Divus Julius

About the same time he married Calpurnia, the daughter of Lucius Piso, who was to succeed him in the consulship, and gave his own daughter Julia to Cneius Pompey; rejecting Servilius Caepio, to whom she had been contracted, and by whose means chiefly he had but a little before baffled Bibulus. After this new alliance, he began, upon any debates in the senate, to ask Pompey's opinion first, whereas he used before to give that distinction to Marcus Crassus; and it was the usual practice for the consul to observe throughout the year the method of consulting the senate which he had adopted on the calends (the first) of January.

Being, therefore, now supported by the interest of his father-in-law and son-in-law, of all the provinces he made choice of Gaul, as most likely to furnish him with matter and occasion for triumphs. At first indeed he received only Cisalpine-Gaul,[*](Gaul was divided into two provinces, Transalpina, or Gallta Uterior, and Cisalpina, or Citerior. The Citerior, having nearly the same limits as Lombardy in after times, was properly a part of Italy, occupied by colonists from Gaul, and, having the Rubicon, the ancient boundary of Italy, on the south. It was also called Gallia Togata, from the use of the Roman toga; the inhabitants being, after the social war, admitted to the right of citizens. The Gallia Transalpina, or Ulterior, was called Comata, from the people wearing their hair long, while the Romans wore it short; and the southern part, afterwards called Narbonensis, came to have the epithet Braccata, from the use of the braccae, which were no part of the Roman dress. Some writers suppose the braccae to have been breeches, but Aldus, in a short disquisition on the subject, affirms that they were a kind of upper dress. And this opinion seems to be countenanced by the name braccan being applied by the modern Celtic nations, the descendants of the Gallic Celts, to signify their upper garment, or plaid.) with the addition of Illyricum, by a decree proposed by Vatinius to the people; but soon afterwards obtained from the senate Gallia-Comata also, the senators being apprehensive, that if they should refuse it to him, that province, also, would be granted him by the people. Elated now with his success, he could not refrain from boasting, a few days afterwards, in a full senate-house, that he had, in spite of his enemies, and to their great mortification, obtained all he desired, and that for the future he would make them, to their shame, submissive to his pleasure. One of the senators observing, sarcastically: "That will not be very easy for a woman[*](.Alluding, probably, to certain scandals of a gross character which were rife against Caesar. See before, c. ii. (p. 2).) to do," he jocosely replied, "Semiramis formerly reigned in Assyria, and the Amazons possessed great part of Asia."

When the term of his consulship had expired, upon a motion being made in the senate by Caius Memmius and Lucius Domitius, the praetors, respecting the transactions of the year past, he offered to refer himself to the house; but they declining the business, after three days spent in vain altercation, he set out for his province. Immediately, however, his quaestor was charged with several misdemeanors, for the purpose of implicating Caesar himself. Indeed, an accusation was soon after preferred against him by Lucius Antistius, tribune of the people; but by making an appeal to the tribune's colleagues, he succeeded in having the prosecution suspended during this absence in the service of the state. To secure himself, therefore, for the time to come, he was particularly careful to secure the good-will of the magistrates at the annual elections, assisting none of the candidates with his interest, nor suffering any persons to be advanced to any office, who would not positively undertake to defend him in his absence: for which purpose he made no scruple to require of some of them an oath, and even a written obligation.

But when Lucius Domitius became a candidate for the consulship, and openly threatened that, upon his being elected consul, he would effect that which he could not accomplish when he was praetor, and divest him of the command of the armies, he sent for Crassus and Pompey to Lucca, a city in his province, and pressed them, for the purpose of disappointing Domitius, to sue again for the consulship, and to continue him in his command for five years longer: with both which requisitions they complied. Presumptuous now with his success, he added, at his own private charge, more legions to those which he had received from the republic; among the former of which was one levied in Transalpine Gaul, and called by a Gallic name, Alauda,[*](So called from the feathers on their helmets, resembling the crest of a lark; Alauda, Fr. Alouette.) which he trained and armed in the Roman fashion, and afterwards conferred on it the freedom of the city. From this period he declined no occasion of war, however unjust and dangerous; attacking, without any provocation, as well the allies of Rome as the barbarous nations which were its enemies: insomuch, that the senate passed a decree for sending commissioners to examine into the condition of Gaul; and some members even proposed that he should be delivered up to the enemy. But so great had been the success of his enterprises, that he had the honour of obtaining more days of supplication, [*](Days appointed by the senate for public thanksgiving in the temples in the name of a victorious general, who had in the decrees the title of emperor, by which they were saluted by the legions. ) and those more frequently, than had ever before been decreed to any commander.

