The In-Between Time

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Happy new year! Essay. 500 words, 3-minute read.

Image: https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/janus

The In-Between Time

By Ray Tabler.

The ancient Roman year only had 360 days in it. We enlightened people of the modern era know that there are actually 365.25 days in our year, which also needs periodic adjustment via leap years, leap centuries and the like. To be honest, the ancient Romans were well aware of the extra days too. They just didn’t count them.

The last 5 days pf the Roman year were a time out of time. An in-between interval, when normal business was suspended. People would stagger from one toga party to the next, feasting, drinking, and carousing. Because, why not?

Julius Caesar put a crimp in this calendarial looseness with his Julian calendar.  One thing he did get checked off his to-do list before a bunch of senators perforated him. Not that Caesar cared all that much about calendars, as such. But Roman consuls served for one year. Dishonest ones could bribe the priests responsible for declaring the new year to extend their terms of office. As is often the case, political considerations tipped the scales.

The Roman god of beginnings and endings was Janus (as in January). He had 2 faces, one looking backwards and one looking forward. Scholars tell us that is to symbolize the past and the future meeting at the end of the old year and the start of the new. I think that might just be the way ancient Romans appeared to each other after a 5-day bender. More study is needed.

Some people have proposed that the Christmas holidays result from the Catholic church stealing and repurposing these ancient Roman, mid-winter, pagan festivals.  Maybe. But the Romans were in the habit of adopting foreign gods and practices into their pantheon, and they weren’t too picky about it either (Mithra, Isis, etc…). From one point of view, Christianity was just another foreign religion welcomed into the fold. Of course, it ended up a lot more popular than originally expected. Begs the question, who assimilated who?

A couple of thousand years later, and here we are, doing basically the same thing. Well, feasting and drinking anyway. Wanton carousing is frowned upon these days. Discreet carousing is politely ignored. Good thing too. Feasting and drinking are the natural precursors to carousing, after all.

The point is, the ancient Romans needed a break. And so do we. What better time to take time off than in the short, dark, cold days of mid-winter? The weather’s going to make you drink anyway. Might as well take the week off, feast and carouse as well.

Scholars of ancient Rome may take issue with the above. They might have a point. It’s possible I got a detail or 2 wrong. I’m not a scholar. I only post on the internet like I know what I’m typing about, in hopes of feeding the insatiable demand for content. So, cut me some slack. After all, I’ve been feasting and drinking for the past 5 days straight. Maybe some carousing too. 😉

END.

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