The Era of the Martyrs (), also known as the ''Diocletian era'' (), is a method of numbering years based on the reign of

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

Emperor

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 ...

who instigated the last major persecution against Christians in the Empire. It was used by the

Church of Alexandria The Church of Alexandria in Egypt was the Christian Church headed by the patriarch of Alexandria. It was one of the five sees of the pentarchy, alongside Rome, Antioch, Constantinople and Jerusalem. Tradition holds that Saint Mark the Evangeli ...

beginning in the 4th century AD and it has been used by the

Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria The Coptic Orthodox Church (), also known as the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, is an Oriental Orthodox Christian church based in Egypt. The head of the church and the See of Alexandria is the pope of Alexandria on the Holy Apo ...

from the 5th century until the present. This era was used to number the year in

Easter tables As a moveable feast, the date of Easter is determined in each year through a calculation known as – often simply ''Computus'' – or as paschalion particularly in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the ...

produced by the Church of Alexandria. Diocletian began his reign on 20 November 284 AD, and the

reference epoch In chronology and periodization, an epoch or reference epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era. The "epoch" serves as a reference point from which time is measured. The moment of epoch is usually decided by ...

(day one of the Diocletian era) was assigned to be the first day of that Alexandrian year, 1 Thoth, the Egyptian New Year, or 29 August 284 AD.

Alternatives among early Christians

The ''anno Diocletiani'' era was not the only one used by early Christians. Western Christians were aware of it but did not use it. Most Roman Christians, like the pagan Romans before them, designated their years by naming the two consuls who held office that year. The Romans also used the ''

ab urbe condita ''Ab urbe condita'' (; 'from the founding of Rome, 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, 753 BC, the traditional founding of Rome. It is ...

'' (AUC) era. Its name is Latin for "from the founding of the City (Rome)". However, the AUC era was hardly ever used outside historical treatises. Eras that began at Creation, called ''

anno Mundi (from Latin 'in the year of the world'; ), abbreviated as AM or A.M., or Year After Creation, is a calendar era based on biblical accounts of the creation of the world and subsequent history. Two such calendar eras of notable use are: * Sin ...

'' eras, became the dominant method of numbering years in the East until modern times, such as in the

Byzantine calendar The Byzantine calendar, also called the Roman calendar, the Creation Era of Constantinople or the Era of the World (, also or ; 'Roman year since the creation of the universe', abbreviated as ε.Κ.), was the calendar used by the Eastern Orth ...

Annianus of Alexandria Annianus of Alexandria () was a monk and writer who flourished in Alexandria during the pontificate of Theophilus I around the beginning of the 5thcentury. Annianus criticized the world history of his contemporary, the monk Panodorus of Alexandr ...

, a monk who

flourished ''Floruit'' ( ; usually abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for 'flourished') denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indic ...

at the beginning of the 5th century, placed the epoch of his world era on 25 March 5492BC by counting back eleven 532-year

paschal cycle The Paschal cycle, in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is the cycle of the moveable feasts built around Pascha (Easter). The cycle consists of approximately ten weeks before and seven weeks after Pascha. The ten weeks before Pascha are known as ...

s from ''anno Diocletiani'' 77, itself four 19-year

lunar cycle A lunar phase or Moon phase is the apparent shape of the Moon's directly sunlit portion as viewed from the Earth. Because the Moon is tidally locked with the Earth, the same hemisphere is always facing the Earth. In common usage, the four majo ...

s after ''anno Diocletiani'' 1. Regarded as a civil rather than a religious era, it began on the first day of the Alexandrian year, 29 August 5493BC. This Alexandrian era was the preferred era used by

Byzantine 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 the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

Christians such as

Maximus the Confessor Maximus the Confessor (), also spelled Maximos, otherwise known as Maximus the Theologian and Maximus of Constantinople ( – 13 August 662), was a Christianity, Christian monk, theologian, and scholar. In his early life, Maximus was a civil se ...

, until the 10th century when the Byzantine era, which had an epoch of 1 September 5509BC, became dominant. Both eras used a version of

dating Creation Dating creation is the attempt to provide an estimate of the age of Earth or the age of the universe as understood through the creation myths of various religious traditions. Various traditional beliefs hold that the Earth, or the entire unive ...

based on the

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

Transition to Anno Domini

When

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 ...

, an

Eastern Roman 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 the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

Scythia Minor Scythia Minor or Lesser Scythia (Greek: , ) was a Roman province in late Antiquity, occupying the lands between the lower Danube and the Black Sea, the modern-day Dobruja region in Romania and Bulgaria. It was detached from Moesia Inferior by ...

, inherited the continuation of those tables for an additional 95 years (in the year 525 AD) he replaced the ''anno Diocletiani'' era with one based on the

birth of Christ The Nativity or birth of Jesus Christ is found in the biblical gospels of Matthew and Luke. The two accounts agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Palestine, in Roman-controlled Judea, that his mother, Mary, was engaged to a man named J ...

: 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 ...

'' era. His main goal was to marginalize the memory of a tyrant who persecuted Christians. The ''anno Domini'' era became dominant in the Latin West but was not used in the

Greek East Greek East and Latin West are terms used to distinguish between the two parts of the Greco-Roman world and of medieval Christendom, specifically the eastern regions where Greek was the ''lingua franca'' (Greece, Anatolia, the southern Balkans, t ...

until modern times.

References

External links

*
alternate link
{{DEFAULTSORT:Era Of Martyrs Classical antiquity Calendar eras Christian terminology Chronology Diocletianic Persecution Christianity in Egypt

Alternatives among early Christians

Transition to Anno Domini

See also

References

External links