How Julius Caesar Changed Time
The Ancients
History Hit
4.7 • 4.5K Ratings
🗓️ 30 December 2021
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We’re finishing off 2021 with what is perhaps Julius Caesar’s greatest legacy. It’s not a military victory or battle, but one of the many political reforms that truly has stood the test of time: the Julian calendar. Before, calendars were largely based on the lunar calendar, and believe it or not, were pretty flexible, and therefore easily manipulated for political gain. (Need more time to collect some taxes? Just add three more days!)
In this episode, Tristan is joined by Dr Philip Nothaft to discuss how and why this reform came about, and the lasting impact of this watershed moment today.
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Music:
Time Is Palpable - Bradley Andrew Segal & Dorian Charnis
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the ancient's on history hit. |
| 0:11.1 | I'm Tristan Hughes your host and in today's podcast, well it's the end of 2021. |
| 0:17.0 | I think it's time to think about calendars. |
| 0:19.1 | We're going to 2022, you need your new calendar, you need your new diary already for the new |
| 0:24.8 | year. |
| 0:25.8 | And so in this podcast, we're going to be focusing more on time. |
| 0:28.4 | We're going to be focusing in on how Julius Caesar changed time. |
| 0:33.2 | One of his greatest legacies has nothing to do with military victories, with military |
| 0:38.2 | conquests. |
| 0:39.2 | It's to do with an action near the end of his life where he changed the calendar. |
| 0:44.2 | He reformed the calendar of ancient Rome. |
| 0:47.2 | He created the Julian calendar. |
| 0:50.5 | Now to talk through how this all came about, why there was this reforms the calendar at |
| 0:55.5 | the time of Julius Caesar. |
| 0:57.3 | And it's a huge, important, remarkable legacy. |
| 1:01.7 | I was delighted to get on the podcast, Dr. Philip Nothaft. |
| 1:05.6 | Now Philip, he's done work in Oxford. |
| 1:08.2 | He also works in Ireland, at Trinity College Dublin. |
| 1:11.3 | He knows a lot about calendars, not just in ancient history, but also in medieval history. |
| 1:17.0 | And this was a really enlightening chance, particularly for someone like myself, who |
| 1:21.1 | until recently never really fully realized the huge, encompassing legacy of the Julian |
| 1:28.3 | calendar and still how it influences people to this day. |
... |
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