Bennett argues further that the error of the pontiffs could have been
corrected by the pontifex maximus, M. Aemilius Lepidus, who had succeeded
Julius Caesar in this office after Caesar’s assassination in 44BCE. Lepidus had
been the consular colleague of Caesar in 46BCE, the year when the Julian
calendar was instituted, and is likely to have understood the Julian calendar far
better than his pontifical colleagues, most of who seem to have been relatively
new in office.^165 However, his departure from Rome to Africa in 42BCE, and
then his house arrest from 35BCEtill the end of his life, prevented him
from involvement in the determination of leap years. It is only when he died
in 13BCEand his office was taken over in 12BCEby Augustus that the latter—in
his capacity of pontifex maximus^166 —was able to step in and reform the Julian
calendar.^167
The adoption of thefixed, Julian calendar was thus far from smooth or
straightforward, as our familiarity with this calendar today may otherwise
mislead us to assume.^168 The manipulation of the year-length in 41BCEclearly
demonstrates the abidingflexibility of this calendar, at least soon after its
institution. The role of the pontiffs in the remainder of thefirst centuryBCE
reveals, furthermore, that the emancipation of the new,fixed calendar from
political control was not complete or immediate.
Why was the Julian calendar instituted?Modern scholars rarely bother to ask why Julius Caesar instituted his new
calendar.^169 This is because the Julian calendar is taken for granted as a
necessary correction of the Republican calendar, and hence as a natural
nundinaewould have provided a legitimization of Caesar’s newly instituted practice of inter-
calating only one day (in leap years), which may otherwise have been difficult for Romans to
accept. Others have argued, however, that the option of intercalating single days for this kind of
purpose may have existed already in the Republican calendar, even though there is nofirm
evidence for this: see Michels (1967) 164–7, Samuel (1972) 161–2. The leap year of 38BCE
(instead of 36BCE) may have been motivated by the same intention to prevent the coincidence of
1 Januarius with the nundinae, which would have occurred otherwise in 37 BCE; but from this
point onwards, leap years were solely determined by triennial intercalation.
(^165) See on this Taylor (1942), Rüpke (2008) 128–32.
(^166) This detail is emphasized in Suetonius (Augustus31. 2); see further Van Haeperen (2002)
223.
(^167) Bennett (2003) 232–3. See also Heslin (2007), on the political advantage that Augustus
would have drawn from this over his deceased rival Lepidus.
(^168) It should also be noted that our system of reckoning years according to the Christian Era
(CE) enables us to identify leap years with ease, as they are multiples of four. This era was not in
use before the end of Antiquity (see Mosshammer 2008).
(^169) The motivation behind the institution of the Julian calendar has been given surprisingly
little attention by general historians such asWeinstock (1971). The question is raised by Rüpke
(1995) 371–5 (see also 625) and less explicitly by Feeney (2007) 193–7, but not satisfactorily
resolved.
216 Calendars in Antiquity