Maths Activities - Roman Numerals - The Development of the Calendar


Roman Numerals, Julian Calendar


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Roman Numerals & the Calendar

The first Roman calendar had CCCIV days and X months and as a result it was incredibly inaccurate. Over the years the calendar was refined but was still quite inaccurate and needed to be replaced because it was out of sync with religious festivals and crop planting.

Eventually the emperor Julius Caesar consulted an Egyptian astronomer and introduced a calendar based on the Sun. He called it the Julian calendar and it came into effect on January I, XLV BCE

The new calendar had CCCLXV days, divided into XII months and a leap year day every IV years added to February.

Did you know the names of our months come from the Romans?

Learn more about the origins of the names of the month

In VIII BCE the Romans renamed two of the months. The month of July was named after Julius Caesar for his empire expanding military conquests and the month of August was named after Augustus Caesar who defeated Cleopatra and Marc Antony and saved Rome.

Although it is unlikely, it is said by some that Julius had an extra day added to July which was taken from February. It is also thought that an extra day was added to August, also taken from February, so no one could say either man was greater that the other. i.e. both months now have XXXI days and February XXVIII.

Isn't it funny that things that happened over MM years ago still affect us today.

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Roman Numerals, Rome Total War Video Game

NB the cavalry graphic
was captured from the
video game
Rome: Total War
.

The
Roman Numerals
Homepage


Roman Numerals Lesson


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