''Mensis Iunius'' or ''Iunius'', also ''Junius'' (

June June is the sixth and current month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars—the latter the most widely used calendar in the world. Its length is 30 days. June succeeds May and precedes July. This month marks the start of su ...

), was the sixth month of the

Roman calendar The Roman calendar was the calendar used by the Roman Kingdom and Roman Republic. Although the term is primarily used for Rome's pre-Julian calendars, it is often used inclusively of the Julian calendar established by Julius Caesar in 46&nbs ...

of the classical period, following ''

Maius ''Maius'' or ''mensis Maius'' (May) was the fifth month of the ancient Roman calendar in the classical period, following '' Aprilis'' (April) and preceding '' Iunius'' (June). On the oldest Roman calendar that had begun with March, it was the third ...

'' (

May May is the fifth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Its length is 31 days. May is a month of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. Therefore, May in the Southern Hemisphere is the ...

). In the oldest calendar attributed by the Romans to

Romulus Romulus (, ) was the legendary founder and first king of Rome. Various traditions attribute the establishment of many of Rome's oldest legal, political, religious, and social institutions to Romulus and his contemporaries. Although many of th ...

, ''Iunius'' had been the fourth month in a ten-month year that began with

March March is the third month of the year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Its length is 31 days. In the Northern Hemisphere, the meteorological beginning of spring occurs on the first day of March. The March equinox on the 20 or 2 ...

''( Martius,'' "

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

' month"). The month following June was thus called '' Quinctilis'' or ''

Quintilis In the ancient Roman calendar, Quintilis or Quinctilis was the month following Junius (June) and preceding Sextilis (August). ''Quintilis'' is Latin for "fifth": it was the fifth month (''quintilis mensis'') in the earliest calendar attributed t ...

'', the "fifth" month. ''Iunius'' had 29 days until a day was added during the Julian reform of the calendar in the mid-40s BC. The month that followed ''Iunius'' was renamed ''Iulius'' (

July July is the seventh month of the year in the Julian calendar, Julian and Gregorian calendars. Its length is 31 days. It was named by the Roman Senate in honour of Roman general Julius Caesar in 44 B.C., being the month of his birth. Before the ...

) in honour of

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in Caesar's civil wa ...

Name of the month

In his poem on the Roman calendar,

Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso (; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he i ...

has three goddesses present three different derivations of the name ''Iunius''. Juno asserts that the month is named for her. Juventas ("Youth") pairs ''Iunius'' with ''Maius'': the former, she says, comes from ''junior'', "a younger person", in contrast to ''maiores'' or the "elders" for whom May was named. Juno's own name may derive from the same root meaning "young", and these two possibilities may be reconcilable. Ovid has Concordia claim that ''Iunius'' comes from ''iungo, iunctus'', "join", in honor of her uniting the Romans and the

Sabines The Sabines (, , , ; ) were an Italic people who lived in the central Apennine Mountains (see Sabina) of the ancient Italian Peninsula, also inhabiting Latium north of the Anio before the founding of Rome. The Sabines divided int ...

. Elsewhere, an even less likely derivation relates the month name to Marcus Iunius Brutus, a member of the '' gens Iunia'' who made the first sacrifice to Dea Carna on the

Kalends The calends or kalends () is the first day of every month in the Roman calendar. The English word "calendar" is derived from this word. Use The Romans called the first day of every month the ''calends'', signifying the start of a new lunar pha ...

(June 1).

Iconography

Month illustrations that draw on the Calendar of Filocalus (354 AD) show a nude male holding a torch that may be an

allegory As a List of narrative techniques, literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a wikt:narrative, narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a meaning with moral or political signi ...

of the

summer solstice The summer solstice or estival solstice occurs when one of Earth's poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun. It happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere ( Northern and Southern). The summer solstice is the day with the longest peri ...

. ''Solstitium'' is noted on June 24 of the calendar. The torch may be a reference to ''dies lampadarum'', "day of torches", variously interpreted as the sun's rays or as the torch of Ceres, the grain goddess who carried a torch while searching for her abducted daughter

Proserpina Proserpina ( ; ) or Proserpine ( ) is an ancient Roman goddess whose iconography, functions and myths are virtually identical to those of Greek Persephone. Proserpina replaced or was combined with the ancient Roman fertility goddess Libera, whos ...

