"This might have happened. The Cimbri are still remembered by the old district name Himmerland. Plutarch describes the battle at Vercellae, which took place 101 B.C, and its immediate aftermath." (p. 5)
We call it 101 B.C. but the people living then didn't. What will our period be called in future?
"Other classical writers, such as Tacitus and Strabo, and a treasure of archaeological material enable us to guess at the Cimbri themselves. Apparently they were a Germanic tribe from Jutland, with some elements of Celtic culture; by the time they reached Italy they had grown into a formidable confederation.
"King Mithradates the Great (more commonly but less correctly spelled Mithridates) is, of course, also historical. His expedition into Galatia in 100 B.C. is not mentioned by the scanty surviving records; but it is known that he had already fought with that strange kingdom and annexed some of its territory, so border trouble followed by a punitive sweep down past Ancyra is quite plausible.
"At that time the area now called southern Russia was dominated by the Alanic tribes, among whom the Rukh-Ansa were prominent." (ibid.)
Googling "Rukh-Ansa," I find this same passage.
"They were presumably identical with the "Rhoxolani" whom Mithradates' general Diophantes (?) defeated at the Crimea about 100 B.C.." (pp. 5-6)
"The tradition described in the epilogue may be found in the thirteenth-century Heimskringla and, in a different form, in the chronicle of Saxo Grammaticus." (p. 6)
That is not the whole Note but enough for a Sunday breakfast.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Of course the Christian AD/BC era dating system was not yet being used in 101 BC. Rome and its Italian dependencies would naturally use the AUC (From the founding of the City) system, traditionally dating from 753 BC. So our 101 BC would be 652 AUC for Romans of that time.
I see no reason why the AD/BC dating system we have now should not continue to be used on EARTH, at least. But, I can see colonists on other planets, even if Christians themselves, coming to use other calendars/era dating systems. Because they would have to work out calendrical systems adapted to the planets they were living on. We see that on in Anderson's story "Time Lag," for the Finnish settled planet Vaynamo. The colonists used an era dating system called "Anno Coloniae Conditae" (From the founding of the Colony). The story begins in 522 A.C.C.
And I have speculated, from the story mentioning a church dedicated to a Christian saint, that the Vaynamoans (?) were Lutheran Christians.
Ad astra! Sean
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