During nine years in which he held the government of the province, his achievements were as follows: he reduced all Gaul, bounded by the Pyrenean forest, the Alps, mount Gebenna, and the two rivers, the Rhine and the Rhone, and being about three thousand two hundred miles in compass, into the form of a province, excepting only the nations in alliance with the republic, and such as had merited his favour; imposing upon this new acquisition an annual tribute of forty millions of sesterces. He was the first of the Romans who, crossing the Rhine by a bridge, attacked the Germanic tribes inhabiting the country beyond that river, whom he defeated in several engagements. He also invaded the Britons, a people formerly unknown, and having vanquished them, exacted from them contributions and hostages. Amidst such a series of successes, he experienced thrice only any signal disaster; once in Britain, when his fleet was nearly wrecked in a storm; in Gaul, at Gergovia, where one of his legions was put to the rout; and in the territory of the Germans, his lieutenants Titurius and Aurunculeius were cut off by an ambuscade.

During this period[*](A. U. C. 702) he lost his mother,[*](Aurelia) whose death was followed by that of his daughter,[*](Julia, the wife of Pompey, who died in childbirth) and, not long afterwards, of his granddaughter. Meanwhile, the republic being in consternation at the murder of Publius Clodius, and the senate passing a vote that only one consul, namely, Cneius Pompeius, should be chosen for the ensuing year, he prevailed with the tribunes of the people, who intended joining him in nomination with Pompey, to propose to the people a bill, enabling him, though absent, to become a candidate for his second consulship, when the term of his command should be near expiring, that he might not be obliged on that account to quit his province too soon, and before the conclusion of the war. Having attained this object, carrying his views still higher, and animated with the hopes of success, he omitted no opportunity of gaining universal favour, by acts of liberality and kindness to individuals, both in public and private. With money raised from the spoils of the war, he began to construct a new forum, the ground-plot of which cost him above a hundred millions of sesterces.[*](Conquest had so multiplied business at Rome, that the Roman forum became too little for transacting it, and could not be enlarged without clearing away the buildings with which it was surrounded. Hence the enormous sum which its site is said to have cost, amounting, it is calculated, to £807,291 sterling. It stood near the old forum, behind the temple of Romulus and Remus, but not a vestige of it remains.) He promised the people a public entertainment of gladiators, and a feast in memory of his daughter, such as no one before him had ever given. The more to raise their expectations on this occasion, although he had agreed with victuallers of all denominations for his feast, he made yet farther preparations in private houses. He issued an order, that the most celebrated gladiators, if at any time during the combat they incurred the displeasure of the public, should be immediately carried off by force, and reserved for some future occasion. Young gladiators he trained up, not in the school, and by the masters, of defence, but in the houses of Roman knights, and even senators, skilled in the use of arms, earnestly requesting them, as appears from his letters, to undertake the discipline of those novitiates, and to give them the word during their exercises. He doubled the pay of the legions in perpetuity; allowing them likewise corn, when it was in plenty, without any restriction; and sometimes distributing to every soldier in his army a slave, and a portion of land.

To maintain his alliance, and good understanding with Pompey, he offered him in marriage his sister's grand-daughter Octavia, who had been married to Caius Marcellus; and requested for himself his daughter, lately contracted to Faustus Sylla. Every person about him, and a great part likewise of the senate, he secured by loans of money at low interest, or none at all; and to all others who came to wait upon him, either by invitation or of their own accord, he made liberal presents; not neglecting even the freedmen and slaves, who were favourites with their masters and patrons. He offered also singular and ready aid to all who were under prosecution, or in debt, and to prodigal youths; excluding from his bounty those only who were so deeply plunged in guilt, poverty, or luxury, that it was impossible effectually to relieve them. These, he openly declared, could derive no benefit from any other means than a civil war.

