ROMAN CALENDAR • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Roman calendar

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Roman calendar n. The calendar of the ancient Romans, from which our modern calendars are derived. It is said to have consisted originally of ten months, Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December, having a total of 304 days. Numa added two months, Januarius at the beginning of the year, and Februarius at the end, making in all 355 days. He also ordered an intercalary month, Mercedinus, to be inserted every second year. Later the order of the months was changed so that January should come before February. Through abuse of power by the pontiffs to whose care it was committed, this calendar fell into confusion. It was replaced by the Julian calendar. In designating the days of the month, the Romans reckoned backward from three fixed points, the calends, the nones, and the ides. The calends were always the first day of the month. The ides fell on the 15th in March, May, July (Quintilis), and October, and on the 13th in other months. The nones came on the eighth day (the ninth, counting the ides) before the ides. Thus, Jan. 13 was called the ides of January, Jan. 12, the day before the ides, and Jan. 11, the third day before the ides (since the ides count as one), while Jan. 14 was the 19th day before the calends of February.

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Etymology of 'Roman calendar'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Roman calendar" Quotes from Famous Books

... most important of his changes this year (B.C. 40) was the reformation of the Calendar, which was a real benefit to his country and the civilized world, and which he accomplished in his character as Pontifex Maximus. The regulation of the Roman calendar had always been intrusted to the College of Pontiffs, who had been accustomed to lengthen or shorten the year at their pleasure for political purposes; and the confusion had at length become so great that the Roman year was three months behind ...

— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... observation of this phenomenon, they added six hours to the computed duration of the year, and established the canicular period of four years, consisting of one thousand four hundred and sixty-one days. It was not until the days of Julius Caesar that this computation of time was adopted in the Roman calendar; and fifteen centuries from that time had elapsed before the yearly celebration of the Christian paschal festivals, founded upon the Passover of the Levitical law, revealed the fact that the annual revolution of the earth ...

— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... progress in it, when, thinking that he might obtain useful assistance from the Bible, he began its study with this object. Here indeed he found saints brought to view, but not such as figured in the Roman calendar. A flood of divine light broke in upon his mind. In amazement and disgust he turned away from his self-appointed task, and devoted himself to the word of God. The precious truths which he there discovered, he soon began ...

— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... "all-pitiful;" and in Latin his name is spelled Pantaleymon and Pantaleemon. Hagiologists seem to have been puzzled, but the compiler of the Acta Sanctorum, for July 27, St. Pantaleon's Day in the Roman calendar (xxxiii. 397-426), gives the preference to Pantaleon, and explains that he was hailed as Pantaleemon by a divine voice at the hour of his martyrdom, which proclaimed "eum non amplius esse vocandum ...

— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... the ashen staff to St. Mael and informed him of the unhappy state into which the Abbey had fallen. The monks were in disagreement as to the date an which the festival of Easter ought to be celebrated. Some held for the Roman calendar, others for the Greek calendar, and the horrors of a chronological ...

— Penguin Island • Anatole France

Words linked to "Roman calendar" : lunar calendar

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