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I didn't appreciate until recently that the calendar we live by today was personally designed by Julius Caesar. Like not by some forgotten technocrats incident
by comeonbro 4y ago
I didn't appreciate until recently that the calendar we live by today was personally designed by Julius Caesar.
Like not by some forgotten technocrats incidentally during his time, but Julius Caesar himself as a subject matter expert, as a side-project. With consultation, certainly, but by his initiative, from long-standing engagement with the problem in one of his early jobs from long before he was a main character of the Roman story.
Digestable and entertaining (fragment of a) video on the topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD-R35DSSZY&t=1312s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD-R35DSSZY&t=1312s
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- superjan 4y agoAnd in that calender, February is the last month, which makes it the logical month for adjusting leap years.
- jffry 4y agoAnd likewise, September is the 7th month, October the 8th, etc etc
- lolinder 4y agoIt looks like there's a legend that this was the case, but January has been the first month of the year through all of recorded history, and Julius Caesar's version was no different. EDIT: Because there's a lot of confusion in several replies I thought I'd clarify: February was the second month in Julius Caesar's calendar. Romans in the Republic describe the month as being at some point the last month in the calendar, but we don't have any direct record of that. That's what I mean when I refer to it as a legend: it's a story that later Romans tell about their distant past. It is probably accurate but the sources are too far removed from the actual event to be treated as primary sources. This is true of Roman history in general: any story that dates back to the kings should be treated as a legend that Romans told about their past. It may have elements of the truth, but shouldn't be taken as firm fact. This particular legend has a lot of evidence going for it, but that doesn't make it inaccurate to refer to it as a legend. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Februarius https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Februarius
- Jap2-0 4y agoThat article seems to state the opposite?
- lolinder 4y ago> In the oldest Roman calendar, which the Romans believed to have been instituted by their legendary founder Romulus, March was the first month, and the calendar year had only ten months in all. Ianuarius and Februarius were supposed to have been added by Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, originally at the end of the year. It is unclear when the Romans reset the course of the year so that January and February came first. Most of what we know about pre-republican Rome is from oral tradition, not actual records. So if by the time of the Republic February was the second month of the year, it was the second month of the year through all of recorded Roman history.
- kgwgk 4y agoMaybe Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November and December were the seventh, eight, ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth months of the year through all of the “recorded Roman history”. But it seems well accepted that they were once the fifth, sixth, seventh, eight, ninth and tenth months of the year.
- lolinder 4y agoIn retrospect, I probably shouldn't have referred to it as a legend. That seems to have negative connotations for most people that I didn't mean to convey. I really don't doubt the authenticity of the story, I mainly was trying to indicate that we don't know when the change occurred but it certainly happened a long time before Caesar: by his day, the change was an oral tradition whose full story was lost in the very distant past.
- coldtea 4y ago>That seems to have negative connotations for most people that I didn't mean to convey. Not just "for most". It has negative connotations (of the kind reffered to here) for all people. "Legend" connotes "didn't take place".
- gerdesj 4y agoHe didn't just throw dice or march in, see what's what and grab the locals by the nadgers. JC was quite a chap and of course why its called the Julian Calendar. Many other calendars are available. Kalends is the source of the name for calendar and the Roman day of month counting is pretty involved - http://www.polysyllabic.com/?q=calhistory/earlier/roman/kalends http://www.polysyllabic.com/?q=calhistory/earlier/roman/kale... Kalends, nones and ides. JS died on the ides of March ...
- mattl 4y agoJS died how?
- j-bos 4y agoWell worth the watch, also shows that Ceasar's main character arc was bossted by his calendar knowledge and authority.
- permo-w 4y agoI’m unsure how commonly known this is, but also note that July and August are named after Julius Caesar and Emperor Augustus
- AmericanChopper 4y agoIf Caesar designed the calendar, how did he get a month in there named after something that hadn’t happened yet? When Caesar died Augustus’ name was Octavian, and Rome hadn’t had an emperor yet…
- Pigalowda 4y agoAre you messing around? Octavius became Julius Caesar after he was adopted. And also later he was given the honorable designation by the senate and called Augustus. That’s not his name its one of his honors. Octavian is essentially a past tense of his name and he never truly went by that. It’s a name used by historians.
- kgwgk 4y ago> Octavius became Julius Caesar after he was adopted. Gaius Julius Caesar
- karatinversion 4y agoAt the time of the calendar reform, the months that are now called July and August were called Quintilis and Sextilis. The Julian calendar came into use on January 1, 45 BC. July was renamed in 44 BC (the year of Caesar’s assassination), and August in 8 BC.
- coldtea 4y agoDesigning the calendar does mean "give a name to every month forever". You could also (a) just design the mechanics of the calendars (leap days, duration of months, etc), but keep the month names the same, or (b) change names too, which could get renamed again later.
- fsckboy 4y ago> the calendar we live by today was personally designed by Julius Caesar Pope Gregory has entered the chat there have been some changes to the calendar since Caesar, especially when people went to bed Thursday 4 October 1582 and woke up on Friday 15 October 1582, and thereafter there were no more leap years on centuries except every 400 years. https://www.onthisday.com/articles/gregory-conquers-julius-caesar https://www.onthisday.com/articles/gregory-conquers-julius-c...
- ithkuil 4y agoPeople mostly remember Caesar as a ruler, however in 63 BC (5 years before the Gallic wars) Caeser managed to get himself elected as Pontifex Maximus (chief high priest). Adjusting the calendar was as part of the duties of the Pontifex Maximus. They decided public holidays and they decided whether to add an "intercalary month" (at the end of February which used to be the last month). There are many interesting things to say about this but since this is hacker news I'm going ro focus on one: Caesar was away campaigning a lot and the Pontifex could adjust the calendar only while physically in Rome. So many years went by without calendar fixes. After having benefited from the confusion and the edge he had by understanding the calendar (like knowing he could safely cross the Adriatic when his opponent assumed that crossing it that given month was a bad luck) he decided to fix the calendar so that it doesn't require a human in the loop. In a way, he automated himself out of his job.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- throw1234651234 4y agoCompletely off-topic, but someone on HN posted a theory that Caesar let himself be killed, because he was afraid that he wasn't able to keep up his stellar reputation as winning everything as he got older. Was one of the few "eye-openers" for me, since as you get older, nothing is really "new" or "interesting". If the parent post turns out to be true, it goes on that list. Will research after work.
- tornato7 4y agoAt least a dozen engineers read this and decided to name their new microservice "Pontifex"
- EmilioMartinez 4y agoImagine being so powerful that your enemies await your calendar adjustments