The Roman calendar was the calendar used by the ancient Romans to measure time. It was a lunar calendar, meaning that it was based on the cycles of the moon, with each month beginning on a new moon. The original Roman calendar is said to have been introduced by Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome, in the 8th century BC.
The original Roman calendar consisted of 10 months, with the year beginning in March and ending in December. The months were named Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December. Quintilis was later renamed July in honor of Julius Caesar, and Sextilis was renamed August in honor of Augustus Caesar.
The Roman calendar was later reformed in the 2nd century BC by the addition of two months, Januarius (January) and Februarius (February), and the introduction of leap years. The calendar was then a mix of lunar and solar elements, with the year consisting of 355 or 356 days, divided into 12 months, with occasional intercalations of a month to keep the calendar in sync with the solar year.
Despite the reforms, the Roman calendar was still subject to inaccuracies, and by the time of Julius Caesar, the calendar had drifted out of sync with the seasons by about 3 months. To address this issue, Julius Caesar reformed the calendar in 46 BC by adding an extra day to February every four years (leap year) and by adjusting the lengths of several months. The resulting Julian calendar was the precursor to the modern Gregorian calendar, which is now widely used around the world.
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