CHRONOLOG´IA
CHRONOLOG´IA (
χρονολογία) is the science by which time is measured according to
the courses of the stars, and more especially of the sun and moon; but in
the more limited sense in which we have to treat of chronology here, it is a
part of history, and teaches us to assign each historical event to the date
to which it belongs. The reduction of any given date in antiquity to the
corresponding year, month, or day, in our modern computation of time, is
sometimes a matter of great difficulty, and often of absolute impossibility;
for nearly all the nations of antiquity began their year at a different
time, some used solar and others lunar years, and others again a combination
of the two; nearly all, moreover, had different eras, that is, points of
time from which subsequent and preceding years are counted; and in addition
to this there occur a great many changes and fluctuations in one and the
same nation; and the historians whose works have come down to us are not
always very precise in marking the time to which the events belong, so that
we must have recourse to all manner of combinations, or are left to
conjectures.
For the manner in which the Greeks and Romans calculated their years and
months we refer to the article
CALENDARIUM and we shall here confine ourselves to an account of
the manner in which those nations calculated and stated the events of their
history. The Greeks reckoned their years generally according to their
magistrates, in the early times according to the years of the reign of their
kings, and afterwards according to their annual magistrates. At Athens the
year was called by the name of one of the nine archons, who from this
circumstance was called
ἄρχων ἐπώνυμος
or the archon
par excellence; and at Sparta the
years were called after one of the five ephors, who for this reason was
likewise termed
ἐπώνυμος. (
Thuc. 2.2; Xenoph.
Anab. 2.3.10;
Plb. 12.12;
Paus.
3.11.2.) But the years of the Athenian archons and the Spartan
ephors, coinciding with the civil year in those states, did not coincide
with each other, for the ephors entered upon their office in the Attic month
of Boëdromion,
[p. 1.425]while the archons
originally entered upon theirs in the beginning of Gamelion, and ever since
the year B.C. 490, at the beginning of Hecatombaeon. In Argos time was
counted according to the years of the high priestess of Hera, who held her
office for life (
ἡρεσίς:
Thuc. 2.2; Suid. s. v.
Ἡρεσίδες); and the inhabitants of Elis probably reckoned
according to the Olympic games, which were celebrated every fifth year
during the first full moon which followed after the summer solstice. In this
manner every Greek state or city calculated time according to its own
peculiar or local era, and there was no era which was used by
all the Greeks in common for the ordinary purposes
of life. Historians, therefore, down to the middle of the third century B.C., frequently made use of the average age
attained by men, in order to fix the time in a manner intelligible to all
Greeks. Herodotus (
2.142) calculates that three
generations of men are equivalent to a century (
saeculum is sometimes so used in Latin, but not
aetas). Timaeus, who flourished about B.C. 260, was
the first historian who counted the years by Olympiads, each of which
contained four years. The beginning of the Olympiads is universally fixed in
the year 3938 of the Julian period (a cycle suggested by Joseph Scaliger,
which commences B.C. 4714), or in B.C. 776. If we want to reduce any given
Olympiad to years before Christ,
e.q. Ol. 87, we
take the number of the Olympiads actually elapsed,--that is, 86,--multiply
it by 4, and deduct the number obtained from 776, so that the first year of
the 87th Ol. will be the same as the year 432 B.C. If the number of
Olympiads amounts to more than 776 years,--that is, if the Olympiad falls
after the birth of Christ,--the process is the same as before; but from the
sum obtained by multiplying the Olympiads by 4, we must deduct the number
776, and what remains is the number of the years after Christ. This
calculation according to Olympiads, however, does not seem to have been ever
applied to the ordinary business of life, but to have been confined to
literature, and more especially to history. Some writers also adopted the
Trojan era, the fall of Troy being placed by Eratosthenes and those who
adopted this era, in the year B.C. 1184. After the time of Alexander the
Great, several other eras were introduced in the kingdoms that arose out of
his empire. The first was the Philippic era, sometimes also called the era
of Alexander or the era of Edessa; it began on the 12th of November B.C.
324, the date of the accession of Philip Arrhidaeus. The second was the era
of the Seleucidae, beginning on the 1st of October B.C. 312, the date of the
victory of Seleucus Nicator at Gaza, and of his re-conquest of Babylonia.
