CALENDS. The Romans made a threefold division of the month into calends, vows, and ides. The C. always fell upon the 1st of the month; the nones in Mar., May, July, and Oct., on 'the 7th; and the ides on the 15th; and in the remaining months, the nones on the 5th, and the ides on the 13th. The C. were so named because it was an old custom of the college of priests on the first of the month to call (or assemble) the people together to inform them of the festivals and sacred days to be observed during. the month; the nones received their name from being the ninth day before the ides, reckoned inclusively; and the ides from an obsolete verb, signifying to divide, because they nearly halved the month. This threefold division also determined the reckoning of the days, which were not distinguished by the ordinal numbers first, second, third, etc., but as follows• Those between the C. and the nones were termed the days before
the ?tones; those between the nones and the ides, the days before the ides; and the remain der, the days before the C. of the next month. Thus, the ides of Jan. happening on the 13th of that month, the next day would not be termed by a Latin writer the 14th, but the 10th before the C. of Feb., reckoning inclusively, i.e., reckoning both the 14th of Jan and the 1st of Feb., and so on to the last, which was termed pridie calendas.
Ad calendas Grams, a Roman proverbial saying, practically equivalent to "never." The Roman C. were often appointed as days for payment of rent, interest, etc.; but as the Greeks had no C., a postponement of payment ad calendas Greceas, simply meant a refusal to pay altogether. It is said that the emperor Augustus frequently used the phrase, which afterwards became a proverb.