Page:Spencer - The Shepheardes Calender, conteining twelue æglogues proportionable to the twelue monethes, 1586.djvu/14

 ''der times when as yet the coumpt of the yeare was not perfected, as afterwarde it mas by Iulius Cſar, they began to tell the monethes from Marches beginning and according tothe ſame God (as ſaid te Scripture) commaunded the people of the Iewes to count the moneth Abil, that which we call March, for the first moneth, in remembrance that in that moneth hee brought them out of the land of Aegypt: yet according to tradition of latter times it hath ben otherwiſe obſerued both im gouernment of the Church, & rule of Mightieſ Realmes. For from Iulius Cſar who firſt obſerued. the leape yeare which hee called Beflextilem Annum, and brought into a more certaine courſe the oddewādring dayes which of the Greekes were called Hyperbainontes of the Romanes Intercalares (for in ſuch matter of learning I am forced to vſe the termes of the learded) the monethes haue bèn numbred xij. which in the firſt ordinance of Romulus were but ten, counting but CCCiij. daies in euery yeare, and bèginninge with March. But Numa Pompilius who was the father of all the Romane Ceremonies and Religion, ſeeing that reckoning to agree neither with the courſe of the Sun, nor of the Moone, thereunto added two monethes, Ianuarie and Februarie, wherein it ſeemeth, that wiſe king minded vpon good reaſon to beginne the yeare at Ianuarie, of him therefore ſo called tanquam Tanua anni the gate and entrance of the yeare, or of the name of the god Ianus, to which God for that the old Paynims attributed the birth and beginning of all creatures new comming into the worlde, it ſeemeth that he therefore to him aſsigned the beginning & firſt entrance of the yeare. Which account for the moſt part hath hetherto continued. Notwithſtanding that the Egiptians begin their yeare at September for that according to the opinion of the beſt Rabbins, and very purpoſe of the Scripture itſelf God made the world in that Moneth, that is called of them'' Tifri. And therefore he commaunded them, to keepe the feaſt of Pauilions in the