158-754: The Roman calendar was the calendar used by the Roman Kingdom and Roman Republic . Although the term is primarily used for Rome's pre-Julian calendars, it is often used inclusively of the Julian calendar established by the reforms of the Dictator Julius Caesar and Emperor Augustus in the late 1st century BC. According to most Roman accounts, their original calendar was established by their legendary first king Romulus . It consisted of ten months , beginning in spring with March and leaving winter as an unassigned span of days before
316-511: A Sabine , devised Rome's system of religious rites, including the manner and timing of sacrifices, the supervision of religious funds, authority over all public and private religious institutions, instruction of the populace in the celestial and funerary rites including appeasing the dead, and expiation of prodigies. Numa is said to have founded Roman religion after dedicating an altar on the Aventine Hill to Jupiter Elicius and consulting
474-415: A court calendar , or a partly or fully chronological list of documents, such as a calendar of wills. Periods in a calendar (such as years and months) are usually, though not necessarily, synchronized with the cycle of the sun or the moon . The most common type of pre-modern calendar was the lunisolar calendar , a lunar calendar that occasionally adds one intercalary month to remain synchronized with
632-526: A reformation of the calendar in 46 BC. This was undertaken by a group of scholars apparently including the Alexandrian Sosigenes and the Roman M. Flavius. Its main lines involved the insertion of ten additional days throughout the calendar and regular intercalation of a single leap day every fourth year to bring the Roman calendar into close agreement with the solar year. The year 46 BC was
790-440: A 24-year cycle, there were only three intercalary years, each of 377 days. This refinement brings the calendar back in line with the seasons and averages the length of the year to 365.25 days over 24 years. The Pontifex Maximus determined when an intercalary month was to be inserted. On average, this happened in alternate years. The system of aligning the year through intercalary months broke down at least twice:
948-570: A business. It is used for budgeting, keeping accounts, and taxation. It is a set of 12 months that may start at any date in a year. The US government's fiscal year starts on 1 October and ends on 30 September. The government of India's fiscal year starts on 1 April and ends on 31 March. Small traditional businesses in India start the fiscal year on Diwali festival and end the day before the next year's Diwali festival. Pontifex maximus The pontifex maximus ( Latin for "supreme pontiff " )
1106-559: A calendar based on the reign of their current sovereign. For example, the year 2006 in Japan is year 18 Heisei, with Heisei being the era name of Emperor Akihito . An astronomical calendar is based on ongoing observation; examples are the religious Islamic calendar and the old religious Jewish calendar in the time of the Second Temple . Such a calendar is also referred to as an observation-based calendar. The advantage of such
1264-437: A calendar is that it is perfectly and perpetually accurate. The disadvantage is that working out when a particular date would occur is difficult. An arithmetic calendar is one that is based on a strict set of rules; an example is the current Jewish calendar . Such a calendar is also referred to as a rule-based calendar. The advantage of such a calendar is the ease of calculating when a particular date occurs. The disadvantage
1422-435: A calendar provides a way to determine when to start planting or harvesting, which days are religious or civil holidays , which days mark the beginning and end of business accounting periods, and which days have legal significance, such as the day taxes are due or a contract expires. Also, a calendar may, by identifying a day, provide other useful information about the day such as its season. Calendars are also used as part of
1580-462: A change in the pattern of office holding. In Republican and Imperial times no more than one family member of a gens was member of the College of Pontiffs , nor did one person hold more than one priesthood in this collegium. However, these rules were loosened in the later part of the 3rd century A.D. In periods of joint rule, at first only one of the emperors bore this title, as it occurred for
1738-417: A complete timekeeping system: date and time of day together specify a moment in time . In the modern world, timekeepers can show time, date, and weekday. Some may also show the lunar phase. The Gregorian calendar is the de facto international standard and is used almost everywhere in the world for civil purposes. The widely used solar aspect is a cycle of leap days in a 400-year cycle designed to keep
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#17327648629311896-400: A decimal division fitting general Roman practice. There were four months of "31" days—March, May, Quintilis, and October—called "full months" ( pleni menses ) and six months of "30" days—April, June, Sextilis, September, November, and December—called "hollow months" ( cavi menses ). These "304" days made up exactly 38 nundinal cycles . The months were kept in alignment with
2054-638: A forgery, though there is no evidence to suggest the title could not have been used by Justinian the Great ( r. 527–565 ) or even by Constantine IV ( r. 654–685 ). Lanfranc is termed primas et pontifex summus by his biographer, Milo Crispin ( P. L. , vol. CL, 10), but from the 11th century it appears to be applied only to the Pope. In the 15th century, when the Renaissance drove new interest in ancient Rome, pontifex maximus became
2212-436: A full calendar system; neither is a system to name the days within a year without a system for identifying the years. The simplest calendar system just counts time periods from a reference date. This applies for the Julian day or Unix Time . Virtually the only possible variation is using a different reference date, in particular, one less distant in the past to make the numbers smaller. Computations in these systems are just
2370-432: A further correction to the calendar method, resulting in the establishment of the modern Gregorian calendar . The original Roman calendar is usually believed to have been an observational lunar calendar whose months ended and began from the new moon . Because a lunar cycle is about 29.5 days long, such months would have varied between 29 and 30 days . Twelve such months would have fallen 10 or 11 days short of
2528-540: A lunar calendar. Other marked bones may also represent lunar calendars. Similarly, Michael Rappenglueck believes that marks on a 15,000-year-old cave painting represent a lunar calendar. A lunisolar calendar is a lunar calendar that compensates by adding an extra month as needed to realign the months with the seasons. Prominent examples of lunisolar calendar are Hindu calendar and Buddhist calendar that are popular in South Asia and Southeast Asia . Another example
2686-412: A matter of addition and subtraction. Other calendars have one (or multiple) larger units of time. Calendars that contain one level of cycles: Calendars with two levels of cycles: Cycles can be synchronized with periodic phenomena: Very commonly a calendar includes more than one type of cycle or has both cyclic and non-cyclic elements. Most calendars incorporate more complex cycles. For example,
2844-451: A pontiff. Marcus Antonius later restored the right of co-optatio to the college, in time for the election of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus . Also under Julius Caesar , the number of pontifices were increased to sixteen, the pontifex maximus included. (Possibly because Caesar's own long absences from Rome necessitated the appointment of a deputy pontiff for those occasions when fifteen needed to be present.) The number of pontifices varied during
3002-631: A rebellion in Hispania. Plutarch believed Numa was responsible for placing January and February first in the calendar; Ovid states January began as the first month and February the last, with its present order owing to the Decemvirs . W. Warde Fowler believed the Roman priests continued to treat January and February as the last months of the calendar throughout the Republican period. According to
3160-728: A regular title of honour for Popes. After the Fall of the Eastern Roman Empire with the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire and the death of the final Roman emperor Constantine XI in 1453, pontifex maximus became part of the papacy 's official titulature of the Bishop of Rome. The name given to the book containing the liturgical rites to be performed by any bishop, the Roman Pontifical , and to
