MARCH, (Martius), the third month of the year, according to the common way of computing. See MONTH and YEAR.
Among the Romans, March was the first month; and in some ecclesiastical computations, that order is still preserved; as particularly reckoning the number of years from the incarnation of our Saviour; that is, from the 25th of March.
It was Romulus who divided the year into months; to the first of which he gave the name of his supposed father Mars. Ovid, however, observes, that the people of Italy had the month of March before Romulus's time; but that they placed it very differently, some making it the third, some the fourth, some the fifth, and others the tenth month of the year.
In this month it was that the Romans sacrificed to Anna Perenna; that they began their comitia; that
they adjudged their public farms and leases; that the mistresses served the slaves and servants at table, as the masters did in the Saturnalia; and that the vestals renewed the sacred fire.
The month of March was always under the protection of Minerva, and always consisted of 31 days.—The ancients held it an unhappy month for marriage, as well as the month of May.