480 NUMBERS, HOURS, AND YEARS
reign of Claudius, the dates (so important for NT chronology) of the great famine (Ac 121) and of the edict expelling the Jews from Rome (Ac 18?) have been assigned to the fourth and ninth years of his reign. Now Claudius began to reign on 25 Jan. A.D. 41, and many writers have forthwith assumed that his fourth year ran from 25 Jan. 44 to 24 Jan. 45, and his ninth from 25 Jan. 49 to 24 Jan. 50. But that assumption is certainly wrong. We must first ask who is the authority responsible for the date, and what was his way of counting Claudius’ years. Did he follow the Roman official reckoning of years of the reign, or did he follow any of the chronologists’ methods? The authority is Orosius ; and it is clear that he followed the method which reckoned A.D. 41 as the last year of Caligula and 42 as the first year of Claudius.* Hence his authority (such as it is) places the great famine in A.D. 45, and the edict expelling the Jews from Rome in A.D. 50. Ultimately, the value of his evidence depends entirely on ‘the older authority or authorities on whom he was dependent: that is a topic that has to be treated by a careful com- parative study of his account of the period as a whole. What concerns us here is that it is wrong to quote his evidence in favour of placing those events in A.D. 44 and 49,
It lies outside of the limits of this article to in- vestigate the practice of the more scientific chrono- logists, which was not absolutely uniform. But so much is certain: the modern fashion of counting a sovereign’s years from the day of his predecessor's death and his own accession was not followed by chronologists or historians in ancient times 3 and the reason lies in the hopeless cumbrousness of that method of reckoning. Such ‘dynastic’ years, as they may be termed, were hardly thought of or reckoned by the ancients. Current years, accord- ing to local usage, alone were taken into account.
The official Roman practice in reckoning the years of an emperor’s reign varied. It was cer- tainly not determined by scientific considerations of chronological convenience, and probably de- pended greatly on the choice or caprice of indi- vidual emperors. In general, the only part of the official description or titles of thé reigning emperor that gave a clue to the length of his reign was the number of times that he had held the tribunician authority,+ which was apparently chosen by Augustus as the characteristic feature and the fundamental element in his tenure of authority. The real foundation of his power, of course, lay in his command of the legions. That, however, was too harsh and repellent a feature ; and in B.C. 23, after years of hesitation, during which he governed as’ triumvir by extraordinary appointment (for periods of five years, beginning from B.C. 42), or as consul by annual election (B.C. 81-23), he finally preferred to have the tribu- nician authority as Champion of the Commons conferred on him; and henceforth in his formal list of titles the number of years during which he had held that office was stated as being equi- valent to the years of his reign. The custom was continued by subsequent emperors.
* This is pointed out by the present writer in St. Paul the Traveller (pp. 68, 254), where it is explained as due to a faulty reckoning of the years of Claudius ; but in Was Christ Born at Bethlehem ? p, 223, the right explanation is given that Orosius (or the older writer from whom he borrowed) reckoned inten- tionally after that fashion, We need not ask what was the New Year’s Day in Orosius’ reckoning : it was certainly late in our year, St. Paul the Traveller, p. 68.
+ This number is always stated in the title (except in the abbreviated titles on coins): trib. pot. alone means the first year of the authority of the emperor in question. The consul- ships and the imperatorial salutations were also expressed nunierically in his title; but the number gave no clue to the length of his reign. For example, the eleventh consulship of Augustus was in B.C. 23, but he continued to be ealled ‘Consul x1.’ till B.c. 5, when his twelfth consulship began,
NUMBERS, HOURS, AND YEARS
Most of the emperors of the Ist cent. reckoned their years of tribunician authority from the day on which it had first been conferred on them, and disregarded the day on which their predecessor died, and on which their reign practically began. The theory was that their legal authority began when the people conferred on them tribunician and other powers, and thus made them Champion of the Commons, with the powers to make their championship effective. The later view, which makes dynastic succession the criterion, did not rule in the Roman practice of the Ist cent, and even later; and there is absolutely no justification for the common modern view, that the years of an emperor were counted in that century from the day of his predecessor’s death. -
According to this official Roman view—
The years of Augustus began 27 June. 2»? 29 Tiberius oy) »” Caligula >, 18 March.
39 22
Pe » Claudius ,, 25 January.