3318-494: A relaxation of the Church's penitential discipline allowing repentant adulterers and fornicators back into the Church, it was in bitter irony: In opposition to this [modesty], could I not have acted the dissembler? I hear that there has even been an edict sent forth, and a peremptory one too. The "Pontifex Maximus," that is the "bishop of bishops," issues an edict: "I remit, to such as have discharged [the requirements of] repentance,
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#17327648629313476-428: A year in which his political opponents held office. Calendar A calendar is a system of organizing days . This is done by giving names to periods of time , typically days, weeks , months and years . A date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a physical record (often paper) of such a system. A calendar can also mean a list of planned events, such as
3634-575: Is a lunar calendar consisting of 12 lunar months in a year of 354 or 355 days. It is used to date events in most of the Muslim countries (concurrently with the Gregorian calendar) and used by Muslims everywhere to determine the proper day on which to celebrate Islamic holy days and festivals. Its epoch is the Hijra (corresponding to AD 622). With an annual drift of 11 or 12 days, the seasonal relation
3792-436: Is an a priori interpretation by late Republican writers. Other traditions existed alongside this one, however. Plutarch 's Parallel Lives recounts that Romulus 's calendar had been solar but adhered to the general principle that the year should last for 360 days. Months were employed secondarily and haphazardly, with some counted as 20 days and others as 35 or more. Plutarch records that while one tradition
3950-628: Is based on the prohibition of intercalation ( nasi' ) by Muhammad , in Islamic tradition dated to a sermon given on 9 Dhu al-Hijjah AH 10 (Julian date: 6 March 632). This resulted in an observation-based lunar calendar that shifts relative to the seasons of the solar year. There have been several modern proposals for reform of the modern calendar, such as the World Calendar , the International Fixed Calendar ,
4108-643: Is clear that, for a variety of reasons, the intercalation necessary for the system's accuracy was not always observed. Astronomical events recorded in Livy show the civil calendar had varied from the solar year by an entire season in 190 BC and was still two months off in 168 BC . By the 191 BC Lex Acilia or before, control of intercalation was given to the pontifex maximus but—as these were often active political leaders like Caesar —political considerations continued to interfere with its regular application. Notably, intercalation had to be personally announced by
4266-470: Is generally known as intercalation . Even if a calendar is solar, but not lunar, the year cannot be divided entirely into months that never vary in length. Cultures may define other units of time, such as the week, for the purpose of scheduling regular activities that do not easily coincide with months or years. Many cultures use different baselines for their calendars' starting years. Historically, several countries have based their calendars on regnal years ,
4424-475: Is imperfect accuracy. Furthermore, even if the calendar is very accurate, its accuracy diminishes slowly over time, owing to changes in Earth's rotation. This limits the lifetime of an accurate arithmetic calendar to a few thousand years. After then, the rules would need to be modified from observations made since the invention of the calendar. The early Roman calendar , created during the reign of Romulus , lumped
4582-550: Is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria ... We authorize the followers of this law to assume the title Catholic Christians ... Various forms of summus pontifex ('highest pontiff' or bishop) were for centuries used not only of the Bishop of Rome but of other bishops also. Hilary of Arles (d. 449) is styled summus pontifex by Eucherius of Lyon ( P. L. , vol. L, col. 773). During Gratian's reign or immediately afterwards
4740-475: Is possible the original calendar was agriculturally based, observational of the seasons and stars rather the moon, with ten months of varying length filling the entire year. If this ever existed, it would have changed to the lunisolar system later credited to Numa during the kingdom or early Republic under the influence of the Etruscans and of Pythagorean Southern Italian Greeks . After the establishment of
4898-691: Is repeated approximately every 33 Islamic years. Various Hindu calendars remain in use in the Indian subcontinent, including the Nepali calendars , Bengali calendar , Malayalam calendar , Tamil calendar , Vikrama Samvat used in Northern India, and Shalivahana calendar in the Deccan states. The Buddhist calendar and the traditional lunisolar calendars of Cambodia , Laos , Myanmar , Sri Lanka and Thailand are also based on an older version of
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5056-425: Is that Numa added two new months to a ten-month calendar, another version is that January and February were originally the last two months of the year and Numa just moved them to the start of the year, so that January (named after a peaceful ruler called Janus ) would come before March (which was named for Mars, the god of war). Rome's 8-day week, the nundinal cycle , was shared with the Etruscans , who used it as
5214-579: Is the Praetor Maximus fasten a nail on the Ides of September." This notice was fastened on the right side of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, next to the chapel of Minerva. This nail is said to have marked the number of the year. It was in accordance with this direction that the consul Horatius dedicated the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus in the year following the expulsion of the kings; from
5372-463: Is the Hebrew calendar, which uses a 19-year cycle . Nearly all calendar systems group consecutive days into "months" and also into "years". In a solar calendar a year approximates Earth's tropical year (that is, the time it takes for a complete cycle of seasons ), traditionally used to facilitate the planning of agricultural activities. In a lunar calendar , the month approximates the cycle of
5530-632: Is used in Iran and some parts of Afghanistan . The Assyrian calendar is in use by the members of the Assyrian community in the Middle East (mainly Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran) and the diaspora. The first year of the calendar is exactly 4750 years prior to the start of the Gregorian calendar. The Ethiopian calendar or Ethiopic calendar is the principal calendar used in Ethiopia and Eritrea , with
5688-537: The Rex Sacrorum and the flamines maiores ( Flamen Dialis , Flamen Martialis , Flamen Quirinalis ). A distinctly religious office under the early Roman Republic , it gradually became politicized until, beginning with Augustus , it was subsumed into the position of emperor in the Roman imperial period . Subsequent emperors were styled pontifex maximus well into Late Antiquity , including Gratian ( r. 367–383 ), but during Gratian's reign
5846-573: The fasti , which designated the religious and legal character of each month's days. The Romans marked each day of such calendars with the letters: Each day was also marked by a letter from A to H to indicate its place within the nundinal cycle of market days. The nundinae were the market days which formed a kind of weekend in Rome , Italy , and some other parts of Roman territory. By Roman inclusive counting , they were reckoned as "ninth days" although they actually occurred every eighth day. Because
6004-399: The pax deorum or "peace of the gods." The immense authority of the sacred college of pontiffs was centered on the pontifex maximus , the other pontifices forming his consilium or advising body. His functions were partly sacrificial or ritualistic, but these were the least important. His real power lay in the administration of ius divinum or divine law; the information collected by
6162-470: The Byzantine Empire in its calendar . Roman dates were counted inclusively forward to the next one of three principal days within each month: These are thought to reflect a prehistoric lunar calendar, with the kalends proclaimed after the sighting of the first sliver of the new crescent moon a day or two after the new moon , the nones occurring on the day of the first-quarter moon , and
