as if Novemlinea, from novem and dies, signifying literally the ninth day, was the name given to the weekly market-days of Rome. The term was also occasionally extended to the place and business of these markets, as well as to the time at which they occurred. According to the ancient Calendaria, the entire year, beginning with the first of January, was divided into weeks of eight days each. Seven ordinary days would therefore always intervene between the last day of one week and the last day of the week immediately succeeding it. To these seven days, the Romans, after their customary mode of reckoning, added, not only the one immediately succeeding, but also the one immediately preceding, which made in all nine days, and hence they spoke of the market-day as occurring on the ninth day. A similar usage is still known in some countries where the expression "eight days" is frequently used for a week. Some affirm that the institution of the nundines owes its origin to Romulus, while others attribute it to Servius Tullius. As, however, the nundines were originally market-days for the country people, who, on these stated occasions, came to Rome to dispose of the produce of their labour, to provide themselves with necessaries, and to get their legal disputes adjusted by the king, it would seem to follow that the nundine must have originated at a time when the Roman population extended beyond the precincts of the city. The nundines were dies nefasti for the patricians, and fasti for the plebeians (Niebuhr's Roman History, vol. ii.) but when such a distinction arose does not appear, for, according to the ancient Calendaria, the nundinae and dies fasti, or days of business, coincided. For the plebeians, however, the nundine continued to be business days, and on these they pled causes and held public meetings and debates with members of their own order on matters concerning the public or private interests of that order.

The Romans were always peculiarly careful lest the nundine should fall on the kalends of January, or on the nones of any month; and to avoid such an unfortunate conjunction, they were particularly watchful in the insertion of the dies intercalaris, or the 35th day of the Roman year. The prime kalendae were avoided, according to Macrobius, from the public belief that, if the nundine occurred then, the whole of the ensuing year would be signalized by misfortune; and the nones were shunned because the birth-day of Servius Tullius was celebrated on the nones of every month, and the presence of the country folk in the city on that occasion was deemed by the patri- Nuneatonians to be dangerous to the peace of the republic, owing to the excitability incidental to such a concourse of the plebeian order. Perhaps, however, more satisfactory grounds for this prejudice were to be found in the fact, that the kalends of January were observed as occasions of intimate domestic intercourse, and that the nones were believed to want the protection of the Deity.