He endeavoured with equal assiduity to engage in his interest princes and provinces in every part of the world: presenting some with thousands of captives, and sending to others the assistance of troops, at whatever time and place they desired, without any authority from either the senate or people of Rome. He likewise embellished with magnificent public buildings the most powerful cities not only of Italy, Gaul, and Spain, but of Greece and Asia; until all people being now astonished, and speculating on the obvious tendency of these proceedings, Claudius Marcellus, the consul, declaring first by proclamation, that he intended to propose a measure of the utmost importance to the state, made a motion in the senate that some person should be appointed to succeed Caesar in his province, before the term of his command was expired; because the war being brought to a conclusion, peace was restored, and the victorious army ought to be disbanded. He further moved, that Caesar being absent, his claims to be a candidate at the next election of consuls, should not be admitted, as Pompey himself had afterwards abrogated that privilege by a decree of the people. The fact was, that Pompey, in his law relating to the choice of chief magistrates, had forgot to except Caesar, in the article in which he declared all such as were not present incapable of being candidates for any office; but soon afterwards, when the law was inscribed on brass, and deposited in the treasury, he corrected his mistake. Marcellus, not content with depriving Caesar of his provinces, and the privilege intended him by Pompey, likewise moved the senate, that the freedom of the city should be taken from those colonists whom, by the Vatinian law, he had settled at New Como;[*](Comum was a town of the Orobii, of ancient standing, and formerly powerful. Julius Csesar added to it five thousand new colonists; whence it was generally called Novocomum. But in time it recovered its ancient name, Comum; Pliny the younger, who was a native of this place, calling it by no other name. ) because it had been conferred upon them with ambitious views, and by a stretch of the laws.

Roused by these proceedings, and thinking, as he was often heard to say, that it would be a more difficult enterprise to reduce him, now that he was the chief man in the state, from the first rank of citizens to the second, than from the second to the lowest of all, Caesar made a vigorous opposition to the measure, partly by means of the tribunes, who interposed in his behalf, and partly through Servius Sulpicius, the other consul. The following year likewise, when Caius Marcellus, who succeeded his cousin Marcus in the consulship, pursued the same course, Caesar, by means of an immense bribe, engaged in his defence AEmilius Paulus, the other consul, and Caius Curio, the most violent of the tribunes. But finding the opposition obstinately bent against him, and that the consuls-elect were also of that party, he wrote a letter to the senate, requesting that they would not deprive him of the privilege kindly granted him by the people; or else that the other generals should resign the command of their armies as well as himself; fully persuaded, as it is thought, that he could more easily collect his veteran soldiers, whenever he pleased, than Pompey could his new-raised troops. At the same time, he made his adversaries an offer to disband eight of his legions and give up Transalpine-Gaul, on condition that he might retain two legions, with the Cisalpine province, or but one legion with Illyricum, until he should be elected consul.

But as the senate declined to interpose in the business, and his enemies declared that they would enter into no compromise where the safety of the republic was at stake, he advanced into Hither-Gaul,[*](A.U.C. 705.) and, having gone to the circuit for the administration of justice, made a halt at Ravenna, resolved to have recourse to arms if the senate should proceed to extremity against the tribunes of the people who had espoused his cause. This was indeed his pretext for the civil war; but it is supposed that there were other motives for his conduct. Cneius Pompey used frequently to say, that he sought to throw every thing into confusion, because he was unable, with all his private wealth, to complete the works he had begun, and answer, at his return, the vast expectations which he had excited in the people. Others pretend that he was apprehensive of being called to account for what he had done in his protests of the tribunes; Marcus Cato having sometimes declared, and that, too, with an oath, that he would prefer an impeachment against him, as soon as he disbanded his ·army. A report likewise prevailed, that if he returned as a private person, he would, like Milo, have to plead his cause before the judges, surrounded by armed men. This conjecture is rendered highly probable by Asinius Pollio, who informs us that Caesar, upon viewing the vanquished and slaughtered enemy in the field of Pharsalia, expressed himself in these very words: " This was their intention: I, Caius Caesar, after all the great achievements I had performed, must have been condemned, had I not summoned the army to my aid !" Some think, that having contracted from long habit an extraordinary love of power, and having weighed his own and his enemies' strength, he embraced that occasion of usurping the supreme power; which indeed he had coveted from the time of his youth. This seems to have been the opinion entertained by Cicero, who tells us, in the third book of his Offices, that Caesar used to have frequently in his mouth two verses of Euripides, which he thus translates:

