ante diem iv idus quintiles

ludi Apollinares (day 7) — games instituted in 212 B.C. after consulting the Sybilline books during a particularly bad stretch in the Punic Wars; four years later they became an annual festival in honour of Apollo

100 B.C. (?) — birth of G. Julius Caesar

67 A.D. — martyrdom of Paulinus of Antioch

1536 — death of Erasmus

1922 — birth of Michael Ventris, who would decipher Linear B

nonae iuliae

• ludi Apollinares (day 2)– games instituted in 212 B.C. after consulting the Sybilline books during a particularly bad stretch in the Punic Wars; four years later they became an annual festival in honour of Apollo

• feriae Ancillarum — a festival in honour of the “maids” who helped save Rome from a Latin attack in the days after the Gallic sack

• rites in honour of Juno Caprotina — rites possibly associated with the above in which Latin women offered sacrifices to Juno Caprotina under wild fig trees (the branches of the tree were also somehow used … the old canard of ‘fertility ritual’ is usually mentioned in this context)

• rites in honour of Consus in the Circus Maximus — ‘public priests’ offered a sacrifice to Consus (possibly in a role of presiding over grain which has been stored underground) at his underground altar (was it uncovered for this?) at the first turning point in the Circus

• eighth century B.C.? — death/disappearance of Romulus (traditional, obviously)

• 267 B.C. — dedication of the Temple of Pales (and associated rites thereafter)

• 175 A.D. — the future emperor Commodus dons his toga virilis

• c. 200 A.D. — martyrdom of Pantaenus (a Stoic!)

• 1586 — birth of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel (amasser of the Arundelian Marbles)

pridie nonas julias

ludi Apollinares (day 1) — games instituted in 212 B.C. after consulting the Sybilline books during a particularly bad stretch in the Punic Wars; four years later they became an annual festival in honour of Apollo

late fifth century B.C.? — in the wake of the aborted attack on Rome by Coriolanus, the senate dedicated a Temple of Fortuna Muliebris (and there were associated rites thereafter)