Talk:Ab urbe condita

Untitled
Error in: "Livy (I, 60) gives almost the same, 240 years for that interval". Livy gives 244 years

Well, A.U.C. continued in common use despite Divus Julius - Livy, for instance, used it. The Roman calendar article, which I linked, is a different issue from the year-count, but it's relevant, I guess. --MichaelTinkler

Eutropius and other authors also used ab urbe condita in their works. True, naming the years of the consuls was much more common, it is inaccurate to say that auc was only a modern reckoning. Chris Weimer 07:25, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't 2006 be MMDCCLVIII to account for the fact that there was no year 0? That is, the calculation should be 2006 + 753 - 1, no? Iridius 02:19, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
 * No. No year zero requires 2006 + 753 = 2759. The year before AD 1 is 1 BC and progresses backward to 753 BC. Invert this number sequence so that 1 is at 753 BC and 753 is at 1 BC. Then the years AD progress from 1 to 2006. The two number sequences are added by 753 + 2006. If there was a year zero between BC and AD, then the sequences would be 753 + 1 + 2006. Be that as it may, because the article gives two possible years for the founding of Rome, 753 BC and 745 BC, no modern conversion should be given, especially not in the section arguing that it was founded in 745 BC, so I removed it. — Joe Kress 06:01, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
 * The issue is when you cross that BC-CE line things don't line up. 2759-2007 gets you 752 AUC by the math but 1 BC is actually 753 AUC ie you lose a year crossing the boundary.  As long as you are on one side or the other the math works but the moment the calculations cross that boundary things go pearshaped.--Professor Phantasm (talk) 00:24, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Glossing AD
Why does it say after Christ (AD), in the dating? AD does not mean after Christ Njjones 19:07, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It is, yet again, Latin. AD means Anno Domini, "In the year of (Our) Lord". Anyhow I think the more neutral BCE/CE (Common Era) should be used. -anonymous
 * Agreed, BCE is more neutral. Unless anyone has any problems with it I'll change it 142.167.179.81 16:31, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Aside from the editors who did have a problem with it and restored BC/AD per WP:ERA, I'll note that BCE isn't actually neutral. It is, in fact, quite obnoxious. If there's a problem with the Dionysian era, choose a new one; don't just put a sticker over it because you don't like where it came from. — Llywelyn II   23:31, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
 * BCE has become the norm, not because of the historic uncertainty about Christ, but because the reference is plainly incorrect. We know from independent documentation when Herod the Great died (4BCE), so if he sought to kill the infant heir to the rival Judaic line, the said nipper must have been born before then. The best bet, per the Chinese chronologies, is 7BCE. 51.183.107.60 (talk) 06:31, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

AUC from Rome setlement to J.C.1 is AUC709
The auc have many misstakes. Like time calendar are not correct basis, (month and year days are wery strange).
 * When used at last the AUC ofical time?
 * J.C. Reformered the calendar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.92.192.100 (talk) 14:42, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

so what AUC year is it really
The "alternate calculation" section is very confusing. It might also describe more clearly how much the "normal" calculation predominated vs. any others in usage at different times. Foogus (talk) 21:32, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Years Before the founding of Rome
How would years before the founding of Rome under the AUC system be recorded as? For example, under the BC-AD system of tracking years, anything that occured before the birth of Christ (or then at least what Dionysius Exiguus believed to be his birth date (1 AD) at the time it was created) is recorded as BC, any thing after his birth as AD. Under the AUC system, how would events such as the Trojan War, the voyage of Aeneas following the war, and other events preceding the founding of Rome be recorded as? I think this is something that should be addressed in this article which, as of 6/4/09, nothing has been stated regarding this. Fuelsaver (Fuelsaver) 6:48 PM, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Ante Urbem Conditam. See also here. Wakari07 (talk) 10:37, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Exiguus didn't even believe Christ was b Canlawtictoc (talk) 20:55, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

