A Stitch In Time Saves Nine
Little things go unnoticed. We have one extra day in this year. Just one day slipped in, unnoticed amongst 365 others. It will be an ordinary day, a Saturday. We won’t notice it because, as usual, it will be after Friday and before Sunday. It will be an extra day in the month and in the year, but not an extra day in the week.
46 B.C. was also a Leap Year. Unlike 2020 A.D. it did not go unnoticed. Ninety extra days were slipped into the calendar that year.
Even in those days, when it was generally believed that the earth is flat and that the sun goes around the earth, the astronomers and mathematicians knew it was necessary to make adjustments. Slipping in a day here and there was necessary to keep the calendar in sync with the solstices and equinoxes. So the scholars did their calculations and advised when to insert a leap year.
By 46 B.C. these minor adjustments had not been made for many years. No one had really noticed at first. It was an extraordinarily busy time for the Roman Empire. There was territory to be conquered, governed and organized; generals were vying for superiority, slaying or poisoning a contender for power; rulers were being deposed at an alarming rate. Those that did hold power had to watch their backs for treachery. Who had time for calendar watching? Such an insignificant matter was left unattended. But by 46 B.C. that one extra day had not been inserted for so long that it required the insertion of three months to catch up.
Some had noticed that holidays were falling at odd times. Some didn’t notice because it was happening so gradually, like climate change. Certainly it was much colder in May than it used to be and grandfathers were remarking that they never used to have such hot weather in November.
But the farmers did not have a calendar on the wall. They knew what time it was. They looked at the sky, listened to the birds and the streams, sniffed the air, tasted the fruit, rubbed the wheat kernels through their fingers, examined the buds on the trees and tested the soil with a spade. They read the signs that were all about them, cues given by the animals, plants and the earth itself. They knew what to do and when to do it.
However, it was difficult to set appointments, make plans and agree on contracts. Administration was suffering.
Something had to be done! So, in 46 B.C. (though no one knew it was 46 B.C. back then because Jesus Christ had not yet been born) Julius Caesar called in a Greek astronomer and mathematician, called Sosigenes, to come up with a solution. He did the calculations and figured that an extra ninety days should the trick!
Not surprisingly, this did not go unnoticed. One extra day among 1,460 seems insignificant, ninety extra days in one calendar year seemed preposterous to many people. Cicero made a joke of it, saying that Julius Caesar was ordering the stars to rise and fall according to his new calendar.
It does pay off, in the long run, to take care of small details before they become unmanageable. As my Mum used to say, “A stitch in time saves nine(ty)!”
by Andrea Kidd
