Jump to content

User:Ifly6/Roman calendar

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Roman calendar was the calendar used by the ancient Romans from the republican era through to, and sometimes inclusive of, the Julian calendar. This can therefore refer to a legendary Romulean calendar, the classical republican calendar, and the Julian calendars.

The republican calendar, in operation from the earliest historical times through to 46 BC, had twelve months operating on a lunisolar basis. Because it only had 355 days, 22 or 23 days were inserted biannually. This normally took the form of a 27-day intercalary month inserted on 23 or 24 February with the remaining days of February dropped.[1]

Romulean calendar

[edit]

Literary evidence from the late republic and the early imperial period suggests a Romulean calendar organised into ten months (corresponding to those from March to December) totalling 304 days. There is insufficient evidence of such a calendar's historicity.[2]

The sources claim there were four months of 31 days[3] – March, May, Quintilis, and October – called "full months" (pleni menses) and six months of 30 days[3] – April, June, Sextilis, September, November, and December – called "hollow months" (cavi menses). These 304 days made up exactly 38 nundinal cycles. The months were kept in alignment with the moon, however, by counting the new moon as the last day of the first month and simultaneously the first day of the next month.[4] The system is usually said to have left the remaining two to three months of the year as an unorganized "winter", since they were irrelevant to the farming cycle.[4] Macrobius claims the 10-month calendar was fixed and allowed to shift until the summer months were completely misplaced, at which time additional days belonging to no month were simply inserted into the calendar until it seemed things were restored to their proper place.[5][6] Licinius Macer's lost history apparently similarly stated that even the earliest Roman calendar employed intercalation.[7][8][9]

Later Roman writers usually credited this calendar to Romulus,[10][11] their legendary first king and culture hero, although this was common with other practices and traditions whose origin had been lost to them. Censorinus considered him to have borrowed the system from Alba Longa,[7] his supposed birthplace. Some scholars doubt the existence of this calendar at all, as it is only attested in late Republican and Imperial sources and supported only by the misplaced names of the months from September to December.[12]

Calendar of Romulus
English Latin Meaning Length in days[13][14]
March Mensis Martius Month of Mars 31
April Mensis Aprilis Month of Apru (Aphrodite)[15] 30
May Mensis Maius Month of Maia[16] 31
June Mensis Iunius Month of Juno 30
July Mensis Quintilis
Mensis Quinctilis[17]		 Fifth Month 31
August Mensis Sextilis Sixth Month 30
September Mensis September Seventh Month 30
October Mensis October Eighth Month 31
November Mensis November Ninth Month 30
December Mensis December Tenth Month 30
Length of the year: 304

Other traditions existed alongside this one, however. Plutarch's Parallel Lives recounts that Romulus's calendar had been solar but adhered to the general principle that the year should last for 360 days. Months were employed secondarily and haphazardly, with some counted as 20 days and others as 35 or more.[18][19] Plutarch records that while one tradition is that Numa added two new months to a ten-month calendar, another version is that January and February were originally the last two months of the year and Numa just moved them to the start of the year, so that January (named after a peaceful ruler called Janus) would come before March (which was named for Mars, the god of war)[20]

Rome's 8-day week, the nundinal cycle, was shared with the Etruscans, who used it as the schedule of royal audiences. It was presumably a part of the early calendar and was credited in Roman legend variously to Romulus and Servius Tullius.[citation needed]

Republican calendar

[edit]

It is not known when the republican calendar actually came into effect. Many ancient sources attribute the development to Numa, who was one of the seven kings of Rome and heavily associated, in the annalistic tradition, with religious reforms. However, some sources instead attribute its imposition to the, possibly fictitious, Second Decemvirate.[21] Regardless, prior to the classical calendar there likely existed a lunar calendar at Rome, timed to correspond with lunar phases, of twelve months. But, on testimony from the antiquarian Varro, it appears that even from the early fifth century the intercalation was practiced to align the calendar with the seasons.[22]

The start of the year is not entirely clear. According to Livy, prior to 153 BC, the start of the consular year was moved from 15 March to 1 January. As in other cultures, however, there may have been multiple competing days for the start of new years.[23] Ovid, for example, in the poem Fasti notes both that January was the start of year from time immemorial and also that February was similarly the traditional end of the year.[24]

The months and days within them were as follows.

Roman Republican calendar (c. 700 BC or c. 450 BC – 46 BC)
English Latin Meaning Length in days[25][26][18][19]
1st
year
(cmn.) 		2nd
year
(leap) 		3rd
year
(cmn.) 		4th
year
(leap)
1. January I. Mensis Ianuarius Month of Janus 29 29 29 29
2. February II. Mensis Februarius Month of the Februa 28 23 28 23
  Intercalary Month   Intercalaris Mensis (Mercedonius)   Month of Wages   27   28
3. March III. Mensis Martius Month of Mars 31 31 31 31
4. April IV. Mensis Aprilis Month of Aphrodite – from which the Etruscan Apru might have been derived 29 29 29 29
5. May V. Mensis Maius Month of Maia 31 31 31 31
6. June VI. Mensis Iunius Month of Juno 29 29 29 29
7. July VII. Mensis Quintilis Fifth Month (from the earlier calendar starting in March) 31 31 31 31
8. August VIII. Mensis Sextilis Sixth Month 29 29 29 29
9. September IX. Mensis September Seventh Month 29 29 29 29
10. October X. Mensis October Eighth Month 31 31 31 31
11. November XI. Mensis November Ninth Month 29 29 29 29
12. December XII. Mensis December Tenth Month 29 29 29 29
Whole year: 355 377 355 378

Intercalation

[edit]

Reform

[edit]

Julian calendar

[edit]

Usage

[edit]

Days

[edit]

Weeks

[edit]
See also: Nundinae

Months

[edit]

Years

[edit]
See also: List of Roman consuls and Varronian chronology

Conversion to Julian and Gregorian dates

[edit]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Rüpke 2011, p. 40.
  2. ^ Rüpke 2011, p. 23: "The evidence [for a 10-month Romulean calendar] is circumstantial and inadequate"..
  3. ^ a b Macrobius, 1.12.3.
  4. ^ a b Grout 2023.
  5. ^ Macrobius, 1.12.39.
  6. ^ Kaster 2011, p. 155.
  7. ^ a b Censorinus, The Natal Day, Ch. XX.
  8. ^ Macrobius, Book I, Ch. 13, §20.
  9. ^ Kaster 2011, p. 165.
  10. ^ Macrobius, 1.12.5, 1.12.38.
  11. ^ Kaster 2011, pp. 137, 155.
  12. ^ Rüpke 2011, p. 23.
  13. ^ Macrobius, Book I, Ch. 12, §3.
  14. ^ Kaster 2011, p. 137.
  15. ^ "April". Dictionary.com Unabridged. Randomhouse Inc. Retrieved January 9, 2018.
  16. ^ "May". Dictionary.com Unabridged. Randomhouse Inc. Retrieved January 9, 2018.
  17. ^ Blackburn & al. 1999, p. 669.
  18. ^ a b Plutarch, Life of Numa section XVIII.
  19. ^ a b Perrin (1914), pp. 368 ff.
  20. ^ Plutarch, Numa, 19.
  21. ^ Rüpke 2011, pp. 38–39.
  22. ^ Rüpke 2011, pp. 23–24.
  23. ^ Rüpke 2011, p. 6.
  24. ^ Rüpke 2011, p. 39, citing Ovid, Fasti, 2.47–54.
  25. ^ Macrobius.
  26. ^ Kaster (2011).

Bibliography

[edit]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Ifly6/Roman_calendar&oldid=1266560799"