1. Nam si violandum est jus, regnandi gratia
2. Violandum est: aiis rebus pietatem colas.

1. Be just, unless a kingdom tempts to break the laws,
2. For sovereign power alone can justify the cause.

When intelligence, therefore, was received, that the interposition of the tribunes in his favour had been utterly rejected, and that they themselves had fled from the city, he immediately sent forward some cohorts, but privately, to prevent any suspicion of his design; and, to keep up appearances, attended at a public spectacle, examined the model of a fencing-school which he proposed to build, and, as usual, sat down to table with a numerous party of his friends. But after sun-set, mules being put to his carriage from a neighbouring mill, he set forward on his journey with all possible privacy, and a small retinue. The lights going out, he lost his way, and wandered a long time, until at length, by the help of a guide, whom he found towards day-break, he proceeded on foot through some narrow paths, and again reached the road. Coming up with his troops on the banks of the Rubicon, which was the boundary of his province, [*](Now the Pisatello; near Rimini. There was a very ancient law of the republic, forbidding any general, returning from the wars, to cross the Rubicon with his troops under arms. ) he halted for a while, and, revolving in his mind the importance of the step he was on the point of taking, he turned to those about him, and said: "We may still retreat: but if we pass this little bridge, nothing is left for us but to fight it out in arms."

While he was thus hesitating, the following incident occurred. A person remarkable for his noble mien and graceful aspect, appeared close at hand, sitting and playing upon a pipe. When, not only the shepherds, but a number of soldiers also flocked from their posts to listen to him, and some trumpeters among them, he snatched a trumpet from one of them, ran to the river with it, and sounding the advance with a piercing blast, crossed to the other side. Upon this, Caesar exclaimed, " Let us go where the omens of the Gods and the iniquity of our enemies call us. The die is now cast."

Accordingly, having marched his army over the river, he shewed them the tribunes of the people, who, upon their being driven from the city, had come to meet him; and, in the presence of that assembly, called upon the troops to pledge him their fidelity, with tears in his eyes, and his garment rent from his bosom. It has been supposed, that upon this occasion he promised to every soldier a knight's estate; but that opinion is founded on a mistake. For when, in his harangue to them, he frequently held out a finger of his left hand, [*](The ring was worn on the finger next to the little finger of the left hand. ) and declared, that to recompense those who should support him in the defence of his honor, he would willingly part even with his ring; the soldiers at a distance, who could more easily see than hear him while he spoke, formed their conception of what he said, by the eye, not by the ear; and accordingly gave out, that he had promised to each of them the privilege of wearing the gold ring, and an estate of four hundred thousand sesterces. [*](Suetonius here accounts for the mistake of the soldiers with great probability. The class to which they imagined they were to be promoted, was that of the equites, or knights, who wore a gold ring, and were possessed of property to the amount stated in the text. Great as was the liberality of Caesar to his legions, the performance of this imaginary promise was beyond all reasonable expectation. )

Of his subsequent proceedings I shall give a cursory detail, in the order in which they occurred. [*](A.U.C. 70 ) He took possession of Picenum, Umbria, and Etruria; and having obliged Lucius Domitius, who had been tumultuously nominated his successor, and held Corsinium with a garrison, to surrender, and dismissed him, he marched along the coast of the Upper Sea, to Brundusium, to which place the consuls and Pompey were fled with the intention of crossing the sea as soon as possible. After vain attempts, by all the obstacles he could oppose, to prevent their leaving the harbour, he turned his steps towards Rome, where he appealed to the senate on the present state of public affairs; and then set out for Spain, in which province Pompey had a numerous army, under the command of three lieutenants, Marcus Petreius, Lucius Afranius, and Marcus Varro; declaring amongst his friends, before he set forward, "That he was going against an army without a general, and should return thence against ra general without an army." Though his progress was retarded both by the siege of Marseilles, which shut her agates against him, and a very great scarcity of corn, yet in a short time he bore down all before him.

Thence he returned to Rome, and crossing the sea to Macedonia, blocked up Pompey during almost four months, within a line of ramparts of prodigious extent; and at last defeated him in the battle of Pharsalia. Pursuing him in his flight to Alexandria, where he was tinformed of his murder, he presently found himself also engaged, under all the disadvantages of time and place, in a very dangerous war, with king Ptolemy, who, he saw, had treacherous designs upon his life. It was winter, and he, within the walls of a well-provided and subtle enemy, was destitute of every thing, and wholly unprepared for such a conflict. He succeeded, however, in his enterprise, and put the kingdom of Egypt into the hands of Cleopatra and her younger brother; being afraid to make it a province, lest, under an aspiring prefect, it might become the centre of revolt. From Alexandria he went into Syria, and thence to Pontus, induced by intelligence which he had received respecting Pharnaces. This prince, who was son of the great Mithridates, had seized the opportunity which the distraction of the times offered for making war upon his neighbours, and his insolence and fierceness had grown with his success. Caesar, however, within five days after entering his country, and four hours after coming in sight of him, overthrew him in one decisive battle. Upon which, he frequently remarked to those about him the good fortune of Pompey, who had obtained his military reputation, chiefly, by victory over so feeble an enemy. He afterwards defeated Scipio and Juba, who were rallying the remains of the party in Africa, and Pompey's sons in Spain.

