Roman writers and dating

[Antiochus III]

I would like to know how the romans recorded dates and such. Did polybius write down "cannae happened in the year 400 r.s." or did he say cannae happened in "the seventeenth year in the cycle of the moon." I've always wanted to know how historians arrive at specific dates, and/or change dates from the Roman system to the modern system. Likewise, how do we convert chinese dates to our style? Are there specific jobs involving this? Thanks for the feedback, and I'm sure there are a load of other people who'll thank you as well.

 

Antiochus III

[M. Porcius Cato]

Great question.

 

Typically, Roman events were dated by referring to the consuls for the year. For example, one would write, "L. Aemilius Paulus Macedonicus was born during the consulships of L. Postumius Albinus and Cn. Fulvius Centumalus." This was handy because the Romans had dutifully recorded (e.g., on the consular fasti) who served as consul since nearly the beginning of the republic. The problem, however, is that it makes calculations opaque. Without a numeric code, you can't quickly determine how many years had passed between (say) the consulships of Albinus and Centumalus and the consulships of C. Sempronius Tuditanus and M'. Aquillius (100). Plus, what do you do when you need to date an event that occurred prior to the first consul?

 

These problems led to an alternative system, used by Livy: one could date events 'ab urbe condita" (from the founding of the city), which obviously predates the republic itself. In this case, Aemilius Paulus Macedonicus was born in 525 AUC (i.e., 229 BC in our Gregorian calendar). This is a neat solution because it makes calculations easier, and the number line stretches further back. The problem with the AUC dating scheme, however, is that it relies on some shaky assumptions regarding the relations among the consular fasti, the number of annual nails that had been driven into the relevant temple, when the practice of annual nails began (and how reliably they had been apportioned yearly). Finally, how are you supposed to date the first Olympics this way? In any case, the AUC system was rarely used by Latin authors, who generally preferred the old system of dating by consuls (or emperors and the year in which they were reigning, e.g., in the 2nd year of Nero).

 

For scientific purposes (e.g., calculating astronomical events such as solar eclipses), almost all ancient systems (including the Greek system of dating events by the Olympiad) are faulty because they must incorporate intercalary months to make up for leap years, and during events like the Punic Wars or Caesar's war on the republic, this didn't happen as it should have. This is one of the reasons behind the creation of the "Julian" calendar (though proper credit should go to Sosigenes of Alexandria, not the guy who caused the calendar to go out of whack again in the first place and couldn't even apply Sosigenes' algorithm correctly), as well as behind Augustus' correction of the first Julian calendar. Because the corrected Julian calendar corresponds (almost exactly) to the solar year, this calendar could keep a year (almost exactly) a year long, and it enjoyed use until well after 1453.

[Antiochus III]

Thanks.

 

 

Antiochus III

Edited May 29, 2008 by Antiochus III

[Bryaxis Hecatee]

Also the romans historians were mostly annalists, meaning they wrote annals, yearly accounts of the event which had taken place. But sometimes they had to rely on other historians not using the same system to date events : so did Diodorus Siculus, a roman historian from Sicily living in the first century BC who wanted to tell everyone of the history of Sicily by reconciling various chronologies to get a world compatible system. Yet it was not easy and he made mistakes, as did others before him : we have evidences of dating mistakes by Aristotle or his student(s) in the Constitution of Athens, written in the 4th century BC using data from Herodotus' 5th century BC Historiae, because the ancient counted in both exclusive and inclusive ways, which was hard to distinguish ( exemple : in the year 0 of the reign of augustus is the same as the first year of augustus' reign, but in latin or greek you might not find any linguistic difference between in the year 1 of the reign of augustus and the first year of augustus' reign even if that is two different things : it's the kind of mistake done by Aristotle regarding Herodote ).

 

The roman AUC system was based on a principle common to many chronologies : a fixed point in the past, as far back as possible, served as basis for dating. Herodotus choose to use the capture of Sardis as his starting point. But it must be stressed that dating in this way was never negative : they did not say "before AUC" or "before the fall of Sardis", rather defining another earlier pivot event like the trojan war. The olympic system was an evolution of that kind of dating since historians defined when the first olympiad had taken place, using victor's lists in order to do so and going back to the well known date. Yet in fact this date is a fiction because it seems that early on the games might have been yearly, thus throwing off the chronology of at least 50 years !

 

Also they were others ways to tell the time, by eras : we have for exemple a greek decree from the roman era ( in the case i'm thinking of it was early first century BC ) which counted the years as "the year X from the era" without telling which era ( in this case paleography gave the first chronological indication and allowed us to define the era's founding date as the year the roman created the province of Achaia ).

 

Other kind of eras could be used in the roman empire : in Syria you could still find in the second century AD dates given in the seleucid era system : they could be used by local historians to record the events ( we do indeed have such exemples in minor writters or fragments ).

 

They were also historical texts using the indiction cycle to fix the date, indiction being a 40 year tax cycle. It is well known in roman egypt for exemple.

 

Last but not least were the christian chronologies which did not immediately use the BC/AD system : we got exemples based on the calculated date of the Flood or the date of the Creation.

 

Thus the question of dating is not so easy to answer

Edited May 30, 2008 by Bryaxis Hecatee

[M. Porcius Cato]

Very nice additions Bryaxis.

[Bryaxis Hecatee]

Very nice additions Bryaxis.

Thanks Yet despite all this this is still not a complete view on the datation system in use in Rome and the Empire, one of the things lacking is the explanation of how the roman counted the years based upon imperial date ( because it is also a bit complicated, using the tribunician power to date everything even if it was held before acceding the throne or if it was bestowed at a certain date not coinciding with the beginning of the legal year and so on ).

 

And if we go into the details of local chronology in the Empire ( mostly in Greece and in the East ) we find so many particularities that we can become crazy : whole books have been written on the subject. but it could be a good idea for an article for the UNRV, i'll see if I got a bit of time left during or after my current exam session...