How did the ancient Romans count the years? In the Western world, years are counted from the birth of Christ. And before that? How were time and days measured in ancient Rome? Find out in these lines.
In the Western world, years are counted from the birth of Christ. And before that? How were time and days measured in ancient Rome? Find out in these lines.
The ancient Romans originally used a system of calculating time based on the year of foundation of their city: ab urbe condita, which means “from the foundation of the city” (753 BC). Each event was dated with respect to that year, considered the fundamental reference point of Roman chronology.
However, with the passage of time and the transformations of the empire, the calculation system underwent changes. In particular, under the emperor Diocletian, it was decided to adopt a new reference point: 284 AD, the year of his accession to the throne. This sign of discontinuity marked the beginning of the so-called “Diocletianic Era”, used above all in official documents and in the calendars of the provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire.
But when was the Christian era, which we use today in much of the world, introduced? The current system, which calculates the years from the birth of Jesus Christ, was conceived in 532 AD by Dionysius Exiguus. This Catholic monk, originally from Scythia (a region corresponding to modern-day Ukraine and Romania), was a man of extraordinary culture. A theologian and biblical scholar, but also an astronomer and mathematician, Dionysius had the task of calculating the dates of Easter. It was on that occasion that he decided to introduce a new chronological system, choosing the birth of Christ as the year zero of the new era.
Dionysius’ goal was not only to simplify the calculations, but also to distance himself from the Diocletianic Era, associated with the persecution of Christians during the emperor’s reign. This innovation gradually spread over the following centuries, becoming the main reference system in the Middle Ages thanks to the influence of the Catholic Church. Today, the Christian era is universally adopted, even in secular contexts, as the basis for the Gregorian calendar in use in most of the world.
Dionysius in fact proposed to abandon the era of Diocletian by counting the years from the birth of Jesus, which he set, with a margin of error of a few years, at December 25 of the year 753 from the foundation of Rome.
This count was more widespread in learned circles than in popular reality, where, to measure the years, the use of eponyms with the name of the two consuls in office was preferred (this use from the beginning of the Republican era). The so-called “Varronian date” was obtained by setting the first year of the Republic at 509 BC and attributing 35 years of reign to each of the seven kings of Rome.
The traditional date for the foundation of Rome (April 21, 753 BC, the Birth of Rome) was therefore defined by Varro. In fact, the Romans dated the events of the city from the beginning of the reign of the king in office and then, during the Republican period, from the name of the consuls, who lasted in office only one year.
Varro must have had a list of consuls containing some errors and called the year in which the first consuls (Brutus and Collatinus) took office “245 ab Urbe condita” (CCXLV a.U.c.), accepting the interval of 244 years indicated by Dionysius of Halicarnassus for the total years in which Rome was governed by the legendary seven kings. The correctness of Varro’s calculation has never been scientifically proven (and on the other hand Rome probably does not have a “true” date of birth, also because historians do not speak of a real foundation but of the union of various villages close together in time) but it is still universally used.
An important factor with the introduction of the current method: the year zero did not exist at that time (also because the management of the number 0 arrived with the Arabs). In current use, for the counting of previous years, we jump from the year 1 AD to the year 1 BC. This criterion was imposed in use following a process of gradual diffusion that ended in the 10th century, even if we must not forget that within the Western world the Christian era is referred to different dates by Christians of the Latin rite and those of the Greek rite, who did not accept the Gregorian reform of the calendar introduced in 1582.
The use of the Christian era also for the years BC is much more recent.
Before Christ, every civilization counted the years starting from a particular year.The Japanese still count from the coronation of the Emperor, so today we are in the 29th year of the Reign of AkiIto, crowned in 1989.
Muslims count the years from the Hegira, that is when Muhammad made a particularly important journey from which his history and legend were born
(the exodus of Muhammad, together with the first Muslim devotees, from his native Mecca to Yathrib). So they count the years from 622, the year of the Hegira.
For the Jews, but only for the most orthodox Orthodox, we are at 5,779 from the birth of Adam.
The ancient Greeks instead counted the years from the first Olympiad.