OLYMPĬAS

( ὀλυμπιάς ), an Olympiad, the most celebrated chronological aera among the Greeks, was the period of four years which elapsed between each celebration of the Olympic Games. The Olympiads began to be reckoned from the victory of Coroebus in the foot-race, which happened in the year B.C. 776. Timaeus of Sicily, however, who flourished B.C. 264, was the first writer who regularly arranged events according to the conquerors in each Olympiad. His practice of recording events by Olympiads was followed by Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Dionysius of Halicarna us, . The writers who make use of the aera of the Olympiads, usually give the number of the Olympiad (the first corresponding to B.C. 776), and then the name of the conqueror in the foot-race. Some writers also speak of events as happening in the first, second, third, or fourth year, as the case may be, of a certain Olympiad; but others do not give the separate years of each Olympiad. The rules for converting Olympiads into the year B.C. , and vice vers a , are given under Chronologia ; but as this is troublesome, the student will find at the end of the book a list of the Olympiads, with the years of the Christian aera corresponding to them from the beginning of the Olympiads to A.D. 301. To save space, the separate years of each Olympiad, with the corresponding years B.C. , are only given from the 47th to the 126th Olympiad, as this is the most important period of Grecian history; in the other Olympiads the first year only is given. In consulting the table it must be borne in mind that the Olympic Games were celebrated about midsummer, and that the Attic year commenced at about the same time. If, therefore, an event happened in the second half of the Attic year, the year B.C. must be reduced by 1. Thus So crates was put to death in the 1st year of the 95th Olympiad, which corresponds in the table to B.C. 400; but as his death happened in Thar gel i on, the 11th month of the Attic year, the year B.C. must be reduced by 1, which gives us B.C. 399, the true date of his death.