Ab Urbe Condita - Alternative Calculations

Alternative Calculations

According to Velleius Paterculus the foundation of Rome occurred 437 years after the capture of Troy by the Achaeans (1182 BC). It occurred soon before an eclipse of the Sun that was observed at Rome on 25 June 745 BC and had a magnitude of 50.3%. Its beginning occurred at 16:38, its middle at 17:28, and its end at 18:16.

However, according to Lucius Tarrutius of Firmum, Romulus and Remus were conceived in the womb on the 23rd day of the Egyptian month Choiac, at the time of a total eclipse of the Sun. (This eclipse occurred on 15 June 763 BC, with a magnitude of 62.5% at Rome. Its beginning occurred at 6:49, its middle at 7:47 and its end at 8:51.) They were born on the 21st day of the month Thoth. The first day of Thoth fell on 2 March in that year. Rome was founded on the ninth day of the month Pharmuthi, which was 21 April, as universally agreed. The Romans add that about the time Romulus started to build the city, an eclipse of the Sun was observed by Antimachus, the Teian poet, on the 30th day of the lunar month. This eclipse on 25 June 745 BC (see above) had a magnitude of 54.6% at Teos, Asia Minor. It started at 17:49; it was still eclipsed at sunset, at 19:20. Romulus vanished in the 54th year of his life, on the Nones of Quintilis (July), on a day when the Sun was darkened. The day became like night, which sudden darkness was believed to be an eclipse of the Sun. It occurred on 17 July 709 BC, with a magnitude of 93.7%, beginning at 5:04 and ending at 6:57. (All these eclipse data have been calculated by Prof. Aurél Ponori-Thewrewk, retired director of the Planetarium of Budapest.) Plutarch placed it in the 37th year from the foundation of Rome, on the fifth of our July, then called Quintilis, also states that Romulus ruled for 37 years. He was either slain by the senate or disappeared during the 38th year of his reign. Most of these data have been recorded by Plutarch, Florus, Cicero, Dio (Dion) Cassius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus (L. 2). Dio in his Roman History (Book I) confirms this data by telling that Romulus was in his 18th year of age when he had initiated Rome. Thus, three eclipse calculations may be evidence for the suggestion that Romulus reigned from 746 BC to 709 BC, and Rome was founded during 745 BC.

Q. Fabius Pictor (c. 250 BC) tells that Roman consuls started for the first time 239 years after Rome's foundation. Livy gives almost the same, 240 years for that interval. Polybius tells that 28 years after the expulsion of the last Persian king Xerxes crossed over to Greece, and that event is fixed to 478 BC by two solar eclipses.