Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/77

 On th&'Dating of Ancient History, 67 through the consideration of the age of Christianity itself coming to occupy the minds of men. Many things made it do this. It began, as the Civitas Dei, in some measure to fill the place in men's thoughts which the greatness of Rome itself had filled, now that Rome was plainly coming to an end: on the other hand, its opponents had various prophecies of Sibyls, &c. to the effect that the duration of Christianity should be for a certain fixed time only, and then it should perish. The age of Christi- anity was at that time generally reckoned from the death of Christ, or from his ascension, which were considered its origin, and became as such to a certain degree, epochs for historic dating, especially in the East : but they do not seem ever to have come into any very general use. Still however, independent of Christianity, the course of new dynastial epochs went on, and one such established itself in Egypt from the accession of Diocletian 42, which had very much the character of a reorganization of the Empire on a new basis after a succession of short anarchic reigns : the new basis having little to do with Rome. Not long after, a new and more extra- ordinary way of dating began in general through the Roman Empire, which may be called in general a new dynastial reckon- ing, though different from any previous : the dating by years of the Indiction. This was particularizing any year to be marked by its place in a cycle of 15, which cycle, having begun at a given year, was continually repeated: the cycles were not counted, in which case the reckoning would have been a sort of Christian Olympiads, but only the place of the year in its cycle, so that the reckoning was of no use, except concurrently with others, as one note of the year out of many. It was used, together with calendarian and other notes of the years, very largely for a long time : it is supposed to have been originally a civil period, the interval of surveys for taxation: and since it took its rise in the time of Constantine, it may be supposed a peculiar form of dynastial reckoning connected with that same reorganization, so to call it, of the empire, which we have already noticed 43. In the last struggles then of the old empire and society, a 42 On the nature of this epoch, and and Ideler, H. der Chr. I. 161 and 2. whether it was a Christian, or general 232. one, see Seal, de Em. Temp. 494 & c. Kome keeps up one memorial of 52