The Julian Period

As the cycles of the sun, moon, and indiction, are of different lengths, they will not harmonize with each other in their commencement and termination. If they commenced in a given year, as they terminate in different years, they would not again commence at the same time for many years. To adjust these cycles to each other, it was necessary to find a still larger cycle, at the beginning and termination of which they would harmonize with each other.ASC 17.5

This is found by multiplying the number of years in the cycle of the Sun by those in the other cycles. Thus 28 × 19 × 15 = 7980 years, a period of time, at the termination of which, these cycles would commence and succeed each other, in the order corresponding with those that length of time previous. This period is also called the great Pascal Cycle, and the Victorian or Dyonysian period. It was invented by the chronologist Scaliger, and serves an important purpose in the adjustment of dates in the different eras.ASC 18.1

Our Vulgar Era, and that of the Creation, are the grand eras to which subordinate epochs, eras, and periods, are usually adjusted. So many different dates have been assigned for the epoch of the Creation, that the assignment of an event to any given year of the world, gives a very indefinite idea of its time, unless the system of chronology followed is also mentioned. No less than one hundred and twenty different opinions are mentioned by Dr. Hales for the date of the Creation, all differing from each other, and the extremes varying from each other no less than 3268 years.ASC 18.2

Unfortunately for ancient chronology, there existed no established Era. Different nations reckoned by different eras, the commencements of which were not always easily reconciled with each other. The Grecian Era, or the Olympiads, commencing July 19th, b. c. 776; the Roman Era, commencing with the building of Rome, b. c. 753; the Chaldean Era, or Historic Era of Nabonassar, commencing with Feb.26th, b. c. 747-and our Vulgar Era, form the four cardinal eras of sacred and profane chronology. There are numerous other epochs from which events are dated; but none of them are of the importance of these, to which chronologers have adjusted the dates of all important events. From the epochs at which these eras commence, events are reckoned backwards and forwards in time, as distance is from a fixed point on the earth. Events are dated in reference to other events. If the reigns and successions of kings are given, with a starting point at which to date the commencement of any reign, the commencement of each subsequent reign is dated from this. If events are assigned to a certain year in a given reign, we are enabled, by the length and succession of the reign, to fix its relative position. It is, however, first necessary to adjust these eras to each other, so that when an event is dated in any year of one era, we may find its corresponding year in the other eras. The oldest of these isASC 18.3