The Roman calendar which we follow has its origins back in ancient Rome. It changed its form several times between the founding of Rome and the fall of the Roman Empire.
In that time, the advent of Spring was considered a harbinger of a beginning; thus the year back then used to start with March being its first month.
Traditionally there were only 10 months in the Roman Calendar. Roman writers attributed the original Roman calendar to Romulus, the founder of Rome around 753 BC. The Romulus calendar had ten months with the spring equinox in the first month:
Calendar of Romulus
The regular calendar year consisted of 304 days, with the winter days after the end of December and before the beginning of the following March not being assigned to any month, because the wintertime wasn't important for the harvest.
The names of at least three of the first four months were named in honor of Roman gods: Martius in honor of Mars; Maius in honor of Maia; and Iunius in honor of Juno. The derivation of Aprilis is uncertain. The names of the months from the fifth month on were based on their position in the calendar: Quintilis comes from Latin quinque meaning five; Sextilis from sex meaning six; Septembris from septem meaning seven; Octobris from octo meaning eight; Novembris from novem meaning nine; and Decembris from decem meaning ten. The ten months added to 304 days, which later was corrected to 354 days (a standard lunar year) by King Numa Pompilius, the semi-mythical successor of Romulus who added January and February to the calender.
February remained the last month of the calendar year until the time of the decemvirs (c. 450 BC), when it became the second month. At certain intervals February was truncated to 23 or 24 days; and a 27-day intercalary month, Intercalaris, was inserted immediately after February to realign the year with the seasons.
Under the reforms that instituted the Julian calendar, Intercalaris was abolished, leap years occurred regularly every fourth year, and in leap years February gained a 29th day. Thereafter, it remained the second month of the calendar year, meaning the order that months are displayed (January, February, March, ..., December) within a year-at-a-glance calendar. Even during the Middle Ages, when the numbered Anno Domini year began on March 25 or December 25, the second month was February whenever all twelve months were displayed in order. The Gregorian calendar reforms made slight changes to the system for determining which years were leap years and thus contained a 29-day February.
Alternate explanations:
Interesting as it may sound, there is a counter argument to this theory.
DEBUNKED THEORY ON MONTH LENGTHS:
To sum it up, there have been many, many modifications in the Roman Calendar over the course of time. The changes demanded by the need of time gave February its number of days; even though there are other theories to it, they can be speculated.
Oh February! Thou art complicated!
In that time, the advent of Spring was considered a harbinger of a beginning; thus the year back then used to start with March being its first month.
Traditionally there were only 10 months in the Roman Calendar. Roman writers attributed the original Roman calendar to Romulus, the founder of Rome around 753 BC. The Romulus calendar had ten months with the spring equinox in the first month:
Calendar of Romulus
- Martius (31 days)
- Aprilis (30 days)
- Maius (31 days)
- Iunius (30 days)
- Quintilis (31 days)
- Sextilis (30 days)
- Septembris (30 days)
- Octobris (31 days)
- Novembris (30 days)
- Decembris (30 days)
The regular calendar year consisted of 304 days, with the winter days after the end of December and before the beginning of the following March not being assigned to any month, because the wintertime wasn't important for the harvest.
The names of at least three of the first four months were named in honor of Roman gods: Martius in honor of Mars; Maius in honor of Maia; and Iunius in honor of Juno. The derivation of Aprilis is uncertain. The names of the months from the fifth month on were based on their position in the calendar: Quintilis comes from Latin quinque meaning five; Sextilis from sex meaning six; Septembris from septem meaning seven; Octobris from octo meaning eight; Novembris from novem meaning nine; and Decembris from decem meaning ten. The ten months added to 304 days, which later was corrected to 354 days (a standard lunar year) by King Numa Pompilius, the semi-mythical successor of Romulus who added January and February to the calender.
February remained the last month of the calendar year until the time of the decemvirs (c. 450 BC), when it became the second month. At certain intervals February was truncated to 23 or 24 days; and a 27-day intercalary month, Intercalaris, was inserted immediately after February to realign the year with the seasons.
Under the reforms that instituted the Julian calendar, Intercalaris was abolished, leap years occurred regularly every fourth year, and in leap years February gained a 29th day. Thereafter, it remained the second month of the calendar year, meaning the order that months are displayed (January, February, March, ..., December) within a year-at-a-glance calendar. Even during the Middle Ages, when the numbered Anno Domini year began on March 25 or December 25, the second month was February whenever all twelve months were displayed in order. The Gregorian calendar reforms made slight changes to the system for determining which years were leap years and thus contained a 29-day February.
Alternate explanations:
- In ancient Rome, the number 28 was considered evil and unlucky. It may be related to the fact that Romans honored the dead and performed rites of purification in February. (The word februare means "to purify" in the dialect of the ancient Sabine tribe.)
- Another explanation says: Some have speculated that Caesar added a day to February when he reformed the calendar—making it 29 days long. The story goes that when the Senate renamed the month of Sextilis to honor the emperor Augustus, that day was subtracted from February and added to August in order to make it equal in number to July—the month named for Caesar. But this theory is now believed to be bunk; it's likely that Julius never even added a day to February. Here: Why does February have 28 days while the other months have 30 or 31?
Interesting as it may sound, there is a counter argument to this theory.
DEBUNKED THEORY ON MONTH LENGTHS:
Sacrobosco's theory on month lengths
The Julian reform set the lengths of the months to their modern values. However, a 13th century scholar, Sacrobosco, proposed a different explanation for the lengths of Julian months which is still widely repeated but is certainly wrong.
According to Sacrobosco, the month lengths for ordinary years in the Roman Republican calendar, from January to December, were:
30, 29, 30, 29, 30, 29, 30, 29, 30, 29, 30, 29.
Sacrobosco then thought that Julius Caesar added one day to every month except February, a total of 11 more days to regular months, giving the ordinary Julian year of 365 days. A single leap day could now be added to this extra short February:
31, 29/30, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 30.
He then said Augustus changed this, by taking one day from February to add it to Sextilis, and then modifying the alternation of the following months, to:
31, 28/29, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31
so that the length of Augustus (August) would not be shorter than (and therefore inferior to) the length of Iulius (July), giving us the irregular month lengths which are still in use.
There is abundant evidence disproving this theory. First, a wall painting of a Roman calendar predating the Julian reform has survived, which confirms the literary accounts that the months were already irregular before Julius Caesar reformed them, with an ordinary year of 355 days, not 354, with month lengths arranged as:
29, 28, 31, 29, 31, 29, 31, 29, 29, 31, 29, 29.
Also, the Julian reform did not change the dates of the Nones and Ides. In particular, the Ides were late (on the 15th rather than 13th) in March, May, July and October, showing that these months always had 31 days in the Roman calendar, whereas Sacrobosco's theory requires that March, May and July were originally 30 days long and that the length of October was changed from 29 to 30 days by Caesar and to 31 days by Augustus. Further, Sacrobosco's theory is explicitly contradicted by the 3rd and 5th century authors Censorinus and Macrobius, and it is inconsistent with seasonal lengths given by Varro, writing in 37 BC, before Sextilis was renamed for Augustus in 8 BC, with the 31-day Sextilis given by an Egyptian papyrus from 24 BC, and with the 28-day February shown in the Fasti Caeretani, which is dated before 12 BC.
To sum it up, there have been many, many modifications in the Roman Calendar over the course of time. The changes demanded by the need of time gave February its number of days; even though there are other theories to it, they can be speculated.
Oh February! Thou art complicated!
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