Nundinae, form an Article by Leonhard Schmitz, Rector of the High School of Edinburgh, in William Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, John Murray, London, 1875.
NUNDINAE is derived by all the ancient writers from novem and dies, so that it literally signifies the ninth day. In ancient Calendaria all the days of the year, beginning with the first of January, are divided into what we may call weeks, each containing eight days which are marked by the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H. Now it is admitted on all hands that this division is made to mark the nundinae, for every eighth day, according to our mode of speaking, was a nundinae. There were thus always seven ordinary days between two nundinae. The Romans in their peculiar mode of reckoning added these two nundinae to the seven ordinary days, and
consequently said that the nundinae recurred every ninth day, and called them nundinae, as it were novemdinae. A similar mode of stating the number of days in the week is still customary in Germany, where, in common life, the expression eight days is used for a week, and the French and Italians in the same manner call a fortnight quinze jours and quindici giorni....
The nundinae were, according to Plutarch, sacred to Saturn....
The nundinae were originally market-days for the country-folk, on which they came to Rome to sell the produce of their labour, and on which the king settled the legal disputes among them. ... For the populus the nundinae were feriae, but they were real days of business (dies fasti or comitiales) for the plebeians, who on these occasions pleaded their causes with members of their own order, and held their public meetings (the ancient comitia of the plebeians).
