Some months of the calendar year the ancient Romans. Calendar twists and turns or why December is the twelfth and not the tenth month

Many of us often wonder what calendar days are. These are consecutive days that have their own serial number in the month. This includes all weekends and holidays. In addition, working days are also considered calendar days. Special attention This concept is given attention when it comes to the preparation of official documentation. Read more about all this in this article.

Basics

What days are considered calendar days? This is exactly the question that worries many citizens working in various organizations. After all, you have to deal with this in everyday life. When preparing documentation regarding official relations, it is very important to see the fundamental difference between working days and calendar days. This will help prevent errors in the work of the HR and accounting departments when calculating vacation and travel allowances.

What else is there to know? In simple words, each day in the month is a calendar day. But this concept is not fixed in the law.

So, this means that calendar days are all days of the month, including working days and holidays. This concept is most often used in labor legislation. For example, an employee is entitled to vacation in calendar days. This means that the latter’s rest period will include not only the period of time during which he usually works, but also weekends. But how is vacation pay calculated?

According to the rules, cash must be transferred to the employee three days before the start of his legal rest. It should also be noted that not only working days, but also weekends (i.e. all calendar days) are subject to payment. That's the order.

When calculating the salaries of subordinates, the accountant takes into account only working days. For example, if a subordinate works in an organization for eight hours, five days a week, then, accordingly, his days off are not paid. That's how it's supposed to be by law.

Calendar month

What does this concept mean? What time period does it include? Each calendar month begins with the first day and ends with the last day of a particular month. For example, January lasts from the first to the thirty-first. A month consists of calendar days, which, in turn, are divided into working days, holidays and weekends. This is also necessary to know.

Additionally

Quite often in official documentation you can find a requirement to warn the other party of your intentions at least one calendar month in advance. What does this concept mean when we're talking about about calculating deadlines? Taking into account the previously stated definition, we can conclude that in order to comply with the warning requirements, a party must notify the other party of the occurrence of any event no later than the first day of the calendar month preceding the one in which the specific action is planned to be performed (for example, a change in material conditions service agreement). Only in this case will the legal requirements not be violated.

Time for a well-deserved rest

If a person has just recently come to work in an organization, then only after six months of carrying out official activities will he have the right to paid leave. As already described earlier, in labor legislation such a rest period is calculated only in calendar days. But what will be its duration in this case? It turns out that the new employee is entitled to vacation for 14 calendar days. After all, the working period has not been fully worked out. This means that the manager will not provide such an employee with 28 calendar days of vacation. Otherwise he will break the law.

Holidays

Fall out on certain days weeks. The Labor Code stipulates public holidays on which working people are given time to rest. Citizens carrying out official activities on these days should be paid increased wages or given an additional day off. Otherwise, the head of the organization will violate the law.

Holiday calendar days are enshrined in Article 112 of the Labor Code. These include:

• New Year holidays.
• Christmas.
• February 23 is Defender of the Fatherland Day.
• March 8 -
• May 1 - Spring and Labor Day.
• May 9 - Victory Day.
• November 4 is National Unity Day.
• June 12 is Russia Day.

If any of the above holidays falls on a weekend, it is transferred to the next working day. This is written in the legislation.

Important

Federal Law No. 107 “On the Calculation of Periods” of 2011 contains such a definition as a calendar year. Many citizens are immediately interested in the question of what does this mean? So, a calendar year is a period of time that lasts from the first of January and ends on the 31st of December. Its duration includes 365 or 366 days. It depends on whether it is a regular year or a leap year. In addition, each year has its own serial number. For example, now is 2017, after it ends on December 31, the calculation of 2018 will begin on January 1st. This is the order.

It should also be noted that the main guideline for assigning a specific number to each year is the Gregorian calendar. How is this reflected in the daily activities of organizations and enterprises? Here it is immediately necessary to say that when concluding contracts, firms must have a clear understanding of what a calendar year is. However, very often this concept is used by company managers without proper understanding.

