The Calendar

 It’s the new year, time for another round of resolutions that won’t last longer than Super Bowl Sunday; notice how the gyms clear out after that big day. This story isn’t about resolutions, it’s about the calendar. We all pay very close attention to the calendar, whether it be viewed with gratitude that it’s Friday, or viewed with fear because somebody’s period didn’t arrive, or viewed with relief because it did arrive. No, this is about something much more inscrutable. This is about the actual calendar. I’ve always wondered: How did the calendar and the names of its twelve months come about, especially when I’m pronouncing Feb-ru-ary. What’s with the extra r stuck in the middle of the word. I’ve been researching this conundrum for months and here’s what I’ve found. I’m not saying that it’s all titillating, some of it is fairly dry, but it’s interesting, especially if you want to sound like a wisenheimer to your bed companion just before falling asleep. 

The origins are forever rooted in Egyptian and Babylonian mythology but realistically, today’s Gregorian calendar evolved over long periods of time, beginning as far back as the Bronze Age. Noticing that the sun rose each morning no matter what else was going on, Egyptians introduced a solar calendar. “Let’s start the day with each sunrise”. Okay, but the calendar proved unreliable; falling back a quarter each day. Even the peasants noticed that days were uneven; steadily shorter, then longer, and eventually not corresponding to the agricultural seasons at all, so they gave it up and followed their own little growing cycles. 

On the other side of the Mediterranean, fast forward to the traditional Roman calendar, which was attributed to Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome, around 753 BC. Not being especially educated himself, having been raised by wolves, the story goes that Romulus, hanging out at the Baths with his buds, decided that the calendar ought to follow the lunar cycle, albeit the Egyptians originally had that idea locked down as the solar cycle; just hadn’t fine tuned it enough. The lunar cycle worked well enough for the peasants but, again, it fell out of sync and confusion ensued. 

Each time it fell out of sync, more adjustments were made. Romulus’ calendar better aligned with agricultural cycles, beginning in March and ending in December. However there were about 60 days in winter that were unaccounted for until Numa Pompilius, Rome's second mythological king, added January and February at year end to cover the winter gap but, once again, between mythology and real life the cycle still didn’t fully align.

It became apparent that further adjustments were required, not to mention the dwindling number of virgins willing to be sacrificed for the harvest. Various ideas and plans ran rampant. Romans had a superstition about even numbers in months, ergo days were added and subtracted here and there. Plus, the various popes would add days to extend political terms or to interfere with elections. It was all still somewhat hit and miss. Well, it wasn’t as if insurance companies were sending out free calendars with the annual purchase of chariot insurance.

And when things really fell out of whack,  Intercalaris was an extra hiccup month that would be inserted every few years to realign the seasons. Once it had served its purpose, it would be removed, like tonsils and training bras. 

Along came Julius Caesar, of ‘et tu Brute’ fame, who decided that, once and for all, serious redesigning was needed, not that the peasants could read, but for his own edification he wanted a more reliable method of calculating the passage of time, especially since, presciently, those famous Ides of March were just around the corner. Originally the year began in March, but Julius moved the beginning date up to, or down to, January, then added a day to every fourth year of February; still not quite right, but close enough for government work. He only lasted five years on the throne but that was long enough to establish the Julian Calendar.

This movement from March to January somewhat explains, to anyone who took Latin, why Octo, which means eight, is now the tenth month and Nove, which means nine, is now the eleventh month and Dece, which means ten, is now the twelfth month. Somewhere along the way, shouldn’t someone have cleaned that up, but nope, Julius was a big picture guy, so the calendar was still confusing Latin students, scholars and clerics everywhere.

Instead, after Julius was done away with in Act III, Scene I by the aforementioned Brutus, and succeeded by Augustus, who brought about the Pax Romana, Marc Anthony, feeling guilty about a few things, later changed Quintilis to Julius and Sextilis to Augustus. 

Finally getting to it, here’s how all the calendar names came about, mostly according to Julius:

January is named for Janus, the god with two faces, signifying beginnings and endings. 

