'étaient la tête et le ventre, parties qui renferment le plus de vide; d'après Anaxagoras, c'était le cerveau, d'où rayonnent tous les sens. Diogenes of Apollonia pensa que de la semence liquide se formait d'abord la chair, puis de la chair les os, les nerfs et les autres parties du corps.
Les Stoïciens soutinrent que l'enfant prenait sa forme d'un seul coup, de même qu'il naît et qu'il grandit tout entier. Il en est qui attribuent à la nature elle-même ce travail: Aristote, par exemple, puis Épicure; d'autres qui l'assignent à la vertu d'un esprit accompagnant la semence: ce sont presque tous les Stoïciens; d'autres enfin prétendent, d'après Anaxagoras, qu'il y a dans la semence une chaleur éthérée qui agence les membres.
Quelle que soit, au reste, la manière dont se forme l'enfant, il est nourri dans le sein de sa mère, et, sur ce point encore, il y a deux opinions. Anaxagoras, en effet, et beaucoup d'autres ont pensé qu'il prenait sa nourriture par le cordon ombilical; Diogène et Hippon prétendent, au contraire, qu'il y a dans la matrice une proéminence que l'enfant saisit avec la bouche, et d'où il tire sa nourriture, comme, après qu'il est né, il le fait des mamelles de sa mère.

§ 6.4  Quant au pourquoi de la naissance des filles et des garçons, c'est un point sur lequel les mêmes philosophes ne sont pas non plus d'accord. Suivant Alcméon, l'enfant a le sexe de celui de ses père ou mère qui a fourni le plus de semence; d'après Hippon, de la semence la plus déliée naissent les filles, et de la plus épaisse les garçons;
d'après Démocrite, l'enfant a le sexe de celui de ses père ou mère dont la semence a la première occupé son réceptacle; suivant Parménide, au contraire, il y a dans le coït une lutte entre l'homme et la femme, et celui des deux à qui reste la victoire donne son sexe à l'enfant;
Anaxagoras et Empédocle, de leur côté, s'accordent à penser que la semence épanchée du testicule droit produit les garçons, et celle du gauche les filles. Au reste, si ces deux philosophes sont d'accord sur ce point, ils ne le sont plus sur la question de la ressemblance des enfants. Voici, à cet égard, la thèse soutenue par Empédocle:
si dans la semence du père et de la mère il y a eu le même degré de chaleur, il naît un garçon qui ressemble au père; si le même degré de froid, il naît une fille qui ressemble à la mère. Que si la semence du père est chaude, et froide celle de la mère, il naîtra un garçon qui ressemblera à la mère; si la semence de la mère est chaude, et froide celle du père, il naîtra une fille qui ressemblera au père.
Anaxagoras pensait, lui, que les enfants ressemblaient à celui de leur père ou mère qui avait fourni le plus de semence. Quant à Parménide, il soutenait que quand la semence venait du testicule droit, c'était au père; quand du gauche, c'était à la mère que l'enfant ressemblait.
Il me reste à parler de la naissance des jumeaux, fait accidentel qu'Hippon attribue à la quantité de semence, laquelle, selon lui, s'épanche sur deux points, quand il y en a plus qu'il n'en faut pour un seul enfant.
C'est aussi ce que semble penser Empedocles; mais il n'a pas indiqué les motifs de cette division de la semence; il se borne à dire que si la matière, en s'épanchant sur deux points, y trouve un égal degré de chaleur, il naîtra deux garçons; si un égal degré de froid, deux filles; si plus de chaleur sur un point, et plus de froid sur l'autre, des jumeaux de différent sexe.

§ 7.1  It remains to discuss the time in which offspring are normally ready to be born. This subject should be dealt with with greater care, because it is necessary to touch on astrology, music, and arithmetic. First, how many months after conception children are born is a question the ancients frequently argued without reaching agreement. Hippon of Metapontum thought that birth could take place from the seventh to the tenth month; according to him, in the seventh month the fetus is already mature, is as much as a seven-fold number is the most influential of all, if indeed we take form in seven months, and with another seven added we begin to sit upright, and after the seventh months our teeth sprout, whereas in the seventh year they fall out and in the 14th year we generally reach puberty.
But this maturity which begins at seven months is drawn out to ten, as is the nature in everything else, that to the seven months or years are added three months or years for completion. Thus infants grow teeth in the seventh month, which are complete in the 10th, and likewise these first teeth fall out at age seven, the rest at ten; thus, some reach puberty at the end of their fourteenth year, but all by their seventeenth. This opinion has its opponents in part and its supporters in part.

§ 7.5  That a woman can give birth in the seventh month is affirmed by most, like Theano the Pythagorean, Aristotle the Peripatetic, Diocles, Evenor, Straton, Empedocles, Epigenes, and many others, whose consensus did not deter Euthyphron the Cnidian from bravely denying it. He is opposed in turn by almost all, who refused to follow Epicharmus that birth occurred in the eighth month. Diocles the Carystian and Aristotle the Stagirite thought differently, however. Most opined along with the Chaldaeans and the above-mentioned Aristotle that the fetus could be born in the ninth or even the tenth month, and Epigenes the Byzantian did not argue, nor Hippocrates the Coan for the tenth month. Aristotle is the only one to accept the eleventh month, which all the others reject.

§ 8.1  J'ai maintenant à parler en peu de mots du calcul des Chaldéens, et à dire pourquoi ils ont pensé que l'homme ne pouvait naître que dans les septième, neuvième et dixième mois de la conception.
Ils posent en principe que notre vie et notre manière d'être sont subordonnées à des étoiles soit errantes, soit fixes, dont le cours aussi multiple que varié gouverne le genre humain, et dont les mouvements, les phases et les effets subissent souvent l'influence du soleil. Si les unes se précipitent, si d'autres restent immobiles, si toutes elles nous font sentir leur différente température, c'est à l'action du soleil que sont dus tous ces phénomènes.
Aussi cet astre, en agissant sur ces étoiles qui réagissent sur nous, nous donne-t-il l'âme qui nous dirige. C'est lui qui agit sur nous le plus puissamment, quand, après la conception, se prépare notre naissance, et cette action se produit sous l'influence de trois différents aspects. Or, que faut-il entendre par aspects, et combien en est-il de sortes ? Ma réponse, pour être claire, sera courte:
Il est, dit-on, un cercle de différents signes que les grecs nomment zodiaque, et qui est parcouru par le soleil, la lune, les autres étoiles errantes; on le divise en douze parties égales, figurées par autant de signes. Comme le soleil met un an à parcourir ce cercle, de même il met un mois environ à parcourir chaque signe. Or, chacun de ces signes est en regard avec tous les autres, mais sous un aspect qui n'est pas uniforme à l'égard de tous; de ces aspects, en effet, les uns sont plus forts, les autres plus faibles. Donc, au moment de la conception, le soleil se trouve nécessairement dans un signe, et même dans un point déterminé, que l'on appelle proprement le point de la conception.

§ 8.5  Or, ces points sont au nombre de trente dans chaque signe; ce qui fait, pour le cercle entier, trois cent soixante. Les grecs ont appelé ces points μοῖραι, sans doute parce que c'est le nom des déesses du destin, et que de ces points dépendent, pour ainsi dire, nos destinées: aussi l'action de naître sous l'un ou sous l'autre est-elle ce qu'il y a de plus important.
Le soleil, donc, quand il est entré dans le second signe, ne voit plus le premier que faiblement, ou même ne l'aperçoit plus du tout; car beaucoup d'auteurs ont nié qu'entre signes contigus l'aspect pût avoir lieu de l'un à l'autre. Mais quand il est dans le troisième signe, c'est-à-dire quand il y en a un entre ce troisième et celui de la conception, alors il voit, dit-on, ce premier signe d'où il est parti, mais il n'y porte qu'un rayon oblique et, par conséquent, affaibli. Cet aspect est appelé καθ’ ἑξάγωνον, parce que son arc embrasse la sixième partie du cercle. Si, en effet, du premier au troisième signe, de celui-ci au cinquième, de ce dernier au septième et ainsi de suite, vous conduisez des lignes droites, vous aurez tracé dans le cercle la figure d'un hexagone équilatéral.
On n'a pas toujours pris en considération cet aspect, parce qu'il paraît n'avoir presque aucune influence sur le fruit de la conception pour en hâter la maturité.
Mais quand le soleil est parvenu dans le quatrième signe, et que deux autres l'éloignent de son point de départ, son rayon est κατὰ τετράγωνον; la ligne, en effet, qu'il parcourt embrasse la quatrième partie du cercle;
et quand il est dans le cinquième, et qu'ainsi trois signes l'ont séparé de son point de départ, son rayon est dit κατὰ τρίγωνον, d'autant qu'il embrasse la troisième partie du zodiaque. Ces deux derniers aspects, τετράγωνοι et τρίγωνοι, sont les plus efficaces pour favoriser le développement du fruit de la conception.

§ 8.10  Du reste, l'aspect pris du sixième signe n'exerce aucune influence: la ligne, en effet, qu'embrasse ce signe, ne touche l'un des côtés d'aucun polygone. Il en est tout autrement du septième signe, lequel donne l'aspect le plus complet et le plus efficace; sa vertu fait quelquefois sortir des flancs de la mère le fruit déjà mûr, et l'enfant, dans ce cas, est dit septemmestris, parce qu'il naît dans le septième mois de la conception.
Mais si, dans cet espace de sept mois, il n'a pas atteint sa maturité, il ne saurait naître dans le huitième (car du huitième signe, pas plus que du sixième, l'aspect n'a d'efficacité), mais dans le neuvième ou dans le dixième mois.
Du neuvième signe, en effet, le soleil regarde de nouveau κατὰ τρίγωνον le point de la conception; et, du dixième signe, l'aspect a lieu κατὰ τετράγωνον, et ces deux aspects, comme nous l'avons déjà dit, sont des plus efficaces.
Au surplus, on ne pense pas que l'enfantement puisse avoir lieu dans le onzième mois, parce que le rayon n'arrive qu'affaibli, et καθ’ ἑξάγωνον sur le point de la conception; bien moins encore peut-il avoir lieu dans le douzième, d'autant que du signe correspondant l'aspect est comme s'il n'existait pas. D'après ces calculs, donc, les enfants naissent à sept mois sous l'influence de l'aspect κατὰ διάμετρον, à neuf mois sous celle de l'aspect κατὰ τρίγωνον, et à dix mois par suite de l'aspect κατὰ τετράγωνον.

§ 9.1  PYTHAGORAS
Après cette explication du système des Chaldéens, je passe à l'opinion de Pythagoras, traitée par Varron dans son livre appelé Tubéron, et intitulé De l'origine de l'homme;
et cette opinion, qui est de toutes la plus recevable, me paraît se rapprocher le plus de la vérité. La plupart, en effet, des autres philosophes, tout en n'assignant pas à la maturité du produit utérin une époque toujours la même, ont prétendu que sa formation avait lieu dans un espace de temps toujours égal: on peut citer à cet égard Diogène d'Apollonie, suivant qui le corps des garçons est formé dans le quatrième mois, et celui des filles dans le cinquième; et Hippon, qui soutient que l'enfant est formé soixante jours après la conception, ajoutant que dans le quatrième mois la chair prend sa consistance, dans le cinquième poussent les ongles et les cheveux, et dans le septième l'enfant est parvenu à sa perfection.
Pythagore, au contraire (et en cela il nous semble plus dans le vrai), admit deux sortes de gestation, l'une de sept et l'autre de dix mois; mais aussi des nombres de jours différents pour la conformation. Or, ces nombres, qui, dans chaque gestation, amènent quelque changement, puisque c'est d'abord la semence qui se change en sang, puis le sang en chair, et enfin la chair en l'homme lui-même, ces nombres, dans leur corrélation, présentent le même rapport que ce qu'on appelle, en musique, consonnances.

§ 10.1  ON MUSIC
Mais, pour que tout cela devienne plus compréhensible,a mon sujet exige que je dise d'abord quelques mots touchant les règles de la musique; d'autant plus que je parlerai de choses que ne connaissent pas les musiciens eux-mêmes:
car ils ont fait sur les sons de savants traités, ils les ont classés d'une manière convenable; mais, quant aux divers mouvements, quant à la mesure des sons, les règles en sont dues aux géomètres plutôt qu'aux musiciens.
La musique est la science de bien moduler: elle consiste dans le son; or, le son est tantôt plus grave, tantôt plus aigu. Chaque son, cependant, pris d'une manière absolue, est appelé φθόγγος. La différence d'un son à un autre, entre le grave et l'aigu, est appelée diastème.
Entre le son le plus grave et le son le plus aigu peuvent se trouver plusieurs diastèmes successifs, les uns plus grands, les autres plus petits; celui, par exemple, qui est nommé τόνος,16 ou celui, plus petit, appelé ἡμιτόνιον,17 ou l'intervalle de deux ou trois tons, et ainsi de suite. Mais il ne faut point croire que tous les sons, arbitrairement combinés avec n'importe quels autres, produisent dans le chant des consonnances agréables à l'oreille.
De même que les lettres de notre alphabet, si on les assemble au hasard et sans aucun ordre, ne formeront presque jamais ni un mot, ni même une syllabe qu'on puisse prononcer; de même, dans la musique, il n'y a que certains intervalles qui puissent produire des symphonies.
Or, la symphonie est l'union de deux sons différents qui forment un concert. Les symphonies simples et primitives sont au nombre de trois; les autres en sont dérivées: la première, ayant un intervalle de deux tons et un semi-ton, s'appelle diatessaron; la seconde, de trois tons et un semi-ton, se nomme diapente; la troisième est nommée diapason: son intervalle renferme les deux premières.
Il est, en effet, de six tons, comme le prétendent Aristoxène et les musiciens; ou de cinq tons et de deux semi-tons, comme le soutiennent Pythagore et les géomètres, qui démontrent que deux semi-tons ne peuvent former un ton complet. Aussi est-ce abusivement que Platon nomme cet intervalle ἡμιτόνιον; il est proprement appelé δίεσις ou λεῖμμα.
Et maintenant, pour expliquer jusqu'à un certain point comment des sons qui ne tombent ni sous les yeux ni sous le tact, sont susceptibles d'être mesurés, je rapporterai l'admirable expédient de Pythagoras, qui, scrutant les secrets de la nature, découvrit que les rapports des nombres s'appliquaient aux sons des musiciens. Il prit des cordes sonores, de mêmes grosseur et longueur, et il y suspendit différents poids; voyant, après avoir frappé ces cordes à divers reprises, qu'il n'obtenait, des sons qu'elles rendaient, aucune consonnance, il changea les poids; et après avoir répété souvent ses expériences, il finit par découvrir que deux cordes donnaient la consonnance diatessaron, lorsque leurs poids tendants étaient dans le rapport de 3 à 4: ce son, les arithméticiens grecs l'appellent ἐπίτριτον, les latins supertertium.
Quant à la consonnance nommée diapente, il la rencontra quand ses poids étaient dans la proportion sesquitierce, que présente 2 comparé à 3; et cette consonnance s'appelle ἡμιόλιος.29 Quand une corde était tendue par un poids deux fois fort comme celui de l'autre corde, et qu'ainsi elle se trouvait en raison double, la consonnance était celle appelée diapason. Il réitéra sur des flûtes les mêmes expériences, et il obtient les mêmes résultats.
Ces flûtes étaient de même grosseur, la longueur seule variait: la première, par exemple, était longue de six doigts; la seconde, longue d'un tiers en plus, en avait huit; la troisième, plus longue de moitié que la première, en avait neuf; la quatrième enfin, longue deux fois comme la première, en avait douze.
Il souffla dans chacune de ces flûtes, et, comparaison faite des sons de chacune deux à deux, il démontra aux musiciens qui l'écoutaient que la première et la seconde flûte, dans le rapport de 3 à 4,30 présentait une consonnance pareille à celle dite diatessaron; qu'entre la première et la troisième, dans le rapport de 2 à 3,31 on obtenait la consonnance diapente; qu'enfin l'intervalle de la première à la quatrième, dans le rapport de 1 à 2,32 était le diastème qu'on nomme diapason.
Mais entre les cordes sonores et les flûtes il y a cette différence, que plus les flûtes sont longues, plus leur son est grave; tandis que, pour les cordes, plus les poids tendants augmentent, plus le son des cordes devient aigu, mais toujours dans les mêmes proportions d'un côté comme de l'autre.

