The intercalations were generally made in the month of February, after the 23rd of the month.

Their management was left to the pontiffs--_ad metam eandem solis unde orsi essent_--_dies congruerent_; "that the days might correspond to the same starting-point of the sun in the heavens whence they had set out." That is, taking for instance the tropic of Cancer for the place or starting-point of the sun any one year, and observing that he was in that point of the heavens on precisely the 21st of June, the object was so to dispense the year, that the day on which the sun was observed to arrive at that same _meta_ or starting-point again, should also be called the 21st of June:--such was the _congruity_ aimed at by these intercalations.] [Footnote 25: _Ille nefastus erit per quem tria verba silentur; Fastus erit, per quem lege licebit agi._--Ov.

F.i.

47.
] 20.

Next he turned his attention to the appointment of priests, though he performed many sacred rites himself, especially those which now belong to the flamen of Jupiter.