-denarii- were struck by some Latin communities of southern Gaul, half -denarii- by several cantons in northern Gaul, copper small coins in various instances even after Caesar’s time by communes of the west; but this small money was throughout coined after the Roman standard, and its acceptance moreover was probably obligatory only in local dealings.  Caesar does not seem any more than the earlier government to have contemplated the regulation with a view to unity of the monetary system of the east, where great masses of coarse silver money—­much of which too easily admitted of being debased or worn away—­and to some extent even, as in Egypt, a copper coinage akin to our paper money were in circulation, and the Syrian commercial cities would have felt very severely the want of their previous national coinage corresponding to the Mesopotamian currency.  We find here subsequently the arrangement that the -denarius- has everywhere legal currency and is the only medium of official reckoning,(115) while the local coins have legal currency within their limited range but according to a tariff unfavourable for them as compared with the -denarius-.(116) This was probably not introduced all at once, and in part perhaps may have preceded Caesar; but it was at any rate the essential complement of the Caesarian arrangement as to the imperial coinage, whose new gold piece found its immediate model in the almost equally heavy coin of Alexander and was doubtless calculated especially for circulation in the east.

Reform of the Calendar

Of a kindred nature was the reform of the calendar.  The republican calendar, which strangely enough was still the old decemviral calendar—­an imperfect adoption of the -octaeteris-that preceded Meton (117)—­had by a combination of wretched mathematics and wretched administration come to anticipate the true time by 67 whole days, so that e. g. the festival of Flora was celebrated on the 11th July instead of the 28th April.  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.  Both changes came into effect on the 1st January 709, and along with them the use of the Julian calendar so named after its author, which long after the fall of the monarchy of Caesar remained the regulative standard of the civilized world and in the main is so still.  By way of explanation there was added in a detailed edict a star-calendar derived from the Egyptian astronomical observations and transferred—­not indeed very skilfully—­to Italy, which fixed the rising and setting of the stars named according to days of the calendar.(118) In this domain also the Roman and Greek worlds were thus placed on a par.