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
Leap year leap day "every" four years amounts to about three extra days. The Gregorian calendar therefore drops three leap days every 400 years, which is the length of its "leap cycle". This is done by dropping February 29 in the three century years (multiples of 100) that cannot be exactly divided by 400. The years 1600, 2000 and 2400 are leap years, while 1700, 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200 and 2300 are common years. By this rule, the average number of days per year is 365 + − + = 365.2425. The rule can be applied to years before the Gregorian reform