The early calendar did not have January and February, it started from March.
Today, when the whole world is celebrating the New Year, an interesting and important question arises that when the calendar started from March, then how did January and February come in between? How did the 10 month calendar become 12 months? And is January 1 really the date of the New Year or is it just the result of political and religious decisions?
This question is not just about history, but the entire story of time, power and development of civilization. Let us try to understand this whole issue.
ancient roman calendar year starting in march
Today’s Gregorian calendar is directly related to Roman civilization. Initially the Roman calendar was considered to be of 10 months and the year started from March (Martius). The names and order of the early Roman months are considered to be as follows. March (Martius), April (Aprilis), May (Maius), June (Iunius), Quintilis means fifth, Sextilis means sixth, September (September) is seventh, October (October) is eighth, November (November) is ninth and December (December) is tenth.
At that time, about 60 days of winter were sometimes kept in the calendar as a time without name or without a month. That is, the formal structure of the year ran from March to December, and in between, the days were counted and adjusted according to political and religious needs.
How did the year become 12 months?
According to Roman tradition, the calendar was later improved by Numa Pompilius, an early Roman king. He divided the unnamed winter portion before the beginning of the year into two new months, January (Lanuarius) and February (Februarius). In this way the calendar became 10 to 12 months. Nevertheless, for a long time March was considered the official beginning of the year. Things were balanced by adding January and February to the year-end section, but March’s New Year status was not immediately changed.
The name February is believed to be linked to the Roman purification rite Februa, a religious ritual performed at the end of the year. It also indicates that February was long seen as the end of the year, rather than as part of the beginning.
Combination of politics, astronomy and time
The Roman calendar became unbalanced over time because the year was not precisely aligned with the solar year (about 365 days, 6 hours). Due to this, festivals started getting out of season, problems increased in farming and weather based decisions and religious dates started getting confused. In the first century BC, Julius Caesar made large-scale calendar reforms. On the advice of the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria, he fixed the length of the year at 365 days, with one extra day every fourth year (leap year).
The number of months was kept at 12, but their length was fixed and the biggest political-cultural decision was that January 1 was considered the official beginning of the year. Why so? There were deep cultural and political reasons behind this. January is named after the Roman god Janus, who was considered the god of doors, beginnings and change.
In the Roman administration, new high officials often took office in January. Linking the administrative and tax related year with January was also conducive to centralization of power and system. Thus January 1 became the political-administrative New Year, even though spring (March) still remained a symbol of newness in terms of the natural seasonal cycle.
Christian Europe and the Global New Year of January 1
There was also a slight flaw in the Julian calendar. Considering the year as 365.25 days would add an error of about 1 day every 128 years. Due to this, Easter, an important festival of Christianity, started slipping from the season. To correct this, the revised calendar implemented by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 is called the Gregorian Calendar and today most of the countries in the world follow it.
In this Gregorian reform, the rules of leap years were made slightly stricter. Some days were cut from the calendar so that the dates could match the weather, but the beginning of the year was kept on 1 January. Even in Europe, different New Year dates were prevalent in different places for some time. At some places it was 25 March and at some places it was 25 December (Christmas), but with the dominance of the Church and the state, 1 January gradually became the standard.
Over time, due to colonialism, trade and the compulsions of the modern nation-state, this calendar came to dominate the entire world. Thus, the ancient Roman year starting in March changed with religious and political decisions and January 1 became the global new year.
The game of power and civilization, not just counting.
When we ask how the calendar of 10 months became 12 months? So we are not just counting numbers, but trying to understand that the definition of time has never been completely natural. The Earth’s rotation, seasons, crops, all these are gifts of nature, but the names of the months, their limits, and the beginning of the year are human decisions. Religion, power and administration shaped time as per their own. From Roman kings to Julius Caesar and Pope Gregory, time calculations were changed to make it easier to recruit troops, collect taxes, conduct elections, perform religious rituals, and manage power.
Importance of this history in today’s context
Raising this question while welcoming the New Year is not just an academic debate. It has many practical and ideological meanings. We understand that the structure of time is also man-made. With this we can see the importance of our traditional calendars and festivals in a better way. It also makes sense that the world’s calendar and our own cultural timeline can move together. We can celebrate January 1 as New Year and also embrace our traditional New Years with equal dignity and enthusiasm. How did the year starting from March slip to January? Such questions teach us that even the things that seem natural today have once gone through debate, struggle and decisions.
Also read: Chair jumping, red underwear and 12 grapes trend. Read strange customs of New Year.