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It is not unlikely that he had made acquaintance with Sosigenes in Egypt, and had discussed the problem with him in the hours during which he is supposed to have amused himself "in the arms of Cleopatra." Sosigenes, leaving the moon altogether, took the sun for the basis of the new system.
Caesar finally removed this evil, and with the help of the Greek mathematician Sosigenes introduced the Italian farmer's year regulated according to the Egyptian calendar of Eudoxus, as well as a rational system of intercalation, into religious and official use; while at the same time the beginning of the year on the 1st March of the old calendar was abolished, and the date of the 1st January fixed at first as the official term for changing the supreme magistrates and, in consequence of this, long since prevailing in civil life was assumed also as the calendar-period for commencing the year.
WHEWELL. Another bright little ring, about 3 miles in diameter, some distance to the E. of De Morgan and Cayley. SOSIGENES. A small circular ring-plain, 14 miles in diameter, with narrow walls, a central mountain, and a minute crater outside the wall on the E.; situated on the E. side of the Mare Tranquilitatis, W. of Julius Caesar.
His astronomer, by name Sosigenes, did his best, but assumed the astronomical year to be 11 min. 14 sec. longer than it really is. In 400 years this amounts to an error of three days. The increasing disagreement of the "civil" and the "real" equinox was noticed by learned men in successive centuries.
On Caesar as Pontifex Maximus devolved the duty of bringing confusion into order, and the completeness with which the work was accomplished at the first moment of his leisure shows that he had found time in the midst of his campaigns to think of other things than war or politics. Sosigenes, an Alexandrian astronomer, was called in to superintend the reform.
But upon inquiry, finding that they had not provisions even for that one day, he began to think of some other project. Whilst he was yet in doubt, his friend Sosigenes arrived, who had four hundred pieces of gold about him, and, with this relief, he again entertained hopes of being able to reach the coast, and, as soon as it began to be dark, set forward towards the passes.
There is a brilliant little hill at the end of one of these valleys, a few miles E. of Sosigenes. The floor of Julius Caesar is uneven in tone, becoming gradually duskier from S. to N., the northern end ranking among the darkest areas on the lunar surface. There are at least three large circular swellings in the interior.
Astronomy was long before known in the eastern nations; but there is reason to believe, from a passage in Virgil , that it was little cultivated by the Romans; and it is certain, that in the reformation of the calendar, Julius Caesar was chiefly indebted to the scientific knowledge of Sosigenes, a mathematician of Alexandria.
Caesar finally removed this evil, and with the help of the Greek mathematician Sosigenes introduced the Italian farmer's year regulated according to the Egyptian calendar of Eudoxus, as well as a rational system of intercalation, into religious and official use; while at the same time the beginning of the year on the 1st March of the old calendar was abolished, and the date of the 1st January fixed at first as the official term for changing the supreme magistrates and, in consequence of this, long since prevailing in civil life was assumed also as the calendar-period for commencing the year.
Cæsar was a student of astronomy, and always found time for its contemplation. He even wrote an essay on the motion of the stars, assisted in his observation by Sosigenes, an Alexandrian astronomer. He took astronomy out of the hands of priests, and made it a matter of civil legislation.
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