February was named after the purification god Februus. Virgins and animals were sacrificed to promote fertility. 

Martius, aka March, named after Mars, the god of war and fertility, also symbolized the start of spring; plant growth and more fertility rituals.

Aprilis, from the Latin ‘to open’, and linked to the goddess Venus. The Church helped by loosely setting the pagan date near the ecclesiastical equinox, aka Easter.

Maius, the fertility goddess (notice a lot of fertility and begetting months).

June, for Juno, the queen of the goddesses; the goddess of marriage and a popular month for brides and more begetting.

Quintilis, remember Marc Antony suggested that the name be changed to July to honor Julius Caesar. After his “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” introduction, he went on to say: “My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar”. They were BFFs, even after that little kerfuffle about Cleopatra.

Sextilis was renamed August after Caesar Augustus by the Roman senate to honor him for his Pax Romana; peace in the kingdom. Augustus, in a somewhat picayune manner, then added a day to the month so that his month had the same number of days as July.

September marked the start of autumn with nearly equal days and nights. Summer cotton togas were exchanged for heavier linen or wool togas.

October  Winterfylleth "Winter full moon” refers to the first full moon of winter after the autumn equinox. In Anglo-Saxon tradition, Winterfylleth marked the start of a major seasonal shift, linking to themes of death. As an aside, but notable for the season, William Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 is an ode to aging, mortality and how the awareness of approaching death can deepen love, using metaphors of late autumn, twilight, and a dying fire to show the declining of life and urge his beloved to cherish their time together more intensely.

Novembris is just a cold month, marking the transition from fall to winter with shorter days, heavier coats and preparation for year end. Otherwise, nothing else is happening here; fewest number of recorded deaths or births occur during November (I'm not sure if that factoid is actually correct; the citation was somewhat suspicious, but it seems like it should be accurate).

Decembris's Roman significance centers on Saturnalia, a major winter solstice festival honoring the god Saturn, known for feasting, gift giving and temporary role reversals (later to become known as Boxing Day), heavily influencing later Christmas traditions; a period of festive license and communal joy before winter truly sets in.

So those were the twelve months that were ascribed to Julius and the Julian Calendar. Oh yes, and while I’m thinking of it, a month didn’t loosely correspond to today’s four weeks. Instead, it was broken into three categories starting with Nones on the 7th, then the very famous Ides on the 15th and ended with Kalends on the first. It was more of a three week month, which didn’t really comport with the average lunar cycle; the synodic month, is about 29.53 days, but its actual length varies slightly due to the moon's elliptical orbit and gravitational influences, causing slight shifts from month to month. 

On a somewhat related note, I’ve often wondered if this was how it came to be recorded in the Bible that people lived to be 180 years old. I understood that they lived more simply, ate more natural foods and wandered through deserts for exercise, but that couldn’t be why they lived so long. Now I realize that the months and years were shorter which gave us the illusion that people lived longer. Today a year consists of 12 months and 365 days, but in the mist of Biblical times, a year would last 150 days (15 days x 10 months). Using those calculations, I’d be about 210 years old. It pays to moisturize.

The Julian calendar was accepted until around the 15th century when Pope Gregory XIII noticed that the calendar was off by about ten days. Then again, the peasants still didn’t know how to read so there weren’t too many critics. Sun up, sun down, winter cold, summer hot; that was about it for the peasants. But wait, Luther had been printing up those ecclesiastic periodicals; peasants were learning to read. Who knew what could happen next. The Pope knew the calendar needed reform, even Dante mentioned it a few hundred years earlier so Gregory took up the cudgel and commissioned another astronomer, Aloysius “Luigi” Lilio, to come up with a new calendar. With the help of Christopher Clavius, by 1582, the Gregorian calendar, which we follow today, was instituted. 

One would think that Pope Gregory might honor these guys by suggesting that a month be named after them, but no. Parsimonious, I say, after he gets the entire calendar named after him. I feel bad for Lilio and Clavius. Perhaps they’ll get a new planet, or at least a new moon, named after them one day.