In the ancient

Roman calendar The Roman calendar was the calendar used by the Roman Kingdom and Roman Republic. The term often includes the Julian calendar established by the reforms of the dictator Julius Caesar and emperor Augustus in the late 1stcenturyBC and some ...

, Quintilis or Quinctilis was the month following Junius (June) and preceding

Sextilis Sextilis ("sixth") or ''mensis Sextilis'' was the Latin name for what was originally the sixth month in the Roman calendar, when March ('' Martius'', "Mars' month") was the first of ten months in the year. After the calendar reform that produced ...

(August). ''Quintilis'' is

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

for "fifth": it was the fifth month (''quintilis mensis'') in the earliest calendar attributed 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 these ...

, which began with Martius (" Mars' month," March) and had 10 months. After the calendar reform that produced a 12-month year, Quintilis became the seventh month, but retained its name. In 45 BC,

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 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 a civil war, an ...

instituted a new calendar (the

Julian calendar The Julian calendar, proposed by Roman consul Julius Caesar in 46 BC, was a reform of the Roman calendar. It took effect on , by edict. It was designed with the aid of Greek mathematicians and astronomers such as Sosigenes of Alexandri ...

) that corrected astronomical discrepancies in the old. After his death in 44 BC, the month of Quintilis, his birth month, was renamed ''Julius'' in his honor, hence July."Los Cielos de Agosto" (Spanish: "The Skies of August"), Jorge R. Ianiszewski, ''Circulo Astronomico'', 2006, webpage
CirA-Agosto
Quintilis was under the guardianship ''( tutela)'' of the Romans' supreme deity

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousand ...

, with sacrifices made particularly to

Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 time ...

and

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

. Agricultural

festivals A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival ...

directed at the harvest gradually lost their importance, and the month became dominated in urban Imperial Rome by the Ludi Apollinares, games ''(

ludi ''Ludi'' ( Latin plural) were public games held for the benefit and entertainment of the Roman people (''populus Romanus''). ''Ludi'' were held in conjunction with, or sometimes as the major feature of, Roman religious festivals, and were also ...

)'' in honor of Apollo. Ten days of games were celebrated in honor of Julius Caesar at the end of the month.

Dates

Like the modern month of

July July is the seventh month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and is the fourth of seven months to have a length of 31 days. It was named by the Roman Senate in honour of Roman general Julius Caesar in 44 B.C., it being the mont ...

, this was one of the "long" months that had 31 days. 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 (''Nonae,'' 5th or 7th, depending on the length of the month), the Ides (''Idūs,'' 13th or 15th), and the Kalends (''Kalendae,'' 1st) of the following month. Thus, the last day of Quintilis was the ''pridie Kalendas Sextilis'', "day before the Kalends of

" (August). Roman counting was inclusive; July 5 was ''ante diem III Nonas Quintilis'', "the 3rd day before the Nones (7th) of Quintilis," usually abbreviated ''a.d. III Non. Quint.'' (or with the ''a.d.'' omitted altogether); July 23 was ''X. Kal. Sext.'', "the 10th day before the Kalends of Sextilis."

Each day was marked with a letter such as 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; or NP, the meaning of which remains elusive, but which marked ''

feriae In the liturgy of the Catholic Church, a feria is a day of the week other than Sunday. In more recent official liturgical texts in English, the term ''weekday'' is used instead of ''feria''. If the feast day of a saint falls on such a day, the ...

'', public holidays. Days were also marked with nundinal letters in cycles of ''A B C D E F G H'', to mark the "market week" A '' dies natalis'' was an anniversary such as a temple founding or rededication, sometimes thought of as the "birthday" of a deity. On a ''

dies religiosus The vocabulary of ancient Roman religion was highly specialized. Its study affords important information about the religion, traditions and beliefs of the ancient Romans. This legacy is conspicuous in European cultural history in its influence on ...

'', individuals were not to undertake any new activity, nor do anything other than tend to the most basic necessities. During the Imperial period, some of the traditional festivals localized at Rome became less important, and the birthdays and anniversaries of the emperor and his family gained prominence as Roman holidays. On the calendar of military religious observances known as the '' Feriale Duranum'', sacrifices pertaining to

Imperial cult An imperial cult is a form of state religion in which an emperor or a dynasty of emperors (or rulers of another title) are worshipped as demigods or deities. "Cult" here is used to mean "worship", not in the modern pejorative sense. The cult may ...

outnumber the older festivals. After the latter 1st century AD, a number of dates are added to calendars for spectacles and games ''(

)'' held in honor of various deities in the venue called a "

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclis ...

" ''(ludi circenses)''. By the late 2nd century AD, extant calendars no longer show days marked with letters ''(F, N, C'' and so on) to show their religious status, probably in part as a result of calendar reforms undertaken by

Marcus Aurelius Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Latin: áːɾkus̠ auɾέːli.us̠ antɔ́ːni.us̠ English: ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good E ...

.Salzman, ''On Roman Time'', p. 17. 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. Scullard's father was Herbert Hayes S ...

, ''Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic'' (Cornell University Press, 1981), pp. 158–169.

Notes

{{reflist July Months of the Roman calendar

Dates

See also

Notes