Ianuarius "Ianuarius" and "Februarius" were supposed to have been added by Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, originally at the end of the year. It is unclear when the Romans reset the course of the year so that January and February came first. "Ianuarius" is conventionally thought to have taken its name from Janus, the dual-faced god of beginnings, openings, passages, gates and doorways, but according to ancient Roman farmers' almanacs Juno was the tutelary deity of the month. Many Roman festivals and religious observances reflect the Romans' agrarian way of life in their early history. Agricultural calendars "(menologia rustica)"
The Boy Who Was in history, connected only by Nino's involvement. Chapter 3, "Poseidon and the Greeks", covers the building of the temple of Poseidon in Paestum. Chapter 4, "The Romans and the Volcano", tells of the destruction of Pompeii. Chapter 5, "The Last of the Goths", is a highly romanticized view of the fall of the Ostrogothic kingdom in southern Italy which followed the western Roman empire and was in turn followed by the Lombards. Chapter 6, "The Normans and the Saracens", has Nino telling Robert Guiscard's army about a group of Norman soldiers sixty years earlier who repelled a Saracen pirate attack