Talk:Roman dates
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Bisextile
The Wikipedia article on Leap Year ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_year ) states:
- "To create the intercalary day, the existing ante diem sextum Kalendas Martii (February 24) was doubled, producing ante diem bis sextum Kalendas Martii. ... Originally, the first was regarded as bis sextum, the intercalary day, but in 238 Censorinus stated that the intercalary day was followed by the last five days of February, a. d. VI, V, IV, III and pridie Kal. Mar. (which would be those days numbered 24, 25, 26, 27, and 28 from the beginning of February in a common year), hence he regarded the bissextum as the first half of the doubled day. All later writers, including Macrobius about 430, Bede in 725, and other medieval computists (calculators of Easter), continued to state that the bissextum (bissextile day) occurred before the last five days of February."
The calendar proposed here follows the earlier convention. Agricola 08:51, 24 January 2008 (CET)
Content
I've added the text of an email I sent in early 2005 here as content for the article. I'm sure more could be added, but for now, this is the best I can give. If anyone could scan the text and add links where appropriate, I'd appreciate it. Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Postumianus 05:19, 10 April 2006 (CDT)
Format
The table in "Month Forms" forces a horizontal scroll in my browser. M. Lucretius Agricola 05:11, 21 April 2006 (CDT)
I just updated the table to remove the last two columns. It should work better now. Metellus 07:58, 21 April 2006 (CDT)
- Yes, that is better. I made a bit of a sample of yet another style on my user page. Take a look and see if you like it. I used month numbers rather than names with a view to making a template that will work in all language namespaces of the wiki. M. Lucretius Agricola 01:43, 22 April 2006 (CDT)
Years AUC
We say: "When using reference to the founding of the City (i.e., Rome), the accepted date is 753 BCE, which would make the year 2001, for instance, "2754." " Let me see. 753 BCE is the founding of the city, so the AUC date would be 0. The next year, 752 BCE, would be 753 minus 752 equals 1 AUC. So then 1 BCE is 753 minus 1 equals 752 AUC. The next year, 1 CE (there being no year zero) would be 753 AUC. There being no year zero means we must use the same formula, taking CE dates to be negative and subtracting 1. So for example 2001 would be 753 minus (-2001) minus 1 equals 2753. Well, this is off by 1. So is 753 BCE by convention 1 AUC? This would be the Roman way of inclusive counting, and if that is in fact what is happening do we need to mention that fact? We would then say: "When using reference to the founding of the City (i.e., Rome), the accepted date is 753 BCE, which would make the year 2001 CE the year "2754 AUC", counting inclusively." M. Lucretius Agricola 19:55, 26 April 2006 (CDT)
