Several calendar eras
In their practical activities, people can not do without the account of days in a week, a month, without a specific age account system. Otherwise they could not understand each other at all. Of course, you can call each next year a new name. So did some peoples of antiquity. For example, in Athens, the year was designated by the name of the highest official - the archon, in Argos - by the name of the priestess of the temple of the goddess Hera, in ancient Rome - by the names of two consuls annually replaced. The year, named for the official, is called the epic year( from the Greek "eponymis" - the proclamation), and these individuals themselves in connection with this - eponyms. This way of counting years is very far from perfect. ..
Of course, it's better to just take and number the years. At the same time, it does not really matter which year we called the first, whether he stood out as something among his predecessors or not. But it is very important that this way of counting years be used also by other people.
Now it is impossible even to list the eras that different peoples used throughout the history of human culture. About the Muslim era - hijra, already told above. Here we will dwell on several, the most famous calendar eras.
Olympics on the olympiads .In the middle of the III century. BC.e. Greek historian Timaeus and mathematician Eratosthenes introduced the chronology from the first Olympic Games. These games were held on days close to the summer solstice, once in four years, they began on the 11th and ended on the 16th day after the new moon. When counting the years for the Olympiads, each year was indicated by the ordinal number of the Olympiad( 0l) and the number of the year( t) in the four-year period, which began with this Olympiad.
The lists of winners of the Olympic Games, passed from generation to generation, were used around 300,e. Christian historian Eusebius of Caesarea( 263-338), who in his Chronicle, starting with the "forefather of Adam," compared the years of the reign of famous kings with the dates of the Olympiads. The "Chronicle" lists the Olympic winners up to the 249th Olympiad, inclusive, that is, until 220 AD.e.
In the XVIII century. The Julian calendar and the current account of the years, as they say, "retroactively," were extended to those old years when this calendar actually did not work. As a result, it was found that the years account for the Olympiads was conducted from July 1, 776 BC.e.on the Julian calendar.
This relationship, when one of the calendars( in this case, Julian) extends to those segments of time when it actually did not work, is called a proleptic( i.e., anticipatory).
Thus, in the transition from the chronology of olympiads to our chronology, we should use the formula
R = 776 - [(0l-1) * 4 +( t-1)] BC.e., if the event occurred before BC.e., and the formula
R = [( Ol -1) * 4 +( t-1)] - 775 g.e., if it took place in a certain year n.e. Here R is the year BC.e.or n.e.
For example, the famous battle of the Greeks with the Persians at Thermopylae and the island of Salamis occurred in the first year of the 75th Olympiad( designated as 0 / 75.1).According to the formula, we find
R = 776 - [74 * 4] - 0 = 776 - 296 = 480, ie, the event occurred in 480 BC.e.
In 394 ADe. Emperor Theodosius, the Olympic Games were banned. However, the timing of the Olympics was used for some time.
Summoning by consuls. We have already spoken of the names of the years in the Roman Republic by the names of consuls. Historians have lists of consuls for 1050 years, beginning with the founders of the republic - consuls Brutus and Kollatina, who took office until 509 AD.e.
After the death of Emperor Constantine in 337, the Roman Empire actually had two capitals and, by agreement, one consul was elected in Rome, the other in Constantinople. In 537, the Emperor Justinian introduced the calendar for the years of the reign of the emperors, who, from 534 AD.e.concentrated consular posts in their hands. The last consul, Flavius Basil the Lesser, was elected in 541 AD.e. Therefore, in Rome, for some time, the account of the years was conducted as follows: the 1st, 2nd, etc. year post consulatum Basilii( "after the [entry into office] of the consul of Basil").The successors of the Emperor Justinian have restored the custom of declaring themselves January 1 consuls and throwing( as was done before) the people money. Therefore, the account of the years post consulatum lasted until the 9th century. And only the emperor Leo the Philosopher( 886-912) issued a decree prohibiting the use of the numbering of years by consuls.
It should be borne in mind that since the time of the emperors, instead of one pair of consuls, several pairs have been elected each year - ordinary( ordinarii) and fake( suflecti) pairs. A few months later, the first composed their duties, transferring them to others. However, the years were designated exclusively by consuls ordinarii.
