Hail Jupiter!
We honour our luminous lord as we now begin the days of descending light.
May we become evermore mindful of your numinous presence!
And may we thank for the summer beauty that surrounds us!
Salve Iuppiter!

 

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These Ides perpetuate the normal Kalends-Ides arrangement of each month in the Roman calendar with the first named-day associated principally with the female (Juno) and the second, the Ides, with the masculine (Jupiter). They function as a counter-theme to the prevailing ferial counter-theme of male-female sequencing with the six festivals or quasi-festivals throughout the month as a whole. There is little that is exceptionally noteworthy with regard to July’s Ides. Since this is a ‘long’ month, they fall on the 15th rather than the more usual 13th.  In 304 bce, the censor Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus established this day for the review of the horsemen squadrons.