Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/335

 n s. XIL OCT. 23, 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 327

i

remarking " Ominosum fuisse Bissexti diem in Antiquitate nctatum est," cites Macrobius,

<?um propter superstitionem intercalatio omnis omissa est."
 * Saturnalia,' i. 14, 1 : " Verum fuit temr>us,

Valesius (Henri de Valois) in his note on the passage of Ammianus points out that the Romans regarded as ill-omened not only the intercalated day, but the year in which it occurred, and quotes from St. Augustine, ' Epist.' 119 (=55), 13, where superstitious people are blamed who say such things as " Non plan tern hoc anno vineam, quia bissextus est."

The prejudice persisted for long. Pitiscus gives ten lines from Mantuanus's ' Fasti,' beginning : Nee minim est, quod fama refert, hunc scilicet

annum

Ominis esse mali, and ending :

Meliora require Tempora, hyperbolico frustra conaberis anno,

which dwell on the unfavourable nature of leap year for farming ; and Lilius Gyraldus,

torn. ii. col. 764, speaks of pregnant women dreading this year.
 * De Annis et Mensibus,' ' Op. Omn.,' 1696,

Is one justified in saying that the extra day was intercalated by the Romans " after 24 February " ? The name " bissextus " is a reminder that 24 February (Ante diem sextum Ka lend as Martias) was reckoned twice in leap year. But which of the two days was regarded as the normal A.D. vi. Kal. Mart., and which as the interpolated? The conflicting evidence is marshalled in Kubitschek's article ' Bissextum ' in the Pauly-Wissowa ' Real-Encyclopadie,' and in the ' Thesaurus Linguae Latinae.' Juventius Celsns the jurisconsult, followed by Ulpian, declared the " posterior dies " of the pair to be the intercalated day. The rest of the authorities assert the new day to be that between 23 February and 24 February. As Kubitschek points out, this is what one would reasonably expect in view of the reckoning backwards from the Kalends. The story about Maximilian I. given by Pitiscus, apparently from Rudolph Hospinianus, ' De Origine Festorum,' sup- ports this view. The Emperor in the year 1484 planned to surprise Bruges with an armed force on the eve of St. Matthias, when his partisans in the city were to be ready to help him. But he forgot about the "dies bissextus " and appeared a day too soon, before his adherents were ready. As St. Matthias's day is 24 February, this would mean that the intercalary day had now

become the vigil instead of the 23rd, and the saint's day was now the 25th from the beginning of the month.

The practical Romans seem to have dis- posed of the absurd birthday difficulty. According to Celsus, the " biduum " of A.D. vi. Kal. Mart, in leap year counts as one day. A child born on either day is born on A.D. vi. Kal. Mart., and a child born on this day in a normal year celebrates its birthday in leap year on the first of the two days. Celsus, we have seen, is peculiar in regarding the first day as the original.

EDWARD BENSLY.

"HUMANITY'S SAVIOUR " (11 S. xii. 278). This is probably ginseng (Panax Ginseng), a plant tc the root of which qualities extra- ordinarily beneficial are ascribed by the Chinese. Unhappily" for humanity, Western medical practitioners do not confirm the opinion. ST. SWITHIN.

SOUTHAMPTON (11 S. xii. 259). I know of one not especially careful speaker who recognizes the aspirate in Northampton as well as in Southampton, and in Nottingham and Birmingham likewise. The notice of it is very slight and inoffensive quite another thing from the ostentatious regard paid to letter h by some who have but recently acquired a knowledge of its function.

ST. SWITHIN.

PRONUNCIATION OF " GLADIOLUS " (11 S. xii. 220, 288). MR. BOOTHBY-HEATHCOTE cites no authority for his statement that the o in the penultimate syllable of " gladio- lus " " became long in late Latin." Can he do so ? Pliny, I think, is the only classical writer who uses the name to denote a bulbous herb which grows comitatus hyacinthis in the company of hyacinths ('Nat. Hist.,' i. xxi. 11). In another place he says it is named gladiolus simile nomine, because it resembles a little sword (i. xxi. 17) ; but as Pliny wrote in prose one cannot check his quantities.

While I do not dispute the right of Englishmen to take any liberties they like with the quantities of such foreign vocables as they incorporate fairly in their language, such as " orator," " senator," " custody," &c., may T, as a humble admirer of the Latin classics, protest against the needless garbling of words which we can do perfectly well without ? The sword lily has been recognized by Mr. W. Robinson and other horticultural authorities as the right English for the African plant known in botanv as glddloliie.