WHY FEBRUARY??

February!! The month of love and intelligence. Have you ever wondered why it was given the least number of days? Was it because of its “unlucky” status back then that ‘they’ wanted it to end as soon as possible? Who are ‘they’? There are a lot of questions and a lot more to answer, stick around till the end, it will be worth your time. 

So, first, let’s start with who are ‘They’?

Yeah, you guessed it right, it was the Romans. They always sneak in when it comes to ancient history, with their progressive attitude towards science, technology, philosophy, art, culture... you name it. 

Before the late 8th century BC, Rome used a ‘10-Month Lunar Calendar’ to keep a track of time.

“Why lunar (moon-based) calendar?” Well, the invention of the atomic clock still thousands of years away 😏😏 they wanted something from nature that repeats itself and what better way to use the on-sky pie chart 🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘 that goes from blank to a full disc in approximately 29.5 days.

    Picture Credit : Webexhibit.org

“But why 10 months?” With no work in the field and nothing to keep count of, the winter season was not considered for calendar use. The year was divided into six months of 30 days and four months of 31 days, which made a total of 304 days.

But 10 lunar months is comprised of 295 days, from where do those 9 extra days come from? There is no clear idea about why this happened but most researchers believed that as the counting of days started and ended with the new moon, the day that had belonged to both the old month and the new month, may have been counted twice. The distribution was as follows,

Martius	31 days
Aprilis	30 days
Maius	31 days
Junius	30 days
Quinctilis	31 days
Sextilis	30 days
September	30 days
October	31 days
November	30 days
December	30 days

NUMA’S ORDINANCE

When Numa Pompilius (715-673 BC), the second king of Rome came to power, he divided the year into 12 lunar months (12 x 29.5=354 days). So 50 days were added to the previous 304 days and divided equally to two brand new winter months: Januarius (January) and Februarius (February).

But with the rise of the Pythagorean superstition on even numbers being unlucky Numa took one (1) day from each of the six 30-day months and added to the newbies, so both January and February then had 28 (50÷2+6÷2=28) days each. As 354 is also an even number one extra day was added to January and the year was made of 355 days. So each month now had odd number of days except for February. Here is the distribution —

Martius	31 days
Aprilis	29 days
Maius	31 days
Junius	29 days
Quinctilis	31 days
Sextilis	29 days
September	29 days
October	31 days
November	29 days
December	29 days
Januarius	29 days
Februarius	28 days

*Yes, Januarius (January) & Februarius (February) were kept at the end of the calendar

BUT WHY FEBRUARY WAS LEFT WITH EVEN DAYS?

If a day were to add or take from February to make it an odd number, the total days in the year would again become an even number, so they had to leave it. The name Februarius comes from the Latin word ‘Februum’ which means purification. So ‘They’ used the month as a festival (Lupercalia/Februa) to avert evil spirits and purify the city.

Things seemed good for Rome with their new calendar but another problem was just around the corner waiting for them….

WHEN SUN COMES IN 

Using the lunar phase as a measurement of month turned out to be troublesome. As the lunar year (354 days) is about 11 days less than the solar year (365.25 days), days started to go out of sync with the seasons eventually. The inconsistency was so much that events recorded at a much later date than the actual occurrence, sometimes months later.

But King Numa, still obsessed with Lunar calendar, wanted to sort out this issue with another weird way possible.

INTRODUCTION OF LEAP (INTERCALARY) MONTH

To regulate the lunar calendar Numa added an Intercalary (Leap) month (22 or 23 days) so that at the end of nineteen (19) years, the lunar and solar year would coincide. Within those 19 years, 7 years were intercalated. Later to make the regulation more accurate Callippus, at around 330 BC, combined four such 19-year cycles (Metonic cycles) i.e. a 76-year long cycle, so that the average would come close to 365.25 days. But 76 years was too long to manage.

January and February were already shifted to the first and second month of the year respectively, by the Roman Republic ( at around 450 BC).

To make the lunar calendar in phase with the solar year and to make it easier to maintain, Romans made another change in the process of inserting the intercalary month.

An additional month(leap month) of 27 days was inserted every other year after February 23rd or 24th, such that the distribution became,

Januarius	29 days
Februarius	23/24 days
Intercalary Month	27 days
Martius	31 days
…...	…...
December	29 days

So a four-year cycle would be comprised of 355, 377, 355, 378 days respectively, which would average out to be 366.25 days. The mean is just one day longer than the solar year of 365.25 days, which was really appreciable provided it could be achieved only by a four-year cycle compared to a 19 or 76-year long cycle.

This was really a great method if implemented properly but terrible if misused…

COMPLICATIONS IN THE LONG RUN & THE RESCUER

As one would suspect, these regulations were never done accordingly. Politicians would insert the intercalary (leap) month following their own benefit; during wars, priests would forget to insert the month or they would hesitate to make any changes at all (because intercalation was considered unlucky, and they believed it could affect the outcome of a war).

When Julius Caesar was elected the chief priest in 63 BC, things were already out of hand and as he was preoccupied in Gaul and then with civil war, the intercalation was done only once in 19 years. When he did finally return from Egypt in 46 BC and was declared dictator, he made a reformed calendar based on the solar year, which he heard about when he was in association with Cleopatra.

**Although, 46 BC was the last year where the old lunar calendar was used to make up for the missing days because of the lack of intercalation in the previous years. In that year an intercalary month of 27 days was added after February 24 and two more intercalary months of 33 & 34 days were inserted between November & December. The year was of 445 days (355-4+27+33+34=445).

JULIAN CALENDAR (MODERN-DAY CALENDAR)

So the new solar calendar made by Julius Caesar became the basis of modern-day calendar. The distribution was,

Januarius	31 days
Februarius	28 days
Martius	31 days
Aprilis	30 days
Maius	31 days
Junius	30 days
Quinctilis	31 days
Sextilis	31 days
September	30 days
October	31 days
November	30 days
December	31 days

A total of 365 days.

As a solar year is 0.25 or quarter days more than the solar calendar, a single intercalary day was added every four years after February 24th and the year was considered a leap year with February having 29 days, which is still in use.

Later, Caesar’s birth month Quinctilis was renamed July (Julius), in his honor and Sextilis was renamed August, in his son’s (Augustus Caesar) honor.

Do any of the months possess this much story?

Share your February stories with us in the comments below.

References :

1. Roman Calendar
2. LacusCurtius • The Roman Calendar (Smith's Dictionary, 1875)
3. Intercalation
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_phase
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_calendar
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February
7. https://www.ancient.eu/Roman_Science/

Author : Akash Ghosh
Motivated by : Prantika Dutta