"From the foundation of the city". Historians of the Middle Ages( until the end of the XVII century.) Widely used the era ab urbe condita "from the founding of the city"( Rome), although in the Roman Empire this era was not popular because of disputes about the age of the city. It was supposed about 10 different dates of its foundation. Mark Terentius Varro accepted and popularized the date Ol 6.3 - the third year of the 6th Olympiad. The day of the founding of its city the Romans celebrated annually on April 21 as a spring holiday. According to Varroon, the epoch, that is, the starting point of the era of ab urbe condita, is April 21, 753 BC.e.it was accepted by historians of the Middle Ages in their works.
The era of Nabokassar. Thanks to the outstanding ancient Greek astronomer Claudius Ptolemy( around 90-160 AD), the era of Nabonassar became widely known. In his work Almagest, Ptolemy cited the Canon of Kings, a table in which the names and years of the Babylonian-Assyrian, Persian and Macedonian( Greek) kings and the Roman emperors were listed, as well as the total number of years elapsed since the accession of the Babylonian king Nabonassar.
"Canon" has the following features:
1) it uses the Egyptian year of 365 days and
2) regardless of in what month of the year the reign of this or that king began, it is considered to have begun 1 Tota, ie, in the firstday of this year. The epoch of the era of Nabonassar is February 26, 747 BC.e.on the Julian calendar.
This can be written in the form of the ratio: 1 of the 1st year of the year of Nabonassar = February 26, 747, up to. AD
Ptolemy himself captured his "Canon" of 907 Egyptian years - from Nabonassar to the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius( 86-161 AD).Later, the Byzantine emperors were included in the Canon, and the list was continued until the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
Appendix V contains a fragment of the synchronic table of the chronology of the years.e., from the "foundation of Rome" and the olympiads. It is pertinent to note that the equality 1 g.e.= 754 g. A.u.from.= Ol.195.1 The
should read as follows: in the 1st year AD.On April 21, the 754th year began from the "founding of Rome", and on the new moon, which occurred just before the summer solstice( June 10), 1st year AD.the first year of the 195th Olympiad began.
The era of Augustus. Here it is just appropriate to say the very word "era".It is assumed that it comes from the Latin word aera, which means "number".There is also the assumption that these are the first letters of the phrase ab exordio regni Augusti - "from the beginning of the reign of Augustus", already mentioned the Roman emperor Augustus Octavian, in which the Roman state from the republic turned into an empire. Then it was customary to date various official documents during the reign of the emperor.
By the way, although Augustus became emperor in 27 BC.In fact, the account of the years of the "rule of Augustus" was conducted from August 1, 43 BC.e.= 711 from the "foundation of Rome", when Augustus became consul. Soon after the Battle of Cape Stocks, held September 2, 31 BC.E., under the sovereignty of the Romans, and Egypt fell, so here, too, accounted for the years in the era of "Augustus's rule in Egypt."During the era of the era,
was adopted on August 1, 30 BC.The day when Augustus visited the city of Alexandria. Comparing this date with the table of Appendix V, we find that in 30 BC.e.1 The totality of the Egyptian calendar corresponded to August 31, and on August 1 it was 6 Mesori. So it was in the Julian calendar with a uniform alternation of leap-outs in three years to the fourth. But, as already noted( p. 207), after the death of Julius Caesar, the Roman priests did the insertion of the 366th day in every third year and by the year 30 BC.e.produced two extra inserts. Thus, Augustus visited Alexandria on August 1, but according to the Egyptian calendar it was not 6, but 8 Mesori. In the future, the equality of 1 August = 8 Mesori or 1 Tot = August 29 and was adopted during the reform of the Egyptian calendar, its replacement with a stable Alexandrian calendar and after Augustus corrected the Julian calendar - as the basis for recounting dates from one calendar to another.
Historians, apparently, still have little information that the Alexandrian calendar has become widespread. So, the writer Censorin in 238 tells in detail about the Egyptian calendar with his moving year, but for some reason completely silent about the Alexandrian. But already a century later, Theon of Alexandria gives exhaustive rules for the transition from the Alexandrian dates to the Egyptian dates.
