Abstract

As students of Roman chronology are aware, all dates between February 24, 700 —if not also between 691, the year of Cicero's consulship—and the last day of 708 can be referred with absolute certainty to the corresponding days of the Julian calendar, with a possible error of one day. The possibility of this minute error lies in the fact that it is not quite certain whether the Kalends of January, 709—the first year of the Julian calendar—corresponded with January 1, 45 B.C., or with January. In Ancient Britain, after examining all the relevant literature, I gave reasons for believing that Kal. Ian. 709 fell upon January 1, 45 B.C. One book, however—the third volume of the revised edition of Drumann's Geschichte Roms, which appeared in 1906, just before the manuscript of Ancient Britain went to the printer—was then unknown to me. I will now examine the reasons which the learned editor, Paul Groebe, has given for accepting the view that the first day of 709 was January 2, 45.