I suggest a move
I left this page as the dominant meaning. The other page is now at Ab Urbe Condita (book). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 04:57, 22 August 2009 (UTC) Ab urbe condita → Ab Urbe Condita (AUC) &mdash;
 * What do you say we move this to "Ab Urbe Condita (AUC)"? Having the difference between article names as insubstantial as a single capital letter strikes me as an insubstantial idea - too confusing. Do reply, will you? If not or if agreement I will just move it.Dave (talk) 02:10, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Ancient grammatical fluke?
Why condita ? It's a passive participle. Why not the gerundive condenda ? Why not even a gerund: ab condendo urbis ? --209.201.114.50 (talk) 02:30, 25 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Latin just works that way. Literally it means 'from the founded city (onwards)'. It has to be in a past tense to refer to the right time. The gerundive refers to the future, so ab urbe condenda would imply 'after the city will be built'. I suppose the gerund would work, but adjectival phrases are much more common in Latin. It is a bit similar to summus mons meaning 'the top of the mountain' instead of just 'the highest mountain'. –Radulfr (talk) 22:40, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

BC/AD vs. BCE/CE
I do understand that the BC/AD distinction is necessary to make, but I feel it would be better to actually use (or at least indicate) the BCE/CE pair instead. I don't want to get into an edit war, so I'd rather just ask here if anyone objects to such changes before I go ahead with it.George Adam Horváth (talk) 14:10, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Although I have no preference, I note that the Manual of Style states "AD and BC are the traditional ways of referring to these eras. CE and BCE are becoming more common in academic and some religious writing. No preference is given to either style. ... Do not change from one style to another unless there is substantial reason for the change, and consensus for the change with other editors." What "substantial reason" can you give? — Joe Kress (talk) 06:31, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Current year (AD 2011) is AUC 2763, not 2764
Like the Calendar Anno Domini, the Calendar Ab Urbe Condita has no Year 0 in its traditional form. (I say "in its traditional form" because astronomical calendars do have a Year 0, and presumably this too would apply to Ab Urbe Condita as well as Anno Domini.) This places the same year in AUC 1 year behind what one would calculate simply by adding 753 to the year in AD. Correct conversion formula: AUC=AD+753-1-->AUC=AD+752. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 02:58, 21 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Whether or not a year zero is placed before year one AUC will have no affect on any later year. It will only affect years before the AUC epoch, that is, before 753 BC, long before any AD year. The same thing happens when astronomical year numbering is used. Although that system has a year zero immediately before its year one, all positive astronomical years have the same AD number, so AD 2011 is +2011. Only the numbers assigned to BC years (before any year zero) are affected, thus Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, which is −43 using astronomical year numbering.


 * AUC years come in many forms, including the official list by the Roman Emporer Augustus, that by Varro, and that by Livy (see Fasti). Furthermore, many modern editors "correct" the AUC numbers they find in ancient lists to fit their own ideas. So no single correspondence between AUC years and BC/AD years exists. AUC years are meaningless unless historical events are listed for at least some of them. These events include naming the consuls who held office each year, which was the dominant method of identifying years used by Roman historians, such as Suetonius in The Twelve Caesars. Furthermore, AD years were invented by Dionysius Exiguus long after AUC years ceased to be used. Dionysius stated that Probus Junior was consul during the year he identified as AD 525, but did not mention any AUC year. Thus a thousand year long list of Roman consuls must be used to correlate AUC years with AD years. Unfortunately, no two consular lists agree. Thus we must rely on modern scholars to construct a modern list which at least minimizes the disagreements between ancient lists of historical events and their corresponding AUC years, BC/AD years, and consular years. — Joe Kress (talk) 05:01, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I may have cited the wrong reason, but the difference between astronomical and traditional dating is really not the point. According to what I learned in Latin 222, the formula based on the City of Rome having been founded in 753 BC traditional (752 BC astronomical) is AUC=AD+752. One of our assignments was to construct a calendar each month in Latin using Kalends, Nones, and Ides alongside the regular ordinal numbers of days. We received bonus points for listing the then-current year Ab Urbe Condita in addition to the year Anno Domini. I took that class Anno Domini 2010, which was Ab Urbe Condita 2762.
 * So, if Anno Domini 2010 was Ab Urbe Condita 2762, the current year Anno Domini 2011 is Ab Urbe Condita 2763. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 03:47, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Year-numbering for all listed dates
There are a number of dates listed in the article without a year-number system abbreviation. As this article is about a different system than the traditionally used BC/AD, they should be marked in order to clearly show when these dates were. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.186.14.6 (talk) 15:05, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

