But the Sacred
College during the last distracted century had neglected their office. The
lunar year was now sixty-five days in advance of the sun. The so-called
winter was really the autumn, the spring the winter. The summer solstice
fell at the beginning of the legal September. On Caesar as Pontifex
Maximus devolved the duty of bringing confusion into order, and the
completeness with which the work was accomplished at the first moment of
his leisure shows that he had found time in the midst of his campaigns to
think of other things than war or politics. Sosigenes, an Alexandrian
astronomer, was called in to superintend the reform. It is not unlikely
that he had made acquaintance with Sosigenes in Egypt, and had discussed
the problem with him in the hours during which he is supposed to have
amused himself "in the arms of Cleopatra." Sosigenes, leaving the moon
altogether, took the sun for the basis of the new system. The Alexandrian
observers had discovered that the annual course of the sun was completed
in 365 days and six hours. The lunar twelve was allowed to remain to fix
the number of the months. The numbers of days in each month were adjusted
to absorb 365 days. The superfluous hours were allowed to accumulate, and
every fourth year an additional day was to be intercalated. An arbitrary
step was required to repair the negligence of the past.
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