It’s a common misconception that Julius Caesar and Augustus ‘invented’ July and August when all the Julian reforms of the Roman calendar led to was the renaming of two months. There were 12 months at the time of Julius Caesar all along.
July was previously known as Quintilis, literally the Latin for ‘fifth’, and August was previously known as Sextilis (sixth). You don’t need to be a genius to work out that the first month of the year, then, was originally March.
January became the first month of the year after 153BC, with January 1st being the day on which Roman Consuls began their year in office. Roman years were named after who the two Consuls were for that year, or, less commonly, as ‘Ab Urbe Condita’ (from the founding of the city [of Rome]), followed by the supposed number of years since Romulus and Remus and all that.
So, 1AD was either ‘The year of the Consulship of Gaius Caesar and Lucius Paullus’ or AUC754.
The oldest extant example of a Roman calendar is the Calendar of Numa that existed from the earliest days of the Republic and perhaps even from Etruscan times. Although Roman calendars changed over time, the Numa is an interesting record of agricultural and religious festivals.
There are several records of Numa calendars all of which are based on a 12-month lunar cycle consisting of 355 days with the provision of an extra 22-23 days every two or three years.
This ‘extra’ month was known as Mercedonius or Intercalaris and the exact rules for when it was to be used are rather unclear. Sometimes it was there, other times it wasn’t. It appears that the decision to insert the month was up to the pontifex maximus, the chief priest, and as this post was a political rather than religious one, the month could either be inserted or removed to extend the period of office of a political ally or shorten that of a political rival.
Julius Caesar was having none of that shit and just did away with it entirely and jigged the days around to what we know today. The Gregorian calendar we use today is the same as the Julian one in every way apart from how leap years are calculated.
Months were not really the primary unit for division of the year, although months were named, but rather everything was divided into 8-day periods which instead of being numbered, were designated by the letters A-H with each ninth day being designated a market day, the 'nunidae'.
Each month was divided by the phases of the moon; Kalends (which gives us the word 'calendar'), the new moon, Nones (the ninth day before Ides), the first quarter and Ides, the full moon.
Alongside the letter that designated the day of the month, another letter was assigned that designated religious and social significance to it.
F means 'faustus', a day on which it is ok to do business in court.
C - "comitialis', a day on which public committees may meet.
N - 'Nefastus' which means ‘unreligious’ or even ‘naughty’, a day on which you’d better not do C or F.
NP - which is difficult to translate but might mean 'nefastus publicae' a day on which everyone can be a bit naughty.
EN - 'endotercius' which indicates that if you faustus all day, then you can nefastus all night.
Here is how March looked in the early 1st Century BC:
B Kalends NP, C F, D C, E C, F C, G C, H Nones F, A F, B C, C C, D C,E C, F EN, G NP Equirria, H Ides NP, A F, B NP Liberalia, C C, D NP Quinquartus, E C, F C, G N, H NP Tubilustrium, A QRC F, B C, C C, D C, E C, F C, G C, H C.
The festival of Equirria are horse races in honour of Mars.
Liberalia is the festival of the god Liber Pater, the god of vegetables, freedom and male fertility. Of course. I mean… carrot, penis… right?
Quinquartus is the time of the purification of the sacred shields of the Salian priests devoted to Mars, because nobody likes a dirty scutum.
Tubilustrium is the purification of sacred trumpets, because nobody likes a filthy trumpet either.
QRC is Quando Rex Comitavit...'When the king has dissolved the assembly'. This day you can faustus all you like.
If you were a bit nefastus, you could spend large periods of March furiously shining your trumpet and polishing your scutum whilst worshiping penises
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