What was Hadrianus celebrating?
The celebration of Antonius Pius in 148 AD makes sense, the 900. anniversary. But what was Hadrianus celebrating in 121 AD which was the rather unremarkable 873. anniversary? 157.157.184.146 (talk) 21:00, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

748 AUC = 6 BC (real birthday of Jesus Christ on April 17)

 * 748 AUC = 6 BC (real birthday of Jesus Christ on April 17) ref: Star of Bethlehem, Michael Molnar http://MichaelMolnar.com . I'm currently watching History Channel's History's Mysteries "In Search Of Christmas" which includes an interview with the astronomer Michael Molnar who discovered Jesus' real birthday of April 17, 6 BC / 748 AUC. - Brad Watson, Miami 71.196.11.183 (talk) 22:43, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry: that's a self-published web page, which can't be used to reference material contained in Wikipedia articles. --Old Moonraker (talk) 08:52, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The book the site advertises, though, was published by Rutgers University Press, which isn't a vanity printer, so it should probably be an acceptable reference. Does anyone have it to dig up references to it? --Wtrmute (talk) 18:41, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Original research?
All the analysis of the ecclipse dates appears to be OR. (It is also almost identical to material included in the Founding of Rome, under Date, which I have also flagged as OR. Havelock Jones (talk) 09:43, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

The dates are not constant!
Some of the dates are BC/AD and some are BCE/CE this needs to be corrected. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.74.223.225 (talk) 09:46, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed. There was just one date which was BCE, which I've reverted, as per discussion above.Havelock Jones (talk) 12:54, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Appropriate Dating Styles
This is rather minor, but if we're going to stick with the Anno Domini AD style of dating, it should be known the the AD comes before year not after. This should be cleaned up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Daevrojn (talk • contribs) 07:25, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I think not. WP:ERA says "AD may appear before or after a year".Havelock Jones (talk) 16:07, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The numbers used to indicate years are ordinal numbers. First year, second year, etc. In English we should say or write 1st year, 2nd year, etc. when using numerals, although most people neglect this. Anyhow, it's adjective before the noun in English, and I'm fairly certain that in Latin it works the same way with ordinal numbers, i.e. number first, then the noun it modifies. But it doesn't work this way with all adjectives, and if I'm not mistaken there is yet another rule depending upon whether or not the phrase appears in a sentence. Still, I suspect that in Latin, it's number first, then the noun it modifies. So, 1 AD, 2 AD, and so on, not AD 1, AD 1, etc.


 * Someone with a better understanding of Latin grammar please help us out. 50.194.104.82 (talk) 00:13, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Latin is an inflected language, and doesn't have any fixed rules for word order. However, that doesn't really matter for our purpose, since we're writing the article in English.  As a native English speaker, I would always write '2012 AD', not 'AD 2012', although I realise that some other native English speakers do it differently, hence the statement in WP:ERA.Havelock Jones (talk) 17:42, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * As a native speaker of English (American), I understand the convention to be AD before the year and BC after. I'm using fourth edition of The Little, Brown Handbook by Fowler, Aaron from 1989 as a non-wikipedia reference for this convention.  Also, currently, the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era#Conventions_in_style_guides page confirms the use of this convention of AD before the year value and BC after the year value to denote "Anno Domini" and "Before Christ."  So this should be changed.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.96.38.41 (talk) 22:04, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
 * The article section "Common_Era" is about how AD is treated in style guides for other publications. But the only style guide that counts is the one for the publication one is writing for. The portion of the style guide for Wikipedia that applies to dates is "Manual of Style/Dates and numbers" and the relevant section in that guide is "Era style". That says "AD may appear before or after a year (AD106, 106AD); the other abbreviations appear after (106CE, 3700BCE, 3700BC)." Jc3s5h (talk) 14:53, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Which is a way to provide admins a stick to hit pedants with once edit wars get started. That said, the actual common English convention is to precede dates with AD and we should follow that, less informed posters to the contrary notwithstanding. The important thing is consistency within the article itself and avoiding needless trouble among the editors. Here you have several editors saying it can be either and several who think there's a correct way. Just roll with them, especially since they actually are right in this instance. — Llywelyn II   23:27, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

