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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Updating the GGG info, but also sending a general distribution. |
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Posted on 02/05/2009 6:39:00 PM PST by SunkenCiv
The 'Anno Domini' and the associated dating system was developed by a Romanian monk Dionysius Exiguus about AD525. It's first prominent use was by the Venerable Bede in compiling his 'Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum' completed around AD730, and from then the practice seems to have been the accepted one in England. Charlemagne endorsed it early in the ninth century and from there, it gradually spread across Western Europe over the next 600 years. So at this point, it's been in widespread use across all of the western world for about 600 years. The term 'Before Christ' or BC doesn't come into use until about 600 years ago (pre-AD dates were generally given as Emperor's regnal years or similar, where they were needed).
It seems to me that case is extremely flimsy. When you discuss Chinese history, do you also start lecturing in Chinese? Or when discussing Japanese history, do you speak in Japanese? If you continue to lecture in English, does that not give the wrong impression that the Chinese and Japanese speak English as their native tongue?
No, but I will normally use the correct Chinese and Japanese terminology for important events and people in their history (or at least as close as I can get to), just as I referred to Dionysius Exiguus above, rather than calling him Dennis the Small.
I still don't see a sound principle for the change to BCE and CE in the first place. I think what we see is common sense reasserting itself after some academics in a snit of multicultural fundamentalism decided that would change the traditional designations.
The thing is, they are only traditional in the west. I use them because I am teaching western students, and I think that's fine in that context. I also think it's fine in a museum in the western world. But I do understand why some people think it's not the best system.
You think Hadrian looks like Obama?
http://www.hadrians.com/images/graphics/rome/emperors/hadrian_denarius.jpg
No doubt a prophesy by a sibyl of the Messiah forged in gold. As for the similarity, Obama cannot be a US citizen if he was born in the Roman Republic.
Rome was still a republic in 125 BC. Perhaps this is a figure of a consul, or a legendary king, or some divinity.
OK, so I think we have determined that the designations AD and BC have been in use a very long time. There is no reason to change them. Everybody in the West knows the system, and it works very well just as it is.
No, but I will normally use the correct Chinese and Japanese terminology for important events and people in their history (or at least as close as I can get to), just as I referred to Dionysius Exiguus above, rather than calling him Dennis the Small.
Terminology is always a matter of use. I say Charlemagne, but I say it in English, not French because that would be pretentious. And I might even tell someone what his name means in English. As for Dionysius Exiguus, it would be pronounced with English sounds. A person would not try to pronounce it in some Latin/Romanian dialect of the 6th century AD, unless to be pedantic.
The thing is, they are only traditional in the west. I use them because I am teaching western students, and I think that's fine in that context. I also think it's fine in a museum in the western world. But I do understand why some people think it's not the best system.
Traditional only in the West? Of course those dates are traditional only in the West. But this is the West. That is why we use. Now if you move to China, you would use the Chinese system of dates. And you might want to learn Chinese so you could give your lecture in the local language. And if you were lecturing in Argentina, you would probably lecture in Spanish if you wanted your students to understand you. But there you wouldn't have to change your system of dates.
It isn't a question of which is the best system. It is a matter of using the system your nation uses.
I would be very suspicious of a Roman coin that was dated 125 BC. After all, the Romans did not use Arabic numerals.
Be warned! Critics of our fearless leader will doubtless appear on the programs of various inner city stadia, along with a variety of carnivorous beasts native to Kenya.
Just pray that I am in the crowd so that you MAY get one thumb up!
BTW, The Mahdi's wife has settled this BC-AD-BCE-CE nonsense once and for all. The newly re-decorated White House will be wired for AC, except when George Stephanopoulos and Chris Matthews visit, then with the flick of a switch, it will be AC-DC.
Lissen up, the Arabs don't use Arabic numerals neither. Your rude questioning of this precious heirloom's authenticity made me so angry, that I slammed down my Obama Commemorative Drinking Mug on my Commemorative Obama Plate and not only chipped it, but I got Java-Obama all over my Obama Teeshirt, the Obama blanket around my shoulders, and the Obama throw rug.
Furthermore, Buster, The Neapolitan antique shop guy told me the Romans ALWAYS used those numerals on your smaller genuine BC Roman coins, as all of them XLICMV thingies wouldn't hardly fit so good, now would they? Plus who the heck woulda been able to figure out the date?