General

Each week, month and year consists of a certain number of calendar days. This number includes public holidays and weekends. By general rule Many organizations operate from Monday to Friday. Weekends are considered Saturday and Sunday. Therefore, if a person is asked to work outside of working hours, he must be compensated double or given an additional day off. But why are such concepts as calendar month, week, year needed in legislation? The answer here is very simple. In order to correctly calculate the deadlines for completing official documentation. For example, if a document says that it can be appealed to a higher authority within several calendar days, then this means that even weekends are included here. You definitely need to know about this.

Conclusion

In order to better navigate time, citizens use concepts such as working days, holidays, and weekends when communicating with each other and when filling out documents. So, all these days are included in the calendar. If the contract states that the work will be done in a certain number of calendar days, then so be it. This period of time includes both holidays and weekends. You need to know about this. It is for this reason that many organizations prefer to limit themselves to carrying out their duties only on weekdays. This is what is stated in the contract.

If we are talking about vacation, then it is also counted in calendar days. For the reason that such a rule is spelled out in the Labor Code. In addition, when it comes to vacation pay, all calendar days are taken into account (excluding holidays). Therefore, in order not to violate the law, citizens and organizations, institutions must have an understanding of the correct calculation of time.

Ancient Roman calendar. History has not preserved for us exact information about the time of the birth of the Roman calendar. However, it is known that during the time of Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome and the first Roman king, i.e. around the middle of the 8th century. BC e., the Romans used a calendar in which the year, according to Censorinus, consisted of only 10 months and contained 304 days. Initially, the months did not have names and were designated by serial numbers. The year began on the first day of the month in which the beginning of spring occurred.

Around the end of the 8th century. BC e. some months got their own names. Thus, the first month of the year was named Martius in honor of the god of war, Mars. The second month of the year was named Aprilis. This word comes from the Latin "aperire", which means "to open", as this is the month when the buds on the trees open. The third month was dedicated to the goddess Maya - the mother of the god Hermes (Mercury) - and was called Majus, and the fourth in honor of the goddess Juno (Fig. 8), wife Jupiter was named Junius. This is how the names of the months of March, April, May and June appeared. Subsequent months continued to retain their numerical designations:

Quintilis - “fifth”
Sextilis - “sixth”
September (September) - “seventh”
Oktober - “eighth”
November (November) - “ninth”
December - “tenth”

Martius, Maius, Quintilis and October each had 31 days, and the remaining months consisted of 30 days. Therefore, the most ancient Roman calendar can be presented in the form of a table. 1, and one of its samples is shown in Fig. 9.

Create a 12 month calendar. In the 7th century BC e., that is, during the time of the second legendary ancient Roman king - Numa Pompilius, a reform of the Roman calendar was carried out and two more months were added to the calendar year: the eleventh and twelfth. The first of them was named January (Januarius) - in honor of the two-faced god Janus (Fig. 10), whose one face was turned forward and the other backward: he could simultaneously contemplate the past and foresee the future. The name of the second new month, February, comes from Latin word"februarius" means "purification" and is associated with the rite of purification celebrated annually on February 15th. This month was dedicated to the god of the underworld Februus.

The history of the distribution of days according to months. Initially, the year of the Roman calendar, as already mentioned, consisted of 304 days. To make it equal to the Greek calendar year, one would have to add 50 days to it, and then there would be 354 days in the year. But the superstitious Romans believed that odd numbers happier than even ones, and therefore added 51 days. However, from such a number of days it was impossible to make 2 full months. Therefore, from six months, which previously consisted of 30 days, i.e., from April, June, Sextilis, September, November and December, one day was taken away. Then the number of days from which new months were formed increased to 57. From this number of days, the months January, which contained 29 days, and February, which received 28 days, were formed.

Thus, a year containing 355 days was divided into 12 months with the number of days indicated in the table. 2.

Here, February only had 28 days. This month was doubly “unlucky”: it was shorter than others and contained even number days. This is what the Roman calendar looked like several centuries BC. e. The established length of the year at 355 days almost coincided with the duration lunar year, consisting of 12 lunar months but 29.53 days, since 29.53 × 12 == 354.4 days.

This coincidence is not accidental. This is explained by the fact that the Romans used lunar calendar and the beginning of each month was determined by the first appearance of the crescent moon after the new moon. The priests ordered the heralds to publicly “cry out” for everyone to know the beginning of each new month, as well as the beginning of the year.

