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Cicero about astronomy

This post is also available in: Polish (polski)

Cicero
Cicero

Cicero about astronomy:

This licence of intercalating introduced the confusion above-mentioned, in the computation of their time: so that the order of all their months was transposed from their stated seasons; the winter months carried back into autumn, the autumnal into summer: till Caesar resolved to put an end to this disorder by abolishing the source of it, the use of intercalations; and instead of the lunar to establish the solar year, adjusted to the exact measure of the sun’s revolution in the zodiac, or to that period of time in which it returns to the point from which it set out: and as this, according to the astronomers of that age, was supposed to be three hundred and sixty-five days and six hours, so he divided the days into twelve artificial months; and to supply the deficiency of the six hours, by which they fell short of the sun’s complete course, he ordered a day to be intercalated after every four years, between the twenty-third and twenty-fourth of February.

Sources
  • Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares VI.14

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