§ 11.1  PYTHAGORAS ON THE FETUS
Après cet exposé, obscur peut-être, mais le plus clair cependant que j'aie pu le faire, je reviens à mon sujet, c'est-à-dire à l'explication de ce que Pythagore a pensé sur le nombre des jours de la gestation.
Et d'abord, comme je l'ai dit plus haut, il admit en général deux espèces de gestation, l'une plus courte et dite de sept mois, qui, deux cent dix jours après la conception, fait sortir l'enfant des flancs de la mère; l'autre, plus longue et dite de dix mois, qui l'en fait sortir au bout de deux cent soixante-quatorze jours. Dans la première, c'est-à-dire la plus courte, le nombre senaire joue le principal rôle.
En effet, cette partie de la semence qui a donné lieu à la conception, n'est, pendant les six premiers jours, qu'un liquide laiteux, qui, pendant les huit jours suivants, passe à l'état de sang: ces huit jours, ajoutés aux six premiers, présentent la première consonnance appelée diatessaron. Ensuite il s'écoule neuf jours pour la formation de la chair; ces neuf jours, comparés aux six premiers, sont dans le rapport de 2 à 3, et présentent la consonnance diapente. Viennent ensuite douze jours nouveaux, pendant lesquels s'achève la formation du corps; leur comparaison avec les six premiers jours établit le rapport de 1 à 2, et présente la troisième consonnance appelée diapason.
Ces quatre nombres 6, 8, 9, 12, réunis, donnent pour total trente-cinq jours. Et ce n'est point sans raison que le nombre senaire est le fondement de la génération; aussi bien ce nombre est-il appelé par les Grecs τέλειος, et parfait dans notre langage, parce que trois parties, le sixième, le tiers et la moitié de ce nombre, c'est-à-dire 1, 2, et 3, concourent à le parfaire.

§ 11.5  Mais de même que ce premier état de la semence, ce principe laiteux de la conception exige tout d'abord l'accomplissement de ce nombre de six jours; de même ce premier état de l'homme conformé, cet autre principe qui appelle la maturité à venir, lequel a trente-cinq jours, y arrive après six révolutions de ce nombre de 35, c'est-à-dire au bout de deux cent dix jours.
Quant à l'autre gestation, qui est plus longue, elle a pour principe un nombre plus grand, c'est-à-dire le nombre septenaire, qui se rencontre à toutes les époques importantes de la vie de l'homme, ainsi que l'a écrit Solon, ainsi que le suivent les Juifs dans tous les calculs de leurs jours, ainsi enfin que paraissent l'indiquer les Rituels des Étrusques. Hippocrates lui-même, et d'autres médecins, ne suivent point, dans les maladies du corps, d'autre opinion; car ils nomment κρίσιμον (critique) chaque septième jour, et ils l'observent attentivement.
Ainsi, de même que l'élément primitif, dans la première gestation, emploie six jours, passé lesquels la semence se change en sang; de même, dans la seconde, il en emploie sept: et comme, dans le premier cas, la conformation de l'enfant n'est complète qu'au bout de trente-cinq jours; de même, dans le second cas, elle ne l'est qu'au bout de quarante jours environ. Voilà pourquoi ce nombre de quarante jours est remarquable chez les Grecs: aussi la femme en couches ne paraît-elle point en public avant le quarantième jour après sa délivrance; pendant cet espace de temps la plupart des femmes souffrent, pour ainsi dire, encore plus de leur grossesse; souvent elles ont des pertes de sang qu'on ne peut arrêter; pendant ce laps de temps aussi, les nouveau-nés sont tout malades: aucun sourire de leur part, pour eux pas un seul instant exempt de danger. Voilà pourquoi aussi le dernier de ces quarante jours est un jour de fête; et ce jour, on l'appelle τεσσερακοστόν (quarantième).

§ 11.8  Ces quarante jours, donc, multipliés par les sept jours primordiaux, donnent pour total 280, c'est-à-dire quarante semaines. Mais, comme l'enfant vient au monde le premier jour de cette dernière semaine, il faut en déduire six jours, et il en reste 274: nombre qui coïncide merveilleusement avec cet aspect que l'on nomme, dans le système des Chaldéens, τετράγωνον.
Car, puisque le zodiaque est parcouru par le soleil en trois cent soixante-cinq jours et quelques heures, il faut bien, si l'on en déduit le quart, c'est-à-dire quatre-vingt-onze jours et quelques heures, qu'il parcoure les trois autres quarts dans les deux cent soixante-quinze autres jours, moins quelques heures, jusqu'à ce qu'il soit parvenu au point d'où il regarde, κατὰ τετράγωνον, le point de la conception.
Mais comment l'esprit humain a-t-il pu observer ces jours de métamorphoses successives, et pénétrer ces mystères de la nature ? On ne s'en étonnera pas, si l'on réfléchit que ces découvertes sont dues aux nombreuses observations des médecins qui, voyant que bien des femmes ne conservaient pas dans leurs flancs la semence de l'homme, ont remarqué qu'elle était laiteuse quand elle s'échappait dans les six ou sept premiers jours de la conception; et, cette perte, ils l'ont appelée ἔκρυσις (écoulement); que, plus tard, elle était un liquide sanguin; et alors cette perte s'appelle ἐκτρωσμός (avortement).
Quant au fait de voir l'une et l'autre gestation embrasser un nombre de jours pair, alors que Pythagore regarde comme seul parfait le nombre impair, il n'y a point là une contradiction avec les principes de sa secte; car, si l'on compte par jours pleins, lui-même il donne les deux nombres impairs, 209 et 273; mais, à chacun de ces nombres de jours, il faut ajouter quelques heures, lesquelles cependant ne forment point un jour entier.
La nature elle-même nous en fournit un exemple, tant dans la durée de l'année que dans celle du mois, puisque l'année se compose du nombre impair de trois cent soixante-cinq jours, plus quelques heures, et le mois lunaire d'un peu plus que vingt-neuf jours.

§ 12.1  MUSIC.
It is not incredible that Music has some relation to our birth. Either, as says Socrates, because it resides in the voice, or as Aristoxenus pretends, because it arises from the voice and the movements of the body, or because to these two conditions must be added the aspirations of the soul, as was thought by Theophrastus. Certainly music has in it something divine and it can do much to move the soul. If music was not agreeable to the immortal gods, who are essentially divine, melodrama would not be employed to honour them; public prayers by the sound of the flute, with which their temples resound, would not be made; and one would not see a flute-player precede the march of triumph; Apollo would not be given a cithara, as an attribute, nor the Muses given flutes and other musical instruments; flute-players, who invoke the beneficent gods, would not be permitted to usher in the public games, to play during feasts in the capitol, nor during the small quinquatribus, that is to say in the ides of June; nor to run around the city clothed according to their fancy, masked and inflamed with wine.
The souls of men, which are divine, notwithstanding the opinion of Epicurus, are elevated by songs. Even the pilot amidst the storm raises his voice in song to give courage and alacrity to the sailors. It is the trumpet that banishes from the field of battle the fear of death. This is why Pythagoras, who wished that his soul should be always imbued with the sentiment of divinity, had, it is said, the habit of playing the cithara before abandoning himself to sleep. Asclepiades, the physician, with the aid of harmonious music, brought back reason to troubled minds. Erophilus, who practiced the same art, pretended that the pulsations of the veins were made rhythmically. If, then, music presides over the movements both of the body and the soul, it cannot be foreign to our birth.