What is ab urbe condita? What is anno urbis conditae?
ab urbe condita: Suppose that this year is 1 AUC (ab urbe condita). It's one year from the founding of the city. In other words, this is the year that follows the year during which the city was founded, no? So what year was the year of the founding of the city? If the calendar has no year zero, then that year was -1 AUC (ab urbe condita).

anno urbis conditae: Suppose instead that this year is 1 AUC (anno urbis conditae). Is it the year of the founding of the city? If so, then what was the prior year, a year prior to the year of the founding of the city? If the calendar has no year zero, then that year was -1 AUC (anno urbis conditae).

According to these meanings of the two phrases, -1 ab urbe condita was 1 anno urbis conditae. Likewise, 1 ab urbe condita was 2 anno urbis conditae. Now, which of the years, -1 ab urbe condita or -1 anno urbis conditae, is 753 BC? It cannot be both, though I won't argue for one or the other here. (Really, now. The arithmetic is fairly simple.) However, as I recall, the word conditae is, in part, an interesting play on words, not that this should have anything to do with our choice of which phrase, ab urbe condita or anno urbis conditae, we prefer when using the abbreviation AUC. After all, the root of condita is present in both phrases. 50.194.104.82 (talk) 23:57, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Replying to a very old post here, but the year 1 ab urbe condita is the year Rome was founded. When counting intervals, the people of that time included both the start point and the end point. Similarly, Jesus was said to have resurrected on the third day after his death. He died on Long Friday, and rose on Sunday, which to them was the third day. It's also the same with the year 1 from the birth of Jesus, which was the first year of his life, not the one that started when he turned 1. Anno urbis conditae, on the other hand, I have only encountered on Wikipedia, but I suppose it uses the same logic. Which means that 1 AUC = 1 AUC = 753 BCE. Radulfr (talk) 21:20, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, the name looks wrong but the Romans used inclusive counting in this situation. — Llywelyn II   23:20, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Incarnation or Nativity?
User:95.112.54.39 changed incarnation to birth of Jesus in this edit, with the edit summary ""Incarnation" is a theological concept, I've replaced them with "birth of JofN" and "stories of the birth of JC", which are more precise."

I have reverted the edit, because the Incarnation (where the capitalized Incarnation refers specifically to the incarnation of Jesus) is not just a theological issue, it also involves a date issue. Due to the date issue, "birth of Jesus" is too precise.

Some ancient authors thought the Incarnation occurred when Jesus was born; this date is not known, nor do we know what date Dionysius Exiguus had in mind when he created the Anno Domini year numbering system. Some authors, including virtually all modern authors, think the Incarnation occurred when Jesus was conceived. That is why Western Christian churches celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation nine months earlier than the Feast of the Nativity (Christmas).

But we don't know which viewpoint Dionysius held, and thus we don't know if the origin of our year numbering system is 25 March or 25 December. (We also aren't sure if the year Dionysius had in mind for whichever event was what we now call 2 BC, 1 BC, or AD 1, but that's a different problem.)

So we should stick to "Incarnation" in the article to reflect our lack of exact knowledge, rather than pretend we have knowledge that we don't. Sources for the information in this paragraph may be found in the footnotes to the Anno Domini article.

