61-1130: August is the eighth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars . Its length is 31 days. In the Southern Hemisphere , August is the seasonal equivalent of February in the Northern Hemisphere . In the Northern Hemisphere, August falls in summer. In the Southern Hemisphere, the month falls during winter. In many European countries, August is the holiday month for most workers. Numerous religious holidays occurred during August in ancient Rome. Certain meteor showers take place in August. The Kappa Cygnids occur in August, with yearly dates varying. The Alpha Capricornids meteor shower occurs as early as July 10 and ends around August 10. The Southern Delta Aquariids occur from mid-July to mid-August, with
122-424: A tropical year . However, since the pontifices were often politicians, and because a Roman magistrate's term of office corresponded with a calendar year, this power was prone to abuse: a pontifex could lengthen a year in which he or one of his political allies was in office, or refuse to lengthen one in which his opponents were in power. Caesar's reform was intended to solve this problem permanently, by creating
183-477: A 48-hour day, and that the intercalated day was the "posterior" half. An inscription from AD 168 states that a.d. V Kal. Mart. was the day after the bissextile day. The 19th century chronologist Ideler argued that Celsus used the term "posterior" in a technical fashion to refer to the earlier of the two days, which requires the inscription to refer to the whole 48-hour day as the bissextile. Some later historians share this view. Others, following Mommsen , take
244-491: A calendar that remained aligned to the sun without any human intervention. This proved useful very soon after the new calendar came into effect. Varro used it in 37 BC to fix calendar dates for the start of the four seasons, which would have been impossible only 8 years earlier. A century later, when Pliny dated the winter solstice to 25 December because the sun entered the 8th degree of Capricorn on that date, this stability had become an ordinary fact of life. Although
305-623: A calendar that would be a combination between the old Roman months, the fixed length of the Egyptian calendar, and the 365 + 1 ⁄ 4 days of Greek astronomy. According to Macrobius, Caesar was assisted in this by a certain Marcus Flavius. Caesar's reform only applied to the Roman calendar . However, in the following decades many of the local civic and provincial calendars of the empire and neighbouring client kingdoms were aligned to
366-517: A corruption of Winnimanoth "pasture-month"), Brachmanoth (" fallow -month"), Heuuimanoth ("hay month"), Aranmanoth (" reaping month"), Witumanoth ("wood month"), Windumemanoth ("vintage month"), Herbistmanoth ("harvest month"), and Heilagmanoth ("holy month"). The calendar month names used in western and northern Europe, in Byzantium, and by the Amazigh (Berbers) , were derived from
427-511: A leap day was inserted in 41 BC to ensure that the first market day of 40 BC did not fall on 1 January, which implies that the old 8-day cycle was not immediately affected by the Julian reform. However, he also reports that in AD ;44, and on some previous occasions, the market day was changed to avoid a conflict with a religious festival. This may indicate that a single nundinal letter
488-518: A regular intercalary month in February. When Caesar decreed the reform, probably shortly after his return from the African campaign in late Quintilis (July), he added 67 more days by inserting two extraordinary intercalary months between November and December. These months are called Intercalaris Prior and Intercalaris Posterior in letters of Cicero written at the time; there is no basis for
549-439: A revised calendar. The Julian calendar has two types of years: a normal year of 365 days and a leap year of 366 days. They follow a simple cycle of three normal years and one leap year, giving an average year that is 365.25 days long. That is more than the actual solar year value of approximately 365.2422 days (the current value, which varies), which means the Julian calendar gains one day every 129 years. In other words,
610-648: Is 1.53 days longer than eight mean Julian years . The length of nineteen years in the cycle of Meton was 6,940 days, six hours longer than the mean Julian year. The mean Julian year was the basis of the 76-year cycle devised by Callippus (a student under Eudoxus) to improve the Metonic cycle. In Persia (Iran) after the reform in the Persian calendar by introduction of the Persian Zoroastrian (i. e. Young Avestan) calendar in 503 BC and afterwards,
