Pingrè exhibits on the 21st of June. The difference between June 21, and September 3 in the year of Numa, would be seventy-one days in all. But if B. C. 170 and B. C. 167 were intercalated, as we have seen, we may presume that neither B. C. 169 nor B. C. 168 was so. In this case, and making allowance for the excess produced by the mere absence of the usual intercalation, the true difference between the civil and the solar year would be only 71-26 days at most, Sept. 3, B. C. 168: or not more than forty-five days; which is the exact amount of the difference between the solar and lunar year, U. C. 708. B. C. 45.

A solar eclipse is also specified B. C. 188, for which Pingrè has none except on July 17, whereas this appears to be mentioned soon after the Ides of March".

In Cæsar, De Bello Africano, a remarkable storm is specified as occurring at the time of the setting of the Pleiads, Virgiliarum signo confecto, which setting took place, for the meridian of Utica, where Cæsar was, somewhere about vi Kal. Feb. U. C. 708, according to the old style. The day, it is true, is not precisely stated; and, therefore, no decisive argument can be founded on the coincidence. In the rectified year, the date of the Virgiliarum occasus was iii Idus Novembres and modern astronomical calculations have shewn that this setting happened, for the meridian in question, U. C. 707, November 10 or 11. From this latter date, to vi Kal. Feb. old style, the interval would be 72 days, or 27 more than 45, our supposed excess, U. C. 708. But of these 27, twenty-two or twentythree would be accounted for by the lapse of two years complete, since the last intercalation U. C. 706. And as the writer is not exact that the storm in question happened critically on vi Kal. Feb. but merely about h Livy, xxxviii. 36. 35.

i 47. 37.

that period, it might have happened two or three days earlier, which would explain the remaining difference.

That two years had certainly elapsed since the nominal January, U. C. 706, is unquestionable. The rest of that year, after the battle of Pharsalia, and all U.C. 707, until the very end of the year, were spent by Cæsar in the east. His victory over Juba, which the calendars place on April 6 or 8k, was evidently gained on or about the Nones of April, (old style,) April 5 in this year1; and he himself having set out from Utica on the Ides of June, (old style,) June 13, arrived at Rome, 28 days after; having left Caralis in Sardinia iii Kal. Quinctiles ".

The date of the battle of Munda, as exhibited by two ancient calendars, (the Maffæan and Amiternine,) is remarkable for an anomaly just the reverse of that of the battle of Pharsalia. The author of the work De Bello Hispanico, after mentioning xi Kal. March, and ad d. iii Non. Martias, says at last ", that the victory was won ipsis Liberalibus; with regard to which fact he is supported by Plutarch: to whom we may add Dio, who tells us the news of the victory was received at Rome, the day before the Palilia, April 20o. As the date of the Liberalia was xvi Kal. Apriles, March 17, there was nothing impossible in this; for examples in abundance have been produced elsewhere, to shew that a month might elapse before tidings could reach Rome from Spain. Cæsar himself was twenty-seven days the same year in travelling from Rome to Obulco, not far from the scene of the action in that country; though no general of antiquity travelled with such expedition.

* Cf. Ovid, Fasti, iv. 377.380. xliii. 14. m 98. n 19. 27. 31. q Strabo, iii. 4. 429, 430.

1 De Bello Africano, 79. 75. 82. Cf. Dio, o Julius Cæsar, 56. P Dio, xliii. 42.

Now the calendars place the battle on the 20th of July, 123 days later than March 17, both being referred to the year of Numa. As the victory was won U. C. 709, after the reformation of the calendar, the date of the author De Bello Hispanico may be the true date in the Julian year. That of the calendars could not be the date even in the year of Numa; nor can we explain it except by supposing an error in the 20th of July, for some other number and month; or that this date is intended not of the precise day of the battle of Munda, but of the absolute termination of the contest in Spain. Nicolaus of Damascus, in his life of Augustus, tells us that Cæsar was seven months employed against Cnæus Pompeius in Spain: and as he seems to have set out at the end of December, U. C. 708, or the beginning of January, U. C. 709, seven months from that time would actually terminate in July. Cicero, Ad Atticum, xiii. 20, shews that Cæsar was at Hispalis, April 30: and ibid. 21, that he was not expected to leave Spain, or to return to Rome, before August 1*.

*Four of the ancient calendars, the Maffæan, Copranican, Amiternine, and Antiatine, concur in dating the reduction of Spain on August 2, which may be the day on which Cæsar left

it; though it may also denote the date of the reduction of Spain, U. C. 705, when Cæsar was contending there against Afranius and Petreius.

r Cap. x.

END OF VOL. III.