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MATTHEW OF WESTMINSTER
The flowers of history, especially such as relate to the affairs of Britain. Vol. I. B.C. 4004 to A.D. 1066.
page 125
BOOK VI.
THE SIXTH AGE OF THE WORLD. 1
CH. I.— FBOM B.C. 4 TO A.D. 15.
The Birth of Christ—Question when the Sixth Age of the World is properly said to begin—Circumstances attending the Birth and Early Age of Our Saviour—Invective against the Heathen Philosophers and their Theories—The Wise Men of the East —Herod1 s Massacre of the Innocents—Account of Josephus— Violence of Herod to his own Family—Treachery of AnttpaUr —Cymbeline and his sons in England—Death of Herod—His kingdom is divided—Trogus—Archelaus—Death of Augustes Cosar.
IN the fifty thousand nine hundred and ninety-ninth year after the creation of the world, in the fifty-second year of the reign3 of Augustus Cassar, and the thirtieth of the reign of Herod, Cymbeline, the son of Tennancius, being king of Britain, and in the third year of the hundred and ninety-third Olympiad, in the fourth indiction,3 in the second existing
From this period, our Author no longer divides bis work into Books I or Chapters, but proceeds without any break to the coronation of William the Conqueror. For the divisions into chapters, as given in this volume, the Translator is responsible.
*
This looks as if he dated the reign of Augustus from the murder el Julius Caesar, which, however, took place B.C. 44, not u.c. 42. The battle of Philippi was B.C. 42. The battle of Actium not tin B.C. 31. The era A.D. coincides with the first year of the 195th Olympiad.
*
" The indiction, instituted by Constantine the Great, is properly a cycle of tributes orderly disposed for fifteen years, and by it accounts" oc that kind were kept. Afterwards, in memory of the great victory obtained by Constantine over Megentius, 8 Cal. Oct. (24 Sept.) 312, by which aa entire freedom was given to Christianity, the Council of Nice, for the honour of Constantine, ordained that the accounts of years should be ne longer kept by Olympiads, which till that time had been done, but that.
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