Latin names of the months. Ancient Roman calendar. Reform of Pope Gregory XIII

The change of times and the cycle of the Latin year

I will explain both the setting and the ascent of the luminaries.

You welcome my verses, Caesar Germanicus,

My timid guiding the ship on a straight path.

(Ovid "Fasty" book. I, 1-4,

per. M. Gasparov and S. Osherova)

There are only a few days left before the start of the New Year. But, if now it comes on January 1 (according to the Gregorian calendar), then what happened, say, millennia ago?

Life modern man impossible to imagine without the use of a calendar. Some people look at the electronic calendar, the other - in the old fashioned way, tears off a sheet of paper calendar. However, we all live according to the rules established a long time ago and do not think about the inaccuracy of the annual cycle. We firmly believe that there are 31 days in March and no force can change that. IN modern world each person has a calendar at hand, so he does not need to have a slave who would run to Red Square to find out today's date and time. What makes us be firmly convinced of the existing reality? Let us turn to the time of the life of Gaius Julius Caesar, it is not for nothing that one of the calendar systems was named after his family name.

Gaius Julius Caesar

The Roman chronology was conducted from the legendary founding of Rome in 753 BC. according to the lunar calendar. Already in early Rome it was customary to divide the year into ten months,the first of which was the month of March, named after the god Mars, the father of Romulus. Ten months were conventionally divided into two groups. The first four months - March, April, May and June - were combined into the harvest season. They were followed by six months - the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth - during which this crop was harvested. Under the second Roman king Numa Pompilius, two more months were added: January (in honor of the two-faced god Janus) and February (from the Latin "purification"). The Roman week consisted of eight days, each of which was indicated on the letter by the letters of the Latin alphabet from A to H. The ninth day - nundins - was a day off for the entire population of Rome, on which market trade was organized. During his consulship, Gaius Julius Caesar discovered a number of inaccuracies that arose in connection with the irregular adherence to the rules of the calendar. The number of days in a month was constantly changing: according to the established rules, the month had to begin with a new moon, but it did not occur every 30 or 31 days, so days had to be added or, conversely, the month shortened. The control of the calendar in early Rome was exercised by the pontiffs. They announced the dates of the main festivities, often not tied to certain days, as well as auspicious days for court and senate sessions. Their duties included adding months to align the year with the solar calendar. Often, the pontiffs made changes to the calendar at their own discretion or at the request of politicians for a fee: such arbitrary actions led to complete chaos in the calendar system of Rome, and by 46 BC. they became a significant problem for the conduct of public affairs, since the months no longer coincided in the nominal and actual moment of the annual cycle.

It was this reason that prompted Gaius Julius Caesar to reform the calendar in 46 BC. He invited a group of Alexandrian astronomers, led by the mathematician and astronomer Sosigen, to Rome to develop a new calendar system. It is no coincidence that Caesar turned to the Egyptian school, because since ancient times the Egyptians have attached great importance the study of the luminaries, and, subsequently, the maintenance of the calendar. From a practical point of view, the creation of the calendar was motivated by the need to control the flood of the Nile, since this a natural phenomenon always happened at the same time. The Egyptian year began in July with the appearance of the star Sirius in the sky and was equal to two periods of the appearance of Sirius in the sky. It was divided into twelve months and three seasons respectively of four months. Total days was 360. Before the next appearance of Sirius, there were still 5 days left, so the Egyptians decided not to include these days in the previous month, but to dedicate each of the days to a specific god: Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis and Nephthys.

Egyptian calendar

The Egyptian calendar did not take into account the leap year, so over time the backlog accumulated. It is known that in 238 BC. Ptolemy III attempted to amend the Egyptian calendar by adding a 366th day every fourth year, anticipating the reform of Gaius Julius Caesar. However, this change was not taken into account.

Alexandrian astronomers found that the length of the year is 365.25 days. Rounding the number up to a whole number, it was decided to add one extra day in February every fourth year to avoid lagging behind the light year. The Romans did not put it on the calendar, unlike our modern calendar, in which we add a day in February (February 29). They simply repeated the same day twice, like Groundhog Day. This day fell on February 24, which was the 6th day beforeMarch calends, called bissektus (bis sextus - "second sixth"), from which our word is leap. The days of the month were determined relative to three dates: kalends, nones and ides. Kalends was the first day of the month when the new moon appeared in the sky. The nons came about five to seven days after the calends, and they were an intermediate date. On the fifteenth or seventeenth day, depending on when the full moon occurred, the Ides occurred. Dates were counted backwards with inclusion of calendars, nons and ides in the calculation of the nearest days. Accordingly, when indicating the first day of the month, they said "calend day". If it was necessary to say April 30, then they used the expression "a day two days before the calendars." Caesar's reform also concerned fixing the beginning of the New Year. This date turned out to be the first of January, and in order to eliminate the backlog, Caesar ordered the addition of two additional months. Last year before the adoption of the reforms lasted as much as 445 days.

Roman calendar

In honor of this grandiose event, the month of Quantilius (the fifth month) was named after the generic name of Caesar, which to this day retains its former name - July. This tradition was adopted by other rulers of Rome. When Octavian Augustus again corrected the calendar confusion in the 8th c. BC, and this was due to the arbitrariness of the pontiffs, he named after himself the month of Sextiles - the month of his first consulate. However, the renaming did not end there. So, the emperor Domitian, not possessing modesty, named two months after himself: September (the month of birth) - Germanicus and October (the month in which he became emperor) - Domitian. Naturally, after his overthrow, the old names of the months were returned.

Roman calendars looked like this: vertically carved on a stone slab were figures denoting the days of the month, and horizontally above them were images of gods that gave names to the seven days of the week. In the middle were the signs of the zodiac corresponding to the twelve months.

At the same time, you can find calendars in which the days of the week were written in a column, and on top of the names of the months.

Another format of the Roman calendar

Julian calendar for a long time was the main calendar for many countries of the world. It was subsequently replaced by the Gregorian calendar by the Pope.Gregory XIII October 4, 1582. In Russia, this calendar was introduced only on January 26, 1918. However, the Julian calendar is still used in worship.

This story is a little bit about a lot - about the history of the calendar, about the ides and kalends, about the names of the months and days of the week in different languages.

Calendar history

Now all the peoples of the world use the calendar inherited from the ancient Romans.
But the calendar and the count of days among the ancient Romans were at first rather confusing and strange ...

Voltaire said about this:
Roman commanders always won, but they never knew what day it happened ...)))

The rest of the days were indicated by indicating the number of days, remaining until the next main day; wherein the bill included both the day that was indicated and the next main day: ante diem nonum Kalendas Septembres - nine days before the September kalends, i.e. August 24, usually abbreviated a. d. IX Kal. Sept.
……………
Roman calendar.

At first, the Roman year consisted of 10 months, which were designated serial numbers: first, second, third, etc.
The year started in spring- a period close to the spring equinox.
Later, the first four months were renamed:

First(spring!) month of the year was named after god of spring shoots, agriculture and cattle breeding, and this god among the Romans was ... Mars! It was only later that he became, like Ares, the god of war.
And the month was named martius(martius) - in honor Mars.

