Zefram said:
> Looks a lot like that. They used not to be, though: it seems that the
> oldest convention was to start the counted year on January 1, where Julius
> had put (well, left) the start of the calendar year.
Um, March was the first month of the year; look at the derivation of
"September", for example. It seems that it moved to January in 153 B.C.
Wikipedia suggests it was 15th March before that (because the consuls took
office on the Ides of March).
> Counting the year
> from a different point is a distinctly mediaeval practice.
See above.
> Yes. The seven day week is effectively a small calendar unto itself, and
> one much older than any of the year-based calendars we've been discussing.
> The Julian calendar was developed for a society that didn't use the week
> at all. The week was adopted by the Roman Empire centuries later, as
> part of its Christianisation.
The *seven* day week was, but before then the Romans had a rigid *eight*
day week.
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Received on Thu Jun 08 2006 - 01:11:39 PDT