Caesar, Augustus, and Their Calendar

This chapter focuses on the Julian reform and its place under Augustus. Scholars sometimes take Caesar’s shift to a solar year to be obvious, and they often view his new calendar as marking a complete break with its predecessor. Instead, his reform should be viewed as a proclamation of his extraordinary position in the polity, and in it, he took great care to maintain the significance of the old calendar’s dates. Augustus gave the calendar an important role in his new order, for he used it as the basis of his efforts to make the political and religious order. Scholars sometimes view his efforts as an attempt to assert a monarchical vision of the polity or of some larger, more universal order. Instead, his use of the calendar reveals considerable continuity with the republican past.