6z UNIVERSAL ERUDITION. 



An age or century is the courfe of a hundred 

 years, or folar revolutions. 



Luftre is the fpace of five years. The poets 

 make frequent ufe of this: term. 



Olympiad is a fpace of four years, which the 

 Greeks counted from the celebration of one of 

 the Olyrripic games to another. The firft Olym- 

 piad, began in the year of the world 3228, and 

 confequently 776 years before the common era. 



Epoch : To what we have juft faid on this 

 term, it is proper to remark here, that chronolo- 

 gers diftinguim three forts of epochs : the firft 

 they call facred ; the fecond, ecclefiaftical ; and 

 the third, civil or political. 



Era : Befide what we have faid in the twen- 

 tieth fedlion, we muft here obferve, that the 

 word probably took its rife from the ignorance 

 of copyifts, who, finding in ancient manufcripts 

 the letters A. E. R. A. Annus Erat Regni Au- 

 guftiy made of them the Ample word era, or, as 

 the Latins write it, <era. 



The Seleucian era, from whence the Macedo- 

 nians began to count, is alfo denoted by the Gre- 

 cian years, of which the Jews principally made 

 ufe after they were fubdued by the Macedo- 

 nians. It began with the great Seleucus, fur- 



named 



