Talk:74 BC

Nicomedes

The EB 1911 article that the Bithynia is based on states that there were only 3 kings named Nicomedes, the last being Nicomedes III who willed his kingdom to the Romans. However, the Oxford Classical Dictionary states that their were four kings with this name, the last being Nicomedes IV Philopator whose raids led to the First Mithridatic War & presumably bequeathed his kingdom to the Romans.

Hence my vagueness in this article. More reasearch is needed to decide between these 2 authorities. -- llywrch 17:52, 14 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Intro text

The intro text is clearly european centered. The year was only known by the Roman name in the roman areas, which pretty much only included Italy at the time, and it was only known as 74 bc since the middle ages in christian europe. Taketa (talk) 08:36, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

And Europe is where this "year" existed. In other calendars in other parts of the world, it was the end of one year and the beginning of another. Thus, it wasn't one but two years in most parts of world. /Ludde23 ^{Talk Contrib} 08:47, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

... If you mean that noone else called the year from day 1 to day 365 by this name, then think again. This year existed nowhere. Noone at the time called it this. The roman calender did not follow modern calenders and a consul's term started on the ide of March (15th of March). So these years didn't exist even with romans. Not even in middle age Europe. Middle age Europe did not follow the Gregorian calender. So it was two years with them as well. Taketa (talk) 08:53, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Firstly, the Roman consuls started taking office on January 1 starting in 152 BC, so that's the date they were starting on in this year. Secondly, it doesn't say that it was a year in the Gregorian calendar, but rather, in the pre-Julian Roman calendar. /Ludde23 ^{Talk Contrib} 11:33, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Good points. I am starting to understand where you are coming from. Especially the second point is important. So this 74 BC is per the Roman calendar. I never heard of this before. Is this common amongst all the Englishspeaking world or a specific group (like historians?). I'm pretty sure it is not custom in the Netherlands and I'm pretty sure most common people have never heard of this before. Surely 74 BC is counted according to gregoian count and not pre julian roman count. This sounds too extreme to be true. Do you have any sources that the modern calendar describes 74 BC per the Roman calendar and not the gregorian one? Why was the choice made for this Roman year, which does not equal regular years. It sounds rather European centered and an odd choice. Taketa (talk) 19:31, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's not only this year – it's on all years from 499 BC to 46 BC, here on Wikipedia. Secondly, consider 46 BC. That was the year that the Julian calendar was introduced (it went into effect in 45 BC), because the Roman calendar had gone so much astray from the actual seasons. For instance, when Caesar crossed the Rubicon, uttering the immortal words "The dice are thrown", it was officially on January 10. However, season-wise, it was more like August or September, since the Roman calendar hade diverged so much from the tropical year. Therefore, in order to get the calendar aligned with the seasons, 46 BC even had 446 days. Yet, even though it did not have the common 365, we refer to it as one year. Secondly, when the Julian calendar was adopted it actually was two days ahead of what the Gregorian calendar would have been, if it had existed at the time. It was during the 3rd century, that the two calenders would have been equal (if they had both existed). Over the centuries, the Julian went more and mor out of alignment, so when the Gregorian was introduced in 1582, the Julian was ten days behind. That means the years before 1582 cannot be counted in the Gregorian calendar, nor can the years before 45 BC be counted in the Julian. /Ludde23 ^{Talk Contrib} 21:52, 19 November 2010 (UTC)