The _Annales_, though not literature in the proper sense, were so important, as forming materials for it, that it may be well to give a short account of them. They were called _Pontificum_, _Maximi_, and sometimes _Publici_, to distinguish them from the _Annales_ of other towns, of families, or of historical writers. The term _Annales_, we may note _en passant_, was ordinarily applied to a narrative of facts preceding one's own time, _Historiae_ being reserved for a contemporary account (Gell. v. 8). But this of course was after its first sense was lost. In the oldest times, the Pontifices, as they were the lawyers, were in like manner the historians of Rome (Cic. de Or. ii. 12). Cicero and Varro repeatedly consulted their records, which Cicero dates from the origin of the city, but Livy only from Aneus Martius (i. 32). Servius, apparently confounding them with the _Fasti_, declares that they put down the events of every day (ad Ac. i. 373); and that they were divided into eighty books. Sempronius Asellio (Gell. v. 18) says they mention _bellum quo initum consule, et quo modo confectum, et quis triumphans introierit_, and Cato ridicules the meagreness of their information. Nevertheless it was considered authentic. Cicero found the eclipse of the year 350 duly registered; Virgil and Ovid drew much of their archaeological lore (_annalibus eruta priscis_, Ov. Fast i. 7.) and Livy his lists of prodigies from them. Besides these marvellous facts, others were doubtless noticed, as new laws, dedication of temples or monuments, establishment of colonies, deaths of great men, erection of statues, &c.; but all with the utmost brevity. _Unam dicendi laudem putant esse brevitatem_ (De Or. ii. 12). Sentences occur in Livy which seem excerpts from them, _e.g._ (ii. 1).--_His consulibus Fidenae obssesae, Crustumina capta, Praeneste ab Latinis ad Romanos descivit_. Varro, in enumerating the gods whose altars were consecrated by Tatius, says (L. L. v. 101), _ut Annales veteres nostri dicunt_, and then names them. Pliny also quotes them expressly, but the word _vetustissimi_ though they make it probable that the Pontifical Annals are meant, do not establish it beyond dispute (Plin. xxxiii. 6, xxxiv. 11).