What was the reason the year 46 BC was 445 days and not 365 days? Why 90 days were added by Julius Caesar and Sosigenes of Alexandria?
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The Romans were planning to change to the Julian calendar. The original plan was for them to add a few leap months in the previous years. However, there were wars and other issues that distracted them, so they forgot to add some leap months. As result, they decided to add three months to the current year in order to compensate for the months they forgot to add, and complete the synchronisation.
As you pointed out, the standard Roman year was 355 days long. Every couple of years they added another intercalary month to February. The job of determining when to do this fell to the high priest (*pontifex maximus*). The problem was, either for political reasons, civil unrest, or what have you, they sometimes didn’t. Caesar, during the Civil War, was himself *pontifex maximus*, and was a little busy. So the year had drifted quite badly.
By 46BC the winter festivals were occuring in the Fall, the Fall festivals in the Summer, and so on. In order to get them back to the proper season, Caesar, as part of his calendar reforms, added days at the end of February, as well as before and after December.
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