Proleptic Julian calendar (AUC or by reference to consuls). The year 46 BC itself is a special case, because of the historical introduction of the Julian calendar in that year, it was allotted 445 days. Before then, the Roman Republican calendar used a system of intercalary months rather than leap days, but the Julian system of leap days had already been in use since 238 BC in Ptolemaic Egypt, since the Decree of Canopus reforming the Egyptian calendar. Proleptic Julian calendar The proleptic Julian calendar is produced by extending the Julian calendar backwards to dates preceding AD 4 when the quadrennial leap year
Calendar reform months and replaced the intercalary month with an intercalary day to be inserted within February every four years. This produced a noticeably more accurate calendar, but it had an average year length of 365 days and 6 hours (365.25 d). This had the effect of adding about three-quarters of an hour every four years. The effect accumulated from inception in 45 BC until by the 16th century the northward equinox was falling on March 10 or 11. Under Pope Gregory XIII, the leap year rule was altered: century years which are not divisible by 400 would be common years. So