671-416: Is a simple cycle of three "normal" years followed by a leap year and this pattern repeats forever without exception. The Julian year is, therefore, on average 365.25 days long. Consequently, the Julian year drifts over time with respect to the tropical (solar) year (365.24217 days). Although Greek astronomers had known, at least since Hipparchus , a century before the Julian reform, that the tropical year
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#1732757233875732-822: The Alexandrian calendar and the Ancient Macedonian calendar ─which had two forms: the Syro-Macedonian and the 'Asian' calendars. Other reformed calendars are known from Cappadocia , Cyprus and the cities of (Roman) Syria and Palestine. Unreformed calendars continued to be used in Gaul (the Coligny calendar ), Greece, Macedon, the Balkans and parts of Palestine, most notably in Judea. The Asian calendar
793-644: The Amazigh people (also known as the Berbers). The Julian calendar was proposed in 46 BC by (and takes its name from) Julius Caesar , as a reform of the earlier Roman calendar , which was largely a lunisolar one. It took effect on 1 January 45 BC , by his edict . Caesar's calendar became the predominant calendar in the Roman Empire and subsequently most of the Western world for more than 1,600 years, until 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII promulgated
854-434: The Julian calendar in 46 BC ( AUC 708), giving it its modern length of 31 days. In 8 BC, the month was renamed in honor of Emperor Augustus . According to a Senatus consultum quoted by Macrobius , he chose this month because it was the time of several of his great triumphs, including the conquest of Egypt. Commonly repeated lore has it that August has 31 days because Augustus wanted his month to match
915-550: The liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. However, Celsus' definition continued to be used for legal purposes. It was incorporated into Justinian's Digest , and in the English Statute De Anno et Die Bissextili of 1236, which was not formally repealed until 1879. The effect of the bissextile day on the nundinal cycle is not discussed in the sources. According to Dio Cassius,
976-514: The Gregorian calendar diverges from astronomical observations by one day in 3,030 years). Although the new calendar was much simpler than the pre-Julian calendar, the pontifices initially added a leap day every three years, instead of every four. There are accounts of this in Solinus, Pliny, Ammianus, Suetonius, and Censorinus. Macrobius gives the following account of the introduction of
1037-464: The Julian calendar by transforming them into calendars with years of 365 days with an extra day intercalated every four years. The reformed calendars typically retained many features of the unreformed calendars. In many cases, the New Year was not on 1 January, the leap day was not on the traditional bissextile day , the old month names were retained, the lengths of the reformed months did not match
1098-406: The Julian calendar gains 3.1 days every 400 years. Gregory's calendar reform modified the Julian rule, to reduce the average length of the calendar year from 365.25 days to 365.2425 days and thus corrected the Julian calendar's drift against the solar year : the Gregorian calendar gains just 0.1 day over 400 years. For any given event during the years from 1901 through 2099, its date according to
1159-417: The Julian calendar is 13 days behind its corresponding Gregorian date (for instance Julian 1 January falls on Gregorian 14 January). Most Catholic countries adopted the new calendar immediately; Protestant countries did so slowly in the course of the following two centuries or so; most Orthodox countries retain the Julian calendar for religious purposes but adopted the Gregorian as their civil calendar in
1220-444: The Julian calendar: Caesar's regulation of the civil year to accord with his revised measurement was proclaimed publicly by edict, and the arrangement might have continued to stand had not the correction itself of the calendar led the priests to introduce a new error of their own; for they proceeded to insert the intercalary day, which represented the four quarter-days, at the beginning of each fourth year instead of at its end, although
1281-542: The Kalends of March'), usually abbreviated as a.d. bis VI Kal. Mart. ; hence it is called in English the bissextile day. The year in which it occurred was termed annus bissextus , in English the bissextile year. There is debate about the exact position of the bissextile day in the early Julian calendar. The earliest direct evidence is a statement of the 2nd century jurist Celsus , who states that there were two-halves of