Second the month is named Aprilis ( aprilis), which comes from the Latin aperire - "to open", as in this month the buds on the trees open, or from the word apricus - "warmed by the Sun". It was dedicated to the goddess of beauty Venus.

Third month in honor of the goddess of the earth May and began to be called maius(majus).
Fourth month has been renamed to junius(junius) and dedicated to the sky goddess Juno, patroness of women, wife of Jupiter.

The remaining six months of the year continued to retain their numerical names:

Quintilis (quintilis) - the fifth; sextilis (sextilis) - the sixth;

September (september) - the seventh; october (october) - the eighth;

November (november) - ninth; december (december) - tenth.

Four month of the year ( martius, maius, quintilis and oktober) each had 31 days, and the remaining months consisted of 30 days.

Therefore, the original Roman calendar a year had 304 days.

In the 7th century BC. the Romans reformed of your calendar and added to the year 2 more months - the eleventh and twelfth.

The first of these months is Januarius- was named after the two-faced the god Janus, which was considered god of heaven, which opened the gates to the Sun at the beginning of the day and closed them at the end of it. He was the god of entry and exit, of every undertaking. The Romans portrayed him with two faces: one, facing forward, God sees the future, the second, facing back, contemplates the past.

Second added month - febrarius- was dedicated god underworld Februus. Its very name comes from the word februare - "clear" and associated with the rite of purification.

Year in the calendar of the Romans after the reform began to consist out of 355 days, and in connection with the addition 51 days (why not 61?) had to change the length of the months.

But still the Roman year was more than 10 days shorter than the tropical year.

To keep the beginning of the year close to one season, they did insertion of extra days. At the same time, the Romans in every second year between February 24 and 25 "wedged" alternately 22 or 23 days.

As a result, the number of days in the Roman calendar alternated in this order: 355 days; 377 (355+22) days; 355 days; 378 (355+23) days. Plug-in days got a name month of Mercedonia, sometimes called simply an intercalary month - intercalary(intercalis).
Word " mercedonium" comes from "merces edis" - "payment for labor": then the tenants made settlements with the owners of the property.

The average length of a year in such a four-year period was 366,25 days, that is, a day more than in reality.

Drawing engraved on an ancient Roman stone calendar. The top row depicts the gods to whom the days of the week are dedicated: Saturn - Saturday, Sun - Sunday, Moon - Monday, Mars - Tuesday, Mercury - Wednesday, Jupiter - Thursday, Venus - Friday. In the center of the calendar is the Roman zodiac, to the right and left of it are the Latin symbols for the numbers of the month.

Reform of Julius Caesar.

The chaotic nature of the Roman calendar had become significant, and urgent reform was needed. And the reform was made in 46 BC Julius Caesar(100 - 44 BC). A new calendar was developed by a group of Alexandrian astronomers led by Sosigene.

The basis of the calendarnamedJulian, the solar cycle is set, the duration of which was taken equal to 365.25 days.

Counted in three out of every four years 365 days, in the fourth - 366 days.

As before the month of Mercedon, so now this extra day was "hidden" between 24 and 25 February. Caesar decided to add by February second sixth ( bis sextus) the day before the March calendars, that is second day February 24. February was chosen as the last month of the Roman year. The augmented year became known as annusbissextus, where did our word come from leap year. The first leap year was 45 BC. e.

Caesar streamlined number of days in months according to the principle: an odd month has 31 days, an even month has 30. February in a simple year should have 29 days, and in a leap year - 30 days.

In addition, Caesar decided to start counting the days in the new year from the new moon, which just fell on the first of January.

In the new calendar, for each day of the year, it was indicated which star or constellation has its first morning sunrise or sunset after a period of invisibility. For example, in November it was noted: on the 2nd - the setting of Arcturus, on the 7th - the setting of the Pleiades and Orion, etc. The calendar was closely associated with the annual movement of the Sun along the ecliptic and with the cycle of agricultural work.

The Julian calendar was started on January 1, 45 BC. On this day, from which, already from 153 BC, newly elected Roman consuls took office, and the beginning of the year has been postponed.
Julius Caesar is the author of the tradition start counting the new year from the first of January.

Thanks for the reform and given the military merit of Julius Caesar, the Roman the senate renamed the month quinitylis(this month Caesar was born) in julius.

And a year later, in the same Senate, Caesar was killed ...

Calendar changes were later.

Roman priests again confused the calendar, declaring every third (and not fourth) year of the calendar as a leap year. As a result, from 44 to 9 years. BC. 12 leap years were introduced instead of 9.

This error was corrected by Emperor Augustus(63 BC - 14 AD): for 16 years - from 9 BC to 8 AD There were no leap years. Along the way, he contributed to the spread in the Roman Empire seven day week, which replaced the previously used nine-day cycles - nundids.

In this regard, the Senate renamed the month sextilis in the month of august. But the duration of this month was 30 days. The Romans considered it inconvenient that the month dedicated to Augustus should have fewer days than the month dedicated to Caesar. Then took one more day from February and added it to August. So February left with 28 or 29 days.

Now it turned out that Julius, Augustus and Septeber contain 31 days. So that there would not be three consecutive months of 31 days, one day of September was passed oktober. At the same time, one day of November was moved to december. Thus, the correct alternation of long and short months introduced by Caesar was violated, and the first half of the year in a simple year turned out to be four days shorter than the second.

The Roman calendar system was widely used in Western Europe and used up to the 16th century. With the adoption of Christianity in Rus' also began to use the Julian calendar, which gradually replaced the Old Russian.

In the 6th century, the Roman monk Dionysius Small suggested introducing new christian era, which starts from Christmas, and not from the creation of the world, and not from the foundation of Rome.

Dionysius substantiated the date from the Nativity of Christ. According to his calculations, it fell in the year 754 from the founding of Rome, or in the 30th year of the reign of Emperor Augustus.
Era from the Nativity of Christ firmly established in Western Europe only in VIII century. And in Rus' for several centuries they continued to count the years from the creation of the world.

Reform of Pope Gregory XIII.

At the end of the III century. AD the spring equinox was on March 21. Nicaea Cathedral, which took place in 325 in the city of Nicaea (now it is the city of Izvik in Turkey) fixed this date, deciding that the vernal equinox will always fall on that date.

However, the average length of a year in the Julian calendar is 0.0078 days or 11 min 14 s longer than a tropical year. As a result every 128 years, an error accumulated for a whole day: the moment of the passage of the Sun through the vernal equinox moved during this time one day ago - from March to February. By the end of the XVI century vernal equinox moved back 10 days and had to 11th of March.

Pope Gregory XIII reformed the calendar based on the project of an Italian doctor and mathematician Luigi Lilio.

Gregory XIII in his bull ordered that after October 4, 1582 follows October 15, not October 5. So the spring equinox was moved to March 21, to its original place. And so that the error does not accumulate, it was decided throw away three days out of every 400 years.
It is customary to consider those centuries as simple, the number of hundreds of which is not divisible by 4 without a remainder. Because of this, there were not leap years 1700, 1800 and 1900, and 2000 was a leap year. The discrepancy of one day of the Gregorian calendar with astronomical time accumulates not for 128 years, but for 3323.