§ 13.1  MUSIC OF THE SPHERES
To the foregoing add what Pythagoras has demonstrated, that all the universe moves upon the principles of music; that the seven planets which float between the sky and the earth and which rule the generation of mortals, have a movement called by the Greeks “Harmonic” and intervals corresponding to musical ones: that they give, each according to its place in space, divers sounds and so perfect that the sweetest melodies result; only they are inaudible to our ears which are too coarse for their sublime sounds. Eratosthenes found, by geometrical calculations, that the greatest circumference of the Earth is 252,000 stadia; Pythagoras indicated how many stadia there were between the Earth and each of the planets. The particular stadius in question is that which is called Italique, which is of 625 feet; because there are others which differ from it in length, as the Olympic stadius of 600 feet and the Pythic, of 1000. From the Earth to the Moon, Pythagoras thought that there were about 126,000 stadia, which responds to the interval of a musical tone; that from the Moon to Mercury there was half this distance, or a semi-tone; that from this star to Venus there was about as much, that is to say, another semi-tone; that from this to the Sun there was three times this distance, which is equivalent to one tone and a half; and that the Sun is distant from the Earth three tones and a semi-tone, an interval which is called a diapente; that the Sun is distant from the Moon two tones and a half, an interval called diatessaron; that from the Sun to Mars, called by the Greeks “Fire,” there is the same distance as from the Earth to the Moon, or the interval of a tone; that from Mars to Jupiter, called in Greek “Twinkling,” there is half of that, or a semi-tone; that there is the same interval from Jupiter to Saturn, called in Greek “Brilliant,” or another semi-tone; that from here to the superior heaven, where the Signs are, there is also an interval of a semi-tone; that from the superior heaven to the Sun there is a diatessaron, that is to say, an interval of two tones and a half; and that from the same part of the heaven to the most elevated part of the Earth, there are six tones, which gives the diapasonic consonance. To other stars are applied many rules which belong to the musical art. Pythagoras has also shown that all the universe is “Harmonious.” Dorylaus has written that the universe is the musical instrument of God; others have called the universe the “Ball-room” on account of the movement of the seven revolving planets. But all these things deserve a minute explanation and this is not the place for it. I have devoted an entire book to this subject and even that is not space enough. I return to my proper subject; the charms of music having carried me too far.

§ 14.1  VARIOUS STAGES OF LIFE.
Having elsewhere explained what passes before the day of our birth, I will mention the climacteric years and how the different ages of man are distinguished. Varro thinks that human life is divided into five equal epochs, each of fifteen years, except the last. Thus the first epoch, which lasts to the fifteenth year, embraces childhood. Children are called pueri, because they are pure, that is to say, impubescent; the second epoch, which extends to thirty years of age, embraces the adolescents, thus called from the word adolescere (to begin life); the third epoch, which continues until the forty-fifth years, embraces the young men, called the juvenes, because they defend (juvant) the republic, sword in hand; the fourth epoch, which extends to the sixtieth year, embraces those who are called seniors, because the human body then commences to grow old (senescere); the fifth epoch comprehends all the remaining time until death, and this class is called old men (senes) whose bodies are already debilitated by age (senio). Hippocrates, the physician, divides life into seven periods; the first, according to him, terminates at seven years, the second at fourteen, the third at twenty-eight, the fourth at thirty-five, the fifth at forty-two, the sixth at fifty-six, while the seventh extends to the last day of life. As to Solon, he made ten periods, which he calls septennates, halving the third, the sixth and the seventh periods of Hippocrates; so that each period is of seven years. Staseas, the Peripatetic, added two to the ten hebdomades of Solon and assigned eighty-four years as the last term of life, comparing those who passed this limit to those racers and charioteers who had passed the goal. According to Varro, the Etruscans, in their books called Fatalibus, (Books of Fate,) also divided human life into twelve hebdomades. They thought that by prayers, there could be obtained from the gods postponement of the fatal moment by adding two other hebdomades to the first ten; but that having passed eighty years this favour should neither be solicited nor received from the gods; that man, after eighty-four years, insensibly loses the use of his faculties and is not worth such efforts. Of all the writers on this subject, those who divide human life into 12 hebdomades of seven years, appear to me to approach nearest the truth. In effect, it is by intervals of seven years that nature changes us and affects a series of revolutions. So we learn from the Elegy of Solon. He says that in the first hebdomade man loses his first teeth; in the second, appears the down; the beard appears in the third; in the fourth, he acquires all his strength; in the fifth, comes the maturity that is necessary for procreation; the sixth moderates his passions; the seventh achieves the perfection of his reason and language; this perfection is maintained in the eighth and according to some authors his eyes lose their force; in the ninth, all his faculties commence to become enfeebled; and the tenth precipitates him towards death. In the second hebdomade or the commencement of the third, the voice becomes strong but unequal. Aristotle calls this “change of voice” and our fathers called it hirquitallire; they also call the young man of this age hirquitallos, from the word hircus. The third age, which embraces adolescents, the Greeks divided into three degrees; thus they say “child” at fourteen years; “near puberty” at fifteen; “puberty” at sixteen and “ex-puberty” at seventeen. There are many things to learn about these hebdomades in medical and philosophical works. They teach us that in illness the seventh day is the most perilous and is called “critical” by the Greeks; and that during the course of life each seventh year brings dangers and crises, which have been named “climacteric.”3 Among these years there are some which the astrologers regard as more critical than others; the most dangerous, according to them, are those which terminate each period of three hebdomades, that is to say, the twenty-first year and the forty-second, then the sixty-third and the eighty-fourth, which is that which Staseas has made the term of life. Many others admit but one climacteric year, the most critical of all, the forty-ninth, which is composed of seven times seven, and they have adopted this opinion, on account of the influence attributed to the squares of numbers. Plato, the greatest of philosophers, (without depreciating the others,) thought that human life had, as limit, the square of nine, which gave eighty-one years. There are some who admit the two numbers, that is to say, 49 and 81, applying the lesser number to children born during the night and the greater one to children born during the day. Many philosophers, guided by another theory, have established between these two numbers an ingenious distinction. They say that the septenary number referred to the body and the ninth to the soul. I regard 13 this as less dangerous than the others; because if it contains the two numbers stated above, it is not the square of either of them and notwithstanding the relation that it has with one and the other, it has no influence; and this year of life has been fatal to not a few celebrated men of antiquity. I may be contradicted by the example of Aristotle the Stagirite; but such was said to be the natural feebleness of his temperament and the continuance of the maladies which assailed his debilitated body, to which he only opposed the force of his vast soul, that it is more surprising that his life was prolonged to sixty-three years, than that it should not have passed this term.

§ 15.1  OLD AGE
This is why, virtuous Cerellius, although thou hast without trouble passed this year, the most critical of all, I dread less for thee the other climacteric years; because these offer less danger. I know that with thee it is the soul which dominates. Men thus formed pay no tribute to nature before having attained their eighty-first year, which is, according to Plato, the legitimate term of life and which was that of his own. It was at this age that Dionysius Heracleotes, in order to die, deprived himself of nourishment and that, contrariwise, Diogenes, the Cynic, choked to death from excess of food. Eratosthenes, who measured the rotundity of the earth and the Platonist Xenocrates, chief of the ancient Academy, lived just to this year. There are those, who triumphing by the force of moral energy over their corporal maladies, have passed this limit: as Carneades, founder of the third Academy, called the New and Cleanthes, who accomplished his ninety-ninth year. Xenophanes the Colophonian lived more than one hundred years. Democritus of Abdera and the rhetorician Isocrates, lived, it is said, nearly as long as Georgias the Leontine, who attained the most advanced age of all antiquity and passed one hundred and eight years. If these disciples of wisdom, either by the force of their souls, or by a law of destiny, enjoyed such a long life, I do not doubt that, thanks to the vigour that thou hast maintained in soul and body, an old age as long to thee is reserved. Who can we cite among the ancients who were superior to thee in wisdom, in temperance, in justice and grandeur of soul? Who among them, if he lived, would not take thee as an unique model of all the virtues? Who would blush to come but after thee in this panegyric? According to my view, the most worthy of admiration are they who, if they have not been given to forgetfulness, notwithstanding their extreme prudence and their severance from public affairs, have lived without incurring reproaches or exciting deadly hatred. Thou who hast filled municipal functions, whose sacerdotal honours have placed him at the head of the citizens, just as the dignity of the equestrian order is elevated above the rank of the provincial, not only hast thou always been exempt from reproach and hatred, but thou hast drawn to thyself the love and esteem of all. Who has not searched among the illustrious order of senators for those who had the honour to be known to thee; or who has not envied thee in the more modest ranks of the people? What man has seen thee, or only knows thy name, who does not cherish thee as his brother and who does venerate thee as a member of his family? Who does not know that, united in thee, is the most scrupulous probity, a fidelity which stands all ordeals, an incomparable goodness, modesty and bearing, without equal, in fact all the human virtues; and to such a degree that it is not possible for anybody to fitly praise them. I do not say anything of thy eloquence, which is known to all the tribunals and to all the magistrates of our provinces: and which has won the admiration of Rome and of the most august audiences. It equally recommends itself to our own time and to future ages!

