Ferentinum

Sed ut hos annos omittam caligine iam profundae vetustatis obductos, in his quoque, qui sunt recentioris memoriae et ad cursum lunae vel solis instituti, quanta sit varietas facile est cognoscere, si quis vel in unius Italiae gentibus, ne dicam peregrinis, velit inquirere. nam ut alium Ferentini alium Lavinii itemque Albani vel Romani habuerunt annum, ita et aliae gentes. omnibus tamen fuit propositum suos civiles annos varie intercalandis mensibus ad unum illum verum naturalemque corrigere.

But let me pass over these years [of the earliest peoples], already lost in the darkness of the distant past. Even among the years of more recent memory, set by the course of the moon or the sun, it is easy to see how much variety there is. One only has to look at the peoples of Italy alone, to say nothing of foreign ones. The people of Ferentinum had one year, those of Lavinium another, the Albans and the Romans others again, and so did other peoples. But all of them aimed to correct their civil years to match the one true, natural year, by inserting extra months in different ways.