This calendar system received the name Gregorian or "New Style"". In contrast to it, the name "old style" was strengthened behind the Julian calendar.

Countries in which positions were strong catholic church, almost immediately switched to a new style, and in Protestant countries the reform was carried out with a delay of 50 - 100 years.

England waited before 1751 and then “killed two birds with one stone”: corrected the calendar and rescheduled beginning of 1752 from March 25 to January 1. Some of the British took the reform as a robbery: it's no joke, three whole months of life disappeared!)))

Using different calendars caused a lot of inconvenience, and sometimes just curious cases. When we read that in Spain in 1616 on April 23 he died Cervantes, and in England on April 23, 1616 he died Shakespeare, one might think that two great writers died on the same day.
In fact the difference was 10 days! Shakespeare died in Protestant England, which still lived according to the Julian calendar, and Cervantes died in Catholic Spain, where the Gregorian calendar (new style) had already been introduced.

One of recent countries which adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1928, became Egypt.

In the tenth century, with the adoption of Christianity, chronology came to Rus' used by the Romans and Byzantines: julian calendar, roman names of months, seven-day week. But the years were counted from the creation of the world which happened for 5508 years before Christmas. The year began on March 1, and at the end of the 15th century the beginning of the year was moved to September 1.

The calendar in force in Russia from the "creation of the world" was replaced by Julian Peter I from January 1, 1700 (the difference between the two systems of reckoning is 5508 years).

Reforming the calendar system Russia was heavily delayed. Orthodox Church refused to accept it, although back in 1583, at the Council of Constantinople, she recognized the inaccuracy of the Julian calendar.

Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR No. January 25, 1918 was introduced in Russia Gregorian calendar. By this time, the difference between the old and new styles was 13 days. It was prescribed in 1918, after January 31, count not February 1, but the 14th.

Now the Gregorian calendar has become international.
…………
Now about the Slavic names of the months.
12 months - favorite fairy tale

Month- a period of time close to the period of revolution of the Moon around the Earth, although the modern Gregorian calendar is not consistent with the change in the phases of the Moon.

Since ancient times, segments of the year have been associated with certain natural phenomena or with economic activity.

Not quite on topic. From the legend: among the Slavs, the Month was the king of the night, the husband of the Sun. He fell in love with the Morning Star, and as punishment, the other gods split him in half...

Month names

January. The Slavic name "Prosinets" - from the emerging blue of the sky in January.

February- "Sechen", "Lute". Sechen - because it was time to cut trees to clear the land for arable land.

March
"Dry" from the spring warmth that dries up moisture, in the south - "Berezozol", from the action of the spring sun on the birch, which at this time begins to fill with juice and buds. "Protalnik" - it is clear why.
April
Old Russian names for April: "Berezen", "Snegogon". In Ukrainian, the month is called "kviten" (blossoming).

May- the names "Traven", "Herbal" - nature turns green and blooms.
June.
"Izok". Izok is a grasshopper, there were especially many of them in June. Another name is "Cherven".

July.

"Cherven" - the name - from the fruits and berries, which in July, are reddish (scarlet, red). Also called "Lipets" - linden blossoms in July. "Groznik" - from strong thunderstorms. And simply - "The top of the summer." "Stradnik" - from the suffering summer work.
August
And the Slavs still suffer - "Serpen", "Zhniven", - it's time to mow the wheat. In the north, August was also called "Dawn", "Zornichnik" - from the radiance of lightning.
September
The Russian name for the month was Ruyin, Howler - from the roar of autumn winds and animals, especially deer. "Frowning" - the weather began to deteriorate. In the Ukrainian language, the month is "Veresen" (from the flowering honey plant - heather).

October
Wonderful Slavic name - "Leaf fall". Otherwise - "Gryaznik", from autumn rains and abyss. And also "Svadebnik" - at that time the main agricultural work was ending, it's not a sin to celebrate a wedding, especially after the Feast of the Intercession.

November- "Breast", from piles of frozen earth with snow.

December- "Studen" - it's cold!

Plate of Slavic names of the months

Week and days of the week.

A week is a period of 7 days, which exists in most calendar systems of the world. The custom of measuring time with a seven-day week came to us from Ancient Babylon and is associated with a change in the phases of the moon.
Where did the names of the days of the week come from?

Ancient Babylonian astronomers discovered that, in addition to fixed stars, there are also visible in the sky seven moving lights, which were later named planets(from the Greek "wandering"). It was believed that these luminaries revolve around the Earth and that their distances from it increase in this order: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

Babylonian astrologers believed that every hour of the day is under the auspices of a certain planet, which "rules" them.
The counting of hours was started from Saturday: the first hour was "ruled" by Saturn, the second - by Jupiter, the third - by Mars, etc., the seventh - by the Moon. Then the whole cycle was repeated again.

Eventually it turned out that the first hour of the next day, Sundays, "ruled" Sun, the first hour of the third day got moon, the fourth day - to Mars, the fifth - to Mercury, the sixth - to Jupiter and the seventh - to Venus.

The planet ruling the first hour of the day patronized the whole day, and the day was given its name.

This system was adopted by the Romans - the names of the planets were identified with the names of the gods. They ruled the days of the week that got their names. Roman names migrated to the calendars of many peoples of Western Europe.

"Planetary" names of the days of the week in both English and Scandinavian languages, but the names in them are produced on behalf of the pagan gods of Norse mythology.

The day of Saturn was considered unlucky by the Babylonians.; on this day it was prescribed not to do business, and he himself received the name " Shabbat - peace. However, it was moved to the end of the week. The name passed into Jewish, Arabic, Slavic (Saturday), some Western European languages.

The Slavs called Sunday "a week", "a day in which nothing do not do"(do not do business). And Monday is "the day after the week", Tuesday is "the second day after the week", etc.
That's what is not dividing ...)))

Days of the week

We see the personification of the days of the week in the names preserved in English, German, French.

Monday- Monday (English) echoes moon- Moon, even clearer than Lundi (fr.),

Tuesday- in the name of Tuesday Mardi (French), el Martes (Spanish), Martedi (Italian) we recognize the planet Mars. Tuesday (English), Dienstag (German) hides the name of the militant ancient German god Tiu, analogue of Mars.

Wednesday- guessed Mercury in le Mercredi (French), Mercoledi (Italian), el Miercoles (Spanish).

Wednesday(English) comes from Wodensday meaning Woden day(Wotan, Odin). The same god is hidden in Onstag (Sw.), Woenstag (Vol.), Onsdag (Dan.).

Woden- an unusual god, he is depicted as a tall old man in a black cloak. This character became famous for the invention of the runic alphabet, which draws a parallel with the patron god of writing and oral speech- Mercury. According to legend, Woden sacrificed one eye for the sake of knowledge.

In Slavic "Wednesday", "Wednesday"", as well as in Mittwoch (German), Keskeviikko (Finnish) the idea of ​​the middle of the week

Thursday- Latin Dies Jovis, Day Jupiter, gave rise to Jeudi (Fr.), Jueves (Spanish), Giovedi (Italian).

And here Thursday(English), Torstai (Finnish), Torsdag (Swedish), Donnerstag (German), and others have a direct connection with the ancient thunder god Thor, analogue of Jupiter. In Hindi, Thursday is Jupiter Day.