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#17327572338751342-578: The Latin names. However, in eastern Europe older seasonal month names continued to be used into the 19th century, and in some cases are still in use, in many languages, including: Belarusian , Bulgarian , Croatian , Czech , Finnish, Georgian , Lithuanian , Macedonian , Polish , Romanian , Slovene , Ukrainian . When the Ottoman Empire adopted the Julian calendar, in the form of the Rumi calendar,
1403-636: The Nile delta in October 48 BC and soon became embroiled in the Ptolemaic dynastic war, especially after Cleopatra managed to be "introduced" to him in Alexandria . Caesar imposed a peace, and a banquet was held to celebrate the event. Lucan depicted Caesar talking to a wise man called Acoreus during the feast, stating his intention to create a calendar more perfect than that of Eudoxus (Eudoxus
1464-471: The approximation of 365 + 1 ⁄ 4 days for the tropical year had been known for a long time, ancient solar calendars had used less precise periods, resulting in gradual misalignment of the calendar with the seasons. The octaeteris , a cycle of eight lunar years popularised by Cleostratus (and also commonly attributed to Eudoxus ) which was used in some early Greek calendars, notably in Athens ,
1525-404: The best philosophers and mathematicians of his time to solve the problem of the calendar. Pliny says that Caesar was aided in his reform by the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria who is generally considered the principal designer of the reform. Sosigenes may also have been the author of the astronomical almanac published by Caesar to facilitate the reform. Eventually, it was decided to establish
1586-507: The character of the associated dates to be changed to NP . However, this practice was discontinued around the reign of Claudius , and the practice of characterising days fell into disuse around the end of the first century AD: the Antonine jurist Gaius speaks of dies nefasti as a thing of the past. The old intercalary month was abolished. The new leap day was dated as ante diem bis sextum Kalendas Martias ('the sixth doubled day before
1647-595: The correct Julian calendar. Due to the confusion about this period, we cannot be sure exactly what day (e.g. Julian day number ) any particular Roman date refers to before March of 8 BC, except for those used in Egypt in 24 BC which are secured by astronomy. An inscription has been discovered which orders a new calendar to be used in the Province of Asia to replace the previous Greek lunar calendar. According to one translation Intercalation shall commence on
1708-469: The date in both calendars was the same. The dates in the Alexandrian and Julian calendars are in one-to-one correspondence except for the period from 29 August in the year preceding a Julian leap year to the following 24 February. From a comparison of the astronomical data with the Egyptian and Roman dates, Alexander Jones concluded that the Egyptian astronomers (as opposed to travellers from Rome) used
1769-408: The day after 14 Peritius [a.d. IX Kal. Feb, which would have been 15 Peritius] as it is currently constituted in the third year following promulgation of the decree. Xanthicus shall have 32 days in this intercalary year. This is historically correct. It was decreed by the proconsul that the first day of the year in the new calendar shall be Augustus' birthday, a.d. IX Kal. Oct. Every month begins on
1830-494: The early part of the twentieth century. The ordinary year in the previous Roman calendar consisted of 12 months, for a total of 355 days. In addition, a 27- or 28-day intercalary month , the Mensis Intercalaris , was sometimes inserted between February and March. This intercalary month was formed by inserting 22 or 23 days after the first 23 days of February; the last five days of February, which counted down toward
1891-726: The ephemeral month names of the post-Augustan Roman emperors were the Old High German names introduced by Charlemagne . According to his biographer, Einhard, Charlemagne renamed all of the months agriculturally in German. These names were used until the 15th century, over 700 years after his rule, and continued, with some modifications, to be used as "traditional" month names until the late 18th century. The names (January to December) were: Wintarmanoth ("winter month"), Hornung , Lentzinmanoth ("spring month", " Lent month"), Ostarmanoth (" Easter month"), Wonnemanoth (" joy -month",