In addition to the correct degree of precision regarding dates, the Incarnation was the event that Dionysius wanted to memorialize by his choice of year numbering system. So it is more accurate to refer to the event that inspired the inventor, regardless of our opinions about the event. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:31, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

a.u.c. dating never really caught on
One point this article over looks -- but needs to address because it seems to be a widespread misconception to the contrary -- is that the Romans rarely used a.u.c. dating; the usual dating schemes were consular dating (naming the 2 consuls in office at the time), or by the year of the Emperor (in the Principate this was the anniversary the Emperor was granted tribunicia potestas; in the later Empire, it was the actual year of his reign), or by the indiction. This really needs to be stressed: I can easily provide hundreds -- if not thousands -- of example of consular dating (Cicero used it, the laws in the Codex Theodosianus used it, countless papyri & inscriptions used it), several examples of tribunican dating (e.g., it appears on many coins, while military diplomas used tribunican & consular dating), & at least as many examples of dating by indiction (its use was widespread from the 4th century on); however, while I know I've seen a.u.c. dating used by the ancient Romans, I would need to do some serious research to find any examples of a.u.c. dating used in daily or official life.

Yes, a.u.c. dating by the ancients was that uncommon. And various parts of the Empire continued with their traditional dating systems (e.g., dating by Olympiads, or Athenian eponymous archons) well into Byzantine times, so using a.u.c. would be practically an entry in the "Other" category. -- llywrch (talk) 15:52, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
 * There's a trope about it, if that helps. — Llywelyn II   23:19, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Capitalize Urbe?
If urbe means Rome, should it be capitalized as the proper name of a city, as Wiktionary does: ab Urbe condita – wbm1058 (talk) 19:29, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Oh, I see, it means City. I suppose the word urban derives from this. Still, should it be city, or City, as this refers to a specific city. wbm1058 (talk) 19:35, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The "urbs" is neither here nor there. It should be in all caps since it's the proper name of an era. That said, Googling "ab urbe condita -Livy" pulls up a laundry list of major dictionaries who have adopted the lower-case convention (the sole exception capitalizes it for the page name but then lists it in lower-case on the actual page) and we shouldn't buck them. — Llywelyn II   23:18, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Move, delete, revise
Thanks to everyone who's contributed to this page over the years, but The article cannot stand in its current state (IMHO). At a minimum, it's misleading. It may also fail WP:NOTE. According to the Calendar era article, the title is erroneously thought to be the expression for which A.U.C. stands for. It claims that A.U.C. stands for anno urbis conditae. It appears that the phrase as a dating convention was only ever in use by classical scholars, and not by very many of them. The most common use of the phrase would seem to refer to Livy's book. The book's article's current title is not as commonly used to refer to the book. With that in mind, I propose the following:


 * Proposal A
 * 1) Delete the page, and 2) replace with the book article to which is added a hat note aimed at the calendar era section on A.U.C. Also, 3) redirect anno urbis conditae to the same section.


 * Proposal B
 * 1) Move the book article here and 2) move this topic to "Anno urbis conditae", and add a hat note to the book article.


 * Proposal C
 * 1) Move the book article here and 2) move this topic to "A.U.C. (anno urbis conditae)", and add a hat note to the book article.


 * Proposal D
 * 1) Move the book article here and 2) move this topic to "A.U.C. (Roman history)", and add a hat note to the book article.

Personally, I would support A or B.

In the mean time, I am going to make some changes to the lede to make it clearer.Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 02:02, 18 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Afraid you've been misinformed. A.U.C. may have stood for multiple formulations of the same thing, but it certainly stood for ab urbe condita.  I'm pretty sure you'll find it in classical literature if you search the Latin text, but I just found it in nine Roman-era inscriptions in the C-S databank, and I thought that would be a long shot.  Remember, a lot of Latin phrases could be abbreviated multiple ways, and a lot of Latin abbreviations could be represent slightly different formulations.  Even though it can stand for multiple formulations, this is the most familiar one today, so it makes more sense for the article to be here than at a lesser-known title.  There should be no question of notability, any more than there is for any other era system, like BC/AD or AH (even though these may be combined with other articles in some cases).


