Bosporan era

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Φ (i.e., 520, which is AD 223/4) below the effigy.[1]

The Bosporan era (BE or AB),

Pontic Kingdom and, for the longest time, in the Bosporan Kingdom. The calendar era begins with the assumption of the royal title by Zipoetes I of Bithynia in October 297 BC (in the Gregorian calendar),[c] which marks the start of its year one.[3][4] The Bosporan year began at the autumnal equinox.[2]

The earliest evidence for the use of the Bithynian era is some coins dating from 149/8 BC, when

Mithridates VI, who introduced it onto the Pontic coinage sometime before 96/95 BC,[d] replacing the Seleucid era used up to then. Since Pontus and Bithynia were rivals at the time, the most likely date for the introduction of the Bithynian era into Pontus was during the brief alliance between the two countries during the invasion of Paphlagonia in 108 BC.[4]

The Bithyno-Pontic era fell out of use in northern Asia Minor following the

Bithynia et Pontus. The province thus had several dating systems in use, including the Seleucid era, but the Bithyno-Pontic era was not among them.[4]

There is no evidence from Asia Minor of the Bithyno-Pontic era ever being used on anything other than coins. Inscriptions, however, survive from the northern shore of the Black Sea, the region that fell under the Bosporan Kingdom in the first four centuries AD.

The earliest inscription dated with the Bosporan era can be read either 325 BE (AD 29) or else 313 (17) and mentions the reigning king, Aspurgus.[2] While the Bosporan series of coins ends with Rhescuporis VI in AD 341,[4] the latest inscription is from 794 BE (AD 497/8).[2]

Notes

  1. Latin Anno Bithyniae or Anno Bospori, lit. 'in the Bithynian [Bosporan] year'.[2]
  2. ^ Ellis Minns argues for "Bosporan era" because it remained in use in the Bosporus much longer than anywhere else.[2]
  3. ^ Early in the 20th century the start date of the calendar was revised by some to 298 BC, but this realignment has been abandoned.[3]
  4. ^ There is a Pontic tetradrachm dated to 202 BE; the first stater dates to 205 BE (93/92 BC).[2]

References

  1. ^ "Review of B. de Koehne, Déscription du musée de feu le prince Basile Kotschoubey d'après son catalogue manuscrit et recherches sur l'histoire et la numismatique des colonies grecques en Russie ainsi que des royaumes du Pont et du Bosphore Cimmérien (1857)", Antiquarisk tidsskrift 5 (1855–57), 313.
  2. ^ (Cambridge University Press, 1913), 590–91.
  3. ^ a b William H. Bennett, "The Death of Sertorius and the Coin", Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 10/4 (1961), 459–72, esp. 460–61.
  4. ^ a b c d e Jakob Munk Højte, "From Kingdom to Province: Reshaping Pontos after the Fall of Mithridates VI", in Tønnes Bekker-Nielsen (ed.), Rome and the Black Sea Region: Domination, Romanisation, Resistance (Aarhus University Press, 2006), 15–30.

Further reading

  • Perl, G. "Zur Chronologie der Königreiche Bithynia, Pontos und Bosporos." In J. Harmatta (ed.), Studien zur Geschichte und Philosophie des Altertums (Amsterdam, 1968), 299–330.