During the whole course of the civil war, he never once suffered any defeat, except in the case of his lieutenants; of whom Caius Curio fell in Africa, Caius Antonius was made prisoner in Illyricum, Publius Dolabella lost a fleet in the same Illyricum, and Cneius Domitius Calvinus, an army in Pontus. In every encounter with the enemy where he himself commanded, he came off with complete success; nor was the issue ever doubtful, except on two occasions: once at Dyrrachium, when, being obliged to give ground, and Pompey not pursuing his advantage, he said that "Pompey knew not how to conquer;" the other instance occurred in his last battle in Spain, when, despairing of the event, he even had thoughts of killing himself.

For the victories obtained in the several wars, he triumphed five different times; after the defeat of Scipio four times in one month, each triumph succeeding the former by an interval of a few days; and once again after the conquest of Pompey's sons. His first and most glorious triumph was for the victories he gained in Gaul; the next for that of Alexandria, the third for the reduction of Pontus, the fourth for his African victory, and the last for that in Spain; and they all differed from each other in their varied pomp and pageantry. On the day of the Gallic triumph, as he was proceeding along the street called Velabrum, after narrowly escaping a fall from his chariot by the breaking of an axle-tree, he as cended the Capitol by torch-light, forty elephants[*](Elephants were first introduced at Rome by Pompey the Great, in his African triumph.) carrying torches on his right and left. Amongst the pageantry of the Pontic triumph, a tablet with this inscription was carried before him: I CAME, I SAW, I CONQUERED;[*](Veni, vidi, vici) not signifying, as other mottos on the like occasion, what was done, so much as the dispatch with which it was done.

To every foot soldier in his veteran legions, besides the two thousand sesterces paid him in the beginning of the civil war, he gave twenty thousand more, in the shape of prize-money. He likewise allotted them lands, but not in contiguity, that the former owners might not be entirely dispossessed. To the people of Rome, besides ten modii of corn, and as many pounds of oil, he gave three hundred sesterces a man, which he had formerly promised them, and a hundred more to each for the delay in fulfilling his engagement. He likewise remitted a year's rent due to the treasury, for such houses in Rome as did not pay above two thousand sesterces a year; and through the rest of Italy, for all such as did not exceed in yearly rent five hundred sesterces. To all this he added a public entertainment, and a distribution of meat, and, after his Spanish victory,[*](A.U.C. 708) two public dinners. For, considering the first he had given as too sparing, and unsuited to his profuse liberality, he, five days afterwards, added another, which was most plentiful.

