''Ab urbe condita'' (; 'from the founding of the City'), or (; 'in the year since the city's founding'), abbreviated as AUC or AVC, expresses a date in years since 753 BC, 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 is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

. In reference to the traditional year of the foundation of Rome, the year 1 BC would be written AUC 753, whereas AD 1 would be AUC 754. The foundation of the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

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

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

, 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 thro ...

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 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 rule, a t ...

were also in use, as in

Roman Egypt Roman Egypt was an imperial province of the Roman Empire from 30 BC to AD 642. The province encompassed most of modern-day Egypt except for the Sinai. It was bordered by the provinces of Crete and Cyrenaica to the west and Judaea, ...

during the Diocletian era after AD 293, and in the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

from AD 537, following a decree by

Justinian Justinian I (, ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was Roman emperor from 527 to 565. His reign was marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovatio imperii'', or "restoration of the Empire". This ambition was ...

Use

Prior to the Roman state's adoption of the

Varronian chronology The Varronian chronology is the commonly-accepted chronology of early Roman history named after the Roman antiquarian Marcus Terentius Varro. It is from this chronology that the commonly-used dates for the Founding of Rome, foundation of the ci ...

– created by

Titus Pomponius Atticus Titus Pomponius Atticus (November 110 BC – 31 March 32 BC; later named Quintus Caecilius Pomponianus Atticus) was a Roman editor, banker, and patron of letters, best known for his correspondence and close friendship with prominent Roman ...

and

Marcus Terentius Varro Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BCE) 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 Virgil and Cicero). He is sometimes call ...

– there were many different dates posited for when the city was founded. This state of confusion required picking a canonical founding date for one to use an AUC date. The Varronian chronology, constructed from fragmentary sources and demonstrably about four years off of absolute events , placed the founding of the city on 21 April 753 BC. This date, likely arrived at by mechanical calculation but accepted with a variance of one year by the Augustan-era , has become the traditional date. From the time of

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

() 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 l ...

. Claudius was the first to hold magnificent celebrations in honor of the anniversary of the city, in AD 47, the eight hundredth year from the founding of the city.

Hadrian Hadrian ( ; ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. Hadrian was born in Italica, close to modern Seville in Spain, an Italic peoples, Italic settlement in Hispania Baetica; his branch of the Aelia gens, Aelia '' ...

, in AD 121, and

Antoninus Pius Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Pius (; ; 19 September 86 – 7 March 161) was Roman emperor from AD 138 to 161. He was the fourth of the Five Good Emperors from the Nerva–Antonine dynasty. Born into a senatorial family, Antoninus held var ...

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

Philip the Arab Philip I (; – September 249), commonly known as Philip the Arab, was Roman emperor from 244 to 249. After the death of Gordian III in February 244, Philip, who had been Praetorian prefect, rose to power. He quickly negotiated peace with the S ...

celebrated Rome's first

millennium A millennium () is a period of one thousand years, one hundred decades, or ten centuries, 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 ...

, together with Ludi saeculares for Rome's alleged tenth saeculum. Coins from his reign commemorate the celebrations. A coin by a contender for the imperial throne,

Pacatianus Pacatianus, known in English as Pacatian (; ; died ''c.'' 248) was a usurper in the Danube area of the Roman Empire during the time of Philip the Arab. His life is known from mentions in the histories of Zosimus and Zonaras. However, the chro ...

, 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 when designating years in the Gregorian calendar, Gregorian and Julian calendar, Julian calendars. The term is Medieval Latin and means "in the year of the Lord" but is often presented using "o ...

(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 Constanț ...

in Rome in , 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 junior colleagues and designated successors, the ''caesares''. I ...

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

regnal year A regnal year is a year of the reign of a sovereign, from the Latin 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 rule, a t ...

Diocletian Diocletian ( ; ; ; 242/245 – 311/312), nicknamed Jovius, was Roman emperor from 284 until his abdication in 305. He was born Diocles to a family of low status in the Roman province of Dalmatia (Roman province), Dalmatia. As with other Illyri ...

. 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: ("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 is the Conception (biology), conception and the embodiment of a deity or spirit in some earthly form or an Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic form of a god. It is used t ...

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 BCE) 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 Virgil and Cicero). He is sometimes call ...

. Thus:

References

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

Use

Calendar era

See also

References

External links