During the life of Gaius Marius Insubrecus, the traditional twelve months of the Roman year based on Caesar’s reform of the calendar were named

1. Ianuarius,
2. Februarius,
3. Martius,
4. Aprilis,
5. Maius,
6. Iunius,
7. Quintilis,
8. Sextilis,
9. September,
10. October,
11. November,
12. December.

Quintilis, the birth month of Gaius Iulius Caesar, was renamed Iulius in his honor in 44 BCE, the year of his death. To honor Augustus, Sextilis was renamed Augustus in 8 BCE.

Those of you who are familiar with Latin, or the Romance languages, may have noticed an incongruity in the names of the Roman months. For example, why is the twelfth month of the year called 10, December.

The calendar of Romulus, Rome’s mythical founder, originally began 1 March and had only ten months.

Six of the months were named with respect to their position on the calendar: 5, quinque; 6, sex; 7, septem; 8, octo; 9, novem; and 10, decem.

Martius seems to have been named after Mars, the god of war, since March was the beginning of the campaign season. Aprilis seems related to apricus, which indicates the month warm under the sun. Maius seems either derived from the goddess, Maia, goddess of growth, or from maiores, the ancestors.

Ovid presents three possible derivations for Iunius. The goddess, Iuno, claims that the month is named for her. Iuventas, the goddess of youth, claims the month for herself. Finally, Ovid claims that Iunius comes from the verb, iungere, “to join”, to mark the alliance between the Romans and the Sabines.

The months Ianuarius and Februarius were appended to the end of the Roman year in a calendar reform attributed to Numa Pompilius, the second of the seven traditional kings of Rome.

Ianuarius seems to have been named after the god, Ianus, the god of transitions, as the winter solstice signals the transition from winter to spring. Ancient sources derived Februarius from Februus, another name for the god, Lupercus, who has to do with expiation and ritual purification and whose festival is celebrated around the Ides of Februarius.

During the late Roman Republic, the length of the Roman year and its alignment with the seasons were, as a Roman muli in the legions would say, perfututi… totally screwed up.

In theory, the Roman calendar in use at that time was developed during the reign of the legendary second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius, around 713 BCE. The Roman year had 355 days divided unevenly into twelve months, Ianuarius, Februarius, Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Iunius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, December.

In order to keep the calendar aligned with the seasons, the Romans inserted an intercalary month of twenty-two or twenty-three days in alternate years. This mensis intercalaris was typically placed within the month of Februarius (Macrobius, Saturnalia, 1.13.12-5).

That’s the theory, anyway.

In fact, by the time Insubrecus arrives in long-haired Gaul, in The Helvetian Affair, the Roman calendar had lost coordination with the seasons.

The system of aligning the year through the use of intercalary months broke down during the late Republic. The Roman Pontifex Maximus, the high priest, determined when an intercalary month was to occur, which was supposed to happened every other year. However, the position of Pontifex Maximus was held by a member of the Roman political elite. Because the term of office of Roman magistrates was delineated by the Roman calendar year, a Pontifex Maximus could lengthen a year in which political allies were in power, or shorten a year in which political opponents held office.

Julius Caesar, as Pontifex Maximus, reformed the calendar in 46 BCE. The “Julian calendar” had a regular year of 365 days divided into the traditional twelve months. An extra day was added to Februarius every four years to keep the calendar synchronized with the seasons.

In order to realign the calendar with the seasons, 46 BCE was 445 days long, compensating for the intercalary months which had been missed during times of political strife and the chaos of the civil wars. Not surprisingly, this was also a year when Caesar held the consulship.

Confusing, huh?

In order to simplify things, the narrative of the Gaius Marius Chronicle ignores the seasonal confusion of the Roman calendar before the Julian reform. In The Swabian Affair, when Insubrecus worries about being on campaign against Ariovistus along the Rhine in early fall, he identifies the calendar month as September, just as expected.

Roman Designation of Years

During the late Roman Republic, the consular term began with the first day of the Roman year, 1 January.

The years themselves were identified with the consuls in office. For example, in the first book of his Gallic Wars, Caesar dates Orgetorix’ conspiracy among the Helvetians saying, “is M Messala et M Pisone consulibus regni cupiditate inductus coniurationem nobilitatis fecit (while Marcus Messala and Marcus Piso were consuls, [Orgetorix] desired regal powers, so he hatched a plot among the nobles)” (de bello Gallico 1.2). According to modern reckoning, the year was 61 BCE.

Also, during the late Republic, Romans began to count years from the founding of their city. Although Roman historians used different dates for this event, the date most widely used was that of Marcus Terentius Varro, 753 BCE. This Verronian chronology was made official in the reign of Insubrecus’ mentor, patron and erstwhile chum, Augustus.

Dates used according to this method are designated ab urbe condita, “from the founding of the city”, abbreviated AUC. So, the date of the Orgetorix conspiracy mentioned by Caesar occurred in 693 AUC.

One last complication! Romans of course did not use Arabic numerals; they used those pesky Roman numerals which, for some reason beyond my understanding, the entertainment industry still uses to date movies and TV shows. So, 693 AUC becomes DCXCIII AUC.