 * The one thing it didn't stand for was the title of Livy's history. In fact I don't think we really know what Livy called it.  When I tried to find some sources on this a couple of years ago, all I was able to come up with was vague descriptions (I think that Annales was a possibility).  Calling it Ab Urbe Condita is a modern convention, but most English language sources call it his History of Rome, and that's the most appropriate title for Livy's history, in my opinion, given that we really don't have an authentic Latin title for it.  Possibly "ab urbe condita" could have been considered part of a subtitle, but I don't know if there's any evidence for that, either.  I will add that libri  needs to be excised from the article titles for that and every other work of literature.  We would call it his History of Rome, not his History of Rome in One Hundred and Forty-Two Books, or Valerius Maximus' Memorable Facts and Sayings in Nine Books, etc.  The number of books simply isn't part of what we would consider the title.  But as for moving the history here, that's simply not authentic.  The era should stay right where it is.  P Aculeius (talk) 02:39, 18 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Can you provide a link to the "Roman-era inscriptions in the C-S databank", I'm not familiar with that source.
 * That comment about anno urbis came directly from the Calendar era article. Mind you, it's unsourced.
 * The Cambridge Companion to Roman Historians appears to use the phrase solely to refer to the book and also uses AUC to refer to the book.
 * I really can't find the phrase used as a convention. For instance, Censorinus uses "anno post urbem conditam".
 * The problem is there's no usable sources presently. Can you help with that?
 * Thanks as always for your help.Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 03:31, 18 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Inscriptions: [A]b urbe cond[it]a tri[buniciae potestatis ...]
 * ...in civitate contrebia anno DCCLXXXIII ab urbe condita
 * Libertati ab Imp. Nerva Caesare Aug. anno ab urbe condita DCCCXXXXIIX XIIII [K.] Oc[t.] restitu[tae] S.P.Q.R.
 * ...bus adpetre a[b] urbe condita nungentensimus quinquagensimus s[extus] ann[u]s sit ex [... ludorum] saeculariu[m post an]nos urbi[s CCL]XXXXVII...
 * ...bello victor ab urbe cond[ita?]
 * A[nco] Mar[cio] reg[i Rom.] quart[o a R]omul[o] qui ab u[rbe c]ondit[a pr]imum colon[iam] [c. Rom.] dedux[it]
 * ...qui primus om[niu]m ab urbe condita ludos cum [... gladiat]or. et mulieres [a]d ferrum dedit una cum [... Sa]bina u[x]ore fecit...
 * Ab urbe cond[ita anno ...] Divos Hadrianius divi Trajani Partici filius consul III...
 * ...a]b urbe c[ondita ...]ter Patr[...] [...]us IIIIvir [...] et aed. p[...] NSA 1970 S2 380 (can't link you to this one).


 * It's extremely difficult to search for Latin phrases in Latin works online, since most of the source texts are scattered and difficult to search accurately as they weren't really intended for this, and text recognition software is extremely bad at reading Latin correctly. Perseus gave me two apparent uses of the phrase in Livy (cited by Lewis & Short under a grammatical discussion: Liv. 45, 9, 2; 2, 12, 2: "quae ab condita urbe Roma ad captam urbem eandem Romani ... gessere,") which unfortunately linked to an English translation of the specific passages, and I was not able to locate them when I tried to search for it in what supposedly corresponded to them in Latin.  This also seems to be from a fragment of Livy: "legem fert de provocatione, tertio tum ab urbe condita latam, semper a familia eadem".  I know that Livy dates several important events from the founding of the city, rather than by the consuls, but I don't know how he phrased it in Latin.  There may be equivalent formulations in other historians equally difficult to search in Latin.


