''Ab urbe condita'' ( 'from the founding of the City'), or ''anno urbis conditae'' (; 'in the year since the city's founding'), abbreviated as AUC or AVC, expresses a date in years since

753 BC Events By place Europe * April 21: Romulus and Remus legendarily found the city of Rome (according to the calculations of the Roman scholar Varro Reatinus). According to the legend, Romulus and Remus are the sons of Rhea Silvia, daug ...

, the traditional founding of Rome. It is an expression used in antiquity and by classical historians to refer to a given year in

Ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 B ...

. In reference to the traditional year of the foundation of Rome, the year 1 BC would be written AUC 753, whereas

AD 1 __NOTOC__ AD 1 or 1 CE is the epoch year for the Anno Domini (AD) Christian calendar era and also the 1st year of the Common Era (CE) and the 1st millennium and of the 1st century of the Christian and the common era. It was a common year sta ...

would be AUC 754. The foundation of the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

in 27 BC would be AUC 727. Usage of the term was more common during the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

, when editors sometimes added AUC to Roman manuscripts they published, giving the false impression that the convention was commonly used in antiquity. In reality, the dominant method of identifying years in Roman times was to name the two

consul Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states throug ...

s who held office that year. In late antiquity,

regnal years A regnal year is a year of the reign of a sovereign, from the Latin ''regnum'' meaning kingdom, rule. Regnal years considered the date as an ordinal, not a cardinal number. For example, a monarch could have a first year of rule, a second year of ...

were also in use, as in

Roman Egypt , conventional_long_name = Roman Egypt , common_name = Egypt , subdivision = Province , nation = the Roman Empire , era = Late antiquity , capital = Alexandria , title_leader = Praefectus Augustalis , image_map = Roman E ...

during the Diocletian era after AD 293, and in the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

from AD 537, following a decree by

Justinian Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565. His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovat ...

Significance

The traditional date for the

founding of Rome The tale of the founding of Rome is recounted in traditional stories handed down by the ancient Romans themselves as the earliest history of their city in terms of legend and myth. The most familiar of these myths, and perhaps the most famous o ...

, 21 April 753 BC, is due to

Marcus Terentius Varro Marcus Terentius Varro (; 116–27 BC) was a Roman polymath and a prolific author. He is regarded as ancient Rome's greatest scholar, and was described by Petrarch as "the third great light of Rome" (after Vergil and Cicero). He is sometimes calle ...

(

1st century BC The 1st century BC, also known as the last century BC and the last century BCE, started on the first day of 100 BC and ended on the last day of 1 BC. The AD/BC notation does not use a year zero; however, astronomical year numberi ...

). Varro may have used the consular list (with its mistakes) and called the year of the first consuls "''ab Urbe condita'' 245," accepting the 244-year interval from

Dionysius of Halicarnassus Dionysius of Halicarnassus ( grc, Διονύσιος Ἀλεξάνδρου Ἁλικαρνασσεύς, ; – after 7 BC) was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Emperor Augustus. His literary sty ...

for the kings after the foundation of Rome. The correctness of this calculation has not been confirmed, but it is still used worldwide. From the time of

Claudius Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (; 1 August 10 BC – 13 October AD 54) was the fourth Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Nero Claudius Drusus, Drusu ...

( fl. AD 41 to AD 54) onward, this calculation superseded other contemporary calculations. Celebrating the anniversary of the city became part of imperial

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...

. Claudius was the first to hold magnificent celebrations in honor of the anniversary of the city, in AD 48, the eight hundredth year from the founding of the city.

Hadrian Hadrian (; la, Caesar Trâiānus Hadriānus ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. He was born in Italica (close to modern Santiponce in Spain), a Roman ''municipium'' founded by Italic settlers in Hispania B ...

, in AD 121, and

Antoninus Pius Antoninus Pius (Latin: ''Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Pius''; 19 September 86 – 7 March 161) was Roman emperor from 138 to 161. He was the fourth of the Five Good Emperors from the Nerva–Antonine dynasty. Born into a senatoria ...

