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 will often take precedence over a conjunction, and the following word order where the topic (in this case the grammatical subject) precedes "cum" "when" is fairly common: Not every sentence has a topic, but some present information which is entirely new. Pinkster gives the following as an example: Such sentences are sometimes called "presentative sentences" and often start with a verb. The focus is the new information, i.e. the message which is being conveyed to the listener. Often in Latin the topic comes first, and then the focus. For example, in the sentence below, the topic is "in the bathhouse"