An essay on colophons : with specimens and translation . ^S3 VIII DATES IN COLOPHONS. ATES form such an important fea-ture in colophons that this essaycannot be brought to a close with-out some attempt to explain thedifficulties which arise in connec-tion with them. As regards themethod of expressing the yearthere is very little to say. Theo-doric Rood (see page 61) preferred to speak of 14 8 5 as the297th Olympiad from the birth of Christ, being underthe impression that Olympiads consisted of five yearsinstead of four. Other printers showed great ingenuityin finding elaborate synonyms for wha
An essay on colophons : with specimens and translation . ^S3 VIII DATES IN COLOPHONS. ATES form such an important fea-ture in colophons that this essaycannot be brought to a close with-out some attempt to explain thedifficulties which arise in connec-tion with them. As regards themethod of expressing the yearthere is very little to say. Theo-doric Rood (see page 61) preferred to speak of 14 8 5 as the297th Olympiad from the birth of Christ, being underthe impression that Olympiads consisted of five yearsinstead of four. Other printers showed great ingenuityin finding elaborate synonyms for what we are nowcontent to express in the two words Anno Domini,and among other phrases employed Olympiades Do-minicae,, (see page 79), but without any attempt to in-troduce the intervals between the Olympic Games intothe Christian reckoning. As an additional method of dating we occasionally 170 DATES IN COLOPHONS 171 find a reference to the year of the indiction, a methodof dating by cycles of fifteen years, instituted by theEmperor Constantine in 312. To find the indictionalyear, 31
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