11
days after the solstice is a strange day to start the New Year. The designation
of a New Year’s Day in any calendar system is ultimately arbitrary, of course,
but calendars had their origins in Neolithic times from the tracking of the
phases of the moon and the (apparent) motion of the sun; accordingly, ancient calendars
almost universally begin the year (or try to) at either the winter solstice or the spring
equinox. Julius Caesar, ever unconventional, saw no reason why it couldn’t
start on some other day, however, and it is he whom we have to thank for our
calendar doing exactly that. All early
calendars ran into trouble by trying to include lunar months in a solar year.
The two cycles don’t synch, of course, so some scheme for reconciling them had
to be employed; usually this required throwing in an intercalary month every
few years. The traditional Roman calendar was a worse hash than most (even the
far more ancient Sumerian was better), thereby creating huge problems in everything
from shipping schedules to the calculation of interest payments. Wrote
Plutarch, “Festivals and days of sacrifice gradually got out of place and
finally came to be celebrated at the very opposite seasons to what was
originally intended.” Then Caesar went to Egypt during the Roman civil war
where he was impressed not only by Cleopatra but by Cleopatra’s astronomer
Sosigenes. Sosigenes had his own
proposals for timekeeping, so Caesar put him in charge of revamping the Roman
calendar. Sosigenes developed the Julian calendar, which went into effect by
Caesar’s order in 46 BCE. It dispensed with lunar phases and intercalary months.
“He linked the year to the course of the sun, abolishing the short extra month
and adding an entire day every fourth year” (Suetonius Julius Caesar). Caesar chose what the first day to begin the new
calendar would be, and he deliberately chose one other than the solstice. The
new calendar was a vast improvement for everyday life and it simplified
astronomical calculations as well. When Cicero (no fan of Caesar) was told what
date the constellation Lyra would rise, he grumbled, “No doubt it has been
ordered to do so.” With
only one minor tweak, this is the calendar we still use today. Sosigenes knew
very well that the solar year is 365.242 days, not 365.25, but the Julian
calendar would drift only 3 days every 4 centuries, and in 46 BCE that no doubt
seemed too far away to be a concern. Centuries do pass, however. Accumulated
excess days were chopped off in 1582 (not until 1752 in Britain and its
colonies) when the Gregorian calendar went into effect. It is the same as the
Julian except that it eliminates the leap day from any year ending in 00 that
is not also evenly divisible by 400. So, 2000 was a leap year but 1900 wasn’t
and 2100 won’t be; this makes the calendar accurate to within one day per 3300
years. So why
was January 1 not set on the solstice in 46 BCE? Caesar wanted it otherwise,
and that is all there is to it. We still live with the consequences of that
choice, which, it must be said, are surely less onerous than the consequences
of most of our own life choices. It is commonplace for us to try to put our bad
choices behind us New Year’s Eve and start fresh on New Year’s Day. That is
what we intend anyway. We
need not be entirely captive to the whims of Julius Caesar when celebrating a
new year. There is nothing stopping each of us from choosing a personal New
Year’s Day (or a whole private calendar for that matter): “I consider my new
year to start on July 22, because why not?” That is perfectly legitimate, but it
means celebrating your New Year’s Eve alone (even sans Covid); this would be
the least of the drawbacks to scheduling by one’s own idiosyncratic calendar.
So, most of us are content to ring out the old year by the generally accepted
calculation on December 31 and ring in the new year on January 1. The
New Year’s Blues typically kick in on January 2 by which time we’ve broken at
least a few of our new year’s resolutions and are grudgingly acknowledging that
our lives and challenges are not really different than they were a few days
earlier. Yet, the blues pass, too, since “not really different” at least means
things are no worse. Besides, there is always Orthodox New Year to celebrate.
This is calculated by the untweaked Julian calendar, which has diverged two
weeks from the Gregorian. That leaves plenty of time to recover from last
night’s merriments, so be prepared to raise yet another glass or two when
January 14th arrives. Maybe a second stab at keeping new year’s
resolutions will work out better, and January 15 will be blues-free – unless
we’re referring to music genres in which case it definitely should be
blues-full.
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