Some years seem to zip by in the blink of an centre , while others seem to drag on for far longer . But some , likeleap years , can last a little longer than usual . And then there ’s 46 BCE , which lasted 445 days , 80 twenty-four hour period more than we are used to .
So , why did the yr last so long ? Years are how long the Earth takes to make one orbit around the Sun and return to the arbitrary point we have set as the beginning of the new year . Our calendars are an attack to break the year down into glob ( calendar month , weeks , days ) for our own convenience . It ’s jolly useful to be capable to say " I ’ll conform to you on March 3 at 12:00 " as opposed to " When the shadow of the plenty stretch to the hammock yonder , then we shall have brunch " .
While we have gotten secure at getting the orbital year to match up with our calendar days , even tot " leap seconds " to keep thing really synced up , earlier calendars were not so effective .
Before the Julian calendar was present by Julius Caesar , the Roman year see a batch dissimilar , containing just four months ( March , July , October , and May ) with 31 days each . The others were shorter , arrest 29 day each , except for oddball February which had 28 day . As a result , the calendar fell promptly out of sync with the handing over of the Earth around the Sun , and byaround 200 BCE , the calendar was so out of rap that a near - total occultation that took place on what we ’d now term March 14 was recorded as taking blank space on July 11 .
An " intercalary month " , calledMercedonius , had to be added in every few age in club to sabotage the purport .
It was n’t a cracking fashion to run acalendar . Though Mercedonius could be used to realine the calendar with the class , it was overt to political abuse . The Pontifex Maximus and the College of Pontiffs ( side note : slap-up isthmus name ) were allowed to alter the calendar , and would at times use it for political purposes , such as extending someone ’s clock time in office . If you think political science is bad now , guess being baby-sit in a glary December sun so that Joeleticus Blogsicus could go on on for a few more days in the Department of Agriculture .
Julius Caesar by and by attempt to rectify the raft by introducing the Julian calendar in 45 BCE , adding one or two day to the end of all the short months ( except for oddball , February ) to make the entire number of days in a yr a more familiar 365 .
" Then turning his care to the reorganisation of the state of matter , he reformed the calendar , which the negligence of the pope had long since so perturb , through their privilege of add months or days at pleasure , that the harvest festival did not come in summer nor those of the vintage in the autumn ; and he adjusted the yr to the sun ’s course by making it consist of three hundred and sixty - five years , abolishing the intercalary month , and impart one day every fourth class , " Roman historianSuetonius wroteinLife of Julius Caesar .
But before the new calendar ( kinda ) specify thing , there was still a problem to fix ; the year was still out of line with the season . so as to rectify this , Caesar added several months to 46 BCE .
" Furthermore , that the right calculation of seasons might begin with the next Kalends of January , he inserted two other calendar month between those of November and December , " indite Suetonius , " hence the class in which these arrangements were made was one of fifteen months , let in the intercalary month , which belong to that twelvemonth according to the former tradition . "
As a result , 46 BCE became the long year in recorded story at 445 days , and is sometimes referred to asannus confusionis , or the " class of confusion " .
