Julian calendar Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! === Realignment of the year === [[File:Retrato de Julio César (26724093101) (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright|The [[Tusculum portrait]] of [[Julius Caesar]]]] The first step of the reform was to realign the start of the calendar year (1 January) to the tropical year by making 46 BC 445 days long, compensating for the intercalations which had been missed during Caesar's pontificate. This year had already been extended from 355 to 378 days by the insertion of a regular [[intercalary month]] in February. When Caesar decreed the reform, probably shortly after his return from the [[Battle of Thapsus|African campaign]] in late Quintilis (July), he added 67 more days by inserting two extraordinary intercalary months between November and December.<ref group="note">It is not known why he decided that 67 was the correct number of days to add, nor whether he intended to align the calendar to a specific astronomical event such as the winter solstice. [[Ideler]] suggested (''Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie'' II 123–125) that he intended to align the winter solstice to a supposedly traditional date of 25 December. The number may compensate for three omitted intercalary months (67 = 22+23+22). It also made the distance from 1 March 46 BC, the original New Year's Day in the Roman calendar, to 1 January 45 BC 365 days.</ref> These months are called ''Intercalaris Prior'' and ''Intercalaris Posterior'' in letters of [[Cicero]] written at the time; there is no basis for the statement sometimes seen that they were called "[[Undecimber]]" and "[[Duodecember|Duodecimber]]", terms that arose in the 18th century over a millennium after the Roman Empire's collapse.<ref group="note">E.g., "... we have a sidelight on what was involved in "the year of confusion" as it was called. According to Dion Cassius, the historian, there was a governor in Gaul who insisted that, in the lengthened year, two months' extra taxes should be paid. The extra months were called Undecimber and Duodecimber." (P. W. Wilson, [https://books.google.com/books?id=9xcbAAAAYAAJ&q=undecimber+duodecimber ''The romance of the calendar''] (New York, 1937), 112). The eponymous dating of the cited passage ([https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/54*.html#21 Dio Cassius 54.21]) shows that it actually refers to an event of 15 BC, not 46 BC.</ref> Their individual lengths are unknown, as is the position of the [[Nones (calendar)|Nones]] and [[Ides (calendar)|Ides]] within them.<ref>J. Rüpke, ''The Roman Calendar from Numa to Constantine: Time, History and the Fasti'', 117f., suggests, based on the ritual structures of the calendar, that 5 days were added to November and that the two intercalary months each had 31 days, with Nones and Ides on the 7th and 15th.</ref> Because 46 BC was the last of a series of irregular years, this extra-long year was, and is, referred to as the "last year of confusion". The new calendar began operation after the realignment had been completed, in 45 BC.<ref>[[William Smith (lexicographer)|William Smith]], ''[[Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities]]:'' [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Calendarium.html#p231 Year of Julius Caesar], following [[Ideler]], interprets Macrobius, [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Macrobius/Saturnalia/1*.html#14.13 ''Saturnalia'' 1.14.13] (Latin) to mean that Caesar decreed that the first day of the new calendar began with the new moon which fell on the night of 1/2 January 45 BC. <br /> The new moon was on 2 January 45 BC (in the [[Proleptic Julian calendar]]) at 00:21 UTC, according to [[Institut de mécanique céleste et de calcul des éphémérides|IMCCE]] (a branch of the [[Paris Observatory]]): [http://bugle.imcce.fr/en/grandpublic/phenomenes/phases_lune/index.php ''Phases of the moon (between −4000 and +2500)''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110720232543/http://bugle.imcce.fr/en/grandpublic/phenomenes/phases_lune/index.php|date=2011-07-20}}. This is in agreement with the [http://astropixels.com/ephemeris/phasescat/phases-0099.html historical moon phase tables by Fred Espenak] in which the new moon was on 2 January 45 BC at 00:43 UTC. Espenek's table assumes that the first Julian year of 45 BC was a leap year. If the first year of 45 BC was not a leap year, there would be a day offset, and the new moon would have been on 1 January 45 BC at 00:43 UTC. <br /> Espnek's historical moon phase tables also indicate that there was a new moon on 1 March 45 BC at 08:39 UTC ([[Calends|Kalends]] of March), quarter moon on 8 March 45 BC at 09:00 UTC (a day after [[Roman calendar#Days|Nones of March]]), and full moon on 15 March 45 BC at 07:19 UTC ([[Ides of March]]). Espenak's tables of the phases of the moon are based on computational procedures described in ''Astronomical Algorithms'' by [[Jean Meeus]] (Willmann-Bell, Inc., Richmond, 1998). <br /> More recent studies of the Macrobius manuscripts have shown that the word on which Idler's supposition is based, which was read as ''lunam'', should be read as ''linam'', meaning that Macrobius was simply stating that Caesar published an edict giving the revised calendar – see e.g., p.99 in the translation of Macrobius by P. Davies. <br /> Smith gives no source or justification for his other speculation that Caesar originally intended to commence the year precisely with the winter solstice.</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. 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