Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

CHRIONOLOGIA. CHRONOLOGIA. 281'by which time is measured according to the courses the Olympiads actually elapsed, that is, 86, mubl
of the stars, and more especially of the sun anld tiply it by 4, and deduct the number obtained
moon; but in the more limited sense in which fions 776, so that the first year of the 87th Oi.
*we have to treat of chronology here, it is a part will be the. same as the year 432 B. c. If the
of history, and teaches us to assign each historical number of Olympiads amounts to more than 776
event to the date to which it belongs. The reduc- years, that is, if the Olympiad falls after the birth
tion of ally given date in antiquity to the cor- of Christ, the process is the same as before, but
responding year, month, or day, in our modern from the sum obtained by multiplying the Olylncomputation of time, is sometimes a matter of piads by 4, we must deduct the number 776, and
great difficulty, and often of absolute impossi- what remains is the number of the years after
bility; for nearly all the nations of antiquity be- Christ. This calculation according to Olyipiads,
gan their year at a different time, some used solar however, does not seem to have been ever applied
and other lunar years, and others again a con- to the ordinary business of life, but to have been
bination of the two; nearly all, moreover, had confined to literature, and more especially to hisdifferent eras, that is, points of time from which tory. Some writers also adopted the Trojan era,
subsequent and preceding years are counted; and the fall of Troy being placed by Eratosthenes and
in addition to this there occur a great many those who adopted this era, in the year n. c. 11 84.
changes and fluctuations in one and the samne After the time of Alexander the Great, several
nation; and the historians whose works have come other eras were introduced in the kingdoms that
down to us, are not always very precise in marlk- arose out of his empire. The first was the Philiping the time to which the events belong, so that pic era, sometimes also called the era of Alexander
we must have recourse to all manner of comlbina- or the era of Edessa; it began on the 12th of Notions, or are left to conjectures. veomber a. c. 324, the date of the accession of
For the manner in which the Greeks and Ro- Philip Arrhidaeus. The second was the era of the
asins calculated their years and months we refer Seleucidae, beginning on the Ist of October a. c.
to the article CALENnDARIue, and we shall here 312, the date of the victory of Seleucus Nicator at
confine ourselves to an account of the manner in Gaza, and of his re-conqluest of Babylonia. This
which those nations calculated and stated the era was used very extensively in the East. The
events of their history. The Greeks reckoned Chaldaean era differed from it only by six months,
their years generally according to their magis- beginning in the spring of B.c. 311. Lastly, the
trates, in the early times according to the years of eras of Antioch, of which there were three, but
the reign of their kings, alnd afterwards according the one most commonly used began in Novermto their annual magistrates. At Athens the year was ber s. c. 49. In Europe none was so generally
called by the namlle of one of the nine archons, who adopted, at least in literature, as the era of the
ftomn this circumstance was called ipXwv sroCvvgos Olympiads; and as the Olympic games were celeor the archon- par excellence; and at Sparta the brated 293 times, we have 293 Olympic cycles,
years were called after one of the five ephors, whlo that is, 1172 years, 776 of which fall before, and
for this reason was likewise termed Ereir,26uos. 396 after Christ. But when the Greeks adopted
(Thucyd. ii. 2; Xenoph. Anab. ii. 3. ~ 10; Polyb. Christianity, they probably ceased to reckon by
xii. 1]2; Paus. iii. 11. ~ 2.) But the years of the Olympiads, and aldopted -the Julian year. (CorAtheliail archons and the Spartan ephors, coin- sini, Fasti Attici, Florence, 1744-56, 4 yols. 4to.;
ciding with the civil year in those states, did not Ideler, Handbuch der nmatileml. esid tecAlzisc7h. C/11'r.
coincide with each other, for the ephors entered nol. Berlin, 1825, 2 vols. 8-o.; Clinton, b;'asli lclulpon their office in the Attic month of Boddro- lenici, Oxford, 1830 —1834, 3 vols. 8vo.)
mion, while the archons originally entered upon The Romans in the earliest times counted their
theirs in the beginning of Gamlelion, and ever years by their highest magistrates, and from tihe;since the year B. c. 490, at the beginning of lie- timle of the republic according to their consuls,
catombaeo.n. In Argos time was counted accord- whose namnes were registered in the Fasti. This
ing to the years of the high priestess of Hera, who era, which may be termed the aera consuslalris,
held her office for life (1,peTcoS; Thucyd. ii. 2; however did not begin at all times at the same
Suid. s. v.'Hpeo'LSs); and the inhabitants of Elis point, for in the earliest times of the republic, the
probably reckoned according to the Olympic games, consuls entered upon their office on the calendne;vwhich were celebrated every fifth year during-the of Sextilis, at the time of the decemvirate on the
first full moon which followed after the summer ides of May, afterwards on the ides of December,
solstice. In this manner every Greek state or city and at a still later time on the ides of March,
calculated time according to its own peculiar or local until in B. c. 153 the consuls began regularly to enter
era, and there was no era which was used by all upon their office on the 1st of January. This conthe Greeks in common for the ordinary purposes of stant shifting was undoubtedly one of the causes
life. Historians, therefore, down to the middle of that produced the confusion hi the consular era, of
the third century B. c., frequently made use of the which Livy (ii. 18, 21, &c.) complains. The coinaverage age attained by men, in order to fix the sular era was the one commonly used by the
time in a manner intelligible to all Greeks. The Romans for all practical purposes, the date of an
average age attained by inan (yEyedi, acetas), is event being marked by the names of the consuls,
calculated by Herodotus (vi. 98) at 33- years. in whose year of office it had happened. But
Timaeus, who flourished about B. c. 260, was the along with this era there existed another, whici
first historian who counted the years by Olyvn- as it was never introduced into the affairs of comlpiads, each of which contained four years. The mon life, and was used only by the historians,
beginning of the Olympiads is commonly fixed in may be termed the historical era. It reckoned the
the year 3938 of the Julian period, or in B. c. 776. years from the foundation of the city (ab urbe conIf we want to reduce any given Olympiad to years dita); bhut the year of the foundation of the city
before Christ, e. g. 01. 87, we take the number of was a cquestion of uncertainty among the Romans