FASTI, in Roman Antiquity, the calendar in which were comprised the various days of the year, with their feasts, games, and other ceremonies.
There were two kinds of fasti, the greater and less; the former distinguished by the appellation of fasti magistrales, and the latter by that of fasti kalendares. The fasti kalendares, which were properly and primarily called fasti, are defined by Festus Pompeius to be books containing a description of the whole year, that is, ephemerides or diaries, in which the several kinds of days—festi, profesti, fasti, nefasti—are distinguished. The author of these was Numa, who committed the care and direction of the fasti to the pontifex maximus, by whose advice the people were guided on these points. This custom continued until the year of Rome 450, when C. Flavius, secretary to the pontifices, exposed in the forum a list of all the days on which it was lawful to work; and this proved so acceptable to the people that they made him curule ædile. The fasti kalendares were of two kinds, namely, urbani and rustici. The fasti urbani were those which obtained or were observed in the city. Some are of opinion that they were thus called because they were exposed publicly in different parts of the city; though from the various inscriptions it may be conjectured that private persons had likewise fasti in their houses. Ovid undertook to illustrate these fasti urbani, and comment on them, in his Libri Fastorum, of which only the first six books are extant. In the fasti rustici, or country fasti, were expressed the several days, feasts, and the like, to be observed by the country people. For as the latter were occupied in tilling the ground, fewer feasts, sacrifices, ceremonies, and holidays were enjoined on them than on the inhabitants of cities; and they had also some peculiar ones not observed at Rome. These rustic fasti contained little more than the ceremonies of the kalends, nones, and ides; the fairs, signs of the zodiac, increase and decrease of the days, the tutelary gods of each month, and certain directions for rustic labours to be performed each month. In the great fasti, or fasti magistrales, were expressed the several feasts, with everything relating to the gods, religion, and the magistrates; the emperors, their birthdays, offices, days consecrated to them, with feasts and ceremonies established in their honour, or for their prosperity. When flattery had at length swelled the fasti with a number of such circumstances, they came to be denominated magni, in order to distinguish them from the bare calendar, or fasti kalendares.