ANNALS

Form: Annales.

Year-books. From early times a record of all important events at Rome had been kept in chronological order by the high priest (pontifex maximus) for the time, who every year exhibited in his official residence a whited board (album), on which, after the names of the magistrates for the year, occurrences of all kinds-war, dearth, pestilence, prodigies-were set down briefly according to their dates. These annales pontificum or annales maximi (supposed to be so called after the pontifex maximus), though destroyed at the burning of Rome by the Gauls, B.C. 389, were restored as far as possible, and continued till B.C. 130. Collected afterwards in eighty books, they were at once utilized and superseded by the so-called ANNALISTS (q.v.).