Expert: Maria - 11/16/2004

Question
Hi Maria.  I recently watched a TV special on Alexander the Great, but even before that, I was fascinated by Roman history.  Many different aspects of this history fascinated me, but I will focus here on one.  Historians speak of what happened among people they can name, on dates they can identify, in 336 BC!  The Olympics began in 776 BC!  How can we possibly know such precise details of those events?  I mean, I understand that just because Alexander would not have called the year 336 BC this does not mean that we cannot retrospectively define the year relative to "BC", but still, would this not have required the ancients to be using some other system for marking time?  Did they?  This is one of those little details that the TV shows never mention.  Thank you!

Vance

Answer
Hi Vance,

First of all historians know precise details of the events they mention because we have both literary and archaeological source material that supply information about ancient historical events.
Secondly they can  refer to an exact date such as 336 BC or 776 BC, etc. because they know either Greek system or Roman for marking time, and moreover the other systems the ancients used.

That being stated, I must however give you  further information on how the Greeks and the Romans usually dated their years.

-GREEK SYSTEM for marking time.

The  Greeks usually dated their  years beginning from  776 BC, that was the year of the founding of the Olympic games.
In fact the Olympiad, a four-year period, was the  time unit the Greeks used  since Timaeus (c.356–c.260 B.C.) of Sicily was the first to use, as a check on chronology, the list of victors kept in the gymnasium at Olympia.

The first Olympiad was reckoned to have begun in 776 BC  and therefore Olympiad 1,1 correlates to 776 BC.

Before Timaeus,  years were designated with the names of the holders of an office which were changed every year. This method was hardly practicable for historians, which is why Timaeus (Timaios, in Greek)  was looking for a possibility to designate years in a simple manner understood by all Greeks.
This system was exactly the Olympiad.
In fact every four years, Olympic games were held with the champions recorded since 776 BC.
There were  Olympic games before 776 BC, but no reports are known of these. Thus Timaios started his counting in this year calling it the first year of the first Olympiad.
The following year was the second year of the first Olympiad, then came the third year , etc., while the year 772 BC was named  the first year of the second Olympiad, and so on.
Although this reckoning still was too complicated to become common, historians used it even till the Romans  conquered Greece in 146 BC.
When the Olympic games were forbidden by emperor Theodosius in 394 AD, after nearly 300 Olympiads and 1200 years, no games were held until the first New Olympic games took place in Athens in 1896.

To conclude, ancient Greek authors mentioned the first, second, third, fourth year of each Olympiad to indicate the year of an event.
For example :”This happened in the fourth year of the 2nd.Olympiad.”.


-ROMAN SYSTEM for marking time.

In the beginning, the Romans dated their years by the names of the two consuls of each  year, but later, after Varro, Roman man of letters (116 BC - 27 BC),  claimed that Rome was founded in 753 BC, this was made the year of 1 ab Urbe condita (from the city's founding).

Roman authors therefore usually  said “ Anno I ab Urbe condita”(in the first year from the city's founding) , or “Anno IV ab Urbe condita”( in the fourth  year from the city's founding)  and so on.


OUR SYSTEM for marking time

As for our system which uses the abbreviations BC (before Christ) and AD ( Anno Domini=in the year of our Lord), it began to be used  when a monk, Dionysius Exiguus, English Denis The Little (flourished 6th century AD)at the request of Pope St. John I,  invented the Christian calendar starting from Christ's birth which he dated as Dec. 25, 753, according to the Roman system (i.e., 754 years after the  founding of Rome) and named this date “ 1 AD”, while dates BC were not introduced until the middle of the seventeenth century.

DATES CONVERSION EXAMPLES

1-Here's an example of the conversion of years from our system to ‘ab Urbe condita'( abbreviated AUC)

-So, if the year is BC, subtract it from 753 and add 1.
For example Julius Caesar died in 44 BC, i.e. 710 AUC. (753 - 44 + 1).
- If the year is AD, add it to 753.  
For example  2004 AD  would be 2757 AUC. (753 + 2004).

2- If on the contrary you want to reckon the year of an event , according to the  Greek system, e.g. the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad, you  must proceed like this :
202 (i.e. 202nd Olympiad) by 4 (because  the Olympic games held every four years) = 808-776 (i.e. the year of the first Olympiad) = 32 A.D

Hope all is clear enough.
Anyway should you have some doubt, do not hesitate to ask me again.
Best regards
Maria