The chaos of the Roman calendar. The Roman calendar year is shorter than the tropical year by more than 10 days. Because of this, calendar numbers corresponded less and less to natural phenomena every year. To eliminate this irregularity, every two years between February 23 and 24, an additional month was inserted, the so-called Mercedonium, which alternately contained 22 and 23 days. Therefore, the years alternated in length as follows:

355 days

377 (355+22) days

355 days

378 (355+23) days.

Thus, each four-year period consisted of two simple years and two extended ones. Average duration years in such a four-year period was 366.25 days, i.e. it was a whole day more than in reality. To eliminate the discrepancy between calendar numbers and natural phenomena, it was necessary from time to time to resort to increasing or decreasing the duration of additional months.

The right to change the length of additional months belonged to the priests (pontiffs), headed by the high priest (Pontifex Maximus). They often abused their power by arbitrarily lengthening or shortening the year. According to Cicero, the priests, using the power granted to them, extended the terms of public positions for their friends or for persons who bribed them, and shortened the terms for their enemies. The time for paying various taxes and fulfilling other obligations also depended on the arbitrariness of the priest. In addition to all this, confusion began in the celebrations. So, The harvest festival sometimes had to be celebrated not in summer, but in winter.

We find a very apt description of the state of the Roman calendar of that time from the outstanding French writer and enlightener of the 18th century. Voltaire, who wrote: “Roman generals always won, but they never knew on what day it happened.”

Julius Caesar and the calendar reform. The chaotic nature of the Roman calendar created such great inconvenience that its urgent reform turned into an acute social problem. Such a reform was carried out over two thousand years ago, in 46 BC. e. It was initiated by the Roman statesman and commander Julius Caesar. By this time, he had visited Egypt, the center of ancient science and culture, and became acquainted with the peculiarities of the Egyptian calendar. It was this calendar, with the amendment of the Canopic Decree, that Julius Caesar decided to introduce in Rome. He entrusted the creation of a new calendar to a group of Alexandrian astronomers led by Sosigenes.

Julian calendar of Sosigenes. The essence of the reform was that the calendar was based on the annual movement of the Sun between the stars. The average length of the year was set at 365.25 days, which exactly corresponded to the length of the tropical year known at that time. But to start calendar year always fell on the same date, as well as at the same time of day, they decided to count up to 365 days in each year for three years, and 366 in the fourth. This lastthe year was called a leap year. True, Sosigenes must have known that the Greek astronomer Hipparchus, approximately 75 years before the reform planned by Julius Caesar, established that the length of the tropical year was not 365.25 days, but somewhat less, but he probably considered this difference insignificant and therefore neglected them.

Sosigenes divided the year into 12 months, for which he retained their ancient names: January, February, March, April, May, June, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November and December. The month of Mercedonia was excluded from the calendar. January was accepted as the first month of the year, since already from 153 BC. e. the newly elected Roman consuls took office on January 1. The number of days in months was also ordered (Table 3).

Consequently, all odd-numbered months (January, March, May, Quintilis, September and November) had 31 days, and even months (February, April, June, Sextilis, October and December) had 30. Only February simple year contained 29 days.

Before implementing the reform, trying to ensure that all holidays coincide with their corresponding seasons, the Romans added to the calendar year, in addition to Mercedonia, which consisted of 23 days, two more intercalary months - one of 33 days, and the other of 34. Both of these months were placed between November and December. Thus a year of 445 days was formed, known in history as the disorderly or “year of confusion.” This was the year 46 BC. e.

In gratitude to Julius Caesar for streamlining the calendar and his military services, the Senate, at the suggestion of the Roman politician Mark Antony, in 44 BC. e. renamed the month Quintilis (fifth), in which Caesar was born, to July (Julius)

Roman Emperor Augustus (63 BC-14 AD)

Counting according to the new calendar, called the Julian calendar, began on January 1, 45 BC. e. Just on this day there was the first new moon after the winter solstice. This is the only one moment in the Julian calendar, having a connection with the lunar phases.

Augustan calendar reform. The members of the highest priestly college in Rome - the pontiffs - were instructed to monitor the correctness of time calculation, however, not understanding the essence of Sosigenes' reform, for some reason they inserted leap days not after three years on the fourth, but after two years on the third. Due to this error, the calendar account was again confused.

The error was discovered only in 8 BC. e. during the time of Caesar's successor, Emperor Augustus, who produced new reform and destroyed the accumulated error. By his order, starting from 8 BC. e. and ending with 8 AD. e., skipped inserting extra days in leap years.

At the same time, the Senate decided to rename the month Sextilis (sixth) in August - in honor of Emperor Augustus, in gratitude for the correction of the Julian calendar and the great military victories he won in this month. But there were only 30 days in sextilis. The Senate considered it inconvenient to leave in the month dedicated to Augustus less days, than in the month dedicated to Julius Caesar, especially since the number 30, being even, was considered unlucky. Then another day was taken away from February and added to sextilis - August. So February was left with 28 or 29 days. But now it turns out that three months in a row (July, August and September) have 31 days each. This again did not suit the superstitious Romans. Then they decided to move one day of September to October. At the same time, one day in November was moved to December. These innovations completely destroyed the regular alternation of long and short months created by Sosigenes.

This is how the Julian calendar gradually improved (Table 4), which remained the only one and unchanged in almost all of Europe until the end of the 16th century, and in some countries even until the beginning of the 20th century.

Historians indicate that the emperors Tiberius, Nero and Commodus tried three subsequent months to call by their proper names, but their attempts failed.

Counting days in months. The Roman calendar did not know the ordinal counting of days in a month. The counting was carried out by the number of days up to three specific moments within each month: Kalends, Nons and Ides, as shown in the table. 5.

Only the first days of the month were called kalends and fell at a time close to the new moon.

The nones were the 5th of the month (in January, February, April, June, August, September, November and December) or the 7th of the month (in March, May, July and October). They coincided with the beginning of the first quarter of the Moon.

Finally, the ids were the 13th of the month (in those months in which nones fell on the 5th) or the 15th (in those months in which nones fell on the 7th).

Unlike the usual counting forward, the Romans counted days from Kalends, Nons and Ides to reverse side. So, if it was necessary to say “January 1,” then they said “on the calendars of January”; May 9 was called “the 7th day from the Ides of May,” December 5 was called “on the December Nones,” and instead of “June 15,” they said “on the 17th day from the Kalends of July,” etc. It must be remembered, however, that the original date itself was always included in the count of days.

The examples considered show that when dating, the Romans never used the word “after,” but only “from.”

In each month of the Roman calendar there were three more days that had special names. These are the eves, that is, the days preceding the nones, ids, and also the calendars of the next month. Therefore, speaking about these days, they said: “on the eve of the Ides of January” (i.e., January 12), “on the eve of the Kalends of March” (i.e., February 28), etc.

Leap years and the origin of the word “leap year”. During the calendar reform of Augustus, errors made during the incorrect use of the Julian calendar were eliminated, and the basic rule of the leap year was legalized: every fourth year is a leap year. Therefore, leap years are those whose numbers are divisible by 4 without a remainder. Considering that thousands and hundreds are always divisible by 4, it is enough to establish whether the last two digits of the year are divisible by 4: for example, 1968 is a leap year, since 68 is divisible by 4 without remainder, and 1970 is simple, since 70 is not divisible by 4.

The expression “leap year” is associated with the origin of the Julian calendar and the peculiar counting of days used by the ancient Romans. When reforming the calendar, Julius Caesar did not dare to place an additional day in leap year after February 28, and hid it where the mercedonium had previously been located, that is, between February 23 and 24. Therefore, February 24 was repeated twice.

But instead of “February 24,” the Romans said “the sixth day before the Kalends of March.” In Latin, the sixth number is called “sextus”, and “sixth again” is called “bissextus”. Therefore, a year containing an extra day in February was called “bisextilis.” The Russians, having heard this word from the Byzantine Greeks, who pronounced “b” as “v”, turned it into “visokos”. Therefore, it is impossible to write “vysokosny”, as is sometimes done, since the word “vysokos” is not Russian and has nothing to do with the word “high”.

Accuracy of the Julian calendar. The length of the Julian year was set at 365 days and 6 hours. But this value is 11 minutes longer than the tropical year. 14 sec. Therefore, for every 128 years, a whole day was accumulated. Consequently, the Julian calendar was not very accurate. Another important advantage was its significant simplicity.

Chronology. In the first centuries of its existence, dating of events in Rome was carried out by the names of the consuls. In the 1st century n. e. the era “from the creation of the city” began to spread, which had important in the chronology of Roman history.

According to the Roman writer and scientist Marcus Terence Varro (116-27 BC), the estimated date of the founding of Rome corresponds to the third year of the 6th Olympiad (Ol. 6.3). Since the founding day of Rome was celebrated annually as a spring holiday, it was possible to establish that the era of the Roman calendar, that is, its starting point, is April 21, 753 BC. e. The era “from the founding of Rome” was used by many Western European historians until late XVII V.

Once again, wandering around different sites and looking at different notes, I was puzzled: why was the name of the month “December”, which comes from the Latin “deca” - “ten”, assigned to the twelfth month of the year? Well, why all of a sudden? And quite quickly a recording was found that put everything in its place, and even some others Interesting Facts I covered about the calendar.
I will bring it here for myself.

Modern names of the months originate from the ancient Romans. Initially, the Roman year began in the spring and consisted of 10 months, which were designated by serial numbers. Later some months were renamed. So the first month was named March - in honor of the god of war, Mars. The third month, May, was dedicated to the goddess Maya, the fourth to the goddess Juno (as you might guess, June). The name of the second month (April) apparently comes from the Latin “aperire”, which means “to open”, since in this month the buds open.
The remaining 6 months continued to bear the names of numerals:

Quintilis (quintilis) – fifth,
Sextilis - sixth,
September (September) – seventh,
October (October) – eighth,
November (November) – ninth,
December (December) – tenth.

4 months of the year (March, May, Quintilis and October) each had 31 days. The remaining months consisted of 30 days. Those. The Roman calendar originally consisted of 304 days.
In the 7th century BC, the Romans made a reform and added an eleventh and twelfth month - January (in honor of the god Janus) and February, the name of which comes from the word februum, which means “purification”, and is associated with the rite of purification.
The following years, with the resulting calendar, there was complete confusion, the number of days in the year did not coincide with the true one, which is why natural phenomena (the equinox, for example) were shifted, and an additional month (Marcedonia) had to be inserted every two years. In addition, the high priest could, at his discretion, lengthen or shorten the additional month... In short, what was happening was terrible.

In 46 BC, Julius Caesar finally decided to reform the calendar. Year accepted equal to length tropical - 365 days and 6 hours. Arrived at 6 o'clock in a known way– 3 years took 365 days, and the fourth – 366.
The year began to begin in January, but the names remained the same as they were. The number of days was ordered as follows - all odd months had 31 days, and even months had 30 (with the exception of February, which had 30 only in a leap year, and the rest of the time - 29). That's what they decided, everything was nice and slender... But no, they got bored.
First, in gratitude to Caesar, they renamed Quintilis July. Well, okay, God bless him... But then they also decided to rename sextilis to Augustus (in honor of Emperor Augustus). And here there is a subtlety - in sextilis it was 30 days (versus 31 in July), and, so that August would not be offended, one more day was added to the month. Thus, the already miserable February lost another day. But the Romans did not stop there. After the above reforms, it turned out that 3 months in a row had 31 days each. The superstitious Romans considered this wrong (I don’t know why) and finally changed their calendar, bringing the number of days in months to the modern form.
Here's the story.
In conclusion, I’ll also tell you about the origin of the word “leap year”.
The Romans called the first days of each month calends. They counted the numbers of the month not forward, like us, but backwards, i.e. They counted how many days were left until the next calendar. Therefore, instead of the date February 24, the Romans said that there were 6 days left until the Kalends of March. And since at that time it was customary to place the extra day not at the end of February, but between February 23 and 24, then once every 4 years, February 24 was counted twice (i.e., the sixth day before the March calendar). In Latin, the sixth number was called “sectus”, and “the sixth again” was called “bissectus”. Therefore, a year containing one extra day was called “bissectiliss”. In Russian this word has changed a little...

Written based on materials from the book by S.I. Seleshnikov “The History of the Calendar and Its Upcoming Reform”