When it was 5 bc what was the date within the Roman empire?

Question

Surely,before ,yer man, was born people used a calender.
At what date was the old dating system ditched and the new religious one started, which gave rise to the earth being only 2000 years old.
When it was 5 BC what would the date have been for a Roman soldier

Answer 1

Top question ! Its a star for you matey !

In the Roman Republic, the years were not counted. Instead they were named after the consuls who were in power at the beginning of the year. For example, 205 BC was "The year of the consulship of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus and Publius Licinius Crassus". Lists of consuls were maintained in the fasti.

In the later Republic, historians and scholars began to count years from the founding of the city of Rome. Different scholars used different dates for this event. The date most widely used today is that calculated by Varro, 753 BC, but other systems varied by up to several decades. Dates given by this method are numbered ab urbe condita (meaning after the founding of the city, and abbreviated AUC).

Answer 2

The Romans at that time used the Julian calendar (introduced in 46 BC by Julius Caesar) which started counting in 45 BC. So just add 45 to the current year and you get the Julian year. Frinstance 5 AD is 50 JC. 5 BC is 40 JC.

Before Caesar they used the "ab urbe condita" calendar ("after the founding of the city"). 1 JC is 709 AUC, or 45 BC. The AUC calendar starts in 753 BC.

Answer 3

The Romans usually named their years by the consuls that held office in that particular year. Needless to say, this became very confusing, especially in the late republic with Marius becoming consul seven times, Sulla becoming dictator, and all those other weird political going ons in the senate house. Around this time, Romans started counting years from the traditional founding date of their city, 753 B.C.E. Thus 5 B.C.E would be 748 years after the founding of the city, or in Latin, 748 A.U.C., ab urbe conditia.

Answer 4

A.V.C. DCCXLVIII - 748 years since the founding of the city. Not used much though, except by scholars.
22nd year of Caesar Augustus - far more widely used.
People also used the names of the Consuls for the year.

A.D. was devised in the fourth century I think, and only became widely used in the Later Middle Ages, 1400-1500. People only started counting backwards, BC, in the eighteenth century.

Answer 5

minus 5

Answer 6

Thanks for the erudite and interesting answers.

But why waste them on a questioner who, apart from dodgy punctuation, throws in such a sneaky gratuitous insult to Christians?