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FASTI

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Originally appearing in Volume V10, Page 193 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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FASTI , in See also:

Roman antiquities, plural of the Latin See also:adjective fastus, but more commonly used as a substantive, derived from fas, meaning what is binding, or allowable, by divine See also:law, as opposed to See also:jus, or human law. Fasti See also:dies thus came to mean the days on which law business might be transacted without impiety, corresponding to our own " lawful days "; the opposite of the dies fasti were the dies nefasti, on which, on various religious grounds, the courts could not sit. The word fasti itself then came to be used to denote lists or registers of various kinds, which may be divided into two See also:great classes. 1. Fasti Diurni, divided into urbani and rustici, a See also:kind of See also:official See also:year-See also:book, with See also:dates and directions for religious ceremonies, See also:court-days, See also:market-days, divisions of the See also:month, and the like. Until 304 B.C. the See also:lore of the calendaria remained the exclusive and lucrative See also:monopoly of the priesthood; but in that year Gnaeus Flavius, a pontifical secretary, introduced the See also:custom of See also:publishing in the See also:forum tables containing the requisite See also:information, besides brief references to victories, triumphs, prodigies, &c. This See also:list was the origin of the public Roman See also:calendar, in which the days were divided into See also:weeks of eight days each, and indicated by the letters A-H. Each See also:day was marked by a certain See also:letter to show its nature; thus the letters F., N., N.P., F.P., Q. Rex C.F., C., EN., stood for fastus, nefastus, nefastus in some unexplained sense, fastus priore, quando rex (sacrorum) comitiavit fastus, comitialis and intercisus. The dies intercisi were partly fasti and partly nefasti. See also:Ovid's Fasti is a poetical description of the Roman festivals of the first six months, written to illustrate the Fasti published by See also:Julius See also:Caesar after he remodelled the Roman year. Upon the cultivators fewer feasts, sacrifices, ceremonies and holidays were enjoined than on the inhabitants of cities; and the rustic fasti contained little more than the ceremonies of the calends, nones and ides, the fairs, signs of See also:zodiac, increase and decrease of the days, the tutelary gods of each month, and certain directions for rustic labours to be performed each month.

2. Fasti Magistrates, Annales or Historici, were concerned with the several feasts, and everything See also:

relating to the gods, See also:religion and the magistrates; to the emperors, their birthdays, offices, days consecrated to them, with feasts and ceremonies established in their See also:honour or for their prosperity. They came to be denominated magni, by way of distinction from the See also:bare calendar, or fasti diurni. Of this class, the fasti consulares, for example, were a See also:chronicle or See also:register of See also:time, in which the several years were denoted by the respective consuls, with the See also:principal events which happened during their consulates. The fasti triumphales and sacerdotales contained a list in See also:chronological See also:order of persons who had obtained a See also:triumph, together with the name of the conquered See also:people, and of the priests. The word fasti thus came to be used in the See also:general sense of " See also:annals " or " See also:historical records." A famous specimen of the same class are the fasti Capitolini, so called because they were deposited in the Capitol by See also:Alexander See also:Farnese, after their excavation from the Roman forum in 1547• They are chiefly a nominal list of statesmen, victories, triumphs, &c., from the See also:expulsion of the See also:kings to the See also:death of See also:Augustus. A considerable number of fasti of the first class haye also been discovered; but none of them appear to be older than the time of Augustus. The Praenestine calendar, discovered in 1770, arranged by the famous grammarian Verrius See also:Flaccus, contains the months of See also:January, See also:March, See also:April and See also:December, and a portion of See also:February. The tablets give an See also:account of festivals, as also of the triumphs of Augustus and Tiberius. There are still two See also:complete calendars in existence, an official list by Furius See also:Dionysius Philocalus (A.D. 354), and a See also:Christian version of the official calendar, made by Polemius Silvius (A.D. 448).

But some kinds of fasti included under the second general See also:

head were, from the very beginning, written for publication. The Annales Ponlificum—different from the calendaria properly so called—were " annually exhibited in public on a See also:white table, on which the memorable events of the year, with See also:special mention of the prodigies, were set down in the briefest possible manner." Any one was allowed to copy them. Like the pontifices, the See also:augurs also had their books, libri augurales. In fact, all the See also:state offices had their fasti corresponding in See also:character to the consular fasti named above. For the best See also:text and account of the fragments of the Fasti see Corpus Inscriptionurn Latinarum, i. (2nd ed.); on the subject generally, See also:Teuffel-See also:Schwabe, Hist. of Roman Literature, §§ 74, 75, and See also:article by Bouche-Leclercq in Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire See also:des antiquites.

End of Article: FASTI

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