Dichotomy
of Roman History
by Hans-E.
Korth
27/6/2014
Isaac
Newton: 'The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended':
»..they
have made the Antiquities of Greece three or four hundred
years elder
than the truth.« [ p.3]
»For
reconciling such repugnancies, Chronologers have sometimes
doubled
the persons of men.« [p.4]
Roman
history appears,
so we all were taught at school, as a steady sequence of events,
reliably reported by many chronists. However, when
compared to the findings of evidence based
sciences, this bright picture
comes with a massive number of inconsistencies, raising severe doubts
against traditional chronology.
A first
attempt to find
the true chronology of ancient Greece and Rome, has been started by
Isaak Newton
in 1689. It became published posthumously.
In our
days, a
Phantom-Time
hypothesis has been offered by H.
Illig: Some 300 years of the historiography of the early middle-ages
do not match physical reality. And, indeed, the constant offset of
300 years observed between archaeology and written history seems to
support
this idea.
But this thesis does imply an all-embracing conspiracy, to fabricate a
more or less credible system of historical records. Things became
worse, when even more centuries were considered fictitious, as
proposed by G. Heinssohn: More than one huge conspiracy must now be
presumed to explain the chronology mismatch and, likewise, the
positively observed offset of 300 years using the means of natural
sciences.
Obviously,
another
approach will be required, to match written tradition with scientific
data:
If most reported dates of the
first millennium appear
some 300
years too old, this may be due to an inter-mixture of the Common
Era (CE)
epoch with the years counted after the Birth of Christ
(Anno Domini, AD).
An elementary mistake
mixing two epochs that was overlooked by all chronists and the
historians since? This sounds just a bit too simple. But, otherwise,
the
mixing of AD and CE must have been intentional. Precautions must have
been taken to obscure the truth. Who may have done it? And why? Was
it feasible with the limited resources of a few protagonists?
Even today, the Holy
Seven Sleepers of Ephesus are
commemorated every
year on June 27th. Their recovery 'after 309
years' (actually a swap of AD and SE epoch) in a cave (Khoran,
18:25-26) was
considered as the by far greatest of God's wonders. Nobody could
ever argue against it with some chronist's writings. As there was not
the slightest
chance to retract the legend, other ways had to be found to match
written history.
Originally just a pious
legend and not related to historiography, the tale allowed
manipulations of history and became quite
useful for secular rulers as well as for the leaders of the Christian
Church:
- Traditions of the
Christian Church and trinitarian dogma now anticipated the Islam.
- The loss of Syria by
Romanos in 944
CE could be attributed
to emperor Heracleios
636 CE.
- The fabricated
Donation
of
Constantine
implied a Christian Rome already in the 4th
century CE.
- The legendary
recovery of the Holy Cross by a Roman Empress confirmed the Pope's
primacy.
- A composite Carolus
Magnus
filled the gap in history between Chlovis and Louis
the Pious.
Once
established, it
became practically impossible, to unravel the 'improved' chronology:
The
coexistence of the
Seleucid Era starting 312 BC, called 'Year-count of the Greeks' with
the AD count made the risk of a confusion real. Whoever attempted to
match reported facts with an offset of some three centuries found some
'evidence':
- 20 Indiction cycles equal 300 years.
-
Similar solar
eclipses can be observed after 300 years - 46 days.
- 16
Meton cycles
repeat the moon of Eastern every 304 years.
However, for historians
more and more ad hoc assumptions became necessary to maintain
consistency. Here are
just a
few examples from a virtually endless list:
- Reportedly, Julius
Caesar gave order in -45 CE to insert every 4th year the leap day ANTE
DIEM BIS VI KALENDAS MARTIAS into the Roman calendar. To get
started, he inserted 80 leap days in order to
move the equinox back to March 21th. This shifted Jan. 1st, the
start of the year until today, away from its prior wise match with the
spring equinox -
the year's 'natural' synchronization mark within many cultures. To
maintain the relation between seasons and months, the
calendar-year now ended with December ('the 10th' month).
Really? If
the Julian calendar
readjustment were shifted backwards from 267 CE to -45 CE (i.e. 267
SE), antedating into the proleptic Julian Calendar would have
produced, likewise, 77 additional leap days plus 3 days offset due to
Earth's precession.
Note: In 1582 the Gregorian
reform
skipped 10
days, to match with the astronomical situation 1280 years earlier (i.e.
around
300 CE).
- 68 leap days were missing
45 years later, at
the birth of Jesus
(The Ara Coeli
constellation of the Legenda
Aurea will be found on Sept.
23th 297 CE). Addtion of 68 days moves the reference for the Advent
(ADVENTUS DIVI)
to Nov. 30th - its actual place.
In his 33rd year, Jesus
died in 330 CE on March 20th. A multitude of records referring to his
lifetime can now be confirmed.
- When
the elder
Agrippina
died in 33 CE on Oct. 18th, the offset was 61 days. So she
passed away exactly 297 years 'before' empress 'Helena' who died 330 AD
on Aug.
18th. However, she was the mother of Caligula and not of
Constantine.
- Constantine
(306-337
AD) and Heracleios
(610-641 CE) ruled for 31 years. In their 19.
year, the Holy Cross became recovered by Martina, who held
the
official title 'Mother
of Emperor Constantine' (with respect to her
step-son).
- Octavian Augustus
and
Aurelian
both skipped three leap days from the calendar. They
rebuilt the Basilica
Julia. They defeated Cleo-Patra
('father's pride')
and Zenobia
(Zain-Abu: 'father's pride'). Both queens committed suicide
with poison.
- The list of duplicate
leaders will continue up to the middle-ages, where Arnulph the Saint
and Arnulph the Evil
died on 18.7.640 AD and 14.7.937 CE (Julian date). In England, Æthelred of Mercia
died in 709 AD, Æthelred
the Unready 1013 CE. Cutbert
and Bede
were buried twice - separated just by the 297 years between the AD and
CE year-count...
Conclusion:
As
it appears, our history of Antiquity and the Early Middle-ages
intermixes different year-counts. In addition to CE (this year
is
2014 CE), many events come with an AD year and were indirectly dated by
the birth of Jesus, the SE count, or by various periodical events.
More
infos about the dichotomy of Roman history can be found here:
Notes: