In 44 BC, not long after Caesar’s murder on the ides of March, the senate changed the name of the month of his birth, Quintilis, to Julius.
By the 19th day of the following month Sextilis in the following year 43 BC, Caesar’s great nephew and adopted son and heir Octavian had wrangled an appointment as consul. By Sextilis 30 BC, Octavian had orchestrated the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra.
In the following decades, Octavian increased his grip on power, along the way gaining the name Augustus. By 8 BC, the senate declared that the aforesaid Egyptian and Roman achievements in the month of Sextilis justified another change of name.
On 19 August AD 14, Augustus died. Suetonius recorded in his Lives:
One man proposed that the name of the month of August be transferred to September, because Augustus was born in the latter, but died in the former…
The tale that Augustus demanded extra days from February so that his month was at least equal to Caesar’s, is a medieval myth. However, there is no doubt that later emperors tried to snitch other months. According to Suetonius, April could have been Neroneus.