Friday- Venus is clearly visible in Vendredi (Fr.), Venerdi (Italian).
English Friday, Fredag ​​(Sw.), Freitag (German) on behalf of the Scandinavian goddess of fertility and love Freya (Frigge), analogue of Aphrodite and Venus. In Hindi, Friday is Venus Day.

Saturday- face Saturn visible in Saturday (English) and Saturni (lat.).
Russian name « Saturday”, el Sabado (Spanish), Sabato (Italian) and Samedi (French) are derived from the Hebrew “Shabbat”, meaning “rest, rest”.
Lauantai (Fin.), Lördag (Sw.), Loverdag (Dan.) are similar to the Old German Laugardagr and mean "day of washing". In Hindi, Saturday is Saturn Day.

Sunday - Sun Day in Latin, English and German, in many languages ​​this day is indicated by various variations of the word "Sun / Son" (Sun).
Domingo(Spanish), Dimanche (French), Domenica (Italian) in translation mean " Lord's Day"and are an overlay brought to Europe along with Christianity.

Russian " Sunday" appeared in the same way, replacing the old name of this day "Week", preserved in other Slavic languages ​​\u200b\u200b- Nedelya (Bol.), Nedilya (Ukrainian), Nedele (Czech.). In Hindi, Sunday is the Day of the Sun.
……………

And finally about days and hours.

Day- a unit of any calendar, the allocation of which is based on the alternation of day and night. This division of the day originated in ancient Babylon, whose priests believed that day and night consisted of twelve hours. Officially dividing a day into 24 hours Introduced by the Alexandrian astronomer Claudius Ptolemy, who lived in the II century. AD

The first hour began at dawn, noon was always the sixth hour, and sunset was always the twelfth. And the length of the hour was a variable, depended on the length of daylight hours.

Today, all the peoples of the world use the solar calendar, practically inherited from the ancient Romans. But if in its current form this calendar almost perfectly corresponds to the annual movement of the Earth around the Sun, then one can only say about its original version "it could not have been worse." And all this is probably because, as the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC-17 AD) noted, the ancient Romans knew weapons better than stars ...

Agricultural calendar. Like their neighbors the Greeks, the ancient Romans determined the beginning of their work by the rising and setting of individual stars and their groups, that is, they associated their calendar with the annual change in the appearance of the starry sky. Almost the main "landmark" in this case was the sunrise and sunset (morning and evening) of the Pleiades star cluster, which in Rome was called Virgil. The beginning of many field works here was also associated with the favonium - a warm western wind that begins to blow in February (February 3-4 according to the modern calendar). According to Pliny, in Rome "spring begins with him." Here are a few examples of how the ancient Romans "linked" field work to changing the appearance of the starry sky:

"Between the favonium and spring equinox trees are pruned, vines are dug in... Between the spring equinox and Virgil's sunrise (the morning sunrise of the Pleiades is observed in mid-May), fields are weeded..., willows are cut, meadows are fenced... olives should be planted.

“Between the (morning) sunrise of Virgil and the summer solstice, dig up or plow young vineyards, stepson vines, mow fodder. Between the summer solstice and the rising of the Dog (June 22 to July 19), most of the time is spent harvesting. Between the rising of the Dog and the autumn equinox, straw should be mowed (the Romans first cut the spikelets high, and mowed the straw a month later).

“It is believed that sowing should not begin before the (autumn) equinox, because if bad weather begins, the seeds will begin to rot ... From favonia to the rising of Arcturus (February 3 to 16), dig new ditches, pruning in vineyards.”

However, it should be borne in mind that this calendar was filled with the most incredible prejudices. So, the meadows should be fertilized in early spring not otherwise than on the new moon, when the new moon is not yet visible (“then the grass will grow in the same way as the new moon”), and there will be no weeds on the field. It was recommended to lay eggs under the chicken only in the first quarter of the moon phase. According to Pliny, "any felling, cutting, shearing will bring less harm if done when the moon is in detriment." Therefore, the one who decided to get a haircut when the "Moon Arrives" risked going bald. And if in specified time cut the leaves on the tree, then it will soon lose all the leaves. The tree cut down at that time was threatened with rot ...

Months and the count of days in them. The existing inconsistency and some uncertainty about the data on the ancient Roman calendar is largely due to the fact that the ancient writers themselves disagree on this issue. This will be illustrated in part below. First, let's focus on overall structure the ancient Roman calendar, which developed in the middle of the 1st century. BC e.

At the indicated time, the year of the Roman calendar with a total duration of 355 days consisted of 12 months with the following distribution of days in them:

Martius 31 Quintilis 31 November 29

Aprilis 29 Sextilis 29 December 29

Mayus 31 September 29 Januarius 29

The additional month of Mercedonia will be discussed later.

As you can see, with the exception of one, all the months of the ancient Roman calendar had no even number days. This is due to the superstitious notions of the ancient Romans that odd numbers are lucky, while even numbers bring misfortune. The year began on the first day of March. This month was named by Martius in honor of Mars, who was originally revered as the god of agriculture and cattle breeding, and later as the god of war, called to protect peaceful labor. The second month was called Aprilis from the Latin aperire - "to open", as in this month the buds on the trees open, or from the word apricus - "warmed by the Sun". It was dedicated to the goddess of beauty Venus. The third month Maius was dedicated to the goddess of the earth Maya, the fourth Junius - the goddess of the sky Juno, the patroness of women, the wife of Jupiter. The names of the next six months were associated with their position in the calendar: Quintilis - the fifth, Sextilis - the sixth, September - the seventh, Oktober - the eighth, November - the ninth, December - the tenth.

The name Januarius - the penultimate month of the ancient Roman calendar - is believed to come from the word janua - "entrance", "door": The month was dedicated to the god Janus, who, according to one version, was considered the god of the firmament, who opened the gates to the Sun at the beginning of the day and closing them at the end. In Rome, 12 altars were dedicated to him - according to the number of months in a year. He was the god of entry, of all undertakings. The Romans portrayed him with two faces: one, facing forward, as if God sees the future, the second, facing back, contemplates the past. And finally, the 12th month was dedicated to the god of the underworld, Februus. Its very name comes, apparently, from februare - "to purify", but, possibly, from the word feralia. So the Romans called the memorial week that fell on February. After it, at the end of the year, they performed a cleansing ceremony (lustratio populi) "for the reconciliation of the gods with the people." Perhaps because of this, they could not insert additional days at the very end of the year, but, as we will see later, they did it between February 23 and 24 ...

The Romans used a very peculiar way of counting the days in a month. They called the first day of the month kalends - calendae - from the word salare - to proclaim, since the beginning of each month and year as a whole, the priests (pontiffs) proclaimed publicly at public meetings (comitia salata). The seventh day in four long months, or the fifth in the remaining eight, was called nones (nonae) from nonus - the ninth day (including count!) to the full moon. Nones approximately coincided with the first quarter of the phase of the moon. On the nons of each month, the pontiffs announced to the people which holidays would be celebrated in it, and on the nons of February, moreover, whether or not additional days would be inserted. The 15th (full moon) in long and 13th in short months was called ides - idus (of course, in these last months, ides should have been attributed to the 14th, and nones to the 6th, but the Romans didn’t like even numbers...). The day before the kalends, nones and ides was called eve (pridie), for example pridie Kalendas Februarias - the eve of the February kalends, i.e. January 29th.

