"Is Julius Caesar’s date of death the most ancient known?" Topic

On this Ides of March I am musing on this question. At the risk of revealing my limited understanding (or at least recall) of history, I am unable to think of an exact death date— month, day, and year— for any previous leader in antiquity. But that might just be because the Ides of March are a cultural thing. I really don't have a head for dates as it is (my anniversary is, fortunately, engraved inside my wedding ring).

So, rather than pouring my time into research, I'd thought I'd ask the most pedantic group of history geeks the world has ever produced— my fellow gamers!

Challenge: Without looking anything up, name the person and the day of death. Must be prior to March 15, 44 BC.

If you accept that Herodotus is accurate, Leonidas died on August 11, 480 BCE. Pompey Magnus is on firmer ground: September 28, 48 BCE. Those are the ones I remember off the top of my head.

Not off the top of my head, but we do we know the dates for a number of notable Romans preceding Caesar, such as Gaius Marius. Reaching much further back, the dates for some rulers of the Ancient Near East are known, not too surprising given how many of the those cultures were meticulous regarding both calendars and record keeping. We know Nebuchadnezzar II, for example, died on October 7, 562 BCE because that is the date inscribed on the final clay tablets of his reign and the first ones of his successor.

Socrates: 8 Anthesterion, 469BCE.

Alexander the Great, June, 323 BC

I couldn't have given ANY death by date--even family members. But certainly other earlier death dates are known. Babylon takes Jerusalem and and kills the sons of Zedekiah on 15 Tammuz, 587 BC.

Abel – 3825 BC

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abel

I would say it is definitely the BEST known ancient date.

I think you could 'Take a Stab' at lots of Ancient figures!!!

I think Leonidas is a pretty certain year if not the precise date.

Herodotus was at least almost contemporary with Leonidas, being born around 484(ish) BC. So Leonidas died when Herodotus was 4 or 5 years old. It's unlikely he was aware of what was going on at the time, but as he grew up he would have been around veterans of the war who would have known the day, and the story of the Spartans at Thermopylae would have been much discussed. So I'll take that as a definite one. Also Socrates, the sons of Zedekiah, Nebuchadnezzar II, and Pompey the Great. Nifty. Current winner for oldest known exact death date seems to be the sons of