How a Roman ruler created the longest year in human history

Which year was the longest?

The question may sound a little silly, but it really isn't. The longest year truly existed, and it was 46 BC. Gaius Julius Caesar stretched it to colossal proportions. And all because the Roman emperor wanted the next year to start once again at the right time: that is, after the winter solstice.

Today we think of the calendar as a universal measure of time. But in antiquity, calendars served only as a way of organizing religious festivals, the terms of contracts and any other important arrangements. People knew perfectly well that calendars could be shifted and manipulated. Back then calendar time was not fixed – the ancient calendar was more like a schedule that could be revised and changed. 

The Roman calendar

The Roman calendar, as is well known, was used for many centuries. However, before Caesar's reform, the Roman calendar was in a terrible mess. Even the Romans themselves could never determine the date of any given day. The Roman calendar consisted of 355 days, which were divided into 12 months. And originally the calendar was based on the moon, not the sun. The Romans knew that the solar year lasts 365 days and 6 hours, so in leap years they added 22 or 23 days to the ordinary year. This made it possible to bring the lunar calendar into line with the solar one. Consequently, the Roman year lasted 355, 377 or 378 days.

Nevertheless, leap years were just another factor that only added to the confusion of the ancient calendar. They were determined by the Roman high priest, but he did this in a peculiar way. The pontiff (priest) extended the year when his political allies were in power, and shortened it when his opponents ruled.

The Julian calendar

That is what made Julius Caesar's reform so remarkable. He became the man who decided to create a calendar that would not depend on human whim and would follow the scientific data available in that era. In 46 BC he summoned mathematicians and astronomers to Rome to create a new calendar. By that time the old one had fallen eighty days behind the solar year! And as the dictator of Rome, Caesar had the right to impose an entirely new system of measuring time on the world.

The new calendar, as we are used to it now, had 365 days, and once every four years there were 366 days. Ancient scholars knew that the solar year lasts 365 days and 6 hours. It then made sense that over four years one extra day accumulated – and that is when the fixed leap year was introduced. Caesar also wanted his new year to begin in January rather than in March, as had been the custom. That is precisely when the longest year in history was born! Julius Caesar ordered three months, that is, ninety additional days, to be added to 46 BC. Its length then came to 445 days, which made it possible to begin 45 BC in January.