At the same time, the ancient Romans counted the days not forward, as we do, but in the opposite direction: there are so many days left until nons, ides or calends. (Nons, ides and kalends themselves were also included in this account!) So, January 2 is “IV day from non”, since in January nones came on the 5th, January 7 is “VII day from ides”. January had 29 days, so the 13th was called the ides in it, and the 14th was already "XVII Kalendas Februarias" - the 17th day before the February kalends.

Next to the numbers of the months, the first eight letters of the Latin alphabet were put down: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, which were cyclically repeated in the same order throughout the whole year. These periods were called "nine days" - nundins (nundi-nae - noveni dies), since the last day of the previous eight-day week was included in the bill. At the beginning of the year, one of these "nine" days - nundinus - was declared a trading or market day, on which residents of the surrounding villages could come to the city to the market. For a long time, the Romans seemed to strive to ensure that the nundines did not coincide with the nones in order to avoid excessive crowding in the city. There was also a prejudice that if the nundinus coincided with the kalends of January, then the year would be unlucky.

In addition to the nundine letters, each day in the ancient Roman calendar was denoted by one of the following letters: F, N, C, NP and EN. On the days marked with the letters F (dies fasti; fasti - the schedule of attendance days in court), judicial institutions were open and court sessions could take place ("the praetor, without violating religious requirements, was allowed to pronounce the words do, dico, addico -" I agree "(to appoint a court ), “I indicate” (the law), “I award”). Over time, the letter F began to designate the days of holidays, games, etc. The days marked with the letter N (dies nefasti) were forbidden, for religious reasons it was impossible to convene meetings, hold court hearings and pass sentence. On C days (dies comitialis - “days of meetings”), popular assemblies and meetings of the senate took place. The days of NP (nefastus parte) were "partially forbidden", the days of EN (intercisus) were considered nefasti in the morning and evening and fasti in the intermediate hours. During the time of Emperor Augustus, the Roman calendar included days F - 45, N-55, NP-70, C-184, EN - 8. Three days a year were called dies fissi ("split" - from fissiculo - to consider the cuts of the sacrificed animals), two of them (March 24 and May 24 -" were designated as QRCF: quando rex comitiavit fas - "when the sacrificial king presides" in the national assembly, the third (June 15) - QSDF: quando stercus delatum fas - "when dirt is taken out and litter "from the temple of Vesta - the ancient Roman deity of the hearth and fire. An eternal fire was maintained in the temple of Vesta, from here it was taken to new colonies and settlements. The days of fissi were considered nefasti until the end of the sacred ceremony.

The list of fasti days for each month was proclaimed for a long time only on its 1st day - this is evidence of how in ancient times the patricians and priests held in their hands all the most important means of regulating social life. And only in 305 BC. e. the prominent politician Gnaeus Flavius ​​published on a white board in the Roman forum a list of dies fasti for the whole year, making the distribution of days in the year publicly known. Since that time, the establishment of in public places calendar tables carved on stone boards became commonplace.

Alas, as noted in encyclopedic dictionary”F. A. Brockhaus and I. A. Efron (St. Petersburg, 1895, vol. XIV, p. 15) “the Roman calendar seems to be controversial and is the subject of numerous assumptions.” This can also be attributed to the question of when the Romans began counting the days. According to the testimony of the outstanding philosopher and political figure Mark Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) and Ovid, the day of the Romans supposedly began in the morning, while according to Censorinus - from midnight. This latter is explained by the fact that among the Romans, many holidays ended with certain ritual actions, for which the "silence of the night" was allegedly necessary. That is why they added the first half of the night to the already past day ...

The duration of the year of 355 days was 10.24-2 days shorter than the tropical one. But in the economic life of the Romans important role they played agricultural work - sowing, harvesting, etc. And in order to keep the beginning of the year close to the same season, they inserted extra days. At the same time, the Romans, out of some superstitious motives, did not insert a whole month separately, but in every second year between the 7th and 6th days before the March kalends (between February 23 and 24) they “wedge in” alternately 22 or 23 days. As a result, the number of days in the Roman calendar alternated in this order:

377 (355 + 22) days,

378 (355+ 23) days.

If the insertion was made, then February 14 was already called the day “XI Kal. intercalares", on February 23 ("eve") terminalii was celebrated - a holiday in honor of Term - the god of boundaries and boundary pillars, considered sacred. The next day started like new month, which included the rest of February. The first day was Kal. intercal.", then - the day "IV to non" (pop intercal.), the 6th day of this "month" is the day "VIII to ides" (idus intercal.), the 14th is the day "XV (or XVI) Kal. Martias.

Intercalary days (dies intercalares) were called the month of Mercedonia, although ancient writers called it simply an intercalary month - intercalarius (intercalaris). The very word "mercedony" seems to come from "merces edis" - "payment for labor": it was as if it was a month in which tenants made settlements with property owners.

As can be seen, as a result of such insertions, the average length of the year of the Roman calendar was equal to 366.25 days - one day more than the true one. Therefore, from time to time these days had to be thrown out of the calendar.

Contemporaneous testimonies. Let us now see what Roman historians, writers and writers themselves said about the history of their calendar. public figures. First of all, M. Fulvius Nobilior (former consul in 189 BC), writer and scientist Mark Terentius Varro (116-27 BC), writers Censorinus (III century AD) and Macrobius (5th century AD) argued that the ancient Roman calendar year consisted of 10 months and contained only 304 days. At the same time, Nobilior believed that the 11th and 12th months (January and February) added about 690 BC to the calendar year. e. semi-legendary dictator of Rome Numa Pompilius (died c. 673 BC). Varro, on the other hand, believed that the Romans used the 10-month year even “before Romulus”, and therefore he already indicated 37 years of the reign of this king (753-716 BC) as complete (according to Z65 1/4, but in no way not for 304 days). According to Varro, the ancient Romans allegedly knew how to coordinate their working life with the change of constellations in the sky. So, they, they say, believed that "the first day of spring falls in the sign of Aquarius, summer - in the sign of Taurus, autumn - Leo, winter - Scorpio."

According to Licinius (tribune of the people in 73 BC), Romulus created both a calendar of 12 months and rules for inserting additional days. But according to Plutarch, the calendar year of the ancient Romans consisted of ten months, but the number of days in them ranged from 16 to 39, so that even then the year consisted of 360 days. Further, Numa Pompilius allegedly introduced the custom of inserting an additional month into 22 days.