§ 16.1  TIME
But as I am to write of thy Natal Day, I shall now try to follow my subject more closely. I will designate as clearly as possible the present time, that in which they noble life passes and I will make known exactly the day when thou wast born.
I mean by limited time (tempus) not merely a day, a month, or a year, but that which some call a lustrum, or great year, and others a cycle. As to infinite time (aevum) which is without limits, I have little to say just now. It is in fact eternity; having neither commencement nor end; it has always been and it will always be; it does not belong more to one man than to another. It can be considered in three relations, the past, the present and the future. The past has no commencement, the future no end, and the present, which holds the middle, is so ephemeral, so unseizable, that it does not admit of any measurement and seems to be but a point with unites the past and the future. Thus it is so mobile that it never stops; all that it touches in its precipitate course it takes from the future and adds it to the past. Compared among themselves, these times (I speak of the past and the future) are neither equal, nor such that one can be considered as shorter or longer than the other; that which has no limit not being susceptible to any measure. I will then not try to measure infinite time (aevum) by any number of years or cycles, neither by any revolution of finished time; because these divisions compared to infinite time do not equal a single short hour of winter. Also in the examination which I am going to make of past cycles and for the designation of the present age, leaving aside those times which the poets have named the Golden Age, the Age of Silver and others, I will take as my point of departure Rome, our common country. Cycles being either natural or civil, I shall first speak of the natural ones.

§ 17.1  THE LUDI SAECULARES
A natural cycle or age is the longest duration of human life, having for its limits the birth and death of man. Those who have confined the age to a space of thirty years, seem to have committed a great error. According to Heraclitus this interval of time is called not an age but a generation, because in such interval a period transpires in the age of man and such period is the interval comprised between the moment of birth and that in which he expires. The number of years of which a generation is composed has been differently fixed. Herodotus says 25 years; Zeno, 30. It is a question the examination of which has not as yet received sufficient care. Much that is incredible has been written on the subject by poets and even by Greek historians, who should have been able to approach the truth. In Herodotus we read that Arganthonius king of Tartessus lived 150 years and in Ephorus that the Arcadians pretended that some of their 16 ancient kings had lived 300 years. I put these accounts aside as fabulous. A similar diversity of opinion is found even among the astrologers, who search for truth by observing the stars and celestial signs. Epigenes fixed 112 years as the longest duration of human life, and Berosius 116 years. Others have pretended that life could be prolonged to 120 years, and others even beyond this time. There are some who have thought that the duration of life was not the same everywhere, but that it varied in each country according to the local inclination of the heavens (stars) at the horizon. The Greeks call this “Climate.”

§ 17.5  But although the truth is hidden and obscure, the ritual of the Etruscans enlightens us as to the (saecular) cycles employed in their states. From their books we learn how these cycles were established. Going back to the day of the foundation of cities and states they select from those who were born on that day, he who lived the longest time; and the day of his death marks the end of the first cycle or age. Amongst those whose birth dates back to this period, it is him who lives the longest whose death will serve to mark the end of the second cycle or age; and in this manner the duration of the following cycles is measured. But in their ignorance of the truth, men have imagined that the gods apprised them by portents of the end of each cycle. Accomplished in the art of the aruspice, the Etruscans after having searched for these portents with attention, enter them in their books. So the Annals of Etruria, written, as Varro tells us, in the Eighth age, mention how many ages are reserved to the nation, how many have passed and by what portents the end of each is signalized. Thus we read that the first four cycles were of 105 years, the fifth of 123, the sixth of 119, as was also the seventh; that the eighth cycle was then begun, and that there remained but the ninth and tenth to run their course, after which the Etruscan name would perish.

§ 17.7  As to the Ages of Rome, some authors think they are (also) measured by the Cyclical Games or Ludi Saeculares. If this opinion is held to be true, the duration of the Roman cycles is vague, because both the interval of time at which the Games were formerly celebrated and even the epoch at which they should be held, is uncertain. Their return was fixed after each hundredth year. So thought Valerius Antias and other historians and also Varro, who, in his first 17 book, de Scenicis Originibus, thus expresses himself: “As numerous wonders were manifested and the wall and tower which are between the Colline and the Equiline Gates were struck by the fire of heaven, the decemvirs, after having interrogated the Sibylline books, declared that the Ludi Terentini must be celebrated in the Camp of Mars in honour of Pluto and Proserpine, and that black victims should be immolated to these gods, adding that the games should be renewed every one hundred years.” We read also in Titus Livius, book 136:11 “In the same year Divus Augustus revived with great pomp those Ludi Saeculares which it is customary to celebrate every hundred years, in other words, at the end of each cycle.” On the contrary, if we refer either to the Commentaries of the Quindecemvirs, or to the edicts of the god Augustus (Divus Augustus) they should recur every one hundred years. Horace Flaccus, also, in the hymn which was sung at the Ludi Saeculares of his time, designated the epoch in the following terms: “A revolution of ten times eleven years brings back these games and hymns at which the people assemble during three days of splendour and as many nights of gladness.”

§ 17.10  It we unroll the annals of the ancient times we find still more uncertainty. According to Valerius Antias it was, in effect, after the expulsion of the kings and the year 245 of the Foundation of Rome, that Valerius Publicola celebrated the first Ludi Saeculares, whilst according to the Commentaries of the Quindecemvirs they were observed in the year 298, under the consulate of M. Valerius and Sp. Verginius. According to Valerius Antias the second games were celebrated in the year 305 of the Foundation of Rome, while according to the Commentaries of the Quindecemvirs it was the year 408, under the second consulate of M. Valerius Corvinus, who had as colleague, C. Poetilius. The third games, according to Valerius and Titus Livius, took place under the consulate of P. Claudius Pulcher and C. Junius Pullus; or, as it is written in the Book of the Quindecemvirs, 18 in the year 518, under the consulate of P. Cornelius Lentulus and of C. Licinius Varus. As to the year of the fourth Ludi, there are three contradictory opinions. Valerius, Varro and Titus Livius say they took place under the consulate of L. Marcus Censorinus and of M. Manilius, year 605 of the Foundation of Rome; but Piso, Censorinus, Cn. Gellius and Cassius Hemina, who lived at this epoch, affirm that they were celebrated three years later, under the consulate of Cn. Cornelius Lentulus and of L. Mummius Achaicus, that is to say, in A. U. 608; while in the Commentaries of the Quindecemvirs they are brought to the year 628, under the consulate of M. Emilius Lepidus and of L. Aurelius Orestes [126 BCE]. The fifth games were celebrated by Caesar Augustus and Agrippa in the year 737 under the consulate of C. Furnius and of C. Junius Silanus. The sixth games were celebrated by T. Claudius Caesar, then consul for the fourth time with L. Vitellius, who was consul for the third time, in the year of Rome 800. The seventh games were celebrated by Septimus Domitian under his fourteenth consulate and under that of L. Minucius Rufus in the year 841. The eighth were celebrated by the emperors Septimius and M. Aurelius Antoninus under the consulate of Cilo and of Libo, year of Rome 957 (204 CE).

§ 17.12  It is to be remarked, that it is neither exactly every hundred nor every hundred and ten years, that these games were celebrated. And even when one has observed one or the other of these periods, it is not enough to affirm that the Ludi always marked the end of a cycle any more than that in the interval of 244 years between the Foundation of Rome and the expulsion of the kings (an interval unquestionably longer than an age) we are not informed that they were celebrated at all. If anybody, by the etymology of words, supposes that the cycles were marked by the Saecular Games, he must remember that these games may have been thus named because generally man sees them but once during his life. In ordinary language we say of many things which we but rarely see, that they come but once in an age. But if our ancestors had no fixed rule for the number of years of which an age was composed, they certainly had one for the duration of a civil cycle, to which they gave 100 years. Piso gives the following in his Annals of the Seventh Cycle (Annali Septimo):18 “Rome, in the 596th year of its Foundation saw a New Cycle open, under the consulate which preceded immediately that of M. Emilius and M. F. Lepidus (C. Popilius consul for the second time being absent).” Our fathers had several motives for adopting this number of 100 years. Firstly, they had seen a certain number of their fellow citizens live until that age. They also wished on this point, as on many others, to imitate the Etruscans, whose first cycles were of 100 years.

