Roman Calendar - Years

Years

The calendar year originally began on 1 March, as is shown by the names of the six months following June (Quintilis = 5th month, Sextilis = 6th month, September = 7th month etc.). It is not known when the start of the calendar year was changed to 1 January. Ancient authors attributed it to Numa Pompilius. Varro states that, according to M. Fulvius Nobilior (consul in 189 BC), who had composed a commentary on a fasti preserved in the temple of Hercules Musarum, January was named after Janus because the god faced both ways, which implies that the calendar year started in January in his time. A surviving calendar from the late Republic proves that the calendar year started in January before the Julian reform.

It is not known how years were identified during the Roman monarchy. During the Roman Republic, years were named after the consuls, who were elected annually (see List of Republican Roman Consuls). Thus the name of the year identified a consular term of office, not a calendar year. For example, 205 BC was The year of the consulship of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus and Publius Licinius Crassus, who took office on 15 March of that year, and their consular year ran until 14 March 204 BC. Lists of consuls were maintained in the fasti.

The first day of the consular term changed several times during Roman history. It became 1 January in 153 BC. Before then it was 15 March. Earlier changes are a little less certain. There is good reason to believe it was 1 May for most of the 3rd century BC, until 222 BC. Livy mentions earlier consular years starting on 1 Sextilis (August), 15 May, 15 December, 1 October and 1 Quintilis (July).

In the later Republic, historians and scholars began to count years from the founding of the city of Rome. Different scholars used different dates for this event. The date most widely used today is that calculated by Varro, 753 BC, but other systems varied by up to several decades. Dates given by this method are numbered ab urbe condita (meaning from the founding of the city, and abbreviated AUC), and correspond to consular years. When reading ancient works using AUC dates, care must be taken to determine the epoch used by the author before translating the date into a Julian year.