How did people describe years before the invention of BC AND AD?
In Roman Europe, including here in Britannia, the Roman Province of Britain – we used to calculate the year from the year when the new Emperor took the Throne of the Empire. Thus in the 4th year of Claudius’s reign, we called it year 4 or if you prefer, IV sometimes even IIII in older Roman households. Not sure if the link below is of any use. The Origin of Julian Days Why these numbers? Well, 28 refers to the number of years in the Julian … for calculating times of maximum and minimum brightness of variable stars. … http://www.magma.ca/~scarlisl/DRACO/juli… It does seem a bit complicated to us Romans, when our system was so simple. If the Emperor died in the 9th year of his reign that was the end of that and we just went back to year one again with the next Emperor and so on until we decided enough already and began calculating the year from the time of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. This began hap