§ 17.14  It could also have come from Alexandria, as we are reminded by Varro, and the astronomer Dioscorides, where an opinion is accepted among those who embalm the dead, that man cannot live longer than one hundred years, an opinion which is derived from the examination of the hearts of those who perished with a healthy body, and exempt from all alteration by disease. As in weighing the heart at different epochs, they have observed the increase and the loss at each age, they pretend that this organ weighs, at the age of one year two drachmas, at two years four drachmas, and that it increases at the rate of two drachmas each year until the fiftieth year; that from the fiftieth year each year takes from this weight of one hundred drachmas, two drachmas; the result is that at one hundred years of age, the heart has fallen to the weight of the first year and life can be no longer prolonged. As (if) the “age” of the Romans is one hundred years, it follows that it is in the tenth “age” (counting backward) that its Natal Day is to be found, the anniversary of which is still observed. As for the number of cycles presaged for the City of Rome, it is not for me to express my own opinion, but I may state what I have read in Varro, who tell us, in the 18th book of his “Antiquities,” that there was at Rome, a certain Vettius, learned in augury and gifted with a superior mind, whom he had heard say that: “If things have passed, as reported by the historians, touching the augurs and the twelve vultures who signalized the Foundation of Rome, then the Roman community having passed the term of 120 years full of life, were assured of attaining 1200 years.”

§ 18.1  THE GREAT YEAR
Having said enough in regard to the centennial interval I shall now speak of the Great Year, of which the length is greatly varied, whether in the usages of the people or in the traditions of authors; some making it consist in the revolution of two ordinary years, others in the union of many thousands. I will try to explain these differences. The ancient people of Greece having remarked that during the time of the annual revolution of the sun, there are about thirteen risings of the moon, and as these occur with more exactness when two years are taken together, thought that the natural year corresponded to twelve and a half lunar months. They thus established their civil years in such a manner that with the aid of an intercalation, some are composed of twelve months and others of thirteen, called each isolated year a solar year, and the union of the two, a Great Year. They called this space of time trieteries (a cycle of three years) because the intercalation took place every third year; although the revolution was accomplished in two years and was in reality but a dieteries (a cycle of two years). This is why the mysteries celebrated in honour of Liber Pater are named trieteries by the poets. This error was subsequently acknowledged; they doubled the space 21 of time and established tetraeteries (a cycle of four years) which returning every fifth year was called pentaeteries. The great year, thus formed of four years, was more convenient, in that the solar year was composed of about 365 1/4 days and this fraction enabled a full day to be added every fourth year. This is why that on the return of every fifth year the games were celebrated in Elis in honour of Jupiter Olympius and at Rome in honour of Jupiter Capitolinus.

§ 18.9  But this space of time, which only coincides with the course of the sun and not with that of the moon, was again doubled; and it was called octaeteries (a cycle of eight years) then called euneaeteries (a cycle of nine years) because this new year returned on the ninth year. This period of time was considered throughout nearly all of Greece, as the real Great Year, because it is composed of years without any fraction, as all Great Years should be. In effect, this was composed of eight full years and 99 full days. The institution of this octaeteries is generally attributed to Eudoxus of Cnidus, but it is said that Cleostrates of Tenedos was the first to invent it, and after him came others who, with the aid of different intercalations of months, have each composed an octaeteries. Thus Harpalus Nauteles, Mnesistratus and others calculated such periods; amongst them Dositheus, whose work is called the Octaeteries of Eudoxus. It is from this cycle that in Greece many religious festivals were celebrated with great ceremony. At Delphi, the games called Pythian were anciently celebrated every eight years. The most exact Great Year is the dodecaeteries, a cycle composed of twelve natural (solar) years. It is called the Chaldean cycle. The astrologers did not regulate it by the course of the sun or the moon, but after other observations, because they said that only this space of time could embrace the different seasons, the epochs of abundance, of sterility and of plagues. There are still other Great Years, as the Metonic year invented by the Athenian Meton, which was composed of 19 solar years, also called the enneadicacaeteries (a cycle of 19 years). Seven months are intercalated and 6940 days are counted. The year of the Pythagorean, Philolaus, is composed of 59 years and of 21 intercalated months; the year of Callippus of Cyzicus is composed of 76 years with the intercalation of 28 months; the year of Democritus is formed of 82 years and 28 intercalary months; while that of Hipparchus is composed of 304 years, with the intercalation of 112 months.

§ 18.9  This difference in the length of the Great Year comes from the fact that the astrologers did not agree either on what should be added to the 365 days of the solar year, or what should be taken from the thirty days of the lunar month. On the other hand, the Egyptians, in the formation of their Great Year, had no regard to the moon. In Greece the Egyptian year is called cynical (dog-like) and in Latin canicular, because it commences with the rising of the Canicular or Dog star, to which is fixed the first day of the month which the Egyptians called Thoth. Their civil (equable) year had but 365 days without any intercalation. Thus with the Egyptians the space of four years is shorter by one day than the space four natural (Julian) years, and a complete synchronism is only established at the end of 1461 years. The 1461st year by some is called the Heliacal and by others the Year of God. There is also a year which Aristotle calls Perfect, rather than Great, which is formed by the revolution of the sun, of the moon and of the five planets, when they all come at the same time to the celestial point from which they started together. This year has a great winter called by the Greeks the Inundation and by the Latins The Deluge; it has also a summer which the Greeks call the Conflagration of the world. The world is supposed to have been by turns deluged or on fire at each of these epochs. According to the opinion of Aristarchus this year was composed of 2484 solar years; according to Arestes of Dyrrachium, it was 5552 years; according to Heraclitus and Linus it was 10,800; according to Dion it was 10,884; according to Orpheus it was 10,020 years; and according to Cassandrus it was 3,600,000 years. Others have thought it infinite; and that it would never recur.

§ 18.12  But of all these periods, that most commonly adopted by the Greeks is the pentaeteries, or revolution of four years, which they called olympiads, the present year being the second year of the 254th Olympiad.
The Great Year of the Romans is the same thing as the interval of time which they have called lustrum. This institution dates back to Servius Tullius, who ordered that at the end of every fifth year, we should solemnly proceed, after having made the census of citizens, to the closure of the lustrum. But this was also changed, because from the first lustrum closed by King Servius, to that which was made by the Emperor Vespasian, consul for the fifth time, and by Titus Caesar, under his third consulate, nearly 650 years had passed while only 75 lustra were closed in the interval. Since this epoch the ceremony has been altogether neglected. Nevertheless, the institution of this Great year is still perpetuated, and it is through the Capitoline games that it has commenced to be observed with more care. These games were celebrated for the first time by Domitian, under his twelfth consulate and that of Cornelius Dolabella. Thus the games which have been seen this year are the 29th. So much for the Great Year; it is time to speak of the natural years.

§ 19.1  THE NATURAL YEAR
The natural year is the time which the sun takes to pass through the twelve celestial Signs, and to return to the point from which it started. As to the number of days of which this period is composed, it is a point which astrologers have not yet been able to fix with precision. Philolaus gives to the natural year 364 1/2 days; Aphrodisius, 365 1/8 days; Calippus, 365 days; while Aristarchus of Samos adds the 1623rd part of a day. It has, according to Meton, 365 days and the 19th part of 5 days; according to Oenopides it has 365 days, plus the 59th part of 22 days; Harpalus has made it 365 days and 13 equinoxial hours; while our Ennius has given it 366 days. Most philosophers have considered it as something incommensurable and unseizable; and taking for the truth that which approaches it the nearest, they have adopted the round number of 365 days. If there is a discord among the wisest men, can it astonish us that the civil years, which were established by less accomplished persons, differed one from the other and corresponded but badly with the natural years? Thus, it is reported that in Egypt, in the most ancient times, the year was composed of two months, then King Isone made if four months, and then Arminon composed it of 13 (lunar) months and 5 days. The same thing in Achaia; the Arcadians commenced by having years of three months which gave to these people the name of Ante-Moonites, not as some have thought, that they existed before the moon was in the heavens, but because they counted by (solar) years (of three months) before the lunar year was established in Greece. Some traditions attribute the institution of this trimenstrual year to Horus; it is said that it is from this that the spring, summer, autumn and winter are called Horai, seasons, the year Horos, the Greek year Horoi and those who wrote on them Horographoi, the revolution of these four years which was as a pentaeteries, they called the Great Year. On the other hand, the people of Caria and of Acarnania had years of six months, which differed one from the other, in that the days increased in the first and diminished in the following months and the union of two such years, a sort of trieteries, was to them the Great Year.

