336 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



"O Ra! adored iu Aptu (Thebes): 

 High-crowned in the house of the obelisk ([Teliopolis): 

 King (Ani), Lord of the New-Moon festival : 

 To whom the sixth and seventh days are sacred." * 



Thus, in Egypt, in the fourteenth, century B. c, the festival of the 

 new moon was from sunset on the sixth to sunset on the seventh ; 

 and since the sixth-seventh of a month was always coincident 

 with a new moon, the Egyptian months must have been lunar 

 months, and their seven- day periods, if true quarters of a lunar 

 month, must have been similar to those of the Tshi and Ga 

 tribes. When, fifteen hundred and fifty years later, the planet- 

 ary names arranged on the Chaldean system came into use for 

 the days of the week, the Egyptians had adopted a civil month of 

 thirty days, twelve of which, with five supplementary days, com- 

 pleted the solar year ; and, as the month had become a civil period 

 no longer connected with the moon, so the week became also a 

 civil period, and was made seven days long exactly. 



Among the Romans the first mention of a day named after a 

 planet occurs in the third elegy of the first book of Tibullus, 

 written about b. c. 24, where we find the words " Saturn's unlucky 

 day " ; and from Ovid, A. A. i, 415, it is clear that this notion was 

 derived from Palestine. Every seventh day was considered un- 

 lucky, but whether the Romans had a civil week, and names for 

 the other days, is uncertain, though the general belief is that they 

 did not adopt the Chaldean seven-day period from Egypt till after 

 the reign of Theodosius, a. d. 395. It is, however, fairly clear that 

 in the early days of their history they reckoned time by half- 

 moons and quarter-moons or lunar weeks. When they had in- 

 vented civil months, the calends were invariably on the first day 

 of the month, and were so named because the priests had been ac- 

 customed to call the people together on that day and announce 

 what days were to be kept sacred during the month. The ides 

 so called, according to Macrobius (a. d. 400), from the Etruscan 

 verb iduare, to divide were at the middle of the month, either 

 on the thirteenth or fifteenth, and the nones were at the ninth 

 day before the ides, counting inclusively. If the ides fell on the 

 fifteenth, the nones were on the seventh. The days between the 

 calends and nones were called " the days before the nones " ; 

 those between the nones and ides," the days before the ides " ; and 

 those from the ides till the end of the month, " the days before 

 the calends." In March, May, July, and October the ides fell on 

 the fifteenth and the nones on the seventh; in the remaining 

 months the ides fell on the thirteenth and the nones on the fifth. 

 Thus the only number that was constant was the number of days 



* Records of the Past, vol. ii. 



