2. It is almost certain that the Republican calendar itself had never been changed from its first publication down to the time of Caesar. There is no historical record of any alteration, either by the introduction of new festivals or in any other way. The origin of no festival is recorded in the history of the Republic, except the second Carmentalia, the Saturnalia, and the Cerealia[40]; and in these three cases we can be morally certain that the record, if such it can be called, is erroneous. 3. If Julius and his successors altered only by slight additions, and if the calendar which they had to work on was of great antiquity and unchanged during the Republic, how, in the next place, are we to distinguish the skeleton of that ancient calendar from the Julian and post-Julian additions? Nothing is easier; in Mommsen’s words, it is not a matter of calculation; a glance at the Fasti is sufficient. In all these it will be seen that the numbers, names, and signs of the days were cut or painted in _large_ capital letters; while ludi, sacrifices, and all additional notes and comments appear in _small_ capital letters. It cannot be _demonstrated_ that the large capital letters represent the Republican calendar; but the circumstantial evidence, so to speak, is convincing. For inscribed in these large capitals is all the information which the Roman of the Republic would need; the _dies fasti_, _comitiales_, _nefasti_, &c.; the number of the days in the month; the position of the Nones and the Ides and the names of those days on which fixed festivals took place; all this in an abbreviated but no doubt familiar form. The minor sacrificial rites, which concerned the priests and magistrates rather than the people, he did not find there; they would only have confused him. The moveable festivals, too, he did not find there, as they changed their date from year to year and were fixed by the priesthood as the time for each came round. The _ludi_, or public games, were also absent from the old calendar, for they were, originally at least, only adjuncts to certain festivals out of which they had grown in course of time. Lastly, all rites which did not technically concern the State as a whole, but only its parts and divisions[41], i. e. of gentes and curiae, of pagi (_paganalia_), montes (_Septimontium_) and sacella (_Sacra Argeorum_), could not be included in the public calendar of the Roman people. But the Roman of the Republic, even if his calendar were confined to the indications given by the large capital letters in the Julian calendar, could find in these the essential outline of the yearly round of his religious life. This outline we too can reconstruct, though the detail is often wholly beyond our reach. For this detail we have to fall back upon other sources of information, which are often most unsatisfactory and difficult to interpret. What are these other sources, of what value are they, and how can that value be tested?