§ 20.1  THE TEN MONTHS’ YEAR
Passing from the consideration of those years whose history is lost in the obscurity of time, to those whose origin is more recent and which have been calculated from the course of the sun or moon, there is also a great difference between them. To be convinced of this it is only necessary to examine the annals, I do not say of all the world, but of Italy only. For although Ferentines, the Lavinians, the Albans and the Romans each had peculiar years, the other States of Italy also had theirs. To tell the truth, they all tried to correct their civil years by an intercalation of months designed to harmonize them with the true natural years. But as it would take too long to speak of all these customs, we will pass at once to the year of the Romans. Licinus Macer and after him, Fenestella, have written that the natural year at Rome was originally of twelve months; but we must preferably defer to Junio Gracchano, to Fulvio, to Varro, to Suetonius and other writers, all of whom decide that it was composed of ten months, as was that of the Albans, from whom the Romans descended. These ten Alban months comprised 304 days, thus apportioned: March, 31; April, 30; May, 31; June, 30; Quintilis, 31; Sextilis, 30; Septembris, 30; Octobris, 31; Novembris, 30; Decembris, 30.
Of these ten months the four longer ones were called “long” months, and the six others “short” months. Afterwards Numa, if we defer to Fulvius, or Tarquin, if we believe Junius, instituted the year of 12 months, making 355 days; although the moon, in these 12 months completes but 354 days. The extra day was the result either of a blunder, or, what seems more probable, was due to the superstitious belief which regarded uneven numbers as more perfect and fortunate. That which is certain, is that to the ancient (ten months’) year, 51 days were added; but this number did not complete two months, so that one day was taken from each of the six “short’ months, and these were added to the 51, which made 57, days, out of which two new months were made (by Numa) that is to say, January of 29 days and February of 28. Thus all the months dating from this epoch became long months and were composed of an uneven number of days, with the exception of February, which alone remained “short,” and was on that account regarded as more unlucky than the others. When it was thought necessary to add (every two years) an intercalary month of 22 or 23 days, so that the civil year should correspond to the natural (solar) year, this intercalation was in preference made in February, between Terminalia and Regifugium; and this practice prevailed for some time before it was seen that the civil years were a little longer than the solar.
The care of correcting this inexactitude was given to the pontiffs, and full power was vested in them for making the intercalation. But, most of them being influenced by motives of resentment, or else of friendship, a magistrate was often deprived of his functions, or held them a longer time, as the pontiffs willed. A farmer of the revenues, for example, was made to gain or lose according to the duration of the year as fixed by them. In short, they made, according to their will, longer or shorter intercalations; and so placed in disorder the very thing which was confided to them to be reformed. The confusion was such that Caius Caesar, sovereign-pontiff, resolved in his third consulate and that of M. Emilius Lepidus (46 BCE) to destroy the effects of past abuses by placing between the months of November and December, two intercalary months of 67 days, although he had already intercalated 23 days in the month of February, which gave 445 days to that year; and at the same time to prevent the return of similar errors, he suppressed the intercalary month, and established the civil year after the course of the sun. Hence to the ancient 355 days of Numa’s year he added ten days, which he divided among the seven “short” months of 29 days, in such a manner that two days were added to January, August and December and one to the other months; and he placed these supplementary days at the ends of the months, so as not to disturb the religious festivals. It is for this reason that to-day, although we have seven months of 31 days; yet there are only four which have retained the following peculiarity of the ancient system: that the nones fall on the seventh day, while in the others it falls on the fifth. And to take account of the quarter of a day which it seems completes the solar year, Caesar ordered that after each revolution of four years, there should be added, after Terminalia, instead of the ancient month, an intercalary day, which is now called leap-year day. From this year, ordered by Caesar, all those which have passed down to our time are called Julian, and they commence at his fourth consulate. If they have not every desirable perfection they are at least the only years which coincide with the natural (solar) year; because the ancient years, even those of ten months, differed not only at Rome or in Italy, but amongst other peoples; and it is this regulation which has served, as much as anything, to reform the calendars of the world. Should there arise a question involving a great number of years, it will only be necessary to understand the natural (solar) years; so that if, for example, the period of the origin of the world was known to man, we could correctly go backward to that time by using the Julian Calendar.

§ 21.1  THE HISTORICAL PERIOD.
I will now speak of that period which Varro calls historic. This author divides time into three periods; the first extends from the origin of man to the first cataclysm, and he calls it uncertain, on account of the obscurity in which it is concealed. The second extends from the first cataclysm to the first Olympiad and as it has given rise to numerous fables he calls it mythological. The third extends from the first Olympiad to our time. He calls this historic, because the events which transpired during this interval are related in reliable histories. As to the first period, whether or not it had a commencement, or of how many years it consisted, we can never know. As to the second, we cannot say exactly, but we may believe that it covered about six hundred years. From the first cataclysm, which is called that of Ogyges, until the reign of Inacchus (Bacchus), about four hundred years are counted; from that time until the first Olympiad, a little more than four hundred are counted. And as these events although belonging to the end of the mythical period, approach the historical, several writers have attempted to give the number more exactly. Thus, Sosibius counts it 395; Eratosthenes 407; Timaeus 417; and Aretes 514. Still other calculations have been made by many authors, but their discordance proves the incertitude of this computation. For the third epoch, there has been but little divergence among authors, which extends to about six or seven years, but this incertitude has been fully removed by Varro, who, gifted with rare sagacity, in going over the course of ages of different nations, and in calculating in the past the number and intervals of eclipses, arrived at the truth, and has thrown upon this point such light that we can count to a certainty not only the years, but even the days of this period. According to these calculations, if I am not mistaken, this present year, of which the consulate of Ulpius and Pontianus is as a title and indication, since the first Olympiad, is the 1014th, dating from the Middays of summer, during which were celebrated the Olympian Games; and from the Foundation of Rome it is the year 991, dating from the Pariliana, a festival which serves a precise starting point in calculating the Year of the City. On the other hand, it is the 283rd of the years called Julian, dating from the day of the calends of January on which Julius Caesar commenced the year which he established. If we count by the years called Augustan, it is the year 265, also dating from the calends of January, although it was on the 16th of the calends of February, that on the proposition of L. Munacius Plancus, the senators, and other citizens gave to the imperator Caesar the title of Augustus, Son of God, then consul for the seventh time with M. Vipsanius Agrippa, who was consul for the third time. As to the Egyptians, who at this date had been for two years under the power and authority of the Roman people, the present year is for them the 267th of Augustus. The Egyptian history, as well as our own, contains different aeras. We distinguish the aera of Nabo-Nazaru which to-day has attained the number of 986 years, dating from that first year of the reign of that prince. The aera of Philip, which commenced at the death of Alexander the Great and continues to our day, embraces 562 years. The aeras of the Egyptians always commence on the first day of the month Thoth, a day which, this present year, corresponds to the 7th of the calends of July, whilst a hundred years ago, under the second consulate of the Emperor Antoninus Pius and of Bruttius Praesena, this same day corresponded to the 12th of the calends of August, the ordinary epoch of the rising of the Canicular star in Egypt. Thus we see that we are today really in the hundredth year of this Annus Magnus, which, as I have stated above, is called the solar and canicular year and Year of God. I have indicated at what epoch these years commence, so that nobody should suppose they always dated from the calends of January, or from any other like day; because on the question of aeras, one does not find less diversity among the statements of their founders than amongst the opinions of the philosophers. Some make the natural year commence at the Birth of the Sun, that is to say, at Brumalia, and others at the Summer Solstice; some make it the Vernal Equinox, and others the Autumnal Equinox; some at the rising and some at the setting of the Pleiades, while still others fix it at the rising of the Canicular star.

