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 Chap. XL] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 287 the age of Charlemagne, have computed their time from the birth of Christ. 161 years which are supposed to elapse since the creation, we shall find 3000 of ignorance and darkness ; 2000 either fabulous or doubtful ; 1000 of ancient history, commenc- ing with the Persian empire, and the republics of Rome and Athens ; 1000 from the fall of the Roman empire in the west to the discovery of America ; and the remain- ing 296 will almost complete three centuries of the modern state of Europe and man- kind. I regret this chronology, so far preferable to our double and perplexed method of counting backwards and forwards the years before and after the Christian tera. [See above, vol. ii., Appendix 3.] 101 The sera of the world has prevailed in the East since the vith general council (a.d. 681). In the West the Christian sera was first invented in the vith century ; it was propagated in the viiith by the authority and writings of venerable Bede ; but it was not till the xth that the use became legal and popular. See PArt de verifier les Dates, Dissert. Prelirninaire, p. iii. xii. Dictionnaire Diplo- matique, torn. i. p. 329-337 : the works of a laborious society of Benedictine monks.