SYLVA CRITICA CANADENSIUM. 85 



fnodo prcecipuce.' Anotlier explanation of this distinction may be given by sup- 

 posing that these badges or certificates were issued in Rome on any day of the 

 month on which they were apphed for, especially the Calends, Nones and Ides, 

 being those on which the services of the spectatores would be most required ; 

 whilst in the country parts they were issued only once in the month, the day 

 for such issue not being fixed, but left to the discretion of the issuing officers. 

 " Still another view may be taken, that these tesserce indicated the time, not 

 from which the persons holding them might act as S23ectatores, but for or during 

 which they were empowered to discharge that duty — in the city for a specified 

 day — in the country for a specified month." 



6. About a year ago I was asked to explain an inscription that was 

 stated to have been found on a stone in Syria, It was "ANN • 

 XII • P • C." I suggested that there was a letter left out between 

 P • C, and that the letter was V., i.e., I read the inscription " Ann{o) 

 Duodecimo post urbem conditam," and gave as instances Gruter, 1 13, 2, 

 and Orelli, 3694, 3697. It appears, however, that the reading, Anno 

 duodecimo post Christum, was preferred. In this article I propose 

 examining the subject, so that there may be no reason for doubt. If 

 the reading which was preferred be correct, I am compelled to infer 

 that the inscription was spurious, for the era — A.D., anno Domini, 

 P'.C, post Christum, or A.C., ante Christum — was introduced by the 

 monk, Dionysius Exiguus, in the sixth century after the birth of 

 our Lord — some say in 525, others in 527, and others again in 532. 

 Dionysius placed the Nativity in A.V.C. 753, and recommended the 

 substitution of this mode of computation for the others that were then 

 used, specially for the era of Diocletian. The following extract from 

 ^' Hales' Chronology " may be useful : 



" Unfortunately for ancient chronology, there was no one fixed or universally 

 established era. Different countries reckoned by different eras, whose number 

 is embarrassing, and their conunencements not always easily to be adjusted or 

 reconciled to each other; and it was not until A.D. 532 that the Christian Era 

 -was invented by Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian by birth, and a E-oman abbot, 

 "who flourished in the reign of Justinian. 



"The motive which led him to introduce it, and the time of its introduction, 

 are best explained by himself, in a letter to Petronius, a bishop : 



" ' Because St. Cyril began the first year of his cycle [of 95 years] from the 

 153rd of Diocletiaai, and ended the last in the 247th ; we, beginning from the 

 aiext year, the 248th, of that same tyrant, rather than prince, were unwilling 

 to connect with our cycles the memory of an impious [prince] and persecutor ; 

 but chose rather to antedate the times of the years, from the incarnation of 

 our Lord Jesus Christ, to the end that the commencement of our hoj)e might 

 be better known to us, and that the cause of man's restoration, namely, our 

 Bedeemer'a passion, might appear with clearer evidence,' 