So, when Insubrecus tells the story of the murdered centurion, which occurred during his first year as the city prefect of Mediolanum, he identifies the year as, anno Consulium Imp Caesaris Divi f Augusti VIII et T Statilii Tauri II AUC DCCXXVIII (During the Consulships of the Imperator, Caesar, Son of the God, the Venerable One, 8th Term, and Titus Statilius Taurus, 2nd Term, 728 years from from the founding of the city). Or, for us moderns, 26 BCE.

In some parts of the imperium, the provincial year, anno provinciarium, or A PP) was used to designate the year. But, this needn’t concern us, since none of the characters in the Gaius Marius Chronicle use this convention.

For those who are not that good at math and have long ago forgotten how to read Roman numerals, the following sites may be helpful:

Calculate AUC: http://www.tabney.com/files/latin2semester2/date_convert.html?year=61

Convert Roman Numerals: http://www.onlineconversion.com/roman_numerals_advanced.htm

Pronounced REMF. This is an acronym for “Rear Echelon Mother F’er.” This is a general term for all pernicious, un-grunt forms of life in the Army.

REMF is not an assignment, branch of service or MOS. It’s a state of mind. On the civilian-side, terms like “empty suit” or “sociopath” might be used.

Indications of REMF-ism included the idea that one was actually entitled to eat three hots a day, sleeping on a bunk out of the rain, sleeping entire nights without having to pull guard, having a club to drink cold beer and other forms of chilled alcohol, having access to hot showers, sleeping without boots, wearing clean, pressed uniforms with patches and insignia of rank properly attached.

But, someone could have all this and not necessarily be a REMF. Once someone began siphoning off needed supplies before they could get to the field… extra field jackets, batteries, flashlights, etc… only letting C-rats and Ammo get through, cutting orders to promote oneself to sergeant and to award oneself a CIB, believing the need of the logistics system for neat and complete paperwork prevailed over the need of the field for mission critical supplies, then, one was entering the magic realm of REMF-dom.

Let me tell you a story I’ve entitled, “The Clean Lieutenant Goes on a Visit.”

We were on a firebase near Ban Me Thout during the rainy season, summer of 1968. We were wet, cold and grumpy as one is likely to become when living underwater without gills and webbed feet.

One day, a slick landed at the firebase and out jumped an amazing sight—a seemingly, newly-minted, clean 1^st Lieutenant—wearing spotless, tailored and smartly pressed fatigues, a regulation baseball cap with a Silver Bar on its head, highly polished boots on its feet, a shiny, black attaché case in its hand, and Finance Corps insignia on its collar. This apparition skipped and dodged across the landing pad, avoiding all the puddles and mud, and walked over to the company TOC.

A few minutes later, our platoon sergeant collected us up for a “meeting.” Again, an amazing occurrence: two wonders in one day… a clean lieutenant and a “meeting.”

We were a little nervous and fidgety sitting around grouped in the open, so the clean lieutenant got right to the point. He had our lieutenant, who was not nearly as clean, pass out some IBM cards and some stubby No. 2 pencils while the clean lieutenant spoke.

“Good morning, men! I’m Lieutenant Fuzz (an alias) of the Finance Corps and I need to take just a few minutes of your time to get some paper work straightened out for you. Your platoon leader is giving each of you a copy of an IRS form which we need in order to process your pay properly. When you get the form, I’d like you to… Yes, Soldier! You have a question?”

“Yes, sir! I thought we didn’t pay federal tax in Nam.”

“That’s correct, soldier. But, you have to fill out this form so that the IRS knows where you are. Now once you get the form… another question?

“Yes, sir! Are you saying that one part of the government doesn’t know where another part of the government stuck us?”

“It’s not quite that simple…”

“I don’t see the point of this, sir, why doesn’t somebody from the Army just walk over…”

“Men! Under Federal Law, filling out this form is mandatory! Failure to do so within thirty days of arriving at your duty station could result in a fine of $10,000 and up to ninety days in jail.”

“Sir! Would that be a jail in Nam or in the States?”

“Soldier! I don’t see…”

“Sir! Would the ninety days come off our tour?”

“That has nothing…”

“You get three hots a day in jail, don’t you, sir? I mean, that’s a law, isn’t it?”

“People! Let’s get back to…”

“We give ourselves up, Sir! Arrest us!”

“What… What…”

“Sir! We’re not filling out this stupid IRS form! We’re cheating on our taxes! We’re criminals! Take us to jail!”

“I can’t… Lieutenant! Can you get your people under control here!

Our lieutenant was laughing so hard, he almost wet his trou. Meanwhile, we rushed the clean lieutenant in an effort to surrender ourselves to him en masse.

“Take me! Please, sir! I’m a criminal! I’ve got to pay for my crimes against the IRS. Take me to jail!”

The clean lieutenant and his IRS forms were gone on the next bird out.

Any REMF certainly ranked in a grunt’s esteem above a civilian by his willingness to serve, but at times one step below civilian by his efforts to make an impossibly horrible situation just that much worse.

I was sorely tempted to remove this entry or tone it down a bit because I am loath to insult anyone who served in Nam and did his (or her) duty while putting his (or her) life on the line. In a sense, as long as the bad guys were tossing 122mm rockets around and sneaking into base camps with satchel charges, even REMF-dom wasn’t safe.

But, then I remembered the perverse human condition known as “denial.” No one reading this would ever acknowledge that it describes them. For them, the REMF will remain a mythical creature created by the minds of paranoid and malcontented grunts. And I’m okay with that. Hell! I’ve even forgiven Jane Fonda!