. The solstice marked the beginning of the harvest, which is represented by the basket of fruit and a

sickle A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting or reaping grain crops, or cutting Succulent plant, succulent forage chiefly for feedi ...

. The plant may be a bean, since June 1 was the "

Bean Kalends Cardea or Carda was the ancient Roman goddess of the hinge (Latin ''cardo, cardinis''), Roman doors being hung on pivot hinges. The Augustan poet Ovid conflates her with another archaic goddess named Carna, whose festival was celebrated on the ...

Dates

The Romans did not number days of a month sequentially from the 1st through the last day. Instead, they counted back from the three fixed points of the month: the Nones (5th or 7th, depending on the length of the month), the Ides (13th or 15th), and the

(1st) of the following month. The Nones of June was the 5th, and the Ides the 13th. Roman counting was inclusive; June 9 was ''ante diem V Idūs Iunias'', "the 5th day before the Ides of June," usually abbreviated ''a.d. V Id. Iun.'' (or with the ''a.d.'' omitted altogether). The last day of June was the ''pridie Kalendas Quinctilis'' (''pridie Kalendas Iulias'' after July was renamed), "day before the Kalends of July". The modern equivalent of this date was June 29 on the pre-Julian calendar, but June 30 on the Julian, because June was one of the months to which a day was added in realigning with astronomical time. June 23 was thus ''VIII Kal. Quinct.'', "the 8th day before the Kalends of Quinctilis", during the Republican era, but ''IX Kal. Iul.'', "the 9th day before the Kalends of July", in the Imperial era. On the calendar of the Republic and early

Principate The Principate was the form of imperial government of the Roman Empire from the beginning of the reign of Augustus in 27 BC to the end of the Crisis of the Third Century in AD 284, after which it evolved into the Dominate. The principate was ch ...

, each day was marked with a letter to denote its religiously lawful status. In June, these were: * F for '' dies fasti'', days when it was legal to initiate action in the courts of civil law; * C for ''dies comitalis,'' a day on which the Roman people could hold assemblies ''( comitia)'', elections, and certain kinds of judicial proceedings; * N for '' dies nefasti'', when these political activities and the administration of justice were prohibited; * NP, the meaning of which remains elusive, but which marked '' feriae'', public holidays. By the late 2nd century AD, extant calendars no longer show days marked with these letters, probably in part as a result of calendar reforms undertaken by

Marcus Aurelius Marcus Aurelius Antoninus ( ; ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoicism, Stoic philosopher. He was a member of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty, the last of the rulers later known as the Five Good Emperors ...

. The unique Q.ST.D.F. of June 15 stands for , when it was a religious obligation to remove dirt from the

Temple of Vesta The Temple of Vesta, or the aedes (Latin ''Glossary of ancient Roman religion#aedes, Aedes Vestae''; Italian language, Italian: ''Tempio di Vesta''), was an ancient edifice in Rome, Italy. It is located in the Roman Forum near the Regia and the H ...

Varro Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BCE) was a Roman polymath and a prolific author. He is regarded as ancient Rome's greatest scholar, and was described by Petrarch as "the third great light of Rome" (after Virgil and Cicero). He is sometimes call ...

specifies the act of sweeping '. Days were also marked with nundinal letters in cycles of ''A B C D E F G H'', to mark the "market week" (these are omitted in the table below). Festivals marked in large letters on extant , represented by festival names in all capital letters on the table, are thought to have been the most ancient holidays, becoming part of the calendar before 509 BC. A '' dies natalis'' was an anniversary such as a temple founding or rededication, sometimes thought of as the "birthday" of a deity. Unless otherwise noted, the dating and observances on the following table are from

H.H. Scullard Howard Hayes Scullard (9 February 1903 – 31 March 1983) was a British historian specialising in ancient history, notable for editing the ''Oxford Classical Dictionary'' and for his many published works. Life and career Scullard's father w ...

, ''Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic''.Scullard, ''Festivals and Ceremonies,'' pp. 126–158. Scullard places the Taurian Games on June 25–26 on a five-year cycle, but other scholars believe these ''ludi'' had no regular date and were held as a crisis ritual when needed. After the Ides, dual dates are given to represent both the earlier calendar, when June had 29 days and July was called ''Quinctilis'', and the 30-day month of the Julian calendar.

References

{{Roman months June Months of the Roman calendar Juno (mythology)