sirius-period

Updated: May 11, 2025

Now when we consider that in the oldest abbreviations the distinction between "id:gamma" "id:c" and "id:kappa" "id:k" is still regularly maintained; that the period, accordingly, when the sounds became in pronunciation coincident, and before that again the period during which the abbreviations became fixed, lies beyond the beginning of the Samnite wars; and lastly, that a considerable interval must necessarily have elapsed between the introduction of writing and the establishment of a conventional system of abbreviation; we must, both as regards Etruria and Latium, carry back the commencement of the art of writing to an epoch which more closely approximates to the first incidence of the Egyptian Sirius-period within historical times, the year 1321 B.C., than to the year 776, with which the chronology of the Olympiads began in Greece.

Theodor Mommsen - The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5)

Now when we consider that in the oldest abbreviations the distinction between "id:gamma" "id:c" and "id:kappa" "id:k" is still regularly maintained; that the period, accordingly, when the sounds became in pronunciation coincident, and before that again the period during which the abbreviations became fixed, lies beyond the beginning of the Samnite wars; and lastly, that a considerable interval must necessarily have elapsed between the introduction of writing and the establishment of a conventional system of abbreviation; we must, both as regards Etruria and Latium, carry back the commencement of the art of writing to an epoch which more closely approximates to the first incidence of the Egyptian Sirius-period within historical times, the year 1321 B.C., than to the year 776, with which the chronology of the Olympiads began in Greece.

Theodor Mommsen - The History of Rome, Book I : The Period Anterior to the Abolition of the Monarchy