THE JULIAN KEFOEM. 



distribution of the 365 days among the twelve months was re- 

 arranged. It was ordered that the odd months, counting from 

 the beginning "of the year should contain 31 days each, and that 

 the others should contain 30, except February, which in common 

 years was to contain 29, and in bissextile years 30 days. 



This natural and easily remembered distribution was disarranged 

 soon after to gratify the frivolous vanity of Augustus. It has been 

 already stated that the month Sextilis had its name changed to 

 Augustus in compliment to that emperor. Not satisfied with thus 

 having his name perpetuated, he insisted that the number of days 

 in his month should not be less than in Caesar's. The day added 

 to August was therefore taken from February, which was thus 

 reduced to 28 days for common, and 29 for bissextile years. The 

 months definitively stood as follows : 



January 

 February 

 March . 

 April 

 May . 

 June 



Days. 

 31 



28 or 29 

 31 

 30 

 31 

 30 



'July . 

 August 

 September 

 October . 

 November 

 December . 



Days. 

 31 

 31 

 30 

 31 

 30 

 31 



The alternation of 30 and 31 days proposed by Caesar is there- 

 fore preserved with the exception of July and August, two months 

 of 31 days in immediate succession. 



It was attempted at later periods of the empire to prostitute the 

 calendar by changing the names of the latter months of the year 

 into those of Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, and Domitian ; but the 

 good sense of the Roman public resisted such an ignominy. 



89. The death of Caesar in the year after this reform had been 

 decreed, threw the task of its realisation into the hands of the 

 pontiffs, whose very first act betrayed a total misapprehension of 

 the meaning of the most important of the conditions of the new 

 system. The terms of the Julian edict, by which the recurrence 

 of the bissextile year was defined, have not come down to our 

 times ; but it is certain that the pontiffs interpreted the periodic 

 addition of the intercalary day as designed for every third year, 

 and not every fourth year. That they were not set right by any 

 contemporary authority like Sosigenes, who, knowing the object 

 to be accomplished by the expedient, might have demonstrated 

 the sense of the edict, if the words in which it was expressed 

 were equivocal, only shows in a striking point of view how rare 

 this sort of knowledge must have been in that age. However, it 

 is certain that for the first 36 years after the reformation, every 

 third, instead of every fourth year, was taken as a bissextile year, 

 and consequently that these 36 years, including 1 2 instead of 9 



at 2 163 



