That is what I understood as well: Julius and Augustus got their months inserted in the summer - moving September (seven), October (eight) and November (nine) and December (en) back. Depending on the person interpreting months before (and after!) this change, I can see the date getting “moved” around hundreds of eyars later.
Also, one person could have correctly read and interpreted and written the date, a second person decided the “correction” was wrong based on a different calendar, then a third trying to re-re-correct the first and second.
Quintilis ("five") was renamed July in honor of Caesar, after the criminals of the Roman Deep State assassinated him. [1st link]
in 153 BC the new year was moved from the Ides of March to the Kalends of January (January 1) so that newly elected consuls could assume office.
The Roman Calendar
The Romans borrowed parts of their earliest known calendar from the Greeks. The calendar consisted of 10 months in a year of 304 days. The Romans seem to have ignored the remaining 61 days, which fell in the middle of winter. The 10 months were named Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December. The last six names were taken from the words for five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten. Romulus, the legendary first ruler of Rome, is supposed to have introduced this calendar in the 700s B.C.E.
According to tradition, the Roman ruler Numa Pompilius added January and February to the calendar. This made the Roman year 355 days long. To make the calendar correspond approximately to the solar year, Numa also ordered the addition every other year of a month called Mercedinus. Mercedinus was inserted after February 23 or 24, and the last days of February were moved to the end of Mercedinus. In years when it was inserted, Mercedinus added 22 or 23 days to the year.
Early Roman Calendar | Calendars
And now I've got to ping another list...
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