6320-556: The Christian Lord's Day . The system was originally used for private worship and astrology but had replaced the nundinal week by the time Constantine made Sunday ( dies Solis ) an official day of rest in AD ;321. The hebdomadal week was also reckoned as a cycle of letters from A to G; these were adapted for Christian use as the dominical letters . The names of Roman months originally functioned as adjectives (e.g.,
6478-482: The Church Fathers . Some of these sources present an extensive list of everyday prohibitions for the pontifex maximus ; it seems difficult to reconcile these lists with evidence that many pontifices maximi were prominent members of society who lived normal lives. The number of Pontifices, elected by co-optatio (i.e. the remaining members nominate their new colleague) for life, was originally five, including
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6636-520: The Hellenistic period they gave rise to the ancient Roman calendar and to various Hindu calendars . Calendars in antiquity were lunisolar , depending on the introduction of intercalary months to align the solar and the lunar years. This was mostly based on observation, but there may have been early attempts to model the pattern of intercalation algorithmically, as evidenced in the fragmentary 2nd-century Coligny calendar . The Roman calendar
6794-775: The High Priest of Israel , including in 2 Maccabees ( 2 Maccabees 4:7 ). The word pontifex , Latin for " pontiff ," was used in ancient Rome to designate a member of the College of Pontiffs . In the Latin Vulgate translation of the New Testament , it is sometimes used to designate the Jewish high priest, as in the Gospel of John and Epistle to the Hebrews ( John 11:49 ; Hebrews 5:1 ). From perhaps as early as
6952-530: The Holocene calendar , and the Hanke–Henry Permanent Calendar . Such ideas are mooted from time to time, but have failed to gain traction because of the loss of continuity and the massive upheaval that implementing them would involve, as well as their effect on cycles of religious activity. A full calendar system has a different calendar date for every day. Thus the week cycle is by itself not
7110-530: The Metonic cycle centuries before its development by Babylonian and Greek astronomers . Plutarch 's account claims he ended the former chaos of the calendar by employing 12 months totalling 354 days—the length of the lunar and Greek years —and a biennial intercalary month of 22 days called Mercedonius . According to Livy's Periochae , the beginning of the consular year changed from March to 1 January in 153 BC to respond to
7268-566: The Oromo calendar also in use in some areas. In neighboring Somalia , the Somali calendar co-exists alongside the Gregorian and Islamic calendars. In Thailand , where the Thai solar calendar is used, the months and days have adopted the western standard, although the years are still based on the traditional Buddhist calendar . A fiscal calendar generally means the accounting year of a government or
7426-519: The Roman Empire . ( Egyptians used the related Alexandrian calendar , which Augustus had adapted from their wandering ancient calendar to maintain its alignment with Rome's.) A few emperors altered the names of the months after themselves or their family, but such changes were abandoned by their successors. Diocletian began the 15-year indiction cycles beginning from the AD 297 census; these became
7584-502: The bissextile ( bis sextum ) leap day every three years due to their inclusive counting. In order to bring the calendar back to its proper place, Augustus was obliged to suspend intercalation for one or two decades. At 365.25 days, the Julian calendar remained slightly longer than the solar year (365.24 days). By the 16th century, the date of Easter had shifted so far away from the vernal equinox that Pope Gregory XIII ordered
7742-551: The inclytus alternative to maximus may have been the rebel augustus Magnus Maximus ( r. 383–388 ). The word pontifex and its derivative " pontiff " became terms used for Christian bishops , including the Bishop of Rome . The title of pontifex maximus was applied to the Roman Catholic Church for the pope as its chief bishop and appears on buildings, monuments and coins of popes of Renaissance and modern times. The official list of titles of
7900-473: The later calendar , there remained several moveable feasts ( feriae conceptivae , "proclaimed festivals") like the Sementivae that were dependent on local conditions. Michels suggests this was the original state of all ancient festivals, marking divisions between the seasons and occasions within them. The Romans themselves usually described their first organized year as one with ten fixed months,
8058-567: The new moon , the first-quarter moon , and the full moon respectively. To a late date, the College of Pontiffs formally proclaimed each of these days on the Capitoline Hill and Roman dating counted down inclusively towards the next such day in any month. (For example, the year-end festival of Terminalia on 23 February was called VII. Kal. Mart. , the 6th day before the March kalends.) Romulus's successor Numa Pompilius
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#17327648629318216-677: The ordinal numbers from 5 to 10 , their position in the calendar when it began around the spring equinox in March. Others are uncertain. February may derive from the Februa festival or its eponymous februa ("purifications, expiatory offerings"), whose name may be either Sabine or preserve an archaic word for sulphuric . April may relate to the Etruscan goddess Apru or the verb aperire ("to open"). May and June may honor Maia and Juno or derive from archaic terms for "senior" and "junior". A few emperors attempted to add themselves to
8374-575: The pontifex maximus , and all the pontifices held their office for life. But the pontifical records of early Rome were most likely destroyed when the city was sacked by the Gauls in 387 BC, and the earliest accounts of Archaic Rome come from the literature of the Republic , most of it from the 1st century BC and later. According to the Augustan -era historian Livy , Numa Pompilius ,
8532-450: The pontifex maximus . The pontifices , moreover, could only come from the old nobility. In effect, this was only members of the patrician class. However, in 300–299 BC the lex Ogulnia opened the office of pontifex maximus to public election and permitted the plebs (plebeians) to be co-opted as priests, so that part of the exclusivity of the title was lost. But it was only in 254 BC that Tiberius Coruncanius became
8690-401: The rising of stars , with only occasional supplementary mention of the civil calendar of their times until the 4th or 5th century author Palladius . Augury , formal Roman ornithomancy , continued to be the focus of a prestigious dedicated priesthood until at least the end of the 4th century. Although most Roman festivals in the historical record were closely tied to the nundinal cycle of
8848-481: The solar year and, without adjustment, such a year would have quickly rotated out of alignment with the seasons in the manner of the Islamic calendar . Given the seasonal aspects of the calendar and its associated religious festivals , this was presumably avoided through some form of arbitrary curtailment or intercalation or through the suspension of the calendar during winter. Against this, Michels has argued that
9006-421: The solar year over the long term. The term calendar is taken from kalendae , the term for the first day of the month in the Roman calendar, related to the verb calare 'to call out', referring to the "calling" of the new moon when it was first seen. Latin calendarium meant 'account book, register' (as accounts were settled and debts were collected on the calends of each month). The Latin term
9164-655: The 3rd century, it has been used to denote a Christian bishop. In the Vulgate , the term summus pontifex was originally applied to the High Priest of Israel , as in the Book of Judith ( Judith 15:19 ), whose place, each in his own diocese , the Christian bishops were regarded as holding, based on an interpretation of the First Epistle of Clement (I Clement 40). The Collegium Pontificum (College of Pontiffs)
9322-530: The 61 days of the winter period them together as simply "winter." Over time, this period became January and February; through further changes over time (including the creation of the Julian calendar ) this calendar became the modern Gregorian calendar, introduced in the 1570s. The primary practical use of a calendar is to identify days: to be informed about or to agree on a future event and to record an event that has happened. Days may be significant for agricultural, civil, religious, or social reasons. For example,
