i think we should move new year's day to march 1st.
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i think we should move new year's day to march 1st. consider the benefits: leap day fuckery happens neatly right before the first day of the year instead of randomly in the second month; october and december return to being the 8th and 10th months as originally intended. we can leave new year's eve where it is though
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i think we should move new year's day to march 1st. consider the benefits: leap day fuckery happens neatly right before the first day of the year instead of randomly in the second month; october and december return to being the 8th and 10th months as originally intended. we can leave new year's eve where it is though
@aeva
New Year's Day *was* March 1st for the longest time, as it happens. It was that in the Roman calendar (later shifted to January to make raising armies easier as the Republic expanded), it was observed on the 25th of March in England for a while... -
@aeva
New Year's Day *was* March 1st for the longest time, as it happens. It was that in the Roman calendar (later shifted to January to make raising armies easier as the Republic expanded), it was observed on the 25th of March in England for a while...@iris_meredith @aeva
TIL
How did it make raising armies easier? -
@iris_meredith @aeva
TIL
How did it make raising armies easier?@realn2s @iris_meredith @aeva start the hiring cycle after Christmas break?
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@iris_meredith @aeva
TIL
How did it make raising armies easier?@realn2s @aeva
Not a historian, but broad strokes: the magistrates that could command the Republic's armies were elected at the beginning of the year, and military service happened on an annual basis. This means that at the beginning of March, every citizen liable for conscription had to show up at the Campus Martius (Field of Mars, God of war, hence also "March") to find out whether they'd be conscripted that year or not. -
@realn2s @aeva
Not a historian, but broad strokes: the magistrates that could command the Republic's armies were elected at the beginning of the year, and military service happened on an annual basis. This means that at the beginning of March, every citizen liable for conscription had to show up at the Campus Martius (Field of Mars, God of war, hence also "March") to find out whether they'd be conscripted that year or not.@realn2s @aeva
While Rome was just one city, that was easy enough. But as the Republic expanded through Italy, they wound up with more Roman citizens, hence more people liable for conscription, and they also lived further away from Rome. So, if you want to start your year's campaigning in late March or early April, you need to hold consular elections and start the conscription process earlier. Hence the push out to January -
@realn2s @aeva
While Rome was just one city, that was easy enough. But as the Republic expanded through Italy, they wound up with more Roman citizens, hence more people liable for conscription, and they also lived further away from Rome. So, if you want to start your year's campaigning in late March or early April, you need to hold consular elections and start the conscription process earlier. Hence the push out to January -
i think we should move new year's day to march 1st. consider the benefits: leap day fuckery happens neatly right before the first day of the year instead of randomly in the second month; october and december return to being the 8th and 10th months as originally intended. we can leave new year's eve where it is though
@aeva Consider instead, 13 months of 28 days each, and new years is its own day without a month, and every once in a while it is 2 days instead of 1.
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i think we should move new year's day to march 1st. consider the benefits: leap day fuckery happens neatly right before the first day of the year instead of randomly in the second month; october and december return to being the 8th and 10th months as originally intended. we can leave new year's eve where it is though
@aeva iunno, getting rid of leap years and the desire to match social/industrial/business time with astronomical time is prob a easier task
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i think we should move new year's day to march 1st. consider the benefits: leap day fuckery happens neatly right before the first day of the year instead of randomly in the second month; october and december return to being the 8th and 10th months as originally intended. we can leave new year's eve where it is though
@aeva Having new year in spring (of the northern hemisphere anyway) is still the norm in lots of places, as it used to need almost everywhere. It makes way more sense to celebrate the turn of the year at the end of winter, as life starts to return. But hey ho, we can't have anything nice.
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