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1952-525: The extra days were added immediately before the last day of each month to avoid disturbing the position of the established religious ceremonies relative to the Nones and Ides of the month. The inserted days were all initially characterised as dies fasti ( F – see Roman calendar ). The character of a few festival days was changed. In the early Julio-Claudian period a large number of festivals were decreed to celebrate events of dynastic importance, which caused
2013-528: The first day of the year (1 Farvardin= Nowruz ) slipped against the vernal equinox at the rate of approximately one day every four years. Likewise in the Egyptian calendar , a fixed year of 365 days was in use, drifting by one day against the sun in four years. An unsuccessful attempt to add an extra day every fourth year was made in 238 BC ( Decree of Canopus ). Caesar probably experienced this "wandering" or "vague" calendar in that country. He landed in
2074-503: The harvest festival held that month. The month was originally named Sextilis in Latin because it was the 6th month in the original ten-month Roman calendar under Romulus in 753 BC, with March being the first month of the year. About 700 BC, it became the eighth month when January and February were added to the year before March by King Numa Pompilius , who also gave it 29 days. Julius Caesar added two days when he created
2135-569: The implied proleptic Julian date for the first day of Caesar's reformed calendar and the first Julian date on which the Roman calendar date matches the Julian calendar after the completion of Augustus' reform. By the systems of Scaliger, Ideler and Bünting, the leap years prior to the suspension happen to be BC years that are divisible by 3, just as, after leap year resumption, they are the AD years divisible by 4. Pierre Brind'Amour argued that "only one day
2196-429: The intercalation ought to have been made at the end of each fourth year and before the beginning of the fifth. This error continued for thirty-six years by which time twelve intercalary days had been inserted instead of the number actually due, namely nine. But when this error was at length recognised, it too was corrected, by an order of Augustus, that twelve years should be allowed to pass without an intercalary day, since
2257-413: The kalends of the corresponding Roman month; thus the year began on 23 September, Augustus's birthday. The first step of the reform was to realign the start of the calendar year (1 January) to the tropical year by making 46 BC 445 days long, compensating for the intercalations which had been missed during Caesar's pontificate. This year had already been extended from 355 to 378 days by the insertion of
2318-621: The length of Julius Caesar's July, but this is an invention of the 13th century scholar Johannes de Sacrobosco . Sextilis had 31 days before it was renamed. It was not chosen for its length. August's birthstones are the peridot , sardonyx , and spinel . Its birth flower is the gladiolus or poppy , meaning beauty, strength of character, love, marriage and family. The Western zodiac signs are Leo (until August 22) and Virgo (from August 23 onward). This list does not necessarily imply official status or general observance. (All Baha'i, Islamic, and Jewish observances begin at sundown before
2379-428: The lengths of Julian months, and, even if they did, their first days did not match the first day of the corresponding Julian month. Nevertheless, since the reformed calendars had fixed relationships to each other and to the Julian calendar, the process of converting dates between them became quite straightforward, through the use of conversion tables known as "hemerologia". The three most important of these calendars are
2440-476: The listed date and end at sundown on the date in question unless otherwise noted.) Julian calendar The Julian calendar is a solar calendar of 365 days in every year with an additional leap day every fourth year (without exception). The Julian calendar is still used as a religious calendar in parts of the Eastern Orthodox Church and in parts of Oriental Orthodoxy as well as by
2501-479: The new one as 24 January, a.d. IX Kal. Feb 5 BC in the Julian calendar, which was a leap year. Thus from inception the dates of the reformed Asian calendar are in one-to-one correspondence with the Julian. Another translation of this inscription is Intercalation shall commence on the day after the fourteenth day in the current month of Peritius [a.d. IX Kal. Feb], occurring every third year. Xanthicus shall have 32 days in this intercalary year. This would move
