FW: [at-l] "Hides of Marge" (OT)

[jbullar1 at twcny.rr.com (Jim Bullard)]

At 07:25 PM 3/15/2005 -0600, April Flowers wrote:
>The "hides" is always on the 15th, and it's not anything particularly
>special, unless you are Julius Caesar.  It's just the way Romans marked
>their calendars... the Kalends was the first, the Ides the fifteenth...
>there are a few other days of the month named... like the nones, then
>they would count up and down from each of the "marked" days.
>
>*steps off my history lecture soapbox*

Yup. In her daily phone call my daughter recited a little ditty she learned 
in Latin class.

Also this from infoplease.com:
>The term Ides comes from the earliest Roman calendar, which is said to 
>have been devised by Romulus, the mythical founder of Rome. Whether it was 
>Romulus or not, the inventor of this calendar had a penchant for 
>complexity. The Roman calendar organized its months around three days, 
>each of which served as a reference point for counting the other days:
>
>     * Kalends (1st day of the month)
>     * Nones (the 7th day in March, May, July, and October; the 5th in the 
> other months)
>     * Ides (the 15th day in March, May, July, and October; the 13th in 
> the other months)
>
>The remaining, unnamed days of the month were identified by counting 
>backwards from the Kalends, Nones, or the Ides. For example, March 3 would 
>be V Nones?5 days before the Nones (the Roman method of counting days was 
>inclusive; in other words, the Nones would be counted as one of the 5 days).