Download 06.11 Roman Calendar

06.11 Roman Calendar
Use the following Web link to learn about the Roman calendar.
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Roman calendar from WebExhibits
The names for our months came from the Roman calendar.
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The first month of the old Roman calendar
The school year began on March 24
The beginning of the old agricultural year when spring planting was done
The beginning of the fighting season which lasted until the autumn
Sacred to Mars, the Roman god of war
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Name derived from the Latin word "aperio," meaning "to open"
Flowers and crops began to "open" during April
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Named after Maia, the mother of Hermes (Mercury). Maia was the daughter
of Atlas who caught Zeus' roving eye
Considered an unlucky month for weddings
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Named after Juno, the goddess in charge of marriage
Although the first half of the month was considered unlucky for weddings
because it contained several holy days dedicated to Vesta, we still consider
June a bridal month today.
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Originally called Quintilis (the fifth month)
Later renamed for Julius Caesar who was born on July 13. Caesar's official
birthday celebration was moved to July 12 because July 13 was already
sacred to Apollo. This is the reason many sources give July 12 as his date of
birth. Today, we still have official birthdays, e.g., President's Day in February
which celebrates the birthdays of Lincoln (February 12) and Washington
(February 22), and Martin Luther King Day on the Monday in January
following his real birthday.
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Originally called Sextilis (the sixth month)
Renamed for Caesar Augustus, the first Roman emperor and adopted son of
Julius Caesar. He was by blood the grandson of Julius's sister.
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Named the seventh month (from septem) since the Romans started counting
with March.
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Named the eighth month (from octo)
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Named the ninth month (from novem)
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Named the tenth month (from decem)
Numa, the second king of Rome, is credited with adding two months to the Roman
calendar:
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January, named after Janus, the two-faced god in charge of doorways, and
beginnings and endings, who looked backward and forward
February, named after a festival of purification held in that month
March was the month in which the new governmental officials took office. Our
presidents were inaugurated in March up to the middle of the twentieth century. We
also used to pay our taxes on March 15, the day on which Caesar was
assassinated. The Ides of March was a day everybody knew, and even in Rome,
debts had to be paid by the Ides of the month.
The ex-officials left in March to head up the armies. However, by the middle of the
second century B.C., they had to travel so far to reach the front lines that it
sometimes took them two to three months to reach those armies. The campaigning
season was half over! Therefore, in 154 BC, the Romans changed the beginning of
their year to January. The new officials were inaugurated on January 1, which gave
the ex-officials more time to travel to the provinces and allowed them to make use
of the good weather to fight their battles.
In 46 BC, Julius Caesar reformed the calendar with the help of an Egyptian
astronomer named Sosigenes. The calendar was originally a lunar one and was
constantly going out of sync with the solar year. Caesar is the one who set the
number of days for each month, including 28 for February, and inaugurated the
leap year to occur every four years with the extra day to come in February. The
Romans did it a little bit differently from the way we do, however. They repeated the
day of February 24 in a leap year. Who said you can never live a day over again!!!
The calendar we use today is one of the more obvious and pervasive ways Rome
still influences our lives 2000 years later.