Augustus and the Roman Year: Calendar Reform as Power

In 46 BCE, Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar — a solar system of 365 days with a leap year. But it fell to his adopted son Augustus to fix its drift and embed it as a tool of imperial authority. This episode explores how Augustus reformed the calendar after his priestly college misapplied the leap-year rule, why he renamed the month Sextilis to August, and how he used the fasti (official calendar) to insert new festivals honoring the domus Augusta and the Pax Romana. We discuss the pre-Julian lunar calendar of the pontifex maximus, the role of the Vestal Virgins in marking time, and the political messages encoded in the fasti discovered at Praeneste and Antium. Lucas and Luna also examine how the Egyptian solar calendar influenced the reform, and how Augustus presented his own birthday and key military victories as sacred turning points in the Roman year. A revealing look at how controlling time meant controlling memory. #Augustus #RomanCalendar #JulianCalendar #CalendarReform #FastiPraenestini #FastiAntiates #Sosigenes #PaxRomana #PontifexMaximus #VestalVirgins #DomusAugusta #RomanReligion #Timekeeping #RomanHistory #AncientRome #History #FexingoHistory #Mediterranean Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo