Fr; 53) ve Nero » 13 October (till A.D. 60).
9 » Vespasian ,, 1 July.
a9 2” Titus 2» 29
; Domitian ,, 13 September.
> 99 Nero’s and Domitian’s days coincided with those of their predecessor’s death. Claudius’ day was one day later than Caligula’s death, Caligula’s was two days later than Tiberius’ death, and the other four had no connexion whatsoever with their predecessor’s death.
Nero, in A.D. 60, introduced a new way of counting his own reign, and made the change retrospective. His seventh year had begun on 13 October in that year, but he ordered that his eighth year should begin on 10 December A.D. 60 (for the old Republican rule was that the Tribunes of the Commons entered office always on 10 De- cember). Hence he was officially in the fifteenth year of his reign when he died on 9 June A.D. 68 (though according to our modern way of counting, by which many scholars interpret the chronological statements of the ancients, his fourteenth year was then still unfinished). But this way of counting the years of the reign from 10 December was not imitated by any of the Ist cent. emperors except Nerva and Trajan from the year 97 onwards, and could not have had any possible influence on NT usage.
2. From this follows a conclusion extremely im- portant for NT chronology. There is no justifica- tion in Roman official usage for the view ‘that when St. Luke (3!) mentioned the fifteenth year of Tiberius he was counting from the death of Augustus on 19 August A.D. 14, and meant the 12months that began on 19 Aug. A.D. 28. We have previously seen that neither ordinary contemporary usage, nor the more scientific usage of chronolo- gists, permits such an interpretation.* We must therefore conclude that, whatever St. Luke may have meant, he certainly did not mean the year 19 August A.D. 28 to 18 August A.D. 29. Yet’ the majority of modern writers assume as self-evident that that interpretation (which is founded only on modern custom and prejudice) must be what St. Luke had in mind. The question now is what bearing the special subject of this article has on the interpretation of that important date.
It may be regarded as practically certain that the custom of dating by the years of the reigning Roman emperor originated, not in Rome but in the Eastern provinces; and hence such dates are to be interpreted by Eastern, not by Roman, usage.
* They would consider that his reign began on 19 August, but that his first year ended at the conclusion of the current local year (which in many places would be on 22 or 30 Sep- tember),
NUMBERS, HOURS, AND YEARS
NUMBERS, HOURS, AND YEARS 481
The Roman fashion of dating by consuls persisted in Rome far through the Imperial time; and so, e.g., the Annals of Tacitus are arranged in strictly annalistic order, year by year, according to con- suls, and not by years of the emperors. The pre- valent method of counting in the Eastern provinces was a mixture of the dynastic method with the reckoning according to local years: as a general rule, the years of each emperor were counted ac- cording to the current local years, but his reign was considered to begin at the death of his pre- decessor. According to that method the fifteenth year of Tiberius would be the year beginning in spring A.D. 28, or in autumn A.D. 27, according as the local year began in spring or in autumn.* There were, however, some exceptions to this rule about the beginning of the reign, caused chietly by collegiate government. Thus, in Egypt, the reign of Commodus, who had been colleague of his father, M. Aurelius, for some years, was counted continuously with his father’s, as if there had been an unbroken rule from A.D. 161 to 192. Now, there were in the Ist cent. two emperors—Tiberius and Titus—who reigned for a time as colleagues of their predecessors. In their strictly official style, both counted their years of tribunician authority from a point long anterior to their predecessors’ death. But Tiberius’ tribunician authority was interrupted and remained in abey- ance for a good many years, hence it was impos- sible to count the years of his reign from the first of his tribunician authority. There was, however, a second occasion when he was assumed as colleague of his predecessor with power over all the armies in all the provinces. This was a few days or weeks before 16 January A.D. 12, when, on his return from Pannonia, he celebrated his triumph. Before his arrival, probably at the meeting held in ordinary course on 1 January, the Senate had conferred on him those great
owers; and it has been suggested with much plausibility that St. Luke (3) considered his reign as beginning from that day, when he became col- league of Augustus, so far as the provinces and all provincial administration were concerned. If, as many hold on other grounds to be probable, St. Luke was writing under Titus, who counted his years from his collegiate appointment, there would be an Imperial contemporary analogy prompting the historian to this way of count- ing Tiberius’ years.
One must take into account that, in the case both of Tiberius and of Augustus, it was ex- tremely difficult to tell from what date their power ought to be counted as beginning. In both cases there were several different dates which might, with almost equal plausibility, be taken as the commencement of their reigns, while Roman custom (as we have seen) forbade that either reign should be counted as beginning from the death of the preceding ruler, the day which modern custom prefers.