Expert: Maria - 3/3/2005

Question
i am trying to convert my hebrew meaning of my name to ancient latin. The meaning is "God is my judge" or "My judge is the lord". I would like to see if i could get both those phrases and my birthday Jan 14 1982   Thanx   Daniel

Answer
Hello,

“God is my judge" " is in Latin:
” Deus meus est iudex”
while  "My judge is the lord” is :
” Iudex meus est Dominus ”.

Please note that GOD is DEUS; IS is EST; MY is MEUS; JUDGE is IUDEX; THE LORD is DOMINUS.

As for “Jan 14 1982 “, it would be in Latin as follows:

“Postridie Idus Ianuarias,anno  millesimo nongentesimo octogesimo secundo post Christum natum"


This in full, while it is usually abbreviated as:

POSTRID. ID.IAN. MXCLXXXII p.Ch.n.
[meaning literally :"on the day after January's Ides"].

For Roman dates see below.

Have a nice day.
Maria
_______________________________________________
NOTA BENE
-POSTRID. stands for ‘postridie' = "on the day after'.
-ID. stands for ‘Idus'(see the Roman dates below).
-IAN. stands for ‘Ianuarias', i.e.January.
-MXCLXXXII stands for ‘millesimo (M) nongentesimo (CM) octogesimo (LXXX) secundo (II), i.e. 1982.
-p.Ch.n. stands for ‘post Christum natum'(after Christ's  birth ).
__________________________________________________
ROMAN DATES.
Please note that I tried to simplify this matter which is not so easy.
Anyway, should you have some doubts, ask me again.

DAYS .
Only three DAYS  of each month in the Roman calendar had specific names, i.e. :

-Kalends (Latin KALENDAE) which were always on the FIRST of the month.

-Nones (Latin NONAE) which fell usually on the 5th, except March, May, July, and October, when they fell on the 7th.

-Ides (Latin IDUS ) which fell usually on the 13th, except March, May, July, and October, when they fell on the 15th.

If it was not one of these “special” days, a Roman needed to say how many days  there were before the next special day.
So, the Romans always said that it was so many days before a specific date, never after, so June 21 would be the eleventh day before the Kalends of July (ante diem undecimum Kalendas Iulias) as the Romans counted inclusively.

There was however an exception, i.e. when the date was the day before or the day after the Kalends, Nones and Ides.

In this case the Romans  used the prepositions ‘pridie' for ‘the day before' and ‘postridie' for 'the day after', followed by the accusative.
For example:
- 30th of April is ‘Pridie Kalendas Maias'(the day before the Kalends of May) or PRID.KAL.MAI.

-2nd. of April is ‘Postridie Kalendas Apriles'( the day after the Kalends of April) or POSTRID. KAL. APR.

The 'postridie' form however was not used as much as the pridie, so the general 'ante diem' form would often take its place: January 14th could have been spelled 'postridie Idus IANUARIAS ("the day following January's Ides"), but it could have more often been mentioned as "ante diem undevicesimum Kalendas Februarias("nineteenth day before February's Kalends"), in short: A.D. XIX KAL. FEB.

MONTHS.
The MONTHS  are adjectives, not nouns, and then agreed with Kalends, Nones, Ides that are in the accusative (Latin ‘Kalendas', ‘Nonas', ‘Idus') as they depended on the preposition ‘ante' which takes the accusative.
They are Ianuarius, Februarius, Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Iunius, Quintilis (later Iulius), Sextilis (later Augustus), September, October, November, December.

YEAR.
In the beginning, the Romans dated their years by the names of the two consuls of each  year , but later, after Varro, Roman man of letters, claimed that Rome was founded in 753 B.C., this was made the year of 1 AUC , an abbreviation which stands for 'ab Urbe condita' (from the city's founding).
The conversion of years from our system to AUC. requires just a bit of math.
If the year is B.C., subtract it from 753 and add 1, so Julius Caesar died in 44 BC, i.e. 710 AUC. (753 - 44 + 1).
If the year is A.D., add it to 753.  Therefore 2004 is 2757 AUC. (753 + 2004).