, in AD 147 and AD 148, held similar celebrations respectively. In AD 248,

Philip the Arab Philip the Arab ( la, Marcus Julius Philippus "Arabs"; 204 – September 249) was Roman emperor from 244 to 249. He was born in Aurantis, Arabia, in a city situated in modern-day Syria. After the death of Gordian III in February 244, Philip ...

celebrated Rome's first

millennium A millennium (plural millennia or millenniums) is a period of one thousand years, sometimes called a kiloannum (ka), or kiloyear (ky). Normally, the word is used specifically for periods of a thousand years that begin at the starting point (ini ...

, together with

Ludi saeculares The Saecular Games ( la, Ludi saeculares, originally ) was a Roman religious celebration involving sacrifices and theatrical performances, held in ancient Rome for three days and nights to mark the end of a and the beginning of the next. A , sup ...

for Rome's alleged tenth

saeculum A is a length of time roughly equal to the potential lifetime of a person or, equivalently, the complete renewal of a human population. Originally it meant the time from the moment that something happened (for example the founding of a city) unt ...

. Coins from his reign commemorate the celebrations. A coin by a contender for the imperial throne,

Pacatianus Pacatian (; la, Tiberius Claudius Marinus Pacatianus; died ''c.'' 248) was a usurper in the Danube area of the Roman Empire during the time of Philip the Arab. He is known from coins, and from mentions in Zosimus and Zonaras, who say that he ...

, explicitly states " ar one thousand and first," which is an indication that the citizens of the empire had a sense of the beginning of a new era, a ''Sæculum Novum''.

Calendar era

The

Anno Domini The terms (AD) and before Christ (BC) are used to label or number years in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. The term is Medieval Latin and means 'in the year of the Lord', but is often presented using "our Lord" instead of "the Lord", ...

(AD) year numbering was developed by a monk named

Dionysius Exiguus Dionysius Exiguus (Latin for "Dionysius the Humble", Greek: Διονύσιος; – ) was a 6th-century Eastern Roman monk born in Scythia Minor. He was a member of a community of Scythian monks concentrated in Tomis (present day Constanța, ...

in Rome in AD 525, as a result of his work on calculating the date of Easter. Dionysius did not use the AUC convention, but instead based his calculations on the Diocletian era. This convention had been in use since AD 293, the year of the

tetrarchy The Tetrarchy was the system instituted by Roman emperor Diocletian in 293 AD to govern the ancient Roman Empire by dividing it between two emperors, the '' augusti'', and their juniors colleagues and designated successors, the '' caesares' ...

, as it became impractical to use regnal years of the current emperor. In his Easter table, the year AD 532 was equated with the 248th

regnal year A regnal year is a year of the reign of a sovereign, from the Latin ''regnum'' meaning kingdom, rule. Regnal years considered the date as an ordinal, not a cardinal number. For example, a monarch could have a first year of rule, a second year of ...

Diocletian Diocletian (; la, Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus, grc, Διοκλητιανός, Diokletianós; c. 242/245 – 311/312), nicknamed ''Iovius'', was Roman emperor from 284 until his abdication in 305. He was born Gaius Valerius Diocles ...

. The table counted the years starting from the presumed birth of Christ, rather than the accession of the emperor

on 20 November AD 284 or, as stated by Dionysius: ''"sed magis elegimus ab incarnatione Domini nostri Jesu Christi annorum tempora praenotare"'' ("but rather we choose to name the times of the years from the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ"). Blackburn and Holford-Strevens review interpretations of Dionysius which place the

Incarnation Incarnation literally means ''embodied in flesh'' or ''taking on flesh''. It refers to the conception and the embodiment of a deity or spirit in some earthly form or the appearance of a god as a human. If capitalized, it is the union of divinit ...

in 2 BC, 1 BC, or AD 1.Blackburn, B. & Holford-Strevens, L, ''The Oxford Companion to the Year'' (Oxford University Press, 2003 corrected reprinting, originally 1999), pp. 778–780. The year AD 1 corresponds to AUC 754, based on the epoch of

Varro Marcus Terentius Varro (; 116–27 BC) was a Roman polymath and a prolific author. He is regarded as ancient Rome's greatest scholar, and was described by Petrarch as "the third great light of Rome" (after Vergil and Cicero). He is sometimes calle ...

. Thus:

Notes

Citations

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:ab urbe condita 1st-century BC establishments in the Roman Empire 8th century BC in the Roman Kingdom Calendar eras Chronology Latin words and phrases Roman calendar Diocletian

Significance

Calendar era

See also

Notes

Citations

External links