NOTES. 227 



cannot be contested, without placing at some other 

 period the beginning of the Mexican year, as many 

 authors have done. But you have rendered it certain, 

 that, at the renewing of the cycle, this beginning fell 

 on the 9th of January, consequently in reckoning 13 

 intercalary days, and the complementary days with 

 which the festival began, the new fire was kindled at 

 the winter solstice. 



" It may be asked, why the phenomenon of the di- 

 minution of the days affrighted the Mexicans only 

 once every fifty-two years, as if at the end of a cycle 

 the Sun descended lower than usual. Was it from the 

 omission of a solemnity, that they did not perceive the 

 shortest appearance of the Sun, and that they waited 

 the signal to give themselves up to mourning and ter- 

 ror? I conceive, that, if the festival had taken place 

 every year on the same day, they would have lamented 

 the retreat of the Sun at the moment when it was visi- 

 bly returning ; but in order not to awaken their sor- 

 row at an improper time, it was easy to advance the 

 festival one day every four years, so that in every fifty- 

 two years it would have occupied thirteen different 

 days. This is a difficulty, which I cannot solve with 

 respect to the Egyptians*. Achilles Tatius does not 

 mention the epocha, at which it took place : he makes 

 use only of the vague expression a day, ^ore 

 ( Uranol. page 146) ; and adds, that it was at the time 

 of the festivals of Isis, without saying whether the 

 celebration was practised every year. If it had been 

 so, we should have seen, in the course of a sothic 



* Geminus pretends, contrary to the opinion of the Greeks, that the 

 festival did not take place on the day of the solstice, and that it ran 

 through the whole of the days of the year successively during a sothic 

 period. ( Uranol. p. .34 . 



Q2 



