What has granted the Roman calendar its hegemony over (almost) all others on the planet since literally prehistoric times is that it has always been SOLAR: THE timetable-template, despite inherent raggedy edges like leap-years, that the world runs on. LUNAR calendars were probably first in all cultures, however, because so easily validated by what's going on in the night sky. But the 28-29 day cycle of the moon--while a perfectly workable time-scheme for hunter-gatherers--forever falls short of calibrating with the seasons of the sun, so important to keep precise track of in the new agricultural/pastoral societies in the West.
(As for the Hamito-Semites, they're still moon-people. For Muslims, both secularly and liturgically. For Jews and by extension Christians, liturgically. That's the wherefore of days beginning at the literal sighting of the moon the "eve"-ning before, and "movable feasts" like Ramadan, Hanukkah, and Passover/Easter drifting through the solar year. Ironically, the only fixed feast-day in the Christian liturgical year is Dec. 25, stolen from the Roman solar calendar, which marked it as the pagan Saturnalia and the birth of the SUN-god Mithras. See earlier posts for more on this Grinchy Xmas story.)
But, as mentioned in last post, what I find truly fascinating is that for primordial centuries the Romans "dared not speak its name"--the name, that is, of those 30-4o days of deep winter following the happy-happy of Winter Solstice in the foregoing, quasi-named December. And here's the really fun part: THEY WEREN'T EVEN COUNTED--in terms of monthworthyness. And neither was the un-named month of milder--but still-not-spring-yet--30 days or so following. Notice "December," just mentioned. Means month number ten. Likewise our Latin names for the three months preceding. Usually the realization that, Hey! the numbering is off, comes about the time you get into the DECIM-mal system at school. Then you may-or-may-not get a knowledgeable explanation from your teacher.
Well, believe it or not--especially you Star Trek fans--those misnumbered months we still put up with today are from the Romulan Calendar! Way, way, way before the Gregorian; way,way before the Julian; and even way before the Numaian. Legend had it among the tribal Latins that in or around 8oo BC city-founder Romulus--along with doing other things like killing his brother Remus--this other wolf-bred orphan-twin officially set the calender at ten months, ignoring the inter-calary, un-named-as-yet Jan/Feb of course, and starting with his patron-god Martius (who, unlike his Greek war-god counterpart, Aries, had strong agricultural juju) as being the first month of every new year. Made sense. Why not mark the new year with renewed beginnings? Like spring-time. And surely the lower Italian peninsula would have been getting springy by March.
But before that I'm guessing it was pretty miserable. Except for the seven "hills" (barely noticeable as such), the Tiber valley is swampland, reclaimed but mostly unclaimed for most of its history. Given to malarial summers and cold, dank, sodden winters. Kind of like Eliot's London. Best to just ignore as far as possible that unpleasant winter period. To personify these two months by name, I'm speculating, might only further empower their nastiness.
For whatever reasons, however, under the reign of Numa the Lawgiver (c. 700 BC), two months were "added" to the Romulan Calendar by simply naming them ... while keeping the same not-so-simple, dysfunctional numbering system. MOREOVER, again for unknown reasons, it was decided that the "new" month Ianuarius should begin the new year, rather than Martius. The days following those of the god Janus were given the perfunctory name of Februarius = "washing, purification"--sort of a "spring clean-up," I would suppose, in preparation for its actual arrival.
Notwithstanding the fact that we are forever doomed in the Northern Hemisphere's temperate zones to begin the new year in the frigid depths of winter--what better choice to preside over it than the ancient, totally native (i.e. no Greek influence) , double-aspect Roman god of past and future, endings and beginnings, exits and entrances?! And cocks. (more)
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