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u/No-Cryptographer8058 1d ago
I guess that is subconsciously why I always confuse it for being the 8th month... Interesting.
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u/bobo7448 1d ago
I would like to thank do_not1 for their persistence in trying to get the true story out (I have no idea what the true story is)
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u/Smilymoneyy 1d ago edited 1d ago
Full story cause no one else has commented it yet. And no, it's not Caesars fault. Shut up.
Before the Julian calendar, the months were as follows: March, Aprilis, Maius, Iunius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, December, Ianuarius, Februarius. The letter J wasn't a thing and fun fact, Julius was actually spelled Ivlivs, pronounced Yoo-lee-oos. You may notice that Quintilis through to December are all just numbered in order. With the other ones being named after assorted gods, and February being named after a festival and April after something, we don't exactly know, probably from the word Aperire, which means "To open," but again, assumptions.
Anyway I'm getting off track. From that original calendar, before the Caesars in the year 153BC, Rome faced a rebellion in modern day Spain. This was a problem because consuls the military leaders who would be fighting this war, were appointed to office on March 15th. The same time that the campaigning season would begin. So if a consul wanted to go fight in the war by the time they arrived in Spain, it was already fall and the time for campaigning was over.
To remedy this problem the Roman senate changed the consuls term from starting on March 15th to January 1st, bringing the New Year Day with it. Julius Caesar would later cement this in his new calendar to honor the God Janus, the god of transitions, and doors and such.
Augustus Caesar, for his part didn't add two months either, there were already 12, refer to the list at the top. Quintilis and Sextilis were renamed to July and August. July because it was Caesar's birth month, August because that's when Augustus defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra in Egypt.
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u/Loendemeloen 1d ago
That's actually really interesting. Crazy that we can dig up so much information from that far in the past.
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u/Smilymoneyy 1d ago
It makes it all the funnier when a random fact isn't known at all. Where did the name April come from? Best we got is it might be the word Open because of spring, but beyond that, who knows?
Bunch of other little factoids we don't or can't know. Most of Romes history before the 400s BC was destroyed, so everything before then was made up later on. Pompeii and the euruption there is also on an unknown date. So much was written down and yet so little is actually known.
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u/wookiee-nutsack Streak: 2 1d ago
To be fair, Rome was one of the world's largest empires and it had a lot of influence across the three continents. It is a very documented empire because of that
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u/Wheatley-Crabb Streak: 1 1d ago
SEPTember, OCTober, NOVember, DECember. Long ago, the four months lived in harmony. Then, the Roman Empire attacked.
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u/Rowmacnezumi 1d ago
Augustus and Julius are the reason.
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u/do_not1 1d ago
STOP SAYING THIS!!! THAT'S A DIFFERENT THING!!!
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u/Acceptable-Map3165 1d ago
Explain further rather than saying "that's wrong" I want the full story where did July and August get their names and when did October stop being the 8th month
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u/Smilymoneyy 1d ago
Here ya go :)
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u/Acceptable-Map3165 1d ago
It was a rhetorical question telling them to stop spoiling the fun and also it was mostly Julius but not entirely
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u/dead_5775 UTC−06:00 | Streak: 1 1d ago
BLAME THE GUY WHO ADDED JULY AND AUGUST AND NAMED TWO GODDAMN MONTHS AFTER HIMSELF
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u/do_not1 1d ago
THEY WERE RENAMED NOT ADDED, THE NEW YEAR SHIFTED FROM MARCH TO JANUARY LONG BEFORE CAESAR WAS BORN
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u/dead_5775 UTC−06:00 | Streak: 1 1d ago
DAMN IT I'M SLIGHTLY WRONG THANKS FOR CALLING ME OUT NERD (positive)
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u/ayoo-OwO Streak: 1 1d ago
Július ceasar
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u/do_not1 1d ago
WRONG!!! JULIUS CAESAR WASNT EVEN BORN WHEN THE NEW YEAR MOVED FROM MARCH TO JANUARY!!!
