Julian calendar Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! == Year numbering == The principal method used by the Romans to identify a year for dating purposes was to name it after the two consuls who took office in it, the eponymous period in question being the consular year. Beginning in 153 BC, consuls began to take office on 1 January, thus synchronizing the commencement of the consular and calendar years. The calendar year has begun in January and ended in December since about 450 BC according to Ovid or since about 713 BC according to Macrobius and Plutarch (see [[Roman calendar]]). Julius Caesar did not change the beginning of either the consular year or the calendar year. In addition to consular years, the Romans sometimes used the regnal year of the emperor, and by the late 4th century documents were also being dated according to the 15-year cycle of the [[indiction]]. In 537, [[Justinian I|Justinian]] required that henceforth the date must include the name of the emperor and his regnal year, in addition to the indiction and the consul, while also allowing the use of local [[Calendar era|eras]]. In 309 and 310, and from time to time thereafter, no consuls were appointed.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/chronography_of_354_08_fasti.htm| title = Chronography of AD 354.}}</ref> When this happened, the consular date was given a count of years since the last consul (called "post-consular" dating). After 541, only the reigning emperor held the consulate, typically for only one year in his reign, and so post-consular dating became the norm. Similar post-consular dates were also known in the west in the early 6th century. <!-- Commented out pending further research. [[User:Dojarca]] is up to 4th year of the consulate of [[Justinian II]] with no assurance he is the latest. --~~~~ The last known post-consular date is year 22 after the consulate of [[Heraclius]].{{Verify source|date=August 2007}} The last emperor to hold the consulate was [[Constans II]]. --> The system of consular dating, long obsolete, was formally abolished in the law code of [[Leo VI the Wise|Leo VI]], issued in 888. Only rarely did the Romans number the year from the [[founding of Rome|founding of the city (of Rome)]], {{lang|la|[[ab urbe condita]]}} (AUC). This method was used by Roman historians to determine the number of years from one event to another, not to date a year. Different historians had several different dates for the founding. The {{lang|la|[[Fasti]] Capitolini}}, an inscription containing an official list of the consuls which was published by Augustus, used an [[epoch (reference date)|epoch]] of 752 BC. The epoch used by [[Marcus Terentius Varro|Varro]], 753 BC, has been adopted by modern historians. Indeed, [[Renaissance]] editors often added it to the manuscripts that they published, giving the false impression that the Romans numbered their years. Most modern historians tacitly assume that it began on the day the consuls took office, and ancient documents such as the {{lang|la|Fasti Capitolini}} which use other AUC systems do so in the same way. However, Censorinus, writing in the 3rd century AD, states that, in his time, the AUC year began with the [[Parilia]], celebrated on 21 April, which was regarded as the actual anniversary of the foundation of Rome.<ref>{{cite book |author=[[Censorinus]] |title=De Die Natali |at=21.6 |language=Latin |url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Censorinus/text*.html#21.6}} Because the lively festivities associated with the [[Parilia]] conflicted with the solemnity of [[Lent]], which was observed until the Saturday before Easter Sunday, the early Roman church did not celebrate Easter after 21 April.{{cite book |author=[[Bede]] |editor-first=Charles W. |editor-last=Jones |chapter=Development of the Latin ecclesiastical calendar |title=Bedae Opera de Temporibus |year=1943 |pages=1–122, esp. 28}}</ref> Many local eras, such as the Era of Actium and the [[Spanish Era]], were adopted for the Julian calendar or its local equivalent in the provinces and cities of the Roman Empire. Some of these were used for a considerable time.<ref>For a partial survey see {{cite book |first=A.E. |last=Samuel |year=1972 |title=Greek and Roman Chronology: Calendars and years in classical antiquity |place=Munich, DE |pages=245 ff}} Samuel introduces his survey by saying: "The number of eras which came into use and then expired to be replaced by yet other eras during Hellenistic and Roman times is probably not infinite, but I have not been able to find the end of them." Anatolian eras are exhaustively surveyed in {{cite book |first=W. |last=Leschhorn |year=1993 |title=Antike Ären: Zeitrechnung, Politik und Geschichte im Schwarzmeerraum und in Kleinasien nördlich des Tauros |place=Stuttgart, DE |language=DE}}</ref> Perhaps the best known is the [[Era of Martyrs]], sometimes also called {{lang|la|Anno Diocletiani}} (after [[Diocletian]]), which was associated with the Alexandrian calendar and often used by the [[Alexandria]]n Christians to number their Easters during the 4th and 5th centuries, and continues to be used by the Coptic and [[Ethiopian Orthodox Church|Ethiopian]] churches. In the eastern Mediterranean, the efforts of Christian chronographers such as [[Annianus of Alexandria]] to date the Biblical creation of the world led to the introduction of [[Anno Mundi]] eras based on this event.<ref>{{cite book |first=A.A. |last=Mosshammer |year=2008 |title=The Easter Computus and the Origins of the Christian Era |place=Oxford, UK |pages=27–29}}</ref> The most important of these was the [[Etos Kosmou]], used throughout the Byzantine world from the 10th century and in Russia until 1700. In the west, the kingdoms succeeding the empire initially used indictions and [[regnal year]]s, alone or in combination. The chronicler [[Prosper of Aquitaine]], in the fifth century, used an era dated from the [[Passion (Christianity)|Passion of Christ]], but this era was not widely adopted. [[Dionysius Exiguus]] proposed the system of [[Anno Domini]] in 525. This era gradually spread through the western Christian world, once the system was adopted by [[Bede]] in the eighth century. The Julian calendar was also used in some Muslim countries. The [[Rumi calendar]], the Julian calendar used in the later years of the [[Ottoman Empire]], adopted an era derived from the lunar [[Islamic calendar|AH]] year equivalent to AD 1840, i.e., the effective [[Rumi calendar|Rumi epoch]] was AD 585. In recent years, some users of the [[Berber calendar#The computation of the years|Berber calendar]] have adopted an era starting in 950 BC, the approximate date that the Libyan pharaoh {{nowrap|[[Sheshonq I]]}} came to power in Egypt. Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. 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