The Seleucid Age. In the Middle East, the Seleucid era was very common. Seleucus was one of the commanders of Alexander the Great and in 312 BC.e.became king of Syria. The power of Seleucus occupied a vast territory, it was inhabited by different peoples who used different calendars. Therefore, the era of Seleucus was different: in Babylon, the count of years was conducted from April 22, 311 BC.e., in Persia - from February 7, 311 BC.e. Later the date of October 1, 312 BC strengthened.e. The counting of the Seleucids was preserved among the Christian population of Syria until the 19th century. In a number of other places, chronology was used from the year of the liberation from the rule of the Seleucids. ..
The era of Diocletian. Finally, for a long time in the Roman Empire and in Egypt, the chronology was calculated from the coming to power of the Emperor Diocletian( circa 243-313 AD), the era of the era - August 29, 284 AD.e., although in fact Diocletian came to power on September 17.And here, following the example of Ptolemy, the coming to power of Diocletian is attributed to the Beginning of the Egyptian year - 1 Thoth. However( and this is very essential!) Now it is a question of the beginning of the "stable" Egyptian year, which, after the calendar reform in 26 BC.e."Stopped" at the date 29( in the year preceding the leap year - on August 30) according to the Julian calendar."Floating" the same Egyptian year( and it was used by astronomers up to Copernicus) began in 284 AD.e.13 June.(Fans of the calendar will probably be interested to know that after 140 AD 1, the Tot of this floating year coincided with July 19 in 1600, and in 1984 - 1987. 1 Tata falls on April 14 st.st.).
The emperor Diocletian ruled the empire for 21 years and already this one was significantly different from many of his predecessors, who often succeeded each other. In addition, it was a strong-willed person, an experienced military leader and an outstanding administrator. The chronology of the Diocletian era was preserved even after this emperor renounced power. It was widely used as astrologers in the compilation of horoscopes, and Alexandrian bishops in calculating the dates of the Christian Passover. True, later Christians came to the conclusion that it was not good to mention the name of Diocletian( who was brutally persecuted by Christians) at this account of the years and renamed the era in the "era of the martyrs of the pure."This latter is still used by Coptic Christians in Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan.
By Assyrian limme. A curious account of years( and days in a year) by eponyms existed in ancient Assyria( in Kanisha).Here in the beginning of II millennium BC.e.the years were designated by the names of treasurers, limme( literally "one thousand").As suggested by NB Yankovskaya( USSR), at first there was a board of three people: the names of the first two were the years N and N + 1, the year N + 2 was first named after the third eponym, and after 1000 days from the beginningYear N, the same year was designated as the year "in the hand" of the third eponym or by two names - the third name from the original triple and the first of the new triple limousine. In the era of the Assyrian kingdom, beginning with the XIV century. BC.e., eponyms of lymph are already replaced strictly annually. It is noteworthy that for the period from 911 to 648 BC.e.before we came a solid list of limms. ..
Then, at the beginning of the II millennium BC.In Kanisha, the account of time was also traced in the eponyms hamushtu, which means "one fifth", in all probability one fifth of a month, i.e., six days. Their names denoted individual days of the year - a kind of six-day "weeks", of which there were about fifty in the year. The college of "weekly" eponyms, apparently, consisted of six people. As a result, the date "hamushto such and such" corresponded to a certain day of the six-day period. Further, if in the first six days "such and such" was the first eponym, then in the second it became the second, and so on. After six such "weeks", the days were already named according to two eponyms - one from the first collegium and the new one.
Both in the limme system and in the hamustu system, not only double but also triple eponymites are encountered. But in the era of the Assyrian kingdom( XIV-VII centuries BC) eponyms hamustu no longer occur.
Without dwelling on calendar eras that were used at different times in China, Japan and India, let us recall in conclusion that only in India there were more than 20 eras. One of them is Buddhist, according to which the account of the years is kept from the death of the Buddha, the founder of the Buddhist religion. But since the personality of the Buddha is mythical, the dates of his death were indicated in different ways: from 2422 BC.e.to 543 BC.e.