August is not, in my opinion, an august month; being not very impressive. Most wild flowers and trees have finished flowering and are already seeding, thankfully the willow herb is now in full flower and provides an impressive display where there is a thick stand of these perennials – Tudor name ‘codlings and cream’, reminiscent of a royal dessert. In gardens and parks the perennial border flowers are mostly still in flower, and make a good show, this after struggling with the prolonged early summer drought.
August was the sixth month of the year until the calendar was changed from 10 to 12 months in late Classical times. The month is named after the Roman Emperor Augustus; in fact I think it is the case that the names of all 12 months have Classical origins, so they have a long pedigree. Obviously, nowadays knowing the months of the year is a thing to be learned early by young children. However, they, maybe, have not been in such common usage in all intervening centuries; legal years back in the early modern times were defined by the year’s relationship with the then monarch, e.g. Elizabeth Regina Nine was 1567. In the absence of clocks or calendars peasant classes were more likely to refer to seasons rather than months. It would be interesting to know to what extent W. Shakespeare’s characters in his comedies and histories referred to months of the year (Ides of March apart).
I know of one person who uses Roman numerals in writing a date, e.g. 7/9/25 would be 7/IX/25. Probably a public school thing.
An interesting date is September 1752, the point in which the Julian calendar was replaced by the Gregorian calendar, this correction of the Julian calendar required the loss of 11 days, so someone living, it could be argued, in 1752 lost 11 days of their life!