this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2024
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Yes. They skipped right over. It confused many people at the time: a whole year of their lives, gone. Many centuries later when zero was invented, an explanation was finally offered as to why that happened.
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Serious answer about what the year would have been in 1 AD, according to 63-year-old Emporer Augustus: ~~DCCLIV~~ 754 Ab Urbe Condita
That means "from the founding of the city" - they based their calendar on the mythical founding of Rome, as calculated by Verro, who himself was not long dead at that point. Before that, they just counted the years of each person's reign Japanese-style. Probably other people in the ancient world had older calendars.
For those who donβt know, the concept of zero wasnβt discovered until the sixth century in India, and then either transferred or rediscovered in about the eighth century in Arabia.