Did August Mess Up the Calendar?

In Latin, the old language of Europe, a long long time ago, month names were similar to Japanese – 7月、8月、9月…

“Septem” means 7, “Octo” means 8, “Novem” means 9, and “Decem” means 10.

Yet, September is the 9th month, October the 10th, November the 11th, December the 12th... This doesn’t make sense.

In the past, we also had “Quintilis”, meaning 5, and "Sextilis", meaning 6. The months before that were named after Roman gods.

What happened in the calendar to mess up the names?

In the beginning, the Roman calendar had 10 months. They followed the phases of the moon. However, it was an agricultural (farming) calendar, that was useful for tracking field work.

During the winter months, when there’s no work on the farm, people didn’t track the time – and they didn’t count these months at all!

In essence, the year started in March and ended in December!

The second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius, added two months. He wanted to make sure all days in a year were included, so he added January and February. The names come after the god Janus and the festival Februa.

But by doing this, Numa Pompilius moved the whole year!

The old beginning of the year in March now became the third month! The old 10-month calendar now became a 12-month calendar, starting with brand new winter months.

So Numa Pompilius tried to help – he made the calendar longer to suit Earth’s rotation around the Sun, and to count winter days too. But as a result, he made the month names completely wrong!

It’s a popular belief that Augustus Caesar Octavian added two months because he was vain.
This is not true. In fact, he only renamed the old Quintilis and Sextilis months into – July and August. July after Julius Caesar, and August after himself.

So, the answer is – August did not mess up the calendar. Perhaps, Numa Pompilius did.
If anything, August made the new calendar a little less confusing. At least, for those two months.

So, today, August is the 8th month of the calendar – and it’s followed by September, October, November, and December. So, if you study Latin, the names of the months are completely confusing – but August Caesar tried to help!