9480-511: The Consuls the ceremony of fastening the nails passed to the Dictators, because they possessed greater authority. As the custom had been subsequently dropped, it was felt to be of sufficient importance to require the appointment of a dictator. L[ucius] Manlius was accordingly nominated but his appointment was due to political rather than religious reasons. He was eager to command in the war with
9638-721: The Empire but is believed to have been regular at fifteen. The office came into its own with the abolition of the monarchy, when most sacral powers previously vested in the King were transferred either to the pontifex maximus or to the Rex Sacrorum , though traditionally a (non-political) dictator was formally mandated by the Senate for one day, to perform a specific rite. According to Livy in his "History of Rome," an ancient instruction written in archaic letters commands: "Let him who
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#17327648629319796-662: The February ides are attested as sometimes counting down towards the Quirinalia (February 17), the Feralia (February 21), or the Terminalia (February 23) rather than the intercalary or March kalends. The third-century writer Censorinus says: When it was thought necessary to add (every two years) an intercalary month of 22 or 23 days , so that the civil year should correspond to the natural (solar) year, this intercalation
9954-574: The Hernici. He caused an anger among the men liable to serve by the inconsiderate way in which he conducted the enrolment. In consequence of the unanimous resistance offered by the tribunes of the plebs, he gave way, either voluntarily or through compulsion, and laid down his dictatorship. Since then, this rite was performed by the Rex Sacrorum. The main duty of the Pontifices was to maintain
10112-739: The Hindu calendar. Most of the Hindu calendars are inherited from a system first enunciated in Vedanga Jyotisha of Lagadha, standardized in the Sūrya Siddhānta and subsequently reformed by astronomers such as Āryabhaṭa (AD 499), Varāhamihira (6th century) and Bhāskara II (12th century). The Hebrew calendar is used by Jews worldwide for religious and cultural affairs, also influences civil matters in Israel (such as national holidays ) and can be used business dealings (such as for
10270-565: The January kalends occur in the January month) before being treated as substantive nouns in their own right (e.g., the kalends of January occur in January). Some of their etymologies are well-established: January and March honor the gods Janus and Mars ; July and August honor Julius Caesar and his successor, the emperor Augustus ; and the months Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December are archaic adjectives formed from
10428-407: The Old Calendar) and the Revised Julian Calendar (often called the New Calendar). The Revised Julian Calendar is nearly the same as the Gregorian calendar, with the addition that years divisible by 100 are not leap years , except that years with remainders of 200 or 600 when divided by 900 remain leap years, e.g. 2000 and 2400 as in the Gregorian calendar. The Islamic calendar or Hijri calendar
10586-450: The Pope given in the Annuario Pontificio includes "Supreme Pontiff of the whole Church" (in Latin, Summus Pontifex Ecclesiae Universalis ) as the fourth title, the first being "Bishop of Rome." The title pontifex maximus appears in inscriptions on buildings and on coins and medallions. In December 2012, Pope Benedict XVI adopted @pontifex as his X (formerly known as Twitter) handle , prompting users to pose questions with
10744-428: The Regia. Unless the pontifex maximus was also a magistrate, he was not allowed to wear the toga praetexta , i.e. toga with the purple border. In artistic representations, he can be recognized by his holding an iron knife ( secespita ) or the patera , and the distinctive robes or toga with part of the mantle covering the head ( capite velato ) , in keeping with Roman practice. In practice, particularly during
10902-422: The Republic , years began to be dated by consulships but the calendar and its rituals were otherwise very conservatively maintained until the Late Republic . Even when the nundinal cycles had completely departed from correlation with the moon's phases, a pontiff was obliged to meet the sacred king , to claim that he had observed the new moon, and to offer a sacrifice to Juno to solemnize each kalends. It
11060-422: The Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, and generally include the liturgical seasons of Advent , Christmas , Ordinary Time (Time after Epiphany ), Lent , Easter , and Ordinary Time (Time after Pentecost ). Some Christian calendars do not include Ordinary Time and every day falls into a denominated season. The Eastern Orthodox Church employs the use of 2 liturgical calendars; the Julian calendar (often called
11218-407: The Roman calendar contained remnants of a very ancient pre-Etruscan 10-month solar year. The first recorded physical calendars, dependent on the development of writing in the Ancient Near East , are the Bronze Age Egyptian and Sumerian calendars. During the Vedic period India developed a sophisticated timekeeping methodology and calendars for Vedic rituals. According to Yukio Ohashi,
11376-464: The Roman calendar were generally credited by the Romans to Numa Pompilius , Romulus 's successor and the second of Rome's seven kings , as were the two new months of the calendar. Most sources thought he had established intercalation with the rest of his calendar. Although Livy 's Numa instituted a lunar calendar, the author claimed the king had instituted a 19-year system of intercalation equivalent to
11534-416: The Roman superstition about even numbers, an additional day was added to January to make the calendar 355 days long. Auspiciously, each month now had an odd number of days: Martius (March), Maius (May), Quinctilis (July), and October continued to have 31; the other months, 29, except for February, which had 28 days. Considered unlucky, it was devoted to rites of purification (februa) and expiation appropriate to
11692-528: The Romans to date their years began in 509 BC. Gnaeus Flavius , a secretary ( scriba ) to censor App. Claudius Caecus , introduced a series of reforms in 304 BC. Their exact nature is uncertain, although he is thought to have begun the custom of publishing the calendar in advance of the month, depriving the priests of some of their power but allowing for a more consistent calendar for official business. Julius Caesar , following his victory in his civil war and in his role as pontifex maximus , ordered
11850-420: The Terminalia, where they placed the intercalary month". This appears to have been generally correct. In 170 BC, Intercalaris began on the second day after February 23 and, in 167 BC, it began on the day after February 23. Varro , writing in the first century BC, says "the twelfth month was February, and when intercalations take place the five last days of this month are removed." Since all
12008-1033: The Vedanga calendar in ancient India was based on astronomical studies during the Vedic Period and was not derived from other cultures. A large number of calendar systems in the Ancient Near East were based on the Babylonian calendar dating from the Iron Age , among them the calendar system of the Persian Empire, which in turn gave rise to the Zoroastrian calendar and the Hebrew calendar . A great number of Hellenic calendars were developed in Classical Greece , and during
12166-489: The annual flooding of the Nile River. They built a calendar with 365 days, divided into 12 months of 30 days each, with 5 extra days at the end of the year. However, they did not include the extra bit of time in each year, and this caused their calendar to slowly become inaccurate. Not all calendars use the solar year as a unit. A lunar calendar is one in which days are numbered within each lunar phase cycle. Because
12324-550: The bad luck that followed a nundinae on the nones of a month or, later, on the first day of January . Intercalation was supposedly used to avoid such coincidences, even after the Julian reform of the calendar. The 7-day week began to be observed in Italy in the early imperial period, as practitioners and converts to eastern religions introduced Hellenistic and Babylonian astrology , the Jewish Saturday sabbath , and
