{"id":2876,"date":"2013-12-31T17:04:07","date_gmt":"2013-12-31T17:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/?p=2876"},"modified":"2013-12-31T17:04:07","modified_gmt":"2013-12-31T17:04:07","slug":"roman-origins-of-the-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/roman-origins-of-the-new-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Roman Origins of the New Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Whilst enjoying your New Year, remember to look back on 2013 and see what you wish to make of 2014! But before you do that, read on the historic background of New Years Day!<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Names of days and months explained\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PyWe_WfDi1A?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Originally, the Roman calendar designated March 1 as the New Year.\u00a0 The Roman Calendar only had ten months with March as the first month.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>March:<\/b> named after Mars, the god of war<\/li>\n<li><b>April:<\/b> from <i>aperire,<\/i> Latin for \u201cto open\u201d (buds)<\/li>\n<li><b>May:<\/b> named after Maia, the goddess of growth of plants<\/li>\n<li><b>June:<\/b> from <i>junius,<\/i> Latin for the goddess Juno<\/li>\n<li><b>July:<\/b> named after Julius Caesar in 44 B.C.<\/li>\n<li><b>August:<\/b> named after Augustus Caesar in 8 B.C.<\/li>\n<li><b>September:<\/b> from <i>septem,<\/i> Latin for \u201cseven\u201d<\/li>\n<li><b>October:<\/b> from <i>octo,<\/i> Latin for \u201ceight\u201d<\/li>\n<li><b>November:<\/b> from <i>novem,<\/i> Latin for \u201cnine\u201d<\/li>\n<li><b>December:<\/b> from <i>decem,<\/i> Latin for \u201cten\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These were added later:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: left\"><b>January:<\/b> named after Janus, the god of doors and gates<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: left\"><b>February:<\/b> named after Februalia, a time period when sacrifices were\u00a0 made to atone for sins<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>According to Livy,\u00a0January was invented by Rome&#8217;s second king, Numa Pontilius, along with February. The first time the New year was celebrated on January 1st was in 153 B.C.E. However, this change from March 1st to January 1st was not always strictly enforced. It was mainly implemented for political reasons. The New Year was moved to January 1st, because this was when the beginning of the civil year occurred. The month that two newly elected Roman Consuls began their one-year term.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center\">Julian Calendar: January 1st Officially Instituted as the New Year<\/h3>\n<p>In 46 B.C.\u00a0Julius Caesar\u00a0introduced a solar-based calendar that improved \u00a0the ancient Roman calendar, which was a lunar- based\u00a0which had become\u00a0extremely inaccurate over\u00a0the years. Julius Caesar&#8217;s calendar known as the Julian calendar decreed that the New Year would occurred on January 1st\u00a0 for the entire Roman world.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2877\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter post-item__attachment\"><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:Janus1.JPG\" aria-label=\"800px Janus1 300x225\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2877\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2877\" alt=\"A statue representing Janus Bifrons in the Vatican Museums.\"  width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/ src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2013\/12\/800px-Janus1-300x225.jpg\"><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2877\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A statue representing Janus Bifrons in the Vatican Museums.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>For the Romans, the month of January carried a special significance. Its name was derived from the two-faced deity Janus, the god of change and beginnings. Janus was seen to be looking back at the old and ahead to the new, and this idea became tied to the concept of transition from one year to the next.<\/p>\n<p>Romans would celebrate January 1 by giving offerings to Janus in the hope of gaining good fortune for the new year. This day was seen as setting the stage for the next twelve months. According to Ovid, most Romans also chose to work for at least part of New Year\u2019s Day, as idleness was seen as a bad omen for the rest of the year.<\/p>\n<p>So start your year the right way with retrospection and introspection! Be safe and have fun!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"350\" height=\"263\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2013\/12\/800px-Janus1-350x263.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image tmp-hide-img\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2013\/12\/800px-Janus1-350x263.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2013\/12\/800px-Janus1-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2013\/12\/800px-Janus1.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><p>Whilst enjoying your New Year, remember to look back on 2013 and see what you wish to make of 2014! But before you do that, read on the historic background of New Years Day! Originally, the Roman calendar designated March 1 as the New Year.\u00a0 The Roman Calendar only had ten months with March as&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/roman-origins-of-the-new-year\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":2877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[178,60855,60869],"class_list":["post-2876","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-history","tag-roman-culture-2","tag-roman-history"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2876"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2880,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2876\/revisions\/2880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}