August - Misplaced Pages Continue
2562-405: The ninth day before the kalends. The date of introduction, the day after 14 Peritius, was 1 Dystrus, the next month. The month after that was Xanthicus. Thus Xanthicus began on a.d. IX Kal. Mart., and normally contained 31 days. In leap year, however, it contained an extra "Sebaste day", the Roman leap day, and thus had 32 days. From the lunar nature of the old calendar we can fix the starting date of
2623-519: The peak usually around July 28–29. The Perseids , a major meteor shower, typically takes place between July 17 and August 24, with the peak days varying yearly. The star cluster of Messier 30 is best observed around August. Among the aborigines of the Canary Islands, especially among the Guanches of Tenerife , the month of August received the name of Beñesmer or Beñesmen , which was also
2684-411: The provincial calendars that were aligned to the Julian calendar. Other name changes were proposed but were never implemented. Tiberius rejected a senatorial proposal to rename September as "Tiberius" and October as "Livius", after his mother Livia. Antoninus Pius rejected a senatorial decree renaming September as "Antoninus" and November as "Faustina", after his empress . Much more lasting than
2745-400: The realignment had been completed, in 45 BC. The Julian months were formed by adding ten days to a regular pre-Julian Roman year of 355 days, creating a regular Julian year of 365 days. Two extra days were added to January, Sextilis (August) and December, and one extra day was added to April, June, September, and November. February was not changed in ordinary years, and so continued to be
2806-503: The sequence of twelve such years would account for the three days which, in the course of thirty-six years, had been introduced by the premature actions of the priests. So, according to Macrobius, Some people have had different ideas as to how the leap years went. The above scheme is that of Scaliger (1583) in the table below. He established that the Augustan reform was instituted in 8 BC. The table below shows for each reconstruction
2867-458: The start of March, became the last five days of Intercalaris. The net effect was to add 22 or 23 days to the year, forming an intercalary year of 377 or 378 days. Some say the mensis intercalaris always had 27 days and began on either the first or the second day after the Terminalia (23 February). If managed correctly this system could have allowed the Roman year to stay roughly aligned to
2928-422: The starting date back three years to 8 BC, and from the lunar synchronism back to 26 January (Julian). But since the corresponding Roman date in the inscription is 24 January, this must be according to the incorrect calendar which in 8 BC Augustus had ordered to be corrected by the omission of leap days. As the authors of the previous paper point out, with the correct four-year cycle being used in Egypt and
2989-570: The statement sometimes seen that they were called " Undecimber " and " Duodecimber ", terms that arose in the 18th century over a millennium after the Roman Empire's collapse. Their individual lengths are unknown, as is the position of the Nones and Ides within them. Because 46 BC was the last of a series of irregular years, this extra-long year was, and is, referred to as the "last year of confusion". The new calendar began operation after
3050-653: The three-year cycle abolished in Rome, it is unlikely that Augustus would have ordered the three-year cycle to be introduced in Asia. The Julian reform did not immediately cause the names of any months to be changed. The old intercalary month was abolished and replaced with a single intercalary day at the same point (i.e., five days before the end of February). The Romans later renamed months after Julius Caesar and Augustus, renaming Quintilis as "Iulius" (July) in 44 BC and Sextilis as "Augustus" (August) in 8 BC. Quintilis
3111-410: The traditional 28 days. Thus, the ordinary (i.e., non-leap year) lengths of all of the months were set by the Julian calendar to the same values they still hold today. The Julian reform did not change the method used to account days of the month in the pre-Julian calendar , based on the Kalends, Nones and Ides, nor did it change the positions of these three dates within the months. Macrobius states that