12482-577: The bishop of bishops — issues an edict: "I remit, to such as have discharged (the requirements of) repentance, the sins both of adultery and of fornication." O edict, on which cannot be inscribed, Good deed! While the title pontifex maximus has for some centuries been used in inscriptions referring to the Popes, it has never been included in the official list of papal titles published in the Annuario Pontificio . The official list of titles of
12640-472: The calendar after Augustus, but without enduring success. In classical Latin, the days of each month were usually reckoned as: Dates after the ides count forward to the kalends of the next month and are expressed as such. For example, March 19 was expressed as "the 14th day before the April Kalends" ( a.d. XIV Kal. Apr. ), without a mention of March itself. The day after a kalends, nones, or ides
12798-399: The calendar in the second year of the four-year cycle and 23 days in the fourth. This produced an excess of four days over the four years in line with the normal one day excess over one year. The method of correction was to truncate February by five days and follow it with the intercalary month which thus commenced (normally) on the day after February 23 and had either 27 or 28 days. February 23
12956-549: The calendar to become out of step with the seasons; for example, Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon in January 49 BC actually took place in mid-autumn. Under his authority as pontifex maximus , Julius Caesar introduced the calendar reform that created the entirely solar Julian calendar , with a fault of less than a day per century. This calendar remained the standard calendar of the Roman Empire until its collapse, and
13114-515: The calendar to the seasons. 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. A Pontifex with other political responsibilities, especially away from Rome, might also have been simply distracted from his calendrical duties as chief priest. This caused
13272-454: The calendar until it seemed things were restored to their proper place. Licinius Macer 's lost history apparently similarly stated that even the earliest Roman calendar employed intercalation. Later Roman writers usually credited this calendar to Romulus , their legendary first king and culture hero , although this was common with other practices and traditions whose origin had been lost to them. Censorinus considered him to have borrowed
13430-427: The change. This created confusion with regard to certain anniversaries. For instance, Augustus 's birthday on the 23rd day of September was a.d. VIII Kal. Oct. in the old calendar but a.d. IX Kal. Oct. under the new system. The ambiguity caused honorary festivals to be held on either or both dates. The Republican calendar only had 355 days, which meant that it would quickly unsynchronize from
13588-574: The chief pontiff in Rome so, when his war in Gaul and civil war against Pompey kept Caesar out of the city for years at a time, the calendar was repeatedly left unadjusted. Victorious in civil war, Caesar reformed the calendar in 46 BC, coincidentally making the year of his third consulship last for 446 days. This new Julian calendar was an entirely solar one , influenced by Egypt's . In order to avoid interfering with Rome's religious ceremonies,
13746-439: The city, could vote. The law's promulgator, L[ucius] Domitius Ahenobarbus, was shortly afterwards elected pontifex maximus after the death of the incumbent Metellus Dalmaticus : Something of a personal revenge because, the previous year, he had expected to be co-opted as a pontiff to replace his late father, but the pontifical college had appointed another candidate in his place. The office's next holder, Q[uintus] Mucius Scaevola ,
13904-523: The college was established by Sabine king Numa Pompilius and the institution is Italic: the expressions pontis and pomperias found in the Iguvine Tablets may denote a group or division of five or by five. The pontifex would thence be a member of a sacrificial college known as pomperia (Latin quinio ). The Roman title pontifex maximus was rendered in Greek inscriptions and literature of
14062-716: The dating of cheques ). Followers of the Baháʼí Faith use the Baháʼí calendar . The Baháʼí Calendar, also known as the Badi Calendar was first established by the Bab in the Kitab-i-Asma. The Baháʼí Calendar is also purely a solar calendar and comprises 19 months each having nineteen days. The Chinese , Hebrew , Hindu , and Julian calendars are widely used for religious and social purposes. The Iranian (Persian) calendar
14220-489: The days after the Ides of Intercalaris were counted down to the beginning of March, the month had either 27 days (making 377 for the year) or 28 (making 378 for the year). There is another theory which says that in intercalary years February had 23 or 24 days and Intercalaris had 27. No date is offered for the Regifugium in 378-day years. Macrobius describes a further refinement whereby, in one 8-year period within
14378-418: The duration of the year aligned with the solar year . There is a lunar aspect which approximates the position of the moon during the year, and is used in the calculation of the date of Easter . Each Gregorian year has either 365 or 366 days (the leap day being inserted as 29 February), amounting to an average Gregorian year of 365.2425 days (compared to a solar year of 365.2422 days). The Gregorian calendar
14536-748: The early calendars used by Rome and its neighbors were more probably observational of seasonal markers in nature (the leafing of trees), animal behavior (the migration of birds), and the agricultural cycle (the ripening of grain ) combined with observation of stars in the night sky . She considers that this more sensibly accounts for later legends of Romulus 's decimal year and the great irregularity in Italian month lengths recorded in Censorinus . Roman works on agriculture including those of Cato , Varro , Vergil , Columella , and Pliny invariably date their practices based on suitable conditions or upon
14694-418: The first 16 years of a 24-year cycle. In the last 8 years, the intercalation took place with the month of Mercedonius only 27 days, except the last intercalation which did not happen. Hence, there would be a typical common year followed by a leap year of 377 days for the next 6 years and the remaining 2 years would sequentially be common years. The result of this twenty-four-year pattern was of great precision for
14852-408: The first plebeian pontifex maximus . The lex Ogulnia also increased the number of pontiffs to nine (the pontifex maximus included). In 104 BC the lex Domitia prescribed that the election of all pontiffs would henceforward be voted by the comitia tributa (an assembly of the people divided into voting districts); by the same law only 17 tribes, chosen by lot from the 35 tribes of
15010-469: The first time during the joint reign of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus (161–169 AD), when only Marcus Aurelius was pontifex maximus , but later two pontifices maximi could serve together, as Pupienus and Balbinus did in 238 AD—a situation unthinkable in Republican times. When Tertullian , a Montanist , furiously applied the term to a bishop with whom he was at odds (either Pope Callixtus I or Agrippinus of Carthage), ca. 220, over
15168-477: The first time was during and after the Second Punic War . It led to the reform of the 191 BC Acilian Law on Intercalation , the details of which are unclear, but it appears to have successfully regulated intercalation for over a century. The second breakdown was in the middle of the first century BC and may have been related to the increasingly chaotic and adversarial nature of Roman politics at
15326-529: The five remaining days beginning with the Regifugium on the 24th ( a.d. VI Kal. Mart. ) formed the second part; and the intercalary month Mercedonius was inserted between them. In such years, the days between the ides and the Regifugium were counted down to either the Intercalary Kalends or to the Terminalia. The intercalary month counted down to nones and ides on its 5th and 13th day in
15484-458: The form of liturgy known as Pontifical High Mass witness to the continued use of pontifex to refer to bishops in general. Tertullian ( c. 155 – c. 220 AD ), in his work "De Pudicitia" (On Modesty), criticized Pope Callixtus I for allowing repentant adulterers and fornicators back into the Church, even if they were repeat offenders, sarcastically referring to him as "Pontifex Maximus." The Pontifex Maximus — that is,
15642-584: The gods by means of augury . Numa wrote down and sealed these religious instructions, and gave them to the first pontifex maximus , Numa Marcius . In the Roman Republic , the pontifex maximus was the highest office in the state religion of ancient Rome and directed the College of Pontiffs . According to Livy, after the overthrow of the monarchy, the Romans created the priesthood of the rex sacrorum , or "king of sacred rites," to carry out certain religious duties and rituals previously performed by