We have evidence from Macrobius that the Romans did not divide the time interval remaining after a 10-month year of 304 days into months, but simply waited for the arrival of spring in order to start counting by months again. Numa Pompilius allegedly divided this period of time into January and February, and put February before January. Numa also introduced a 12-month lunar year of 354 days, but soon another one, the 355th day, was added. It was Numa who allegedly established an odd number of days in months. As Macrobius further stated, the Romans counted the years according to the Moon, and when they decided to measure them with the solar year, they began to insert 45 days into every four years - two intercalary months at 22 and 23 days, they were inserted at the end of the 2nd and 4th years. At the same time, allegedly (and this is the only evidence of this kind), in order to coordinate the calendar with the Sun, the Romans excluded 24 days from the account every 24 years. Macrobius believed that the Romans borrowed this insert from the Greeks and that it was made around 450 BC. e. Prior to this, they say, the Romans counted the lunar years, and the full moon coincided with the day of the ides.

According to Plutarch, the fact that the months of the ancient Roman calendar, which have a numerical name, end in December when the year begins in March, is evidence that the year once consisted of 10 months. But, as the same Plutarch notes elsewhere, this very fact could be the reason for such an opinion ...

And here it is appropriate to quote the words of D. A. Lebedev: “According to the very witty and highly probable assumption of G. F. Unger, the Romans called their own names for 6 months, from January to June, because they fall on that half of the year when the day increases, why she was considered happy and only on her in ancient times there were also all the holidays (from which the months usually got their names); the remaining six months, corresponding to that half of the year in which the night increases and in which therefore, as in an unfavorable one, no festivities were celebrated, did not mean this special names, but were simply only counted from the first month of March. A complete analogy with this is the fact that during the lunar

the Romans celebrated only three years lunar phases: new moon (Kalendae), 1st quarter (popae) and full moon (idus). These phases correspond to that half of the month when the bright part of the Moon increases, marking the beginning, middle and end of this increase. The last quarter of the moon, which falls in the middle of that half of the month when the light of the moon decreases, did not interest the Romans at all and therefore did not have any name from them.

From Romulus to Caesar. In the ancient Greek parapegms described earlier, two calendars were actually combined: one of them counted the days according to the phases of the moon, the second indicated a change in the appearance of the starry sky, which was necessary for the ancient Greeks to establish the timing of certain field work. But the same problem faced the ancient Romans. Therefore, it is possible that the writers mentioned above noted changes various types calendars - lunar and solar, and in this case it is impossible to reduce their messages “to a common denominator”.

There is no doubt that the ancient Romans, conforming their lives to the cycle of the solar year, could well count the days and months only during the “year of Romulus” of 304 days. The different lengths of their months (from 16 to 39 days) unequivocally indicate the consistency of the beginning of these periods of time with the dates of certain field work or with morning and evening sunrises and sunsets. bright stars and constellations. After all, it is no coincidence, as E. Bickerman notes, that in ancient Rome it was customary to talk about the morning sunrises of one or another star, as we talk about the weather every day! The very art of "reading" the signs "written" in the sky was considered a gift from Prometheus...

The lunar calendar of 355 days was apparently introduced from outside, it was probably of Greek origin. The fact that the words "calends" and "ides" are most likely Greek was recognized by the Roman authors themselves, who wrote about the calendar.

Of course, the Romans could change the structure of the calendar somewhat, in particular, change the number of days in a month (recall that the Greeks counted only the days in reverse order). last decade).

After adopting the lunar calendar, the Romans apparently first used it the simplest option, i.e., a two-year lunar cycle - trietherid. This means that they made the insertion of the 13th month every second year, and this eventually became a tradition for them. Given the superstitious adherence of the Romans to odd numbers, it can be assumed that a simple year consisted of 355 days, an embolismic one of 383 days, i.e. that they inserted an additional month of 28 days and, who knows, maybe even then “hid it "in the last, incomplete decade of February ...

But trietheride - the cycle is still too inaccurate. And therefore: “If, in fact, they, apparently, having learned from the Greeks that 90 days should be inserted into 8 years, distributed these 90 days into 4 years, 22-23 days each, inserting this miserable mensis intercalaris a year later, then, obviously , they have long been accustomed to inserting the 13th month a year later, when they decided to use the octaetheride to bring their time calculation into agreement with the sun, and therefore preferred to cut the intercalated month rather than deviate from the custom of inserting it 1 time in 2 years. Without this assumption, the origin of the wretched Roman octaetheride is inexplicable."

Of course, the Romans (perhaps they were priests) could not help but look for ways to improve the calendar and, in particular, could not help but find out that their Greek neighbors use octaetheride to count time. Probably the Romans decided to do the same, but it seemed unacceptable to them how the Greeks insert embolismic months ...

But, as noted above, as a result, the average four-year duration of the Roman calendar - 366 1/4 days - was a day longer than the true one. Therefore, after the expiration of three octaetherides, the Roman calendar lagged behind the Sun by 24 days, i.e., more than a whole intercalary month. As we already know from the words of Macrobius, the Romans, at least in the last centuries of the republic, used a period of 24 years, containing 8766 (= 465.25 * 24) days:

once every 24 years, Mercedonia insertion (23 days) was not performed. A further error of one day (24-23) could be eliminated after 528 years. Of course, such a calendar did not agree well with both the phases of the moon and the solar year. The most expressive description of this calendar was given by D. Lebedev: “Canceled by Julius Caesar in 45 BC. X. The calendar of the Roman Republic was ... a real chronological monstrum. It was not a lunar or solar calendar, but a pseudolunar and pseudosolar one. With all the flaws lunar year, he did not have any of his virtues, and he stood in exactly the same relation to the solar year.

The foregoing is strengthened by the following circumstance. Starting from 191 BC. e., according to the "law of Mania Acilius Glabrion", the pontiffs, headed by High priest(Pontifex Maximus) received the right to determine the length of additional months ("to assign as many days to the intercalary month as necessary") and to establish the beginning of months and years. At the same time, they very often abused their power, lengthening the years and thereby the terms of their friends in elected office and shortening these terms for enemies or those who refused to pay a bribe. It is known, for example, that in 50 BC. Cicero (106 - 43 BC) did not yet know on February 13 whether an additional month would be inserted in ten days. However, a little earlier, he himself argued that the Greeks' concern about adjusting their calendar to the movement of the Sun was just an eccentricity. As for the Roman calendar of that time, as E. Bickerman notes, it did not coincide with either the movement of the Sun or the phases of the Moon, but “rather completely wandered at random ...”.

And since at the beginning of each year the payment of debts and taxes was carried out, it is not difficult to imagine how firmly, with the help of the calendar, the priests held in their hands the entire economic and political life in ancient rome.

Over time, the calendar became so confused that the harvest festival had to be celebrated in winter. The confusion and chaos that dominated the Roman calendar of that time was best described by the French philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778) with the words: “Roman generals always won, but they never knew what day it happened ...”.

Roman calendar. History has not kept us accurate information about the time of the birth of the Roman calendar. However, it is known that during the time of Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome and the first Roman king, that is, around the middle of the 8th century. BC e., the Romans used a calendar in which the year, according to Censorinus, consisted of only 10 months and contained 304 days. Initially, the months did not have names and were designated by serial numbers. The year began on the first day of the month in which the beginning of spring fell.

