Julius Caesar © Clipart.com
Augustus, who dedicated a temple to the deified Julius (29 B.C.), actually knew the man, so Dorothy King has a point when she writes that if it's good enough for Augustus, it's good enough for her. However, the day of Caesar's birth is not the only part of the Caesar birthday celebration in question. Caesar was born in mid-July in the year 100 B.C. Or was it 101? Or 102? The problem with 100 B.C. is that special dispensations would have had to have been given to allow him to run for various offices if his birth year was 101 or 100. Such permissions had been given before, but evidence about it is missing in Caesar's case. If you're interested in this topic, here's an old article that explains why there is lack of agreement on the topic:
"The Year of Caesar's Birth," by Monroe E. Deutsch. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 45, (1914), pp. 17-28.For more on how Augustus honored his adoptive father, see
"Julius Caesar in Augustan Rome," by Peter White. Phoenix, Vol. 42, No. 4 (Winter, 1988), pp. 334-356.
When do you think Julius Caesar was born and why?
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Quote: [Octavian] established July 12 as the date of the official birthday of Julius Caesar, but July 13 is also counted as the date of Caesar’s birth.
It’s the other way around. 13 July is not “also counted”, but is the actual date of his birth. This is not in doubt. The festival of his birthday had to be moved to 12 July, because in early 44 BCE it had been decreed that Caesar would become god (Divus Iulius), and it was not permitted to worship any other deity than Apollo on 13 July (Dio 47.18.6). However, it was not Octavian alone, but the Triumvirate, who magnified Caesar “to the utmost degree”. Since Cassius Dio specifically mentions Caesar’s public birthday celebrations as part of the divine honors and privileges in 44 BCE (44.4.3), we can deduce that the new date may already have been established by the Senate before Caesar’s death, and that Antony, Octavian and Lepidus only enforced the decree for July 42 BCE, i.e. for the time after Caesar’s official apotheosis.
Astronomically the calendar was not in sync with the later reformed Julian: the first day of Quintilis actually fell on 7 June (100 BCE), 17 June (101 BCE) and 4 June (102 BCE). So Caesar’s birth on the thirteenth day of Quintilis was in fact in late June (Julian), which is supported by Suetonius, quoted by Sidonius, who writes that Iulius in lucem venit dum laurea flagrat (Carm. 2.120), i.e. when the “laurel blazed”, which is from May to June. But we don’t know for sure: Suetonius/Sidonius might simply have referred to Caesar’s future status as invictus.
Quote: so Dorothy King has a point when she writes that if it’s good enough for Augustus, it’s good enough for her.
King’s remark is unscientific. Augustus had nothing to do with it. The 1-day move was because of a Sibylline oracle concerning the exclusive sanctity of the Ludi Apollinares, and because of Roman religious deference. It’s not that Octavian had a choice or something.
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Quote: When do you think Julius Caesar was born […]?
13 July 100 BCE.
Quote: […] and why?
On 13 July see above (previous comment). As for the year of birth… Deutsch has very strong arguments for 100 BCE, including examples of special dispensations. However, there are still the coins that give Caesar’s age as LII (52), and Deutsch only mentions them briefly. Carcopino, Mommsen, Drumann, Crawford et al. have dealt with the subject, and I’d have to take a look into their theories first.
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Sorry don’t know what a URL is.
Wondering what some consequences of importing Greek law into Latin?
I can imagine loss of much nuancing that would have made for refinements in justice?
Remember my Swedish teacher saying she preferred thinking in English. Seems that Greek and Greece’s culture seduced half an empire, and conquered half a world.
Little Turkish seems to have moved to Arabic, but Arabic grows in Turkish like mushrooms. Think it was T.E Laurence suggested that in his seven pillars.
John Hosford:
URL= Uniform resource locator – It’s what is used to locate a page on the Internet. http://ancienthistory.about.com is the URL for the index page of this site.