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Trinundinum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

A. W. Lintott
A. W. Lintott
Affiliation:
St. John's College, Oxford
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Extract

Trinvndinvm, best known as the minimum interval prescribed between the promulgatio and rogatio of a law by the Lex Caecilia Didia of 98 B.C., but also employed in a number of other constitutional and legal contexts, is generally supposed now to mean a period of 24 days R (I shall use this symbol to show that I am following the Roman method of counting, in which the day from which the reckoning starts and the day with which it finished are both included): in other words, it is held to be three Roman eight-day weeks.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , December 1965 , pp. 281 - 285
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1965

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References

1 Cic, . Dom. 16. 41,Google ScholarPhil. 5. 3. 7; Schol. Bob. 140 St.Google Scholar

2 Between proclamation and conduct of elections, before the final vote in a iudicium populi, and in other matters, references to which occur later.

3 Kroll, in R.-E. xvii. 2. 1467 ff.,Google Scholar following Mommsen, prefers 24; Kubitschek, , Grundriss der antiken Zeitrechnung (pp. 38, 40, 134), 17 days.Google Scholar

4 For discussion and further references see R.-E. cited above.

5 p. 292 Keil, p. 414 Schöll, cf. Cic, . Phil. 5. 3. 8.Google Scholar

6 Lampridius, , Alex. Sev. 28 and 43,Google ScholarVopiscus, , Tac. 6,Google Scholar = ‘suffect consulship’. The exception is Varro in Nonius 214M., 316L.: ‘decemviri cum fuissent, arbitrari vi nos’ (binos Mommsen) ‘nundinum divisum habuisse’, probably corrupt and difficult to interpret with either meaning of nundinum, in spite of Mommsen.

7 See Varro and Lucilius in Nonius 214M., 316L.; one Varro passage indeed, ‘quotiens priscus homo ac rusticus Romanus inter nundinum barbam radebat?’, seems to imply that he only bothered to shave on market-days, when he had to come to town.

1 Staatsr. i. pp. 375–6; Dio 36. 42. 2–3; Asconius 45C and 65C.Google Scholar

2 Pliny, N.H. 18. 3. 3Google Scholar (13); Festus 173M.; Macr, . Sat. 1. 16. 27–34, cf. 1. 16. 14 for dies fasti, nefasti, and comitiales. For the account, ascribed to Rutilius, in § 34, which partially contradicts M.'s previous statements, see the text later.Google Scholar

1 Cf. Cic, . Att. 4. 3. 4:Google Scholar ‘nundinae. contio biduo nulla’, where contio must be used in general of an assembly, since he is referring to election assemblies. Att. 1. 14.Google Scholar I shows a contio used to elicit information on nundinae. But no legal act resulted from this, so there was nothing to be vitiated. The distinction between fasti and comitiales must be as least as old as the Lex Hortensia. See Bleicken, , Volkstribunat, p. 23 for the view that it was a deliberate move to disenfranchise the distant rustics.Google Scholar

2 Gellius, N.A. 20. 1. 45–50, 12 tab. Ill, fr. 6.Google Scholar

3 The essential feature of dies nefasti was that the praetor could not fari, ‘do, dico, addico’, according to Varro, L.L. 6. 29 and Macrobius 1. 16. 14.Google Scholar

4 See R.-E. Rutilius, no. 34.

5 Macrob. 1. 16. 34.

1 Contrast Varro R.R. 2 prooem. i.

2 Of two other possible examples, Quintilian 2. 4. 35, ‘rogatio sive non trino forte nundino promulgata, sive non idoneo die’, is surely using it as a noun; otherwise he would be both clumsy and misinterpreting Cicero's De Domo, on which his treatment is based. Trinundinum tempus (Schol. Bob. 140 St.) could still be a genitive plural dependent on a noun.

3 Possibly through the influence of internundino lower down, which he took to mean ‘on a week-day’.

4 Ricc, . F.I.R.A. 30. l. 23;Google ScholarBartoccini, , Epigraphica 1947, pp. 7 ff.,Google Scholar 1. 23; F.I.R.A. 6. l. 30.Google Scholar

1 As with Livius Drusus' laws (Asc. 68–69C; Cic, . Leg. 2. 6. 14).Google Scholar

2 Schol. Bob. 140 St. on Pro Sestio 135.

3 See Asconius 7–8 and 75C, Dionysius 4. 14.