15800-490: The ides on the day of the full moon . The kalends of each month were sacred to Juno and the ides to Jupiter . The day before each was known as its eve ( pridie ); the day after each ( postridie ) was considered particularly unlucky. The days of the month were expressed in early Latin using the ablative of time , denoting points in time, in the contracted form "the 6th December Kalends" ( VI Kalendis Decembribus ). In classical Latin, this use continued for
15958-460: The interval between two such successive events may be allowed to vary slightly during the year, or it may be averaged into a mean solar day . Other types of calendar may also use a solar day. The Egyptians appear to have been the first to develop a solar calendar, using as a fixed point the annual sunrise reappearance of the Dog Star— Sirius , or Sothis—in the eastern sky, which coincided with
16116-770: The king. The rex sacrorum was explicitly deprived of military and political power, but the pontifices were permitted to hold both magistracies and military commands. The official residence of the pontifex maximus was the Domus Publica ("State House") which stood between the House of the Vestal Virgins and the Via Sacra , close to the Regia , in the Roman Forum . His religious duties were carried out from
16274-678: The last month of the year. (Although these legendary beginnings attest to the venerability of the lunar calendar of the Roman Republic, its historical origin probably was the publication of a revised calendar by the Decemviri in 450 BC as part of the Twelve Tables , Rome's first code of law.) The inequality between the lunar year of 355 days and the tropical year of 365.25 days led to a shortfall over four years of (10.25 × 4) = 41 days. Theoretically, 22 days were interpolated into
16432-399: The last of the old system and included three intercalary months, the first inserted in February and two more— Intercalaris Prior and Posterior —before the kalends of December. After Caesar's assassination , Mark Antony had Caesar's birth month Quintilis renamed July ( Iulius ) in his honor. After Antony's defeat at Actium , Augustus assumed control of Rome and, finding
16590-702: The late Republic, the office of pontifex maximus was generally held by a member of a politically prominent family. It was a coveted position mainly for the great prestige it conferred on the holder. Julius Caesar became pontifex in 73 BC and pontifex maximus in 63 BC. The major Republican source on the pontiffs would have been the theological writings of Varro , which survive only in fragments preserved by later authors such as Aulus Gellius and Nonius Marcellus . Other sources are Cicero , Livy , Dionysius of Halicarnassus , Valerius Maximus , Plutarch 's Life of Numa Pompilius , Festus 's summaries of Verrius Flaccus , and in later writers, including several of
16748-471: The later writers Censorinus and Macrobius, to correct the mismatch of the correspondence between months and seasons due to the excess of one day of the Roman average year over the tropical year, the insertion of the intercalary month was modified according to the scheme: common year (355 days), leap year with 23-day February followed by 27-day Mercedonius (377 days), common year, leap year with 23-day February followed by 28-day Mercedonius (378 days), and so on for
16906-439: The length of the lunar month is not an even fraction of the length of the tropical year , a purely lunar calendar quickly drifts against the seasons, which do not vary much near the equator. It does, however, stay constant with respect to other phenomena, notably tides . An example is the Islamic calendar . Alexander Marshack, in a controversial reading, believed that marks on a bone baton ( c. 25,000 BC ) represented
17064-540: The major bridges were over the Tiber , the sacred river (and a deity): only prestigious authorities with sacral functions could be allowed to "disturb" it with mechanical additions. However, it was always understood in its symbolic sense as well: the pontifices were the ones who smoothed the "bridge" between gods and men. The interpretation of the word pontifex as "bridge-builder" was that of Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Marcus Terentius Varro . Plutarch pointed out that
17222-551: The manner of the other short months. The remaining days of the month counted down towards the March Kalends, so that the end of Mercedonius and the second part of February were indistinguishable to the Romans, one ending on a.d. VII Kal. Mart. and the other picking up at a.d. VI Kal. Mart. and bearing the normal festivals of such dates. Apparently because of the confusion of these changes or uncertainty as to whether an intercalary month would be ordered, dates after
17380-424: The moon phase. Consecutive days may be grouped into other periods such as the week. Because the number of days in the tropical year is not a whole number, a solar calendar must have a different number of days in different years. This may be handled, for example, by adding an extra day in leap years . The same applies to months in a lunar calendar and also the number of months in a year in a lunisolar calendar. This
17538-496: The moon, however, by counting the new moon as the last day of the first month and simultaneously the first day of the next month. The system is usually said to have left the remaining two to three months of the year as an unorganized "winter", since they were irrelevant to the farming cycle. Macrobius claims the 10-month calendar was fixed and allowed to shift until the summer months were completely misplaced, at which time additional days belonging to no month were simply inserted into
17696-477: The next holder of the office – the only truly unelected pontifex maximus in history, since even the other pontiffs did not get a vote in the matter. In 63 BC, the law of Sulla was abolished by the tribune Titus Labienus , and a modified form of the lex Domitia was reinstated providing for election by comitia tributa once again: Gaius Julius Caesar followed Ahenobarbus's precedent by being elected by public vote, although Caesar at least had previously been
17854-430: The next year. These months each had 30 or 31 days and ran for 38 nundinal cycles , each forming a kind of eight-day week —nine days counted inclusively in the Roman manner —and ending with religious rituals and a public market . This fixed calendar bore traces of its origin as an observational lunar one . In particular, the most important days of each month—its kalends , nones , and ides —seem to have derived from
18012-447: The object of another preposition, or simply originated in a mistaken agreement of dies with the preposition ante once it moved to the beginning of the expression. In late Latin , this idiom was sometimes abandoned in favor of again using the ablative of time. The kalends were the day for payment of debts and the account books ( kalendaria ) kept for them gave English its word calendar . The public Roman calendars were
18170-454: The observation of religious feast days. While the Gregorian calendar is itself historically motivated to the calculation of the Easter date , it is now in worldwide secular use as the de facto standard. Alongside the use of the Gregorian calendar for secular matters, there remain several calendars in use for religious purposes. Western Christian liturgical calendars are based on the cycle of
18328-587: The phrase pontifex maximus – which had unwelcome associations with traditional Roman religion during the Christianization of the Roman Empire – was replaced in imperial titulature with the phrase: pontifex inclytus . The first to adopt the inclytus alternative to maximus may have been the rebel augustus and devout Christian close to bishop Martin of Tours , Magnus Maximus ( r. 383–388 ), who killed Gratian in August 383. This practice
18486-475: The phrase was replaced in imperial titulature with the Latin phrase: pontifex inclytus ("honourable pontiff"), an example followed by Gratian's junior co-emperor Theodosius the Great and which was used by emperors thereafter including the co - augusti Valentinian III ( r. 425–455 ), Marcian ( r. 450–457 ) and the augustus Anastasius Dicorus ( r. 491–518 ). The first to adopt
18644-410: The pontifices related to the Roman religious tradition was bound in a corpus which summarized dogma and other concepts. The chief departments of jus divinum may be described as follows: The pontifices had many relevant and prestigious functions such as being in charge of caring for the state archives, the keeping the official minutes of elected magistrates, the list of magistrates, and they kept