Then I will make sure I stuff myself with pork chops. I understand that the beasts of Kenya don't eat the pig.
Just pray that I am in the crowd so that you MAY get one thumb up!
Thank goodness. I don't high 5. At least I will go out with some class from the crowd.
BTW, The Mahdi's wife has settled this BC-AD-BCE-CE nonsense once and for all. The newly re-decorated White House will be wired for AC, except when George Stephanopoulos and Chris Matthews visit, then with the flick of a switch, it will be AC-DC.
Yes, I have often wondered about Georgie and Chrissy. I am not surprised. This oval office will make the Clintons' look like a Baptist Sunday School. Let the collection of the harem begin.
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Updating the GGG info, but also sending a general distribution. |
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Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
I would guess the date was numbered counting forward from the founding of Rome(about 753 BC), AUC (ab urbe condita).
Well said.
I don’t think there are any examples of Roman coins dated from the foundation of the city. There are some imperial coins which can be assigned to a particular year because of the titles (usually very abbreviated) given to the emperor. There may be some which say how many times the emperor has been consul or has held tribunician power (which was a kind of regnal dating)—I’d have to consult a book on Roman coins to be sure.
You very well might be correct as the Roman coins I have seen were largely illegible.
I was basing my guess on the dates I have seen on early Roman writings, which used either or both the AUC or the years of the Consuls serving at that time,
The historians usually use the consuls’ names if they bother to date at all (I just glanced at Eutropius, a 4th-century A.D. historian, and he doesn’t seem to date events at all.) The standard dating of the founding of Rome in what we call 753 B.C. is by Varro in the 1st century B.C., but it doesn’t seem to have been used in daily life.
Using Occam’s Razor to cut to the chase:
Don’t you think if the Pantheon had been designed to be used as a sundial that at least one Roman writer from antiquity would have mentioned it?
“I was walking through the Forum and popped in to the Pantheon to see if I was late for dinner.”
I love that building; it's so well preserved. It's like a time machine back to ancient Rome.
I think they had in mind a finished dome, but (as the dome is concrete), bridging that nearly-flat last bit may have looked like they were pushing the envelope a wee tad. And of course, the interior would have to be illuminated by some means. And excess rain is rarely a problem in Rome. Also, finer Roman houses included both the atria (the still oft-copied roof with a view) and in larger houses the peristyle, both of which are at least partially open to the sky.
http://www.monolithic.com/stories/the-pantheon-rome-126-ad
[snip] Just about everything had to come down the Tiber by boat, including the 16 gray granite columns Hadrian ordered for the Pantheon’s pronaos. Each was 39 feet (11.8 m) tall, five feet (1.5 m) in diameter, and 60 tons in weight. Hadrian had these columns quarried at Mons Claudianus in Egypt’s eastern mountains, dragged on wooden sledges to the Nile, floated by barge to Alexandria, and put on vessels for a trip across the Mediterranean to the Roman port of Ostia. From there the columns were barged up the Tiber... Eventually, work began on the concrete dome, constructed in tapering courses or steps that are thickest at the base (20 feet) and thinnest at the oculus (7.5 feet). The Romans used the heaviest aggregate, mostly basalt, at the bottom and lighter materials, such as pumice, at the top. They embedded empty clay jugs into the dome’s upper courses to further lighten the structure and facilitate the concrete’s curing. [/snip]
for the scale:
http://www.monolithic.com/stories/the-pantheon-rome-126-ad/photos/2
http://www.monolithic.com/stories/the-pantheon-rome-126-ad/photos/3
http://www.monolithic.com/stories/the-pantheon-rome-126-ad/photos/7
http://www.monolithic.com/stories/the-pantheon-rome-126-ad/photos/8
It became a church in 609, was looted by Emperor Constans in 663 (wiki-wacky-pedia).
In before the “this is just speculation” and “who cares this is just a scam for grant money” morons arrive.
The Pantheon By David Moore, P.E., 1995
http://www.romanconcrete.com/docs/chapt01/chapt01.htm
[snip] Pantheon Cracking ...An earlier stress analysis of this dome by Cowan theoretically placed this point at 37 degrees 36’. This is the point where hoop stresses in the dome change from tension to compression presenting a point of weakness within the unreinforced concrete dome... Interestingly, the analysis showed if a concrete —137.3 lb/ft3 (2200 kg m3) would have been used, the stresses would have been 80 percent higher, so the Romans were knowledgeable and cautious. [/snip]
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