 * However, and this is probably strong enough to support the continuation of the article here by itself, we have Marcus Valerius Probus on Latin abbreviations at 2.1.1: "...A. U. C. ab urbe condita...". But I was only able to find this because of an external link from Vicipædia!  According to Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, Eutropius' history of Rome is entitled Breviarium ab Urbe Condita.  The Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, under "Chronologia", specifically identifies this era as "ab urbe condita" and dates its literary use (or earliest known use, since most histories prior to this period have been lost) to Augustan times, or slightly earlier, since several of the scholars who calculated the date of the city's foundation date to the middle of the first century BC, and some to the second).  But the point is, this is what reliable sources call the era, we have examples of its use in Latin literature and inscriptions, including the attestation of a Roman grammarian that it was regularly abbreviated A.U.C.—so really there are no grounds either to move this article, or regard the phrase ab urbe condita as a purely modern convention.  P Aculeius (talk) 12:38, 18 May 2018 (UTC)


 * As for notability, the AUC year corresponding to the current Gregorian year is given each year in the Astronomical Almanac, which is created by the US Naval Observatory and Her Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office. In the almanac for 2017, it was one of ten eras considered important enough to mention. Jc3s5h (talk) 03:50, 18 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Could you give me a link supporting the claim that the USNO uses AUC for Astronomical Almanac? And thanks for contributing. Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 04:12, 18 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I am not aware of a url; I own the paper version. In the almanac for the year 2017 it's on page B4. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:53, 18 May 2018 (UTC)


 * As dating convention, the AUC era was used by modern scholars as well (mostly until the 20th century). The French numismatist Ernest Babelon used it (example -- in French, he says "l'an de Rome").T8612 (talk) 11:49, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Here's a link showing an A.U.C. date being used alongside the common era by a modern scholar, and here it's used several times on one page (see footnotes on page 6) by a 19th century scholar.

Here's one from a modern reference book (see page xv) explaining its use and giving the interpretation ab urbe condita, and here's Merriam-Webster giving a brief explanation and the alternative expansion anno urbis conditae (but don't go to that page unless you want to see a popup giving all your personal data to Mark Zuckerberg and his friends. I haven't done so yet and backed out fast).

These were so easy to find that (I would say) any number of other links, justifying a page on this subject, could quickly be amassed. Therefore we shouldn't consider deletion or redirecting to a section of another page. Well, then: this page, and the page about Livy's work, will never be synonymous (even assuming Ab urbe condita is preferred for this page and a Latin title is accepted as pagename for Livy's book) because the Livy book's Latin title should be Ab urbe condita libri. So (I would say) a hatnote link distinguishing the two similar titles is what's needed.

If, following guidelines, the pagename for the Livy book is to be in English (I suppose it would be "History of Rome (Livy)", cf. P Aculeius above) the hatnote would still be needed on this article, because "Ab urbe condita ..." would be the first port of call for readers searching for the Livy book under its Latin title.

