Iulium sidus

Denarius Augusti c. 19/18 a.C.n. incusus: O.: CAESAR AVGVSTVS; R.: cometa, DIVVS IVLIV[S]

Iulium sidus seu Caesaris astrum, designatione astronomica C/−43 K1, fuit cometa vel "stella crinita" per septem fere noctes visa anno 44 a.C.n., C. Caesare nuper mortuo, nec unquam saeculis posterioribus reperta.

Fontes

• Horatius, Carmina 1.12.47
• Ovidius, Metamorphoses 15.749, 15.840-851 Textus cum commentario
• Plinius, Naturalis historia 2.93-94, 2.98
• Plutarchus, "Vita Iulii Caesaris" 69.2
• Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Naturales quaestiones 7.17.2
• Propertius, Elegiae 4.6.30, 4.6.59
• Servius grammaticus, Commentarii in Vergilium ad Aen. 8.681
• Suetonius, De vita Caesarum "Divus Iulius" 88
• Vergilius, Eclogae 9.47, Aeneis 8.681

Bibliographia

• Robert A. Gurval, "Caesar's Comet: the politics and poetics of an Augustan myth" in Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome vol. 42 (1997) pp. 39-71
• John T. Ramsey, A. Lewis Licht, The Comet of 44 BC and Caesar's Funeral Games. Scholars Press, 1997 (APA American Classical Studies, 39)
• Kenneth Scott, "The Sidus Iulium and the Apotheosis of Caesar" in Classical Philology vol. 36 (1941) pp. 257-272
• H. Wagenvoort, "Virgil's Fourth Eclogue and the Sidus Iulium" (1929. Nova editio in H. Wagenvoort, Studies in Roman literature, culture and religion. Lugduni Batavorum: Brill, 1956)