FASTI. 476 FATAL DOWRY. were nefasti, and fasti for the resl; and three dies fissi, which were, like the interoisi, partly and partly nefasti. The sacred books, in which the lawful days of the year were marker], were themselves denominated fasti, and the term was employed, in an extended sense, to signify various kinds of registers, which have been oiten confounded with each other. These registers fall into two principal divisions — the Fasti Sacri or , and the Fasti Annates or HiStorici. (1) Fasti Kalendares, or calendar- of the year, were kept exclusively by the priests for about four centuries and a half alter the building of the city. The appearance of the new moon was proclaimed by a pontifex, who then an- nounced to the people the time which would inter- vene between the kalends and the nones. (See Kalends, also Calendar.) On the nones the country people assembled for the purpose of learning from the Rex Sacrorum the various fes- tivals of the month, and the days on which they would fall. In the same way those who intended to go to law learned on what days it would be right (fas) to do so. The mystery with which this lore was surrounded, for purposes of power and profit, by the favored class, was dispelled by Cn. Flavius, the scribe of Appius Claudius Caecus, who surreptitiously copied from the pontifical book the requisite information, and published it to the people in the forum (B.C. 304). Hence- forth time-tables {fasti) became common, very much resembling modern almanacs. They con- tained the days and months of the year, the nones, the ides, lawful and unlawful days, etc.; astronomical observations on the rising and set- ting of the fixed stars, the commencement of the seasons, brief notices concerning the introduction and signification of certain rites, the dedication of temples, the dates of victories, disasters, and the like. In later times the exploits and honors of the Imperial family were duly entered in the calendar. The celebrated Fasti of Ovid is a sort of poetical companion to the calendar, as pub- lished by Julius Csesar, who remodeled the Ro- man year. Written in elegiac metre, they relate the origin of the festivals as told in the legends, and are important to the student of antiquities. Several very curious specimens of fasti on stone and marble have been discovered, of which one of the most remarkable is the Kalendarium Prcenestinum, the work of the learned Ycrrius Flaccus, which stood in the lower part of the forum of Prameste, described by Suetonius. ery interesting also are two farmers' almanacs (menologia rustica), now in the Museum of Naples. They are cut on four Bides of a cube. each side of which is divided into three columns. each column embracing a month. The various agricultural operations to be performed in each month are given on these curious relics, in addi- tion lo the ordinary information contained in these calendars. (2) I'a.ti Innales or Bistorici were chronicles containing the names of the consuls and other magistrates of the year, and an enumeration of the -i remarkable events in the bistorj oi Romi . noted down opposite the days on which ii,, n d. From its application to the e chronicles the word fasti came to be used by the ,„„ i nonymous with historical records. A , interesting specimen of fasti of this class or Oapitolini) was discovered in the forum al Home in 1547. It is a Beries of inscriptions on the marble walls of the Regla, dating from B.C. 30, and containing a fairly com- plete register of the consuls. The fragments into which it had been broken were collected and ar- ranged h Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. and placed in the Capitol, where they may still be seen, together with some additional portions which were discovered in 1817 and 181S. The extant fragments of the fasti are published in the Corpus Inscrvptionum Latinarum, vol. vi.. part i. (Berlin. 187G). Consult Smith. Dictionary of Greet and Roman Antiquities (London, 1869); FAST 'NET LIGHTHOUSE. See Cape Clear. FAS'TOLF, Sir John (c.1378-1459) . An Eng- lish soldier noted for his services in France dur- ing the last phase of the Hundred Years' War. He distinguished himself at Agincourt (q.v.), and still more at the "Battle of the Herrings,'" February 12, 1429, so called because, while con- veying supplies to the English besiegers of Or- leans he formed a sort of laager of herring-bar- rels, and with his archers beat off a much larger French army. On June 18th the united forces of Fastolf and Talbot were defeated at Patay by Joan of Arc. According to Monstrelet Fastolf displayed such cowardice that the Duke of Nor- folk degraded him from the Order of the Garter, an honor which he had received in 1420. This, however, is very questionable, for he seems to have retained all his honors till his return to England in 1440. In 1441 he was granted a pen- sion of £200. His Norfolk life is mirrored faith- fully in The Paston Letters, where he is pictured as occupied busily in adding to his broad posses- sions, heaping up riches, building a huge new castle at Caister — a hard old man. yet not with- out some love of learning and the Church. He died November 5, 1459. Attempts have been made to identify him with Shakespeare's Fal- staff. Consult 'The Paston Letters, edited by Gairdner (London. 1872-75). FATAL CHILDREN. A name given in early times to those children who were to bring evil to their parents, such as ffidipus, Perseus, el c. In mediaeval days the term referred especially to children whose mothers died at their birth. Such an event was supposed to be an augury of the future fame but early death of the child. Vol- sung in the Teutonic myth and Tristram in the Arthurian romance were such children. FATAL CURIOSITY. (1) The name given to a well-known story contained in Cervantes's Don Quixote, which narrates the temptation of a wife. (2) A bourgeois tragedy by Lillo, pro- duced at the Haymarket toward the end of 1736. It is founded on a murder which occurred near I'cnrvn. Cornwall. England, in 1018. It was revived by tile elder Ccdnian at the Haymar- ket. June 29, 1782; suggested Mackenzie's Ship- wreck, and lias served as the foundation of Ger- man plavs by Moritz, Bromet, and Werner, pro duced in* Berlin, 1781. Leipzig. 1785, and Weimar. 1810. FATAL DISCOVERY, The. A play bj John Home, produced by Garriclc February 23. 1789, ,,i Drury Lane, Its characters are Ossianic. Its failure al the time was due to the fact that the author was secretary to the unpopular premier, Bute FATAL DOWRY, Tin:. A tragedy bj Ms singer, published in 1032, but probably written