Around the end of the 8th century BC e. some months have their own names. So, the first month of the year was named Martius (Martius) in honor of the god of war Mars. The second month of the year was named Aprilis. This word comes from the Latin “aperire”, which means “to open”, as the buds on the trees open this month. The third month was dedicated to the goddess Maya - the mother of the god Hermes (Mercury) - and received the name Mayus (Majus), and the fourth in honor of the goddess Juno (Fig. 8), wife Jupiter, was named Junius. This is how the names of the months of March, April, May and June appeared. The following months continued to retain their numerical designations:

Quintilis (Quintilis) - "fifth"
Sextilis (Sextilis) - "sixth"
September (September) - "seventh"
Oktober (Oktober) - "eighth"
November (November) - "ninth"
December (December) - "tenth"

Martius, Maius, Quintilis and October had 31 days each, and the rest of the months consisted of 30 days. Therefore, the most ancient Roman calendar can be represented in the form of a table. 1, and one of his samples is shown in Fig. 9.

Create a 12-month calendar. In the 7th century BC e., that is, during the time of the second legendary ancient Roman king - Numa Pompilius, the Roman calendar was reformed and two more months were added to the calendar year: the eleventh and twelfth. The first of them was named January (Januarius) - in honor of the two-faced god Janus (Fig. 10), whose one face was turned forward and the other backward: he could simultaneously contemplate the past and foresee the future. The name of the second new month, February, comes from the Latin word "februarius", which means "purification" and is associated with the rite of purification, celebrated annually on February 15th. This month was dedicated to the god of the underworld, Februus.

The history of the distribution of days according to months. The original year of the Roman calendar, as already mentioned, consisted of 304 days. To equalize it with the calendar year of the Greeks, one would have to add 50 days to it, and then there would be 354 days in a year. But the superstitious Romans believed that odd numbers happier than even ones, and therefore they added 51 days. However, from such a number of days it was impossible to make 2 full months. Therefore, from six months, which previously consisted of 30 days, i.e. from April, June, sextilis, September, November and December, one day was taken away. Then the number of days from which new months were formed increased to 57. From this number of days, the months of January were formed, containing 29 days, and February, which received 28 days.

Thus, a year containing 355 days was divided into 12 months with the number of days indicated in Table. 2.

Here, February has only 28 days. This month was doubly "unlucky": it was shorter than the others and contained an even number of days. This is what the Roman calendar looked like for several centuries BC. e. The established length of the year of 355 days almost coincided with the length of the lunar year, which consisted of 12 lunar months but 29.53 days, since 29.53 × 12 == 354.4 days.

Such a coincidence is not accidental. This is due to the fact that the Romans used lunar calendar and the beginning of each month was determined by the first appearance of the lunar crescent after the new moon. The priests ordered the heralds to publicly "call out" for general information the beginning of each new month, as well as the beginning of the year.

Randomness of the Roman calendar. The Roman calendar year is shorter than the tropical year by more than 10 days. Because of this, calendar numbers every year less and less corresponded to natural phenomena. To eliminate this irregularity, an additional month was inserted every two years between February 23 and 24, the so-called mercedonium, which alternately contained either 22 or 23 days. Therefore, the duration of the years alternated as follows:

355 days

377 (355+22) days

355 days

378 (355+23) days.

Thus, each four years consisted of two simple years and two extended ones. The average length of the year in such a four-year period was 366.25 days, that is, it was a whole day longer than in reality. In order to eliminate the discrepancy between calendar numbers and natural phenomena, it was necessary from time to time to resort to increasing or decreasing the duration of additional months.

The right to change the duration of the additional months belonged to the priests (pontiffs), headed by the high priest (Pontifex Maximus). They often abused their power by arbitrarily lengthening or shortening the year. According to Cicero, the priests, using the power granted to them, lengthened the terms of public posts for their friends or for those who bribed them, and shortened the terms for their enemies. The time of paying various taxes and fulfilling other obligations also depended on the arbitrariness of the priest. To all this, confusion began in the celebration of the holidays. So, the harvest festival sometimes had to be celebrated not in summer, but in winter.

We find a very apt description of the state of the Roman calendar of that time in the outstanding French writer and educator of the 18th century. Voltaire, who wrote: "The Roman generals always won, but they never knew what day it happened."

Julius Caesar and the calendar reform. The chaotic nature of the Roman calendar created such great inconvenience that its urgent reform turned into an acute social problem. Such a reform was carried out over two thousand years ago, in 46 BC. e. It was initiated by the Roman statesman and general Julius Caesar. By this time, he had visited Egypt, the center of ancient science and culture, and got acquainted with the peculiarities of the Egyptian calendar. It was this calendar, with the amendment of the Canopic Decree, that Julius Caesar decided to introduce in Rome. He entrusted the creation of a new calendar to a group of Alexandrian astronomers headed by Sosigenes.

Julian calendar of Sosigenes. The essence of the reform was that the calendar was based on the annual movement of the Sun between the stars. The average length of the year was set at 365.25 days, which exactly corresponded to the length of the tropical year known at that time. But so that the beginning of the calendar year always falls on the same date, as well as at the same time of day, they decided to count up to 365 days in each year for three years, and 366 in the fourth. This lastthe year was called a leap year. True, Sosigenes should have known that the Greek astronomer Hipparchus, about 75 years before the reform planned by Julius Caesar, established that the length of the tropical year is not 365.25 days, but somewhat less, but he probably considered this difference insignificant and therefore neglected them.

Sosigene divided the year into 12 months, for which he retained their ancient names: January, February, March, April, May, June, quintilis, sextilis, September, October, November and December. The month of Mercedonia was removed from the calendar. January was adopted for the first month of the year, since already from 153 BC. e. newly elected Roman consuls took office on 1 January. The number of days in months was also ordered (Table 3).

Therefore, all odd months (January, March, May, quintilis, September and November) had 31 days each, and even ones (February, April, June, sextilis, October and December) had 30. Only February simple year contained 29 days.

Before the implementation of the reform, in an effort to achieve the coincidence of all holidays with their corresponding the seasons of the year, the Romans added to the calendar year, in addition to mercedony, which consisted of 23 days, two more intercalary months - one of 33 days, and the other of 34. Both of these months were placed between November and December. Thus, a year of 445 days was formed, known in history under the name of disorderly or "year of confusion." This was the year 46 BC. e.

In gratitude to Julius Caesar for streamlining the calendar and his military merits, the Senate, at the suggestion of the Roman politician Mark Antony, in 44 BC. e. renamed the month quintilis (fifth), in which Caesar was born, to July (Julius)

Roman Emperor Augustus (63 BC-14 AD)

The account according to the new calendar, called the Julian, began on January 1, 45 BC. e. That day was the first new moon after the winter solstice. This is the only moment in the Julian calendar that has a connection with the lunar phases.

August calendar reform. The members of the highest priestly college in Rym - the pontiffs were instructed to monitor the correct calculation of time, however, not understanding the essence of Sosigen's reform, for some reason they inserted leap days not after three years on the fourth, but after two on the third. Due to this error, the calendar account was again confused.

The error was discovered only in 8 BC. e. during the time of Caesar's successor Emperor Augustus, who brought about a new reform and destroyed the accumulated error. By his order, starting from 8 BC. e. and ending with 8 AD. e., skipped the insertion of extra days in leap years.

