Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Tables
- Preface
- A Note on Terminology, Transliterations, and Editions
- 1 An Introduction to Olympic Victor Lists
- 2 Hippias of Elis and the First Olympic Victor List
- 3 Olympionikon Anagraphai and Standard Catalogs of Olympic Victors
- 4 Olympiad Chronographies
- 5 Olympiad Chronicles
- 6 Conclusion
- Appendices
- 1.1 Scopas
- 1.2 Tiberius Claudius Polybius
- 1.3 Aristodemus of Elis
- 2 Hippias of Elis
- 3.1 Aristotle's Olympionikon Anagraphe
- 3.2 Eratosthenes' Olympionikon Anagraphe
- 3.3 The Aristotelian Pythionikai
- 3.4 POxy II 222
- 3.5 IG II2 2326
- 4.1 The Eusebian Olympic Victor List
- 4.2 Timaeus of Tauromenium
- 4.3 Dionysius of Halicarnassus
- 5.1 Philochorus
- 5.2 Ctesicles
- 5.3 Diodorus Siculus
- 5.4 Castor of Rhodes
- 5.5 Dionysius of Halicarnassus
- 5.6 Thallus
- 5.7 Phlegon
- 5.8 POxy XVII 2082
- 5.9 POxy I 12
- 5.10 Cassius Longinus
- 5.11 Dexippus
- 6 A Catalog of Olympic Victors Before Hippias?
- 7 Aristotle on the Foundation of the Olympic Truce and of the Olympic Games
- 8 Olympiads and Pankration Victors in Thucydides
- 9 More on the Accuracy of Hippias' Olympic Victor Catalog
- 10 The Olympic Victor List and the First Messenian War
- 11 Memorization and the olympic victor list
- 12 Hippias' Calculation of the Date of 776
- 13 The Spartan King Lists
- 14 Variant Olympiad Dating Systems
- 15 Menaechmus of Sicyon's Pythikos
- 16 The Sicyonian Anagraphe
- 17 Relationships between Olympionikai
- Bibliography
- General Index
- Index Locorum
14 - Variant Olympiad Dating Systems
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Tables
- Preface
- A Note on Terminology, Transliterations, and Editions
- 1 An Introduction to Olympic Victor Lists
- 2 Hippias of Elis and the First Olympic Victor List
- 3 Olympionikon Anagraphai and Standard Catalogs of Olympic Victors
- 4 Olympiad Chronographies
- 5 Olympiad Chronicles
- 6 Conclusion
- Appendices
- 1.1 Scopas
- 1.2 Tiberius Claudius Polybius
- 1.3 Aristodemus of Elis
- 2 Hippias of Elis
- 3.1 Aristotle's Olympionikon Anagraphe
- 3.2 Eratosthenes' Olympionikon Anagraphe
- 3.3 The Aristotelian Pythionikai
- 3.4 POxy II 222
- 3.5 IG II2 2326
- 4.1 The Eusebian Olympic Victor List
- 4.2 Timaeus of Tauromenium
- 4.3 Dionysius of Halicarnassus
- 5.1 Philochorus
- 5.2 Ctesicles
- 5.3 Diodorus Siculus
- 5.4 Castor of Rhodes
- 5.5 Dionysius of Halicarnassus
- 5.6 Thallus
- 5.7 Phlegon
- 5.8 POxy XVII 2082
- 5.9 POxy I 12
- 5.10 Cassius Longinus
- 5.11 Dexippus
- 6 A Catalog of Olympic Victors Before Hippias?
- 7 Aristotle on the Foundation of the Olympic Truce and of the Olympic Games
- 8 Olympiads and Pankration Victors in Thucydides
- 9 More on the Accuracy of Hippias' Olympic Victor Catalog
- 10 The Olympic Victor List and the First Messenian War
- 11 Memorization and the olympic victor list
- 12 Hippias' Calculation of the Date of 776
- 13 The Spartan King Lists
- 14 Variant Olympiad Dating Systems
- 15 Menaechmus of Sicyon's Pythikos
- 16 The Sicyonian Anagraphe
- 17 Relationships between Olympionikai
- Bibliography
- General Index
- Index Locorum
Summary
There is near-unanimous agreement in the ancient sources that the Coroibos Olympics took place in the year corresponding to 776 bce. There is, however, one ancient author who offers a slightly different date. Moreover, some modern scholars have attempted to prove the existence of variant dates for the Coroibos Olympics. Finally, a different system of numbering the Olympiads, which put Olympiad 1 in the year corresponding to 1581/80 bce, was used at least briefly at Olympia. All these facets of Olympiad dating are considered here.
Velleius Paterculus (1.8) places the first Olympiad 823 years before the consulship of Marcus Vinicius, which is typically dated to 30 ce. This gives a date for the first Olympiad of 793. The text has been variously emended so that it agrees with received chronologies. It is also possible that Velleius had some problems synchronizing Greek and Roman systems of time reckoning.
Dimitri Panchenko has recently argued that Hippias dated the first Olympiad to 744/3 and that this was later adjusted to 776/5 by either Timaeus or Eratosthenes. Panchenko's conclusion is based on the assumption that Hippias calculated his date for the first Olympiad using Democritus' statement that he published his Diakosmos 730 years after the Fall of Troy. There is no evidence of any kind for this assumption, and Panchenko is surely wrong when he writes that “there was no obvious reason to relate the list of Olympic victors with that of the Spartan kings.”
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- Olympic Victor Lists and Ancient Greek History , pp. 508 - 513Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007