In an article written by Giulio Magli on the orientation of the Roman towns, Bononia, the Roman Bologna, is given as a specific example to support Magli’s thesis on the existence of preferred solar alignments of the urban layout. Assuming that the Roman towns had been oriented to the sunrise on the day of their foundation, Magli suggested possible preferred alignments according to Roman festivals, in particular the festival of Terminalia. Of Bononia, we know the date of foundation in 189 BC, given by Livy. We will show that, according to Roman chronology and Republican calendar, it is impossible that Bononia had been oriented to the sunrise on the day given by Livy. The discrepancy is huge. Moreover, the direction of the decumanus cannot match the dates of Terminalia for 189 BC. As we will stress in the discussion, the problem of the discrepancy between the historical dates of Roman chronology and the Julian dates, those that we can find according to an astronomical analysis, is general and must be properly considered in any archaeoastronomical analysis of Roman towns.

See please the new version, where I have added tables for chronology.