this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025
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When having his civil war against Pompey and the senate, Caesar did exploit the fact, that while he held the office of pontifex maximus, he was in charge of the Roman calendar, which by that time had begun to badly run out of sync with the seasons. (It had to be synchronised by adding in a number of days occasionally, this was one of the pontifex maximus' responsibilities) Thanks to his office, Caesar had not only a very good understanding of by how much the calendar had run out of sync, he could also keep it that way by simply not adding in the required extra days. His opponents weren't as well informed, which lead to a strategic advantage for Caesar, because waging war back then was pretty much a seasonal thing. Later in his careeer, Caesar actually introduced a calendar reform which lead to a much more accurate calendar that didn't need such a frequent resynchronisation.