THE ROMAN CALENDAR

When the Rome emerged as a world power, the difficulties of making a calendar were well known, but the Romans complicated their lives because of their superstition belief that even number were unlucky. Hence their months were 29 or 31 days long, with the exeption of February, which had 28 days. However, four months of 31 days, seven months of 29 days and one month of 28 days added up to 355 days. Therefore the Romans invented an extra month called Mercedonius of 22 or 23 days. It was added every second year.
Even with Mercedonius, the Roman calendar eventually became so far off that Julius Caesar, advised by the astronomer Sosigenes, ordered a sweeping reform. 46 B.C. was made 445 days long by imperial decree, bringing the calendar back in step with the seasons. Then the solar year (with the value of 365 days and 6 hours) was made the basis of the calendar. The months were 30 or 31 in length and to take care of the 6 hours, every fourth year was made a 366 day year. Moreover, Caesar decreed the year began with the first of January, not with the vernal equinox in late March.
This calendar was named the Julian Calendar, after Julius Caesar and it continuous used by the Eastern Orthodox churches for holiday calculation to this day. However, despite the correction, the Julian calendar is still 11 and one-half minutes longer than the actual solar year, after a number of centuries, even 11 and one-half minutes adds up.

The Roman Calendar

The Ancient Roman Calendar

The discovery of Roman Calendar is that, the early Roman calendar borrowed some parts of their calendar from Greeks. So, this states that there is no particular person of who discover the Roman calendar. Rather, the Greeks are the one whom they did borrowed from. But, the Roman calendar is revised by Julius Ceasar and named after him as “Julian Calendar”. He changed the name of some dates that involves names whom he had debt to like his ancestor. 

In Roman Calendar, it consist of 10 months only. 6 months of 30 days and 4 months of 31 days. But they used it only in a matter of time. Romans changed their calendar around 47 B.C. They called it Julian because of the name of Julius Caesar

In early Roman calendar, it consists of 12 months beginning in March, later on January became the start of the year. Romans relied on lunar calendar cycles. He introduced an extra day in February in leap years. The names of the months in Roman calendar and the days that every month have are listed below:

Martius --------------------------------------------------- 31

Aprilis ------------------------------------------------------ 29

Maius ------------------------------------------------------ 31

Lunius ------------------------------------------------------ 29

Quintilis ---------------------------------------------------- 31

Sextilis ------------------------------------------------------- 29

September -------------------------------------------------- 29

October ------------------------------------------------------ 31

November --------------------------------------------------- 29

December --------------------------------------------------- 29

Ianuarius -----------------------------------------------------29

Februarius ---------------------------------------------------28

Februarius (leap year) ------------------------------------23
Intercalaris (leap year) -----------------------------------27/28

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