Contemporaneously known as the Year of the Consulship of Caesar without Colleague—or 709
Ab urbe condita reckoning time passed since the founding of Rome—the Empire adopts the eponymous Julian calendar as its official civil calendar, a solar calendar synchronised with that of the Egyptians, with dates aligned to political terms for around a century at this point. Later in year 45 BCE, Caesar is named dictator for life and three years later, on 1 January (named after the two-faced god
Janus who could look forwards and back simultaneously but not yet widely accepted as
New Year’s Day) 42 BCE, is
posthumously deified by the Roman senate.