§ 22.1  THE MONTHS
There are two kinds of months, one natural, the other civil. The natural months are of two kinds, one called solar, the other lunar. A solar month is the time which the sun takes to travel over a sign of the zodiac; the lunar month is the interval of time between one moon and another. The civil months are a combination of days, which each state arranges according to its own pleasure; thus among the Romans a civil month is counted from Calend to Calend. The natural month, the more ancient, is common to all nations. The civil months, of more recent institution, are peculiar to each state. The natural months, whether solar or lunar, are neither equal in length, nor composed of an exact number of days. The sun remains in Aquarius about 29 days; in Pisces about 30 days; in Aries 31 days; in Gemini very nearly 31 days, and so on unequally in all the other Signs. But though it does not remain for an exact number of full days in each sign, it does not make less than its annual revolution in the twelve months; which embraces 365 days and a fraction, which fraction the astronomers have not yet precisely determined. As to the lunar months, they are each composed of about 29½ days, but neither are these months of equal length, some being longer, others shorter. The number of days of which the civil month is composed varies still more, but in all cases the number of days is full. Among the Albans, March had 36 days; May 22 days; Sextilis (our August) 18 days; September 16 days. At Tusculum, Quintilis (July) has 36 days, October 32. Indeed among the inhabitants of Aricia October had 39 days. This month seems to have been the most swollen by the error which has sought to regulate civil months by the course of the moon; as amongst most of the peoples of Greece, the months are alternately of 29 and 30 days. Our ancestors adopted this method when they made their year of 355 days, but the Divine Caesar seeing that the civil months did not correspond, as they should, with the course of the moon, nor the year to the course of the sun, preferred to correct the year, in such a manner that each month corresponded to a real solar month. Instead of a lunar synchronism for each of them, they were arranged so that they coincided with the round of the natural year. If we believe Fulvius and Junius, it was to Romulus that the ten ancient months owed their names. He gave to the first two the names of the authors of his life; he called one March, from Mars, his father, and the second April, from the word Aphrodite, that is to say, Venus, from whom his ancestors were said to have descended. The next two months take their names from classes of the people; May, from Majores (the old people), and June, from Juniores (the young people); the others, that is to say, Quintilis to December, from the numerical rank which each month occupied in the year.
Varro, on the contrary, thought that the Romans borrowed the names of their months from the Latins. He demonstrated in quite a plausible manner that these names are older than the city of Rome. Thus, according to him, the month of March was thus named, not because this god was the father of Romulus, but because the Latin nation were warlike and originally worshipped the god of war. He contends that Aprilis (April) does not take its name from Aphrodite, but from the word aperire (to open), because in this month everything comes to life and nature opens its bosom to all productions. May does not come from majores, but from Maia; because it was in this month that at Rome, and formerly in Latium, sacrifices were made to Holy Maia and Mercury. June comes from Juno rather than from juniores; because it is in this month especially that Juno is worshipped. Quintilis is so called because with the Latins it was the fifth month; it was the same with Sextilis and the other months until December, which all take their names from their numerical order in the year. January and February, it is true, have been since added, but their names come from Latium; January from Janus, to whom this month is consecrated; and February from Februus. All that which serves to expiate and purify is called februum, and all expiations or purifications are called februamenta, just as februare signifies to render clear and pure. The ceremony called februm is not always the same, and the king of purification called februation varies according to the sacrifice. During the Lupercales and the purification of the city, ceremonies which took place during this month, hot salt was carried about, called februm. From this it follows that the days of the Lubercales are properly called februatus; and hence, also, this month took the name of February.
Of the twelve months, two only have since changed name; the ancient Quintilis was called Julius (July) under the fifth consulate of Caius Caesar and under that of M. Antonius in the second Julian year; that which was called Sextilis was, after a senatus-consultum, rendered under the consulate of Marcus Censorinus and C. Asinius Gallus (8 BCE), named Augustan (August), in honour of Augustus, in the 20th year of the Augustan aera; and these names are still retained. Some of the successors of Augustus, it is true, imposed their own names on several months, but the old names were restored, either by the princes themselves, or after their deaths.

§ 23.1  THE DAY
It remains for me to say a few words on the day, which, like the month and year, is either natural or civil. The natural day is the time which elapses between the rising and setting of the sun; the night, on the contrary, is the interval from the setting to the rising of the sun. The civil day is the time which is taken for a revolution of the heavens, a revolution which comprises both the natural day and night. When we say, for example, that a child lived thirty days, it is well understood that the nights are comprised. The duration of the day has been fixed in four different ways by astronomers and by nations; the Babylonians have established it from one rising to the next rising of the sun; most of the inhabitants of Umbria have established it from one mid-day to the following mid-day; the Athenians, from one setting of the sun to the next. As to the Romans, they have chosen the interval from mid-night to mid-night; witness the public sacrifices and even the auspices of the magistrates; ceremonies in which is attributed to the day just finished, that which was or could have been done before mid-night; and to the following day, that which was done after mid-night and before the rising of day; witness the custom which gives the same natal day to children who are born in the course of the twenty-four hours which separates one mid-night from another.
The division of the day and the night each into twelve hours is not ignored by anybody, but I think it was observed at Rome, only after the invention of the sun-dial. To indicate the earliest dial, is a difficult thing. Some authors say that the first sun-dial was established near to the temple of Quirinus, others say in the Capitoline; some say near to the temple of Diana on the Aventine. That which is pretty certain is that no sun-dial was seen in the Forum, before that which M. Valerius brought from Sicily and which he placed on a column near to the rostra. But as this dial, though appropriate to the latitude of Sicily, did not accord with the hours of Rome, L. Philippus, then censor, erected another near to this one; then, some time after that, the censor, P. Cornelius Nasica, made a water-clock (clepsydra) which is also called solarium (solar instrument) and which told the hours. That the name of the hours has been known in Rome during at least three hundred years is probable, because although in the Twelve Tables and the laws which followed them we find the hours named but once, yet there are employed the words ante meridiem for the reason no doubt that the day was then divided into two parts, separated by that which we call meridies. Others made four divisions of the day and as many of the night. This is proved by the divisions utilized in military language, which speaks of the first, the second, the third and the fourth watches.

§ 24.1  DIVISIONS OF THE DAY
There are several other divisions of the day and night preserved on monuments and distinguished by different names. Others again are mentioned here and there in the writings of the ancient poets. These will be named in convenient order. I will commence with the media nox (mid-night) as it is the starting point of the civil year amongst the Romans. The time which approaches it nearest is called media nocte (past mid-night); then comes gallicinium (cock’s-crow) the time the cock commences to crow; then the conticinium (moment of silence) the time that the cock ceases to crow; then the moment called ante lucem and diluculum (the break of day) when it is already day, without the sun having risen; then the second diluculum called mané (the morning when the sun commences to appear); then the time called ad meridiem (which precedes mid-day); then the meridies, or the middle of the day; then succeeds the time called de meridie (afternoon); then comes the moment called suprema, (close of the last moment of day,) although many authors think that this name only belongs to the moment which comes after sunset, because it is written in the Twelve Tables that sunset is the close (legal limit) of day (suprema tempestas). But later on, M. Pletorius, Tribune of the People, made a plebiscitum wherein it is written that the praetor of the city, then and in future, must have two lictors near him, and render justice to the citizens until the (legal) end of the day (ad supremam). After the moment called suprema, came vespera (evening) which immediately preceded the rising of the star that Plautus calls vesperuginem; Ennis, vesperium; and Virgil, hesperon. Then came crepusculum (twilight), which is perhaps called so because uncertain things are called creperae, and it is difficult to say whether this moment belongs to the day or to the night. Then comes the moment which we call luminibus accensis (the illuminated lights) and which the ancients called prima face, (the first flambeau) then comes the concubium (time to retire); then the intempesta (inopportune time to act), that is to say quite night, when work is intempesta, or inopportune; and then the moment called ad mediam noctem (which is near to midnight), after which the media nox returns.