How did the Greeks and Romans count Years? [7:52]

YouTube ^ | December 31, 2021 | Garrett Ryan, Ph.D (as toldinstone)

[SunkenCiv]

The AD/CE system we use to date the year was introduced - more or less by accident - during the Middle Ages. Before its invention, the classical world used a wide range of dating systems. 

How did the Greeks and Romans count Years? | 7:52 
toldinstone | 615K subscribers | 435,313 views | December 31, 2021

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TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: epigraphyandlanguage; garrettryan; godsgravesglyphs; toldinstone

[SunkenCiv]

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:51 Ancient Greek Calendars
• 1:42 Counting by Olympiads
• 2:22 The Seleucid Era
• 2:56 Consular Dating
• 3:26 Ab Urbe Condita
• 4:28 Indictions
• 4:56 Christian Chronology
• 5:40 Anno Domini
• 7:00 Conclusion

YouTube transcript reformatted at textformatter.ai could follow, but probably won't.

[SunkenCiv]

The weekly digest list of topics follows.

[DoodleBob]

The answer is easy.

On their fingers.

[SunkenCiv]

👌👍

[SunkenCiv]

BCE or BC? Whats it for you... This week, we take a look at something that seems to bother a lot of people. And thats ok. We care about our history. So with that lets take a deep dive into both. Why do we use them, why and when did we change and what does it mean for the history and heritage of Britain? 

Are we Erasing BC and AD? | 11:59 
Paul Whitewick | 226K subscribers | 54,313 views | January 18, 2026

(pertinent, and not a strong standalone topic)

[Raycpa]

On their fingers and toes I assumed.

[Raycpa]

Before Christ or Before the Christian Era is pretty much the same thing, at least for me.

[zeebee]

I always understood BCE to mean Before the Common Era and BC is Before Christ.
Jewish people preferred BCE.

[Fiji Hill]

BCE/CE are Christophobic, and when someone posts an article on FR using those abbreviations for dating, I correct them.

[libertylover]

Before Christ or Before the Christian Era is pretty much the same thing, at least for me.

I think BCE stands for Before Common Era. It's just a way for hate-filled left-wing historians to pretend that the counting method has nothing to do with Christianity.

[chajin]

I always preferred Goody’s to BC.

[chajin]

The Japanese count their years usually as the reign of an emperor (they are presently in Reiwa 8), though if some major disaster occurred, an emperor could decide to start a new era—the emperor emeritus (Akihito) could have started a new era after the 2011 Fukushima disaster if he had wished.

[equaviator]

I feel like I have a need to know about how Noah got to be 950 years old. Methuselah was 969, Adam was 930, Seth was 912, Job was 210, Moses was 120...What were their secrets to living such long and productive lives?

[Raycpa]

I know some read it that way but because I know the reality is inescapable by pretending Christ is common, I am satisfied that Christ is real and not common no matter how they want to rewrite. They can deny reality be making Christ common but I can establish in my own mind that Christ changed time and world and that is not common.

[oldbill]

Well, at least the Romans counted them in Roman numerals.

If it wasn’t for Roman numerals, most of our modern buildings would collapse because of the missing cornerstones.

[Terry L Smith]

Long ago, the place where I worked used “a Julian Calendar”.The Julian Year was 1000 days long, with the last number of the Gregorian Calendar Year.
Example: ‘Jan 01, 1961 would be 0-0-1-1.
Next day, 0-0-2-1 all the way to 9-9-9-1, then that next day begins the “2” year, 0-0-1-2.
As to what happens when you’ve reached “9-9-9-9”, I do not recall that....
Note, an easy historical eye of 1000 days, was the length President Kennedy’s time in office.

[Raycpa]

VI VII

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

BCE/CE are Christophobic, and when someone posts an article on FR using those abbreviations for dating, I correct them.

I could not agree more. Moreover, they are anti-intellectual, they reject history and needless create confusion and complexity.

FWIW, astronomical years agree with AD dating and subtract one or add, one depending on your point of view, to BC dates. There was no year 0 in the AD/BC system because there is no way to represent 0 in Roman Numerals used to indicate years, even after Arabic numerals became common for financial and scientific purposes. 2026 AD is astronomical year 2026, but 1 BC is astronomical year 0 and 67 BC is astronomical year -68.

Interestingly enough, in the Julian Calendar the year began on March 25th, "Lady Day". In the British Empire, the year George Washington was born, March 24, 1731 was followed the next day by March 25, 1732! Washington was born on February 22, 1732 by the Gregorian Calendar, February 11, 1731, by the Julian Calendar then in use.

[Bigg Red]

mark