Bryan, Gary and I watched an episode of ‘Rome’ last night (an HBO TV series that aired some time ago, and is now available on Amazon Prime as streaming video). We were not too wild about it, but it prompted us to check refresh our history knowledge : over which years did the Roman Empire exist? We know of course, that the Romans were around at the birth of Jesus Christ in the year 0. And certainly, before that, the Romans did not refer to the years as 100 BC, since they could not peer into the future. It turns out the Roman empire was at its height in 117 AD. So, after the birth of Christ. Anno Domini means ‘In the Year of our Lord’. There is no year 0 between the years designated as 1 BC and 1 AD. The Roman Calendar was made over by Julius Caesar and became the Julian Calendar, and several centuries later the Gregorian Calendar came about.
Check out these cool maps of the Roman Empire that I found on-line, at this link.
