arutrv

16th of June, 2011

Hi I'm new here and looking for an advice on formatting Roman date as a tattoo. Here is my story and reason for my first tattoo. Few months ago, my newborn daughter died just before her birth. She was my first and the only child. As you can imagine, it was the most painful yet most love filled event in my life. My partner named her Sabine. We didn't really know the meaning of it but we just liked the name. Later we discovered that Sabine name comes from the tribe of Sabine's and people of Sabine had a role in founding Rome. I even feel like there is some symbolic parallel between loss of our daughter and kidnapping of Sabine women. Anyhow. I always believed that if I would get a tattoo, it would need to have some meaning. I don't want to forget Sabine so I was thinking to get a small tattoo of her birthday in a form of Roman calendar so that I would always remember her and the pivotal day of my life. I was doing some reading on Roman calendars and there seems to be a lot of options. My concern is not that I might get something wrong but would rather like to hear your opinion and advice on choosing the right format. Here are some options I've found so far: ANTE DIEM XVI KALENDIS IVLIAS MMXI source ante diem sextum decimum Kalendas Iulias a.d. XVI Kal. Iul. source dies lovis iii lunius MMXI a.d. dies lovis a.d. III Non. lun. MMDCCLXIV a.u.c. source Dies Iovis xvi Junius MMXI Dies Iovis iii Junius MMXI DIES IOVIS A.D. III NON. IVN. MMDCCLXIV A.U.C. source A.D. XVI KAL. IVL. MMXI source iii Junius MMXI A.D. III NON. IVN. MMDCCLXIV A.U.C. source A D XVI K IUL source I've decided to use Gregorian calendar over Julian. I'm listing Julian examples for possible formatting and spelling options. And most likely not Roman style as it might be too long and maybe meaningless today. But then again it ties with her ancient name (A U C - after founding the city) I probably prefer this: A.D. XVI KAL. IVL. MMXI. One of the main question is when or if I should use capital letters or lower case? I understand the meaning of A.D and KAL and why its IVL(July) not June, just not sure if it is ok to use Roman calendar formatting today. (A.D. XVI KAL. IVL vs XVI. VI) I guess question is, how to format it using Roman numerals/calendar in modern day. Thank you Art