Looking again at the issues that started this, "AUC" isn't an acceptable version of the title of Livy's book in any language. The fact that one particular reference book uses it as an internal abbreviation isn't relevant to us: it's just that some reference books have their own abbreviated internal cross-reference systems. However, since there is more than one reliable interpretation of "A.U.C." as the name of an era, and scholars who use this era normally abbreviate to A.U.C., there is an argument for moving this page to "A.U.C." Andrew Dalby 13:41, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for contributing. I'm still wondering if this topic merits an article or a subsection of Calendar era. It seems more like a wiktionary entry. 2601:4A:C500:A134:DC2C:657D:853E:C551 (talk) 17:24, 18 May 2018 (UTC)--This is me. Sorry, I didn't realize I wasn't logged in. Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 17:25, 18 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I would say keep it here, because 1) we normally spell out abbreviated eras, and most other abbreviated things unless the abbreviation is used almost exclusively and the proper name rarely; for instance we have "Anno Domini", not "A.D." (not to mention inconsistent use of spacing and periods if we abbreviate), and 2) there's a fair amount that can be said about this particular era concerning its usage from antiquity to the present, disputes over when it should begin, etc. This is encyclopedic content, not merely a dictionary entry.  "A.U.C.", "AUC", and "anno urbis conditae" should all redirect here, in my opinion.  A hatnote distinguishing this from Livy's history or other histories of Rome is perfectly appropriate.  P Aculeius (talk) 22:20, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I accept P Aculeius's point that other calendar-era articles have spelled-out pagenames, not abbreviations. For me, then, that means that this article should stay here at "Ab urbe condita", with a hatnote guiding readers to the Livy book, and with a cross-reference from the alternative "Anno urbis conditae". That's the simplest way.
 * This article needs to deal with several questions that a dictionary entry would not, notably, when the era began to be used, why, how it was calculated, in what contexts later scholars used it and why, in what contexts it is used today and why. The use by Babelon and in the astronomical almanac, cited by others above, look like good examples: both are relevant to today's readers because Babelon, though old, is still a current numismatic reference. Andrew Dalby 09:15, 20 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I concur with P Aculeius & Andrew. An important clue that this is not a dictionary entry is the length of the existing article: a dictionary entry is at most 2-3 sentences long, more typically a single sentence. (It will be more than a single sentence if a discussion of the word's etymology & synonyms are included.) The one item that this article is missing is a discussion of the day years dated by A.U.C. began on -- an important detail that people not expert with chronology often overlook. Not all years begin on 1 January; other dates that I can recall off the top of my head are Christmas (25 December), 25 March, & 11 September. Another is, as mentioned above, a hatnote directing people looking for Livy's work to the correct article. -- llywrch (talk) 18:35, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Founding of the Empire
Perhaps I'm being stupid, but if 1 AUC = 753 BC and 753 AUC = 1 BC then surely the founding of the Empire at 27 BC would be 727 AUC not 726?Phunting (talk) 21:05, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * It looks right. The math is as follows:
 * 753 AUC = 1 BC
 * 753 AUC - 26 = 1 BC - 26
 * 753 AUC - 26 = 27 BCE
 * 727 AUC = 27 BCE
 * It is only when you cross the BC/CE boundary that the math gets wonky.--Professor Phantasm (talk) 13:18, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

In classical antiquity
Ab urbe condita was the phrase used to refer to a given year in Ancient Rome in the classical period, say up to the fifth century AD. To include random dates from the modern era just to show what the AUC date would be seems WP:OFFTOPIC and I propose a trim. Comments, and suggestions as to any later circumstances where "AUC" was still used, welcome.--AntientNestor (talk) 20:44, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

No support. My one attempt to trim was reverted on the grounds of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, and more dates with no relevance to the topic are still being added. Dropping the proposal.--AntientNestor (talk) 10:37, 24 February 2024 (UTC).
 * Good. The idea was mistaken: Ab urbe condita (particularly Varro's exact number) was an era used by practically no one in the classical period and one much discussed in modernity. Anachronistic application to the moon landing is entirely appropriate and, if anything, more appropriate than using it for events from the year of the consulship of Julius Caesar and that other guy. — Llywelyn II   21:02, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Cleanup
I'm sure the article has gone through several processes of expansion and curation by this point. It needs to go back to one of the earlier ones in part or toto. Founding of Rome &c. and Secular Games currently handle this topic better than its own article does. Varro's number isn't the only one; it wasn't the only one in antiquity; it wasn't the exact one used by the fasti; and the article shouldn't by pretending any of those were true.

Rephrase to make both the varied start points and the varied computations clearer, pointing out that Varro's number was notable but 753 BC became the single fixed date only in modern scholarship. Add the chart of other dates in other sources from Founding of Rome here.

Restore/add discussion of how to use the system for dates before the foundation of Rome, even if ante urbem... unhelpfully also abbreviates as AUC. (No, it doesn't matter that such dating is an anachronism. Using the system at all is largely anachronistic.) — Llywelyn II   21:18, 5 June 2024 (UTC)