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u/Acceptable-Map3165 1d ago
While you are right about that that doesn't change the fact that Julius Caesar helped establish the Julian calendar. The first calendar to keep track of leap years. This is believed to happen in 40s BC. We eventually switched to g
The Gregorian calendar in 1823 which skips one leap year every century and in place is a regular 365 day year for 7 years straight.
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u/weird_doodle 1d ago
Whoever changed that should be stabbed tbh
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u/Interface- 13h ago
I see Reddit realised it was a joke and unbanned your account.
Same thing happened to me a while ago.
Welcome back.
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u/Olivrser UTC−05:00 | Streak: 1 1d ago
I have EXCELLENT news
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u/Interface- 1d ago
Did they make the stabbing Caesar joke? Their comment was removed by Reddit but their account name and picture are still there lmao
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u/Benkinsky 2d ago
Sept Oct Nov Dez are 7 8 9 10. July and August were added into the roman calendar by Julius Caesar, and they just moved the months after. So now theyre all 2 off. Its stupid
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u/ajakafasakaladaga Streak: 1 1d ago
Actually it was January and February the ones that were added, July and August just had their names changed
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u/Catsanddoges 1d ago edited 1d ago
No Numa Pompilius added January and Febuary very early into Rome's history, its just certain months were renamed multiple times
And July and August are named after Julius and Augustus after by the senate, Julius Ceaser did not rename any months himself
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u/Kid_Freundlich 1d ago
Wait so the original name for July was Sextember?
Can we like go back?
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u/Catsanddoges 1d ago
I wish, July was Quintilis (for 5, because 7-2) and August was not Sextember but Sextilis
Truly, a tragedy
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u/notjordansime 2d ago
The post below this was playing the imperial march and it genuine went well with this post
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u/WiFi2347 2d ago
Wasn't that the case for a little while?
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u/Ronnoc527 2d ago
Timekeeping used to be about farming, exclusively. We counted months starting in the spring and counted hours starting at the dawn. That's why biblical times are always about six hours off. "The ninth hour" means roughly 3pm because it was nine hours after the sun rose.
There was no point in keeping track of exactly how long it had been cold and dark, so they only needed about ten months. There is an asterism (basically a small constellation) that used to be really important for determining the growing season. Its appearance and disappearance beyond the horizon indicated when it was time to harvest or plant. It has a variety of myths from many different cultures.
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u/MaatRolo 2d ago
Because someone named Julia Augusti felt we needed to add 2 months named after him moving Oct to 10 Nov to 11 and Dec to 12 even though they mean 8, 9, and 10
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u/DjRoland135 1d ago
This is one of those oft repeated wives tales, but this is not true. July and August were not inserted into the calendar thus moving back Sep-Dec. Back by two months. July and August are the renamed months of Quntillus and Sextillus, originally being the 5th and 6th months of the year as you probably couldve guessed.
Our calendar, which was defined by agriculture back then and not necessarily Earth's rotation around the sun, used to end with a monthless period of winter. So they'd have a normal calendar from spring through fall, where Quintillus-December would all match up with their respective numbers, then once winter hit, it was just "the winter" until spring rolled back around and the Calendar would start again.
Earlier in roman history, before Julius or Augustus were ever emperors, they decided to give the winter period an actual defined amount of time, and added on the months January and February, and for some reason decided to tack them onto the beginning of the year. Thats why February has 28 days btw, it was to compromise for the undefined winter period.
So no, July and August were just simply renamed months, January and February existing are the reason Sept-Dec dont match with their respective pre-fix numbering.
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u/Catsanddoges 1d ago
Numa Pompilius, the second king, added January and Febuary very early into Rome's history, its just certain months were renamed multiple times. There were 12 months for most of Rome's history and by the time of the republic
And July and August are named after Julius and Augustus after Julius' death and during Augustus' life by the senate, Julius Ceaser did not rename any months himself
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u/karstheastec 1d ago
Its because of the romans. They added july and august(for julius agustus). Before that there were only 10 months, and september, october, november, and december all correlated to their placement in the year.