Quinctilis

Quinctilis (also spelled Quintilis) is not a historical person, saint, martyr, bishop, or other ecclesiastical figure. It is the original Latin name of the month later called July. In the archaic Roman calendar the year began in March, so Quintilis was the fifth month, from Latin quintus, “fifth.” After the civil year was counted from January, the same month stood seventh in sequence but kept its old name until the late Republic. Classical authors, inscriptions, and later antiquarian writers use Quinctilis or Quintilis as a calendar term, not as a personal name.

In 44 BCE the Roman Senate renamed Quintilis as Iulius (July) in honor of Gaius Julius Caesar, who had been born in that month and who had recently reformed the calendar. The older designation therefore survives only as a historical month-name. No reliable annalistic, epigraphic, or hagiographical source records a pope, patriarch, catholicos, or saint called Quinctilis. Occasional modern confusion with the Roman gens Quinctilia (for example Publius Quinctilius Varus) or with saints named Quintus or Quintinus does not make “Quinctilis” itself a person.

Because the subject is a month-name rather than an individual, there is no verified year of birth or death, no birthplace, death place, or burial, no gender in the biographical sense, no religious order, spouse, or children, and no feast day, patronage, beatification, or canonization. The fields above are left empty wherever a personal fact cannot be documented from a historical source.