At the same time, the Senate decided to rename the month sextilis (sixth) to August - in honor of the emperor Augustus, in gratitude for correcting the Julian calendar and the great military victories won by him in this month. But there were only 30 days in the sextilis. The Senate considered it inconvenient to leave fewer days in the month dedicated to Augustus than in the month dedicated to Julius Caesar, especially since the number 30, as an even number, was considered unlucky. Then another day was taken away from February and added to sextiles - August. So February was left with 28 or 29 days. But now it turned out that three months in a row (July, August and September) have 31 days each. This again did not suit the superstitious Romans. Then they decided to move one day of September to October. At the same time, one day of November was moved to December. These innovations completely destroyed the regular alternation of long and short months created by Sosigenes.

Thus, the Julian calendar was gradually improved (Table 4), which remained the only and unchanged in almost all of Europe until the end of the 16th century, and in some countries even until the beginning of the 20th century.

Historians point out that the emperors of Tiberius, Nero and Commodus tried the next three month to call by their names, but their attempts failed.

Counting days in months. The Roman calendar did not know the ordinal count of days in a month. The account was kept by the number of days up to three certain moments within each month: calends, non and id, as shown in Table. 5.

Kalends were called only the first days of the months and fell on a time close to the new moon.

Nons were the 5th of the month (in January, February, April, June, August, September, November and December) or the 7th (in March, May, July and October). They coincided with the beginning of the first quarter of the moon.

Finally, the ides were called the 13th of the month (in those months in which nones fell on the 5th) or the 15th (in those months in which nones fell on the 7th).

Unlike the forward counting we are used to, the Romans counted the days from calends, non and id in the opposite direction. So, if it was necessary to say "January 1", then they said "in the January kalends"; May 9 was called “the 7th day from the May ides”, December 5 was called “on the December nones”, and instead of “June 15”, they said “on the 17th day from the July kalends”, etc. It must be remembered that that the original date itself was always included in the count of days.

The considered examples show that when dating the Romans never used the word "after", but only "from".

In each month of the Roman calendar, there were three more days that had special names. These are the eve, i.e., the days preceding nons, ides, and also kalends of the next month. Therefore, speaking of these days, they said: “on the eve of the Ides of January” (i.e., January 12), “on the eve of the March kalends” (i.e., February 28), etc.

Leap years and the origin of the word "leap year". During calendar reform August, the mistakes made during the incorrect use of the Julian calendar were eliminated, and the main leap year rule was legitimized: every fourth year is a leap year. Therefore, leap years are those whose numbers are divisible by 4 without a remainder. Considering that thousands and hundreds are always divisible by 4, it is enough to establish whether the last two digits of the year are divisible by 4: for example, 1968 is a leap year, since 68 is divisible by 4 without remainder, and 1970 is a simple year, since 70 is not divisible by 4.

The expression "leap year" is associated with the origin of the Julian calendar and the peculiar counting of days used by the ancient Romans. When reforming the calendar, Julius Caesar did not dare to place an additional day in leap year after February 28, and hid it where mercedonium used to be, that is, between February 23 and 24. Therefore, February 24 was repeated twice.

But instead of "February 24," the Romans said "the sixth day before the March calendars." In Latin, the sixth number is called "sextus", and "once again the sixth" is called "bissextus". Therefore, the year containing an extra day in February was called "bissextilis". The Russians, having heard this word from the Byzantine Greeks, who pronounced "b" as "v", turned it into "high-rise". Therefore, it is impossible to write “high”, as is sometimes done, since the word “high” is not Russian and has nothing to do with the word “high”.

Accuracy of the Julian calendar. The Julian year was set at 365 days and 6 hours. But this value is 11 minutes longer than the tropical year. 14 sec. Therefore, for every 128 years, a whole day accumulated. Consequently, the Julian calendar was not very accurate. Another important advantage was its considerable simplicity.

Chronology. In the first centuries of its existence, the dating of events in Rome was carried out by the names of the consuls. In the 1st century n. e. the era “from the creation of the city” began to spread, which was important in the chronology of Roman history.

According to the Roman writer and scholar Mark Terentius Varro (116-27 BC), the estimated date of the founding of Rome corresponds to the third year of the 6th Olympiad (Ol. 6.3). Since the day of the founding of Rome was annually celebrated as a spring holiday, it was possible to establish that the epoch of the Roman calendar, that is, its starting point, is April 21, 753 BC. e. The era "from the founding of Rome" was used by many Western European historians until the end of the 17th century.

Each year is divided into 4 seasons, and each season into 3 months. As a result, every year we live for 12 months and each of them is unique in its own way and is associated for us with various events. Naturally, each month has its own unique name. Do you know where these names came from? In this article, we will just tell you about the origin of the names of the months.

1. January. The first month of the new year got its name in honor of the god Janus - the god of time, doors and gates. Symbolically, this can be deciphered as "The door to the new year."

2. February. February has always been considered the coldest month of the year. No wonder in the days of the Slavs it was called lute ("severe frost"). But the month of February itself is named after the Etruscan god Februus, the god of the underworld.

3. March. The first month of spring was named after the ancient Roman god of war, Mars, father of Romulus. But what about spring and the god of war? and despite the fact that Mars was not only the god of war, but also the god of farmers and rural workers. The ancient Slavs called this month "protalnik" due to the fact that the snow began to melt and the first thawed patches appeared.

4. April. This month was again named after the ancient god, or rather the ancient Greek goddess Aphrodite. In this month, everything blooms, a spring mood appears, therefore, among the Slavs, this month was also called pollen and birch.

5. May. The warmest spring month was again named after the goddess, or rather the ancient Roman goddess Maya, who personified the fertile land and blossoming nature. The Slavs called this month Traven.

6. June. The first summer month was named after the famous ancient Roman goddess Juno, who was the wife of Jupiter, was the goddess of fertility, the mistress of rain and the keeper of marriage. The Slavs called this month izok (“grasshopper”) or worm.

7. July. The hottest summer month was named, surprisingly, not in honor of a god or goddess, but in honor of the well-known Roman emperor. Before that, July was called "Quintilius", which meant "Fifth", and it was the fifth because before a year began not in January, but in March.

8. August. The name of this month also came from the famous Roman emperor Octavian Augustus. Before that, the month was called "Sextilius", which meant (I think everyone understood) "Sixth". As mentioned earlier, the year in the Roman calendar used to begin with March, so August was also the sixth month. The Slavs called this month "Serpen", i.e. time to mow the grass.

9. September. The name came simply from the word "Seven" (Septem - September). I think it's okay to comment here. Everything has been said above. Our ancestors called this month "Frowning" due to the fact that in this month the sky began to frown.

10. October. Everything is similar here. The fantasy is over. The number "Eight" in Latin was pronounced as "Octo", hence October (October), i.e. eighth month. The Slavs also called knead plainly - Listopad.

11. November. No comments. Novem was translated as "Nine", i.e. ninth month (November).

12. December. The first winter month and the last month of the outgoing year! But it was also named after its serial number "Tenth" (Decem - December).

And what do we see? The first 6 months were named after the ancient Gods and Goddesses, two summer months- in honor of the ancient Roman emperors, and the last four did not come up with a name, so they wear serial numbers. But nevertheless, this is a very interesting topic and now you know the origin of the names of all the months.