
Early Roman Calendar - microwise
http://www.webexhibits.org/calendars/calendar-roman.html
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rolux
"By the 1st century B.C.E., the Roman calendar had become hopelessly
confused."

At least one can treat the years in that period as numbers. For why Roman
years before 300 B.C.E. have to be handled as names, not numbers, and should
never be used in arithmetic operations, see Peter Paul Koch's excellent essay
"Making <time> safe for historians":
[http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2009/04/making_time_...](http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2009/04/making_time_saf.html)

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ableal
I always liked the "scheduled for the Greek Calends" turn of phrase (a subtler
form of "never, is never good for you?" ;-)

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bertil
The topic is fascinating, but the writing…

I’m not familiar with WebExhibits, but that article is barely readable, a
collection of copy-paste that have little overall consistency: the number of
days and names of months is repeated for no apparent reasons; changes are not
summarised. I don't think anyone can make sense of the examples, and
references to those are not clear either.

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winestock
Traditionalist Catholic religious communities still use this calendar to a
certain extent.

At the beginning of dinner, the seminarians will assemble in the refectory and
listen to the daily reading of the Roman Martyrology. It begins, for example,
with "A reading from the Roman Martyrology for the fifth day before the
Kalends of February, the thirteenth moon." Thereupon, we would hear about the
saints whose feast days were established for the following day. The reading
would end with the words "and elsewhere, many other holy martyrs, saints, and
holy virgins."

The oddest day in the calendar was the dies bisextus, which gets inserted
somewhere after the Nones of February in leap years. On that day, the reading
is simply "Many holy martyrs, saints, and holy virgins."

To this day, indult parishes that celebrate the 1962 Roman liturgy have saints
days that get moved apparently arbitrarily in late February on leap years. If
you understand the old Roman calendar, it makes sense.

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Fuzzwah
Interested in Ancient Rome? I went through a phase where I was some what
obsessed about it.

I thoroughly enjoyed The History of Rome podcast:
[http://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/](http://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/)

Also of note (less historical, but still brilliant imho), the HBO (fictional)
series Rome:
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0384766](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0384766)

~~~
gte910h
Death Throes of the Roman Republic (Which is now in their paid archive) is an
excellent guide to the time of Caesar. About 11 minutes into to episode 1,
most people buy into listening to the whole thing:

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I'm sad they're not free anymore, but I remember the drive back from the trip
while I listened to them better than most of the trip years later. It starts a
good bit before Caesar.

The details about how the country transformed due to different stresses is
fascinating, and the commentary on Caesars actions and his writings is
particularly memorable.

