'Year Zero' Roman soldier remains identified

[Nick Harbud]

Others officially date the birth from when it is registered rather than when the baby appears.  In areas of the world with low incomes and high infant mortality, it was (and occasionally still is) not unusual for one's documented birthday to be several years after the event, much to the confusion of officialdom elsewhere.

 

[Erpingham]

Others officially date the birth from when it is registered rather than when the baby appears. 

This happened with my wife's aunt, whose birth wasn't registered until she went to school at the age of five.  This was in 1920s Poplar, an area of low incomes and high infant mortality, as Call the Midwife fans will know 

[Duncan Head]

Incidentally, many ancient and even a few modern societies tend to restart their calendars whenever there is a change in monarch.  Do such new reigns start at year 0 or year 1?

Mesopotamian kings used the concept of an "accession year" - which would effectively be a Year Zero, though less than a year in length - and only started Year One at the beginning of the calendar year after they came to the throne.

Chinese emperors used "era names", starting each at Year One of the new era; usually an era started partway through a calendar year, so Year One would be a short one.

[skb777]

This escalated quickly 

[Imperial Dave]

 

[Cantabrigian]

Some societies have/do date from conception not birth

How do they know?

[Imperial Dave]

Presumably by campaigns dates...

[DBS]

Don't even get me started on why the new Millenium should have been marked in 2001...

[Cantabrigian]

Presumably by campaigns dates...

As in, if you go off on campaign, and return to find your lovely young wife pregnant, then you know the conception must have been on the night before you left?

[DBS]

Presumably by campaigns dates...

As in, if you go off on campaign, and return to find your lovely young wife pregnant, then you know the conception must have been on the night before you left?

Honey, I'm home from the siege of Troy... gosh, was it really ten years?  Gosh, you are looking very plump...

[Imperial Dave]

 

[Monad]

Some societies have/do date from conception not birth

Rome is one such nation. According to Orosius (2 2), all the histories of Rome began with Procas, the grandfather of Rhea Silvia, who was the mother of Romulus. Orosius claimed that: "there was an interval of 64 years from the first year of the reign of Procas to the founding of the city of Romulus. Thus, in the reign of Procas the seed of future Rome was sown, although as yet the shoot had not appeared." Therefore, Rome was conceived 64 years before Rome was founded. In Pythagorean lore, the integer seven related to the body and the integer nine to the spirit. (7) As the Pythagoreans believed pregnancy lasted for seven months (210 days), each month of pregnancy in the life of Rome was equivalent to nine years, and when the seven months of pregnancy are multiplied by nine years, the result is 63 years. Therefore, Orosius figure of 64 years has been rounded from 63 years. As Orosius associates the history of Rome as beginning with Procas, by taking Orosius' founding date of 751 BC for Rome, and after adding the 63 years, the first year of the reign of Procas would be in 814 BC, which matches Timaeus' date of 814 BC for Rome's founding. Therefore, Timaeus has confused Rome's date of conception as being Rome's founding date.