18802-457: The pope given in the Annuario Pontificio includes "supreme pontiff" ( Latin : summus pontifex ) as the fourth title, the first being "bishop of Rome". The etymology of "pontifex" is uncertain, but the word has been used since Roman times. The word appears to consist of the Latin word for "bridge" and the suffix for "maker". However, there is a possibility that this definition is a folk etymology for an Etruscan term, since Roman religion
18960-444: The priests had (owing to their inclusive counting) been intercalating every third year instead of every fourth, suspended the addition of leap days to the calendar for one or two decades until its proper position had been restored. See Julian calendar: Leap year error . In 8 BC, the plebiscite Lex Pacuvia de Mense Augusto renamed Sextilis August ( Augustus ) in his honor. In large part, this calendar continued unchanged under
19118-475: The records of their own decisions ( commentarii ) and of the chief events of each year, the so-called "public diaries", the Annales maximi . The pontifex maximus was also subject to several taboos . Among them was the prohibition to leave Italy. Plutarch described Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio (141–132 BC) as the first to leave Italy, after being forced by the Senate to do so, and thus break
19276-420: The reform distributed the unassigned days among the months (towards their ends) and did not adjust any nones or ides, even in months which came to have 31 days. The Julian calendar was designed to have a single leap day every fourth year by repeating February 24 (a doubled VI. Kal. Mart. or ante diem bis sextum Kalendas Martias ) but, following Caesar's assassination , the priests mistakenly added
19434-460: The republican and Julian years were not evenly divisible into eight-day periods, Roman calendars included a column giving every day of the year a nundinal letter from A to H marking its place in the cycle of market days. Each year, the letter used for the markets would shift 2–5 letters along the cycle. As a day when the city swelled with rural plebeians , they were overseen by the aediles and took on an important role in Roman legislation, which
19592-463: The required format for official dating under Justinian . Constantine formally established the 7-day week by making Sunday an official holiday in 321. Consular dating became obsolete following the abandonment of appointing nonimperial consuls in AD 541. The Roman method of numbering the days of the month never became widespread in the Hellenized eastern provinces and was eventually abandoned by
19750-440: The sacred taboo. Publius Licinius Crassus Dives Mucianus (132–130 BC) was the first to leave Italy voluntarily. Afterwards it became common and no longer against the law for the pontifex maximus to leave Italy. Among the most notable of those who did was Julius Caesar (63–44 BC). The Pontifices were in charge of the lunisolar Roman calendar and determined when intercalary months needed to be added to synchronize
19908-611: The schedule of royal audiences. It was presumably a part of the early calendar and was credited in Roman legend variously to Romulus and Servius Tullius . The attested calendar of the Roman Republic was quite different. It had twelve months, already including January and February during the winter. It also followed Greek calendars in assuming a lunar cycle of 29.5 days and a solar year of 12.5 synodic months (368.75 days), which align every fourth year after two additions of an intercalary month ( mensis intercalaris ), sometimes known as Mercedonius . According to Livy, it
20066-590: The sins both of adultery and of fornication." O edict, on which cannot be inscribed, "Good deed!"... Far, far from Christ's betrothed be such a proclamation! In the Crisis of the Third Century , emperors continued to assume the title pontifex maximus . The early Christian emperors, including Constantine the Great ( r. 306–337 ) and the rest of the Constantinian dynasty , continued to use it; it
20224-460: The solar year, causing, for example, agricultural festivals to occur out of season. The Roman solution to this problem was to periodically lengthen the calendar by adding extra days within February. February was broken into two parts, each with an odd number of days. The first part ended with the Terminalia on the 23rd ( a.d. VII Kal. Mart. ), which was considered the end of the religious year;
20382-433: The start of the mensis intercalaris ) for the purpose of avoiding a clash between a particular festival and a particular day of the week (see Hebrew calendar § Rosh Hashanah postponement rules for another example). The Roman superstitions concerning the numbering and order of the months seem to have arisen from Pythagorean superstitions concerning the luckiness of odd numbers . These Pythagorean-based changes to
20540-423: The system from Alba Longa , his supposed birthplace. Some scholars doubt the existence of this calendar at all, as it is only attested in late Republican and Imperial sources and supported only by the misplaced names of the months from September to December. Rüpke also finds the coincidence of the length of the supposed "Romulan" year with the length of the first ten months of the Julian calendar to indicate that it
20698-403: The term existed before there were any bridges in Rome and derived the word from Old Latin pontis [ sic ] meaning a powerful or absolute master, while others derived it from potis facere in the sense of "able to sacrifice". The last derivation is mentioned also by Varro, who rejected it, but it was the view of pontifex maximus Quintus Scaevola. Others have held that the word
20856-527: The three principal days of the month but other days were idiomatically expressed in the accusative case , which usually expressed a duration of time , and took the form "6th day before the December Kalends" ( ante diem VI Kalendas Decembres ). This anomaly may have followed the treatment of days in Greek , reflecting the increasing use of such date phrases as an absolute phrase able to function as
21014-553: The time as Koinē Greek : ἀρχιερεύς , romanized: archiereús , lit. 'Archpriest' or by a more literal translation and order of words as Koinē Greek : ἀρχιερεὺς μέγιστος , romanized: archireús mégistos , lit. 'greatest archpriest'. The term ἀρχιερεύς is used in the Greek Septuagint text of the Old Testament and in the New Testament to refer to
21172-401: The time. The position of Pontifex Maximus was not a full-time job; it was held by a member of the Roman elite, who would almost invariably be involved in the machinations of Roman politics. Because the term of office of elected Roman magistrates was defined in terms of a Roman calendar year, a Pontifex Maximus had an incentive to lengthen a year in which he or his allies were in power or shorten
21330-498: The time: 365.25 days, as shown by the following calculation: 355 ⋅ 13 + 377 ⋅ 7 + 378 ⋅ 4 24 = 8766 24 = 365.25 {\displaystyle {\frac {355\cdot 13+377\cdot 7+378\cdot 4}{24}}={\frac {8766}{24}}=365.25} The consuls' terms of office were not always a modern calendar year, but ordinary consuls were elected or appointed annually. The traditional list of Roman consuls used by
21488-414: The vast majority of them track years, months, weeks and days. The seven-day week is practically universal, though its use varies. It has run uninterrupted for millennia. Solar calendars assign a date to each solar day . A day may consist of the period between sunrise and sunset , with a following period of night , or it may be a period between successive events such as two sunsets. The length of
21646-408: The whole empire. By it, Theodosius I established Nicene Christianity as the state church of the Roman Empire . The Latin text refers to the bishop of Rome, Damasus , as a pontifex , and the bishop of Alexandria, Peter , as an episcopus : ... the profession of that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter, as it has been preserved by faithful tradition and which
21804-399: Was Greece, in 1923. The calendar epoch used by the Gregorian calendar is inherited from the medieval convention established by Dionysius Exiguus and associated with the Julian calendar. The year number is variously given as AD (for Anno Domini ) or CE (for Common Era or Christian Era ). The most important use of pre-modern calendars is keeping track of the liturgical year and
