October (Roman month) October (Roman month) October (from Latin "octo", "eight") or mensis October was the eighth of ten months on the oldest Roman calendar. It had 31 days. October followed September (from "septem", "seven") and preceded November ("novem", "nine"). After the calendar reform that resulted in a 12-month year, October became the tenth month, but retained its numerical name, as did the other months from September through December. Some of the observances in October marked the close of the season for military campaigning and farming, which commenced in March ("Martius", "Mars' month"). October was under the guardianship "(tutela)" of Mars. The Romans
Latin word order based, and establishing what nuances of meaning or emphasis could be obtained by using different word orders. Two major recent works on Latin word order, based on different approaches, are those of Devine and Stephens (2006) and Olga Spevak (2010). It is generally agreed that pragmatic factors play a major role in Latin word order, that is, factors such as topic and focus, contrast, emphasis, and heaviness. The topic (what is being talked about) often tends to come at the beginning of the sentence, and the focus (what is said about the topic) at the end or in penultimate position.