Caesar's Calendar

the long version

The ancient Romans changed more than the map of the world when they conquered so much of it; they altered the way historical time itself is marked and understood. In this brilliant and exhilarating book Denis Feeney investigates time and its contours as described by the ancient Romans, first as Rome positioned itself in relation to Greece and then as it exerted its influence as a major world power. Feeney welcomes the reader into a world where time was moveable and changeable and where simply ascertaining a date required a complex and often contentious cultural narrative. He investigates the pertinent systems, including the Roman calendar, which is still our calendar, and its near perfect method of capturing the progress of natural time; the annual rhythm of consular government; the plotting of sacred time onto sacred space; the forging of chronological links to the past; and, above all, the experience of empire, by which the Romans meshed the city-state's concept of time with those of the foreigners they encoun-tered and thereby established a worldwide web of time.