*the roman calendar changed its form several times between the founding of ‘rome’ and the fall of the “roman empire”*
.
The common calendar widely used today is known as the Gregorian calendar and is a refinement of the Julian calendar where the average length of the year has been adjusted from 365.25 days to 365.2425 days (a 0.002% change).
From at least the period of Augustus on, calendars were often inscribed in stone and displayed publicly.
Such calendars are called fasti.
The original Roman calendar is believed to have been a lunar calendar, which may have been based on one of the Greek lunar calendars.
As the time between new moons averages 29.5 days its months were constructed to be either hollow (29 days) or full (30 days).
Roman writers attributed the original Roman calendar to Romulus, the mythical founder of Rome, though there is no other evidence for the existence of such a calendar and Romulus was often cited as the founder of practices whose origins were unknown to later Romans.
According to these writers, Romulus’ calendar had ten months with the spring equinox in the first month (likely based on the names of the last months of the year):
| Calendar of Romulus |
|---|
| Martius (31 days) |
| Aprilis (30 days) |
| Maius (31 days) |
| Iunius (30 days) |
| Quintilis (31 days) |
| Sextilis (30 days) |
| September (30 days) |
| October (31 days) |
| November (30 days) |
| December (30 days) |
(the regular calendar year thus consisted of 304 days (38 nundinal cycles), with the winter days after the end of December and before the beginning of the following March not being assigned to any month)
The origins of the names are also not entirely clear or agreed upon by modern scholars.
Some ancient explanations are: Martius in honour of Mars, the god of war; Aprilis from aperiō, to open: Earth opens to receive seed; Maius from Maia, goddess of growth (maior, elder); Iunius from iunior (younger).
(the remaining six months were named with respect to their position on the calendar: the numbers five to ten in Latin being quinque, sex, septem, octo, novem and decem, the months were named Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and ‘December’)
(further reforms were attributed, again without firm evidence, to ‘Numa Pompilius’, the second of the seven traditional kings of Rome)
(the Romans considered even numbers to be unlucky, so Numa took one day from each of the six months with 30 days, reducing the number of days in the 10 previously defined months by a total of six days)
(there were 51 previously unallocated winter days, to which were added the six days from the reductions in the days in the months, making a total of 57 days)
(these he made into two months, January and February, which he prefixed to the previous 10 months)
(January was given 29 days, while February had the unlucky number of 28 days, suitable for the month of purification (Februa, the Roman festival of purification))
(this made a regular year (of 12 lunar months) 355 days long in place of the previous 304 days of the Romulus calendar)
(of the 11 months with an odd number of days, four had 31 days each and seven had 29 days each)
Calendar of Numa:
Ianuarius (29)
Februarius (28)
Martius (31)
Aprilis (29)
Maius (31)
Iunius (29)
Quintilis (31)
Sextilis (29)
September (29)
October (31)
November (29)
December (29)
(in 304 BC “gnaeus flavius”, a pontifical secretary, introduced a series of reforms)
.
(it is generally believed that he initiated the custom of publishing the calendar in advance of the month, depriving the pontiffs of some of their power, but allowing for a more consistent calendar for ‘official business’)
.
.
*👨🔬🕵️♀️🙇♀️*SKETCHES*🙇♂️👩🔬🕵️♂️*
.
.
.
.
.
💕💝💖💓🖤💙🖤💙🖤💙🖤❤️💚💛🧡❣️💞💔💘❣️🧡💛💚❤️🖤💜🖤💙🖤💙🖤💗💖💝💘
.
.
*🌈✨ *TABLE OF CONTENTS* ✨🌷*
.
.
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥*we won the war* 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