The spectacles he exhibited to the people were of various kinds; namely. a combat of gladiators,[*](Gladiators were first publicly exhibited at Rome by two brothers called Brufi, at the funeral of their father, A.U.C. 490; and for some time they were exhibited only on such occasions. But afterwards they were also employed by the magistrates, to entertain the people, particularly at the Saturnalia, and feasts of Minerva. These cruel spectacles were prohibited by Constantine, but not entirely suppressed until the time of Honorius. ) and stage-plays in the several wards of the city, and in different languages; likewise Circensian games, [*](The Circensian games were shews exhibited in the Circus Maximus, and consisted of various kinds: first, chariot and horse-races, of which the Romans were extravagantly fond. The charioteers were distributed into four parties, distinguished by the colour of their dress. The spectators, without regarding the speed of the horses, or the skill of the men, were attracted merely by one or the other of the colours, as caprice inclined them. In the time of Justinian, no less than thirty thousand men lost their lives at Constantinople, in a tumult raised by a contention amongst the partizans of the several colours. Secondly, contests of agility and strength; of which there were five kinds, hence called Pentathlum. These were, running, leaping, boxing, wrestling, and throwing the discus or quoit. Thirdly, Ludus Trojae, a mock-fight, performed by young noblemen on horseback, revived by Julius Caesar, and frequently celebrated by the succeeding emperors. We meet with a description of it in the fifth book of the Aeneid, beginning with the following lines: Incedunt pueri, pariterque ante ora parentumFrenatis lucent in equis: quos omnis euntesTrinacriae mirata fremit Trojaeque juventus.Aen. 5.553-555 Fourthly, Venatio, which was the fighting of wild beasts with one another, or with men called Bestarii, who were either forced to the combat by way of punishment, as the primitive Christians were, or fought voluntarily, either from a natural ferocity of disposition, or induced by hire. An incredible number of animals of various kinds were brought from all quarters, at a prodigious expense, for the entertainment of the people. Pompey, in his second consulship, exhibited at once five hundred lions, which were all dispatched in five days; also eighteen elephants. Fifthly, the representation of a horse and foot battle, with that of an encampment or a siege. Sixthly, the representation of a sea-fight (Naumachia), which was at first made in the Circus Maximus, but afterwards elsewhere. The combatants were usually captives or condemned malefactors, who fought to death, unless saved by the clemency of the emperor. If any thing unlucky happened at the games, they were renewed, and often more than once. ) wrestlers, and the representation of a sea-fight. In the conflict of gladiators presented in the Forum, Furius Leptinus, a man of praetorian family, entered the lists as a combatant, as did also Quintus Calpenus, formerly a senator, and a pleader of causes. The Pyrrhic dance was performed by some youths, who were sons to persons ol the first distinction in Asia and Bithynia. In the plays, Decimus Laberius, who had been a Roman knight, acted in his own piece; and being presented on the spot with five hundred thousand sesterces, and a gold ring, he went from the stage, through the orchestra, and resumed his place in the seats allotted for the equestrian order. In the Circensian games, the circus being enlarged at each end, and a canal sunk round it, several of the young nobility drove chariots, drawn, some by four, and others by two horses, and likewise rode races on single horses. The Trojan game was acted by two distinct companies of boys, one differing from the other in age and rank. The hunting of wild beasts was presented for five days successively; and on the last day a battle was fought by five hundred foot, twenty elephants, and thirty horse on each side. To afford room for this engagement, the goals were removed, and in their space two camps were pitched, directly opposite to each other. Wrestlers likewise performed for three days successively, in a stadium provided for the purpose in the Campus Martius. A lake having, been dug in the little Codeta, [*](A meadow beyond the Tiber, in which an excavation was made, supplied with water from the river. ) ships of the Tyrian and Egyptian fleets, containing two, three, and four banks of oars, with a number of men on board, afforded an animated representation of a sea-fight. To these various diversions there flocked such crowds of spectators from all parts, that most of the strangers were obliged to lodge in tents erected in the streets, or along the roads near the city. Several in the throng were squeezed to death, amongst whom were two senators.

Turning afterwards his attention to the regulation of the commonwealth, he corrected the calendar, [*](Julius Caesar was assisted by Sosigenes, an Egyptian philosopher, in correcting the calendar. For this purpose he introduced an additional day every fourth year, making February to consist of twenty-nine days instead of twenty-eight, and, of course, the whole year to consist of three hundred and sixty-six days. The fourth year was denominated Bissextile, or leap year, because the sixth day before the calends, or first of March, was reckoned twice. The Julian year was introduced throughout the Roman empire, and continued in general use till the year 1582. But the true correction was not six hours, but five hours, forty-nine minutes; hence the addition was too great by eleven minutes. This small fraction would amount in one hundred years to three-fourths of a day, and in a thousand years to more than seven days. It had, in fact, amounted, since the Julian correction, in 1582, to more than seven days. Pope Gregory XIII., therefore, again reformed the calendar, first bringing forward the year ten days, by reckoning the 5th of October the 15th, and then prescribing the rule which has gradually been adopted throughout Christendom, except in Russia, and the Greek church generally. ) which had for some time become extremely confused, through the unwarrantable liberty which the pontiffs had taken in the article of intercalation. To such a height had this abuse proceeded, that neither the festivals designed for the harvest fell in summer, nor those for the vintage in autumn. He accommodated the year to the course of the sun, ordaining that in future it should consist of three hundred and sixty-five days without any intercalary month; and that every fourth year an intercalary day should be inserted. That the year might thenceforth commence regularly with the calends, or first of January, he inserted two months between November and December; so that the year in which this regulation was made consisted of fifteen months, including the month of intercalation. which, according to the division of time then in use, happened that year.