As we mentioned earlier, New Year’s Day celebrations began in pre-Christian times, beginning with the Babylonians in March but changed to January by the Romans. January gets its name from Janus, the two-faced god who looks backwards into the old year and forwards into the new. Janus was also the patron and protector of arches (Ianus in Latin), gates, doors, doorways, endings and beginnings. He was also the patron of bridges and we see this statue, set on the bridge Ponte Fabricio which the Tiber River in Rome to Tiber Island, where it survives from its original construction 62 BC in the time of Julius Caesar. Even today it is believed that if you touch the Janus head as you cross the bridge, it will bring good fortune.

The custom of setting “New Years resolutions” began during this period in Rome, as they made such resolutions with a moral flavor: mostly to be good to others. But when the Roman Empire took Christianity as its official religion in the 4th century, these moral intentions were replaced by prayers and fastings. For example, Christians chose to observe the Feast of the Circumcision on January 1 in place of the revelry otherwise indulged in by those who did not share the faith. This replacement had varying degrees of success over the centuries, and Christians hesitated observing some of the New Year practices associated with honoring the pagan god Janus.

As we’ve described elsewhere, even as recently as the 17th century, Puritans avoided the indulgences associated with New Year’s celebrations and other holidays. In the 18th century, Puritans avoiding even naming Janus. Instead they called January “First Month.”

In contrast to this, the Puritans urged their children to skip the revelry and instead spend their time reflecting on the year past and contemplating the year to come. In this way they adopted again the old custom of making resolutions. These were enumerated as commitments to better employ their talents, treat their neighbors with charity, and avoid their habitual sins.

The great American theologian Jonathan Edwards, brought up in New England Puritan culture, took the writing of resolutions to an art form. But he did not write his resolutions on a single day. Rather, during a two-year period when he was about 19 or 20 following his graduation from Yale, he compiled some 70 resolutions on various aspects of his life, which he committed to reviewing each week.

Here are just three:

• Resolved, in narrations never to speak anything but the pure and simple verity.
• Resolved, never to speak evil of any, except I have some particular good call for it.
• Resolved, always to do what I can towards making, maintaining and establishing peace, when it can be without over-balancing detriment in other respects.

How do your resolutions compare?

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

We have the Romans to thank for celebrating New Year’s Day on January 1. It wasn’t always that way. Indeed, previous civilizations celebrated it in March, to observe the “new year” of growth and fertility. Before calendars existed the time between seed sowing and harvesting was considered a cycle or a year. But the Romans moved the date of New Year to January 1, as I’ll explain below, but first a little on calendars.

Calendar gets its name from the name of the first day of a month in the Roman (Latin) calendar: kalendae

Calendars were developed for all kinds of purposes:

• Religious: “holy days” or holidays
• Astronomical: connecting the movement of objects in the sky
• Commercial: tracking trade and billing
• Arithmetic: for calculating differences between dates. Without a Year 0, the difference between 1 BC and AD 1 is not 2 years. Which is a challenge for Astronomical Calendars
• Social: to keep track of people on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. It gives new meaning to the word “date”

Calendars often tracked the movement of the sun or moon, or both. Some, like the Egyptians of antiquity, traced the movements of planets such as Venus. Setting the date for the universal observance of Easter has witnessed international controversy — including the Council of Nicaea in AD 325 — and caused several calendar reforms. If you don’t account for Easter, there are only 14 different permutations of the de facto international standard Gregorian Calendar, (named after Pope Gregory XIII who established it in 1582) now commonly in use. But because the date for Easter Sunday can vary so much — it’s the first Sunday after the first Paschal Full Moon after the Vernal Equinox, and let’s not forget Leap Year — there are 70 different calendars.

So, back to the date for New Year… originally it was celebrated late in March, when Spring begins with the Vernal Equinox. The ancient Babylonians were the first recorded observers of New Year festivities some 4,000 years ago and celebrated it with the priests offering sacrifices at their temple, kind of like a church. These celebrations lasted for 11 days, due to the numerous state-sponsored football bowl games played at that time. But because there were also the priestly religious observances held at this time, it caused a cry from the populace for the “separation of church and state-championships.”

The Romans also celebrated the New Year in March, but there were so many adjustments to their calendar by their rulers, in part — this may be hard to believe — to extend their terms of office, that calendar dates no longer were synchronized with any astronomical movements. The Roman Senate was forced in 153 BC to start the new year on January 1. This did not sufficiently discourage calendar tampering, and in 46 BC Julius Caesar allowed the year to extend to 445 days, the “Year of Confusion,” until his new calendar reformed matters. It was called, ironically, the Julian Calendar.

When Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the 4th century, some Emperors continued holding riotous New Year’s celebrations, like “toga parties” but more authentic. In part to counter this activity, the Church established a holy day on January 1, the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ, also known as the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus for the name Jesus would have been conferred upon his circumcision. Down through the centuries, it is still observed by Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians and some Eastern Orthodox sects. The jury is still out on whether this has quieted New Year’s celebrations.

How will you celebrate New Year’s Day?

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

As the chronometer clicks over from 2009 to 2010, many are heralding the end of one decade and the beginning of another, regaling the best and worst at the end of the first decade of the 21st century.

Except that it isn’t.

Clicking over to 2010 does mark the end of a decade, indeed any year is the end of a 10 year period preceding it, and it is certainly the beginning of “the decade of 2010s” as any year is the start of a 10 year period following it. And of course, it’s the end of the “aughts,” the ’00s. While this term is not used as commonly as at the beginning of the 1900s, we’re coming to the end of “Aught 9.”

But it is not the ending of THE decade, at least not the end of the first decade of the 21st century. Why is that?

In the same way that the year 2000 was not the beginning of the 21st century, 2010 is not the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century. I know what you’re thinking:

“But wait, didn’t every major capital city in the world have celebrations on December 31, 1999 to usher in the year 2000? Wasn’t the Eiffel Tower lit up like a Roman candle… or at least a French candle?”

True enough, but the calendar did not start with the Year 0, and so 2000 was not the beginning of the 21st century. That’s why Arthur C. Clarke entitled his science fiction epic 2001: a space odyssey. He wanted to mark the beginning of the Second Millennia, the correct start of the 21st century. You’re probably protesting:

“Then why did we make such a big deal out of the Year 2000?”

And well you might ask. Have you ever watched your odometer click over from 1999 to 2000? But that’s only part of the answer. At least equally powerful a motivation was that the year 2000 was the end of the Y2K scare, when we expected that a computer time coding issue would cause the end of civilization as we know it.

Officially, according to the current dating system — which has been in use for simply ages — dates started with Year 1 or AD 1, Anno Domini, (in the year of our Lord) which immediately followed 1 BC, or Before Christ. There was no Year 0. The fact that Jesus was born neither in Year 0 nor Year 1 but at least 4 years earlier we’ve discussed previously. By now you’re probably thinking:

“Didn’t it seem odd to people at the time that one year it’s 1 BC, and the next year it’s AD 1?”

You would think so, except of course, they weren’t using the current Gregorian Calendar that we now use, rather the Julian Calendar, named after that famous Roman Julius Caesar who subsequently got a month named after him. The Romans counted from the “founding of the City (of Rome),” ab urbe condita or A.U.C, about 753 BC. So AD 1 would have been 754 A.U.C. (Although, just between you and I, the Romans preferred marking their calendars by what year it was under the reign of the current consul in government.)

Still with me?

So, when New Year’s Day comes in 2010 it won’t be the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century. Instead, that will start in 2011.

In any event, what will you start saying:

“Two thousand ten” or Twenty-ten”?

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian

www.billpetro.com