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greek-historyfeatured in 4 works

Chronology and Synchronism

When did "now" begin? Greek historians built scaffolds of Olympiads and archon-lists to pin one people's events against another's.

Before universal calendars, every city counted years by its own officials, so a historian writing about many peoples faced a puzzle: how to say that two distant events happened at the same time. Greek writers answered by anchoring events to shared yardsticks — the four-year Olympiad cycles, lists of Athenian archons or Spartan ephors, and the reckoning of generations. Polybius perfected this, slicing his Mediterranean history into Olympiad years so that wars in Italy, Greece, and the East could be read as one synchronized story. The result was the backbone of historical time itself: a way to fix when, and to line up the many calendars of the ancient world.

How it traveled

  1. Histories
    Megalopolis · -118
    explains
  2. Description of Greece
    — · 180
    explains
  3. Vitae philosophorum
    — · 240
    explains
  4. Historical Library
    Syracuse (Sicily)
    explains

Key passages(20)

Pausanias, Description of Greece 8.39.3↗explains

Description of Greece · Pausanias

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Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 1.5.1 [en]↗explains

Historical Library · Diodorus Siculus

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Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 7.8.1 [en]↗explains

Historical Library · Diodorus Siculus

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Gellius, Aulus, Noctes Atticae 17.21↗explains

Noctes Atticae · Aulus Gellius

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Pausanias, Description of Greece 4.27.9↗explains

Description of Greece · Pausanias

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Sallust, Catilinae Coniuratio chronology↗applies

Catilinae Coniuratio · Sallust

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Polybius, Histories 1.3↗explains

Histories · Polybius

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Athenaeus of Naucratis, Deipnosophistae 5.57↗applies

Deipnosophistae · Athenaeus of Naucratis

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Athenaeus of Naucratis, Deipnosophistae 5.59↗applies

Deipnosophistae · Athenaeus of Naucratis

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Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 1.4.7 [en]↗applies

Historical Library · Diodorus Siculus

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Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 11.1.2 [en]↗explains

Historical Library · Diodorus Siculus

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Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 12.29.1 [en]↗explains

Historical Library · Diodorus Siculus

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Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 12.37.1 [en]↗explains

Historical Library · Diodorus Siculus

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Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 12.77.1 [en]↗explains

Historical Library · Diodorus Siculus

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Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 14.54.1 [en]↗explains

Historical Library · Diodorus Siculus

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Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 20.37.1 [en]↗explains

Historical Library · Diodorus Siculus

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Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 7.8.2 [en]↗explains

Historical Library · Diodorus Siculus

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Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 9.21.1 [en]↗explains

Historical Library · Diodorus Siculus

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Diogenes Laertius, Vitae philosophorum 2.5.44↗applies

Vitae philosophorum · Diogenes Laertius

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Diogenes Laertius, Vitae philosophorum 2.6.56↗explains

Vitae philosophorum · Diogenes Laertius

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