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#17327572338753172-426: The view that Celsus was using the ordinary Latin (and English) meaning of "posterior". A third view is that neither half of the 48-hour "bis sextum" was originally formally designated as intercalated, but that the need to do so arose as the concept of a 48-hour day became obsolete. There is no doubt that the bissextile day eventually became the earlier of the two days for most purposes. In 238 Censorinus stated that it
3233-411: Was an adaptation of the Ancient Macedonian calendar used in the Roman province of Asia and, with minor variations, in nearby cities and provinces. It is known in detail through the survival of decrees promulgating it issued in 8 BC by the proconsul Paullus Fabius Maximus . It renamed the first month Dios as Kaisar , and arranged the months such that each month started on the ninth day before
3294-521: Was assigned to both halves of the 48-hour bissextile day by this time, so that the Regifugium and the market day might fall on the same date but on different days. In any case, the 8-day nundinal cycle began to be displaced by the 7-day week in the first century AD, and dominical letters began to appear alongside nundinal letters in the fasti. The Julian calendar has two types of year: "normal" years of 365 days and "leap" years of 366 days. There
3355-514: Was inserted after the Terminalia (23 February) and was followed by the last five days of February, i.e., a.d. VI, V, IV, III and prid. Kal. Mart. (which would be 24 to 28 February in a common year and the 25th to 29th in a leap year). Hence he regarded the bissextum as the first half of the doubled day. All later writers, including Macrobius about 430, Bede in 725, and other medieval computists (calculators of Easter) followed this rule, as does
3416-467: Was intercalated between 1/1/45 and 1/1/40 (disregarding a momentary 'fiddling' in December of 41) to avoid the nundinum falling on Kal. Ian." Alexander Jones says that the correct Julian calendar was in use in Egypt in 24 BC, implying that the first day of the reform in both Egypt and Rome, 1 January 45 BC , was the Julian date 1 January if 45 BC was a leap year and 2 January if it
3477-476: Was not. This necessitates fourteen leap days up to and including AD 8 if 45 BC was a leap year and thirteen if it was not. In 1999, a papyrus was discovered which gives the dates of astronomical phenomena in 24 BC in both the Egyptian and Roman calendars. From 30 August 26 BC (Julian) , Egypt had two calendars: the old Egyptian in which every year had 365 days and the new Alexandrian in which every fourth year had 366 days. Up to 28 August 22 BC (Julian)
3538-458: Was popularly credited with having determined the length of the year to be 365 + 1 ⁄ 4 days). But the war soon resumed and Caesar was attacked by the Egyptian army for several months until he achieved victory. He then enjoyed a long cruise on the Nile with Cleopatra before leaving the country in June 47 BC. Caesar returned to Rome in 46 BC and, according to Plutarch , called in
3599-693: Was renamed to honour Caesar because it was the month of his birth. According to a senatus consultum quoted by Macrobius, Sextilis was renamed to honour Augustus because several of the most significant events in his rise to power, culminating in the fall of Alexandria, occurred in that month. Other months were renamed by other emperors, but apparently none of the later changes survived their deaths. In AD 37, Caligula renamed September as "Germanicus" after his father ; in AD 65, Nero renamed April as "Neroneus", May as "Claudius" and June as "Germanicus"; and in AD 84 Domitian renamed September as "Germanicus" and October as "Domitianus". Commodus
3660-597: Was slightly shorter than 365.25 days, the calendar did not compensate for this difference. As a result, the calendar year gains about three days every four centuries compared to observed equinox times and the seasons. This discrepancy was largely corrected by the Gregorian reform of 1582. The Gregorian calendar has the same months and month lengths as the Julian calendar, but, in the Gregorian calendar, year numbers evenly divisible by 100 are not leap years, except that those evenly divisible by 400 remain leap years (even then,
3721-496: Was unique in renaming all twelve months after his own adopted names (January to December): "Amazonius", "Invictus", "Felix", "Pius", "Lucius", "Aelius", "Aurelius", "Commodus", "Augustus", "Herculeus", "Romanus", and "Exsuperatorius". The emperor Tacitus is said to have ordered that September, the month of his birth and accession, be renamed after him, but the story is doubtful since he did not become emperor before November 275. Similar honorific month names were implemented in many of
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