This era was used very extensively in the East. The Chaldaean era differed
from it only by six months, beginning in the spring of B.C. 311. Lastly, the
eras of Antioch, of which there were three, but the one most commonly used
began in November B.C. 49. In Europe none was so generally adopted, at least
in literature, as the era of the Olympiads; and as the Olympic games were
celebrated 293 times, we have 293 Olympic cycles, that is, 1172 years, 776
of which fall before and 396 after Christ. But when the Greeks adopted
Christianity, they probably ceased to reckon by Olympiads, and adopted the
Julian year. The practice of dating from the birth of Christ was introduced
by Dionysius Exiguus in A.D. 532. (Corsini,
Fasti
Attici, Florence, 1744-56, 4 vols. 4to; Ideler,
Handbuch
der mathem, und
technisch. Chronol. Berlin, 1825, 2 vols. 8vo; Clinton,
Fasti Hellenici, Oxford, 1830-1834, 3 vols. 4to.)
The Romans in the earliest times counted their years by their highest
magistrates, and from the time of the republic according to their consuls,
whose names were registered in the Fasti. This era, which may be termed the
aera
consularis, however did not begin at all times
at the same point; for in the earliest times of the republic the consuls
entered upon their office on the calendae of Sextilis, at the time of the
decemvirate on the ides of May, afterwards on the ides of December, and at a
still later time on the ides of March, until in B.C. 153 the consuls began
regularly to enter upon their office on the 1st of January. This constant
shifting was undoubtedly one of the causes that produced the confusion in
the consular era, of which Livy (
2.18,
21, &c.) complains. Great confusion also
arose from the incompleteness or the deliberate falsification of the
records, and the interruption caused by
interregna, so that it is quite impossible to draw up
satisfactory
Fasti Consulares. (Cf.
C.
I.
L. 1.403-551, with Mommsen's important commentary.) Varro,
Cicero, Tacitus, and even Gaius, date events by the number of years which
had elapsed since the expulsion of the kings. The earliest use of a fixed
point from which to date is in the dedication of the Temple of Concord by
Cn. Flavius, “cciii. annis post Capitolinam dedicatam” (
Plin. Nat. 33.19). The consular era was the
one commonly used by the Romans for all practical purposes, the date of an
event being marked by the names of the consuls, in whose year of office it
had happened. But along with this era there existed another, which as it was
never introduced into the affairs of common life, and was used only by the
historians, may be termed the historical era. We have no instance of the use
of this era at Rome before the time of Augustus ; but in the case of other
Italian towns a similar practice was employed much earlier (
Plin. Nat. 3.114.) It reckoned the years
from the foundation of the city (
ab
urbe
condita); but the year of the foundation of the
city was a question of uncertainty among the Romans themselves, although all
agreed in the day of the month, i. e. April 21st, the Parilia (
Dionys. A. R. 1.88). M. Terentius Varro
and Atticus placed it in the third year of the 6th Olympiad, that is, B.C.
753. (
Plut. Rom. 12;
Vell. 1.8; Censorin.
de Die
Nat. 17.) This era was adopted by Velleius
Paterculus, Pliny, Tacitus, A. Gellius, Dio Cassius, Eutropius, and others.
Next to the Varronian era, the most celebrated was that of M. Porcius Cato,
who placed the foundation of Rome in the first year of the 7th Olympiad, or
in the spring of B.C. 751. (
Dionys. A. R.
1.74; Syncell.
Chronog. p. 194 a.) The date fixed upon
in the
aera
Capitolina (so called from the Fasti
Capitolini), by Polybius (Dionys.
l.c.; Cic.
de
Rep. 2.10), Diodorus, and Cornelius Nepos, was one year
later; Q. Fabius Pictor placed the foundation in the first year of the 8th
Olympiad, i. e. 747 B.C. (Dionys.
l.c.), and Cincius
Alimentus even placed it about the fourth year of the 12th Olympiad, i. e.
B.C. 729. Ennius, on the other hand, placed the building
[p. 1.426]of Rome about 700 years before his own time; that is, at least
100 years earlier than most other writers (Varro,
de
Re
Rust. 3.1); and Timaeus went so far as to
regard the foundation of Rome contemporaneous with that of Carthage, placing
it 38 years before the first Olympiad. But no reliance can be placed on any
of these statements; as however it is necessary to have one point to start
from, the Varronian era has been adopted by modern writers.
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