times of the city of Rome the solar year, or
complete cycle of the seasons, was divided into ten lunar months
covering 304 days, and it is not known how the remaining days
necessary to complete the solar revolution were dealt with, or
disposed of. The year was considered to commence with March, probably
with the intention of getting New Year's Day near to the spring
equinox. The Celtic people and the Druids, with their mistletoe rites,
kept New Year also at that time. The ten Roman months were named
Martius, Aprilus, Maius, Junius, Quintillis, Sextilis, September,
October, November, December. In the reign of the King Numa two months
were added to the year--namely, Januarius at the beginning and
Februarius at the end. In 452 B.C. February was removed from the end
and given second place. The Romans thus arranged twelve months into
the year, as the ancient Egyptians and the Greeks had long before
done. The months were made by law to consist alternately of
twenty-nine and of thirty days (thus keeping near to the average
length of a true lunar cycle), and an odd day was thrown in for luck,
making the year to consist of 355 days. This, of course, differs from
the solar year by ten days and a bit. To make the solar year and the
civil or calendar year coincide as nearly as might be, Numa ordered
that a special or "intercalary" month should be inserted every second
year between February 23rd and 24th. It was called "Mercedonius," and
consisted of twenty-two and of twenty-three days alternately, so that
four years contained 1465 days, giving a mean of 366-1/4 days to each
year. But this gave nearly a day too much in each year of the calendar
(as the legal or civil year is called) as compared with the true solar
year, agreement with which was the object in view. So another law was
made to reduce the excess of days in every twenty-four years.
Obviously the superintendence of these variations, and the public
declaration of the calendar for each year, was a very serious and
important task, affecting all kinds of legal contracts. The pontiffs
to whom the duty was assigned abused their power for political ends,
and so little care had they taken to regulate the civil year and keep
it in coincidence with the solar year that in the time of Julius Caesar
the civil equinox differed from the astronomical by three months, the
real spring equinox occurring, not at the end of what was called March
by the calendar, but in June!

Julius Caesar t