21962-415: Was Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome (715–673 BC), who divided the year into twelve lunar months (History of Rome, I.19). Fifty days, says Censorinus, were added to the calendar and a day taken from each month of thirty days to provide for the two winter months: Januarius (January) and Februarius (February), both of which had 28 days (The Natal Day, XX). This was a lunar year of 354 days but, because of
22120-630: Was adopted in Old French as calendier and from there in Middle English as calender by the 13th century (the spelling calendar is early modern). The course of the Sun and the Moon are the most salient regularly recurring natural events useful for timekeeping , and in pre-modern societies around the world lunation and the year were most commonly used as time units. Nevertheless,
22278-483: Was also elected under the same law, though without controversy or opposition since he was a former consul and long-serving pontiff. This law was abolished in 81 BC by Sulla in his dictatorship, in the lex Cornelia de Sacerdotiis , which restored to the great priestly colleges their full right of co-optatio . Also under Sulla, the number of pontifices was increased to fifteen, the pontifex maximus included, and Sulla appointed Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius as
22436-455: Was also often expressed as the "day after" ( postridie ) owing to their special status as particularly unlucky "black days". The anomalous status of the new 31-day months under the Julian calendar was an effect of Caesar's desire to avoid affecting the festivals tied to the nones and ides of various months. However, because the dates at the ends of the month all counted forward to the next kalends, they were all shifted by one or two days by
22594-462: Was deemed a sign of imperial favour. Augustus took the title of pontifex maximus for political gain, in an attempt to restore traditional Roman values. With this attribution, the new office of Emperor was given a religious dignity and the responsibility for the entire Roman state cult. Most authors contend that the power of naming the Pontifices was not really used as an instrumentum regni , an enforcing power. From this point on, pontifex maximus
22752-493: Was followed by Gratian's junior co-emperor Theodosius the Great and was used by emperors thereafter, including the co - augusti Valentinian III ( r. 425–455 ), Marcian ( r. 450–457 ) and the augustus Anastasius Dicorus ( r. 491–518 ), for whom examples of official usage survive. Another inscription dedicated to Justin II ( r. 565–574 ) and naming him pontifex has long been recognized as
22910-430: Was heavily influenced by Etruscan religion, and little is known about the Etruscan language , which is not Indo-European and thus has different origins from Latin. According to the common interpretation, the term pontifex means "bridge-builder" ( pons + facere ); "maximus" means "greatest". This was perhaps originally meant in a literal sense: the position of bridge-builder was indeed an important one in Rome, where
23068-401: Was in preference made in February, between the Terminalia [23rd] and Regifugium [24th]. The fifth-century writer Macrobius says that the Romans intercalated 22 and 23 days in alternate years; the intercalation was placed after February 23 and the remaining five days of February followed. To avoid the nones falling on a nundine, where necessary an intercalary day was inserted "in the middle of
23226-554: Was introduced in 1582 as a refinement to the Julian calendar , that had been in use throughout the European Middle Ages, amounting to a 0.002% correction in the length of the year. During the Early Modern period, its adoption was mostly limited to Roman Catholic nations, but by the 19th century it had become widely adopted for the sake of convenience in international trade. The last European country to adopt it
23384-557: Was one of the many titles of the Emperor, slowly losing its specific and historical powers and becoming simply a referent for the sacral aspect of imperial duties and powers. During the Imperial period, a promagister (vice-master) performed the duties of the pontifex maximus in lieu of the emperors whenever they were absent. In post-Severan times (after 235 AD), the small number of pagan senators interested in becoming pontiffs led to
23542-694: Was only relinquished by Gratian , possibly in 376 at the time of his visit to Rome, or more probably in 383 when a delegation of pagan senators implored him to restore the Altar of Victory in the Roman Senate 's Curia Julia . Its last use with reference to the emperors is in inscriptions of Gratian. The Edict of Thessalonica of 27 February 380 was enacted in Thessalonica ( Thessaloniki ) and published in Constantinople ( Istanbul ) for
23700-543: Was originally pompifex (leader of public processions). The word pons originally meant "way" and pontifex would thus mean "maker of roads and bridges." Another opinion is that the word is a corruption of a similar-sounding but etymologically unrelated Etruscan word. Yet another hypothesis considers the word as a loan from the Sabine language , in which it would mean a member of a college of five, from Osco-Umbrian ponte , five. This explanation takes into account that
23858-429: Was reformed by Julius Caesar in 46 BC. His "Julian" calendar was no longer dependent on the observation of the new moon, but followed an algorithm of introducing a leap day every four years. This created a dissociation of the calendar month from lunation . The Gregorian calendar , introduced in 1582, corrected most of the remaining difference between the Julian calendar and the solar year. The Islamic calendar
24016-417: Was selected as pontifex maximus . Though Lepidus eventually fell out of political favor and was sent into exile as Augustus consolidated power, he retained the priestly office until his death in 13/12 BC, at which point Augustus was selected to succeed him and given the right to appoint other pontifices. Thus, from the time of Augustus, the election of pontifices ended and membership in the sacred college
24174-412: Was supposed to be announced for three nundinal weeks (between 17 and 24 days ) in advance of its coming to a vote. The patricians and their clients sometimes exploited this fact as a kind of filibuster , since the tribunes of the plebs were required to wait another three-week period if their proposals could not receive a vote before dusk on the day they were introduced. Superstitions arose concerning
24332-490: Was the Terminalia and in a normal year it was a.d. VII Kal. Mart. Thus the dates of the festivals of the last five days of February were preserved on account of them being actually named and counted inclusively in days before the calends of March; they were traditionally part of the celebration for the new year. There was occasionally a delay of one day (a dies intercalaris being inserted between February 23 and
24490-453: Was the chief high priest of the College of Pontiffs ( Collegium Pontificum ) in ancient Rome . This was the most important position in the ancient Roman religion , open only to patricians until 254 BC, when a plebeian first held this position. Although in fact the most powerful office in the Roman priesthood, the pontifex maximus was officially ranked fifth in the ranking of the highest Roman priests ( Ordo Sacerdotum ), behind
24648-455: Was the most important priesthood of ancient Rome. The foundation of this sacred college and the office of pontifex maximus is attributed to the second king of Rome , Numa Pompilius . Much of what is known about the Regal period in Roman history is semi-legendary or mythical. The Collegium presumably acted as advisers to the rex (king) in religious matters. The collegium was headed by
24806-487: Was then usually credited with a revised calendar that divided winter between the two months of January and February , shortened most other months accordingly, and brought everything into rough alignment with the solar year by some system of intercalation . This is a typical element of lunisolar calendars and was necessary to keep the Roman religious festivals and other activities in their proper seasons . Modern historians dispute various points of this account. It
24964-549: Was used by the state church of the Roman Empire after the adoption of Christianity as the Roman state religion. The Julian calendar, established by Caesar in his capacity as pontifex maximus , thus became the standard calendar in all of Europe, and continued in use in Western Europe until the Gregorian reform in the 16th century. After Julius Caesar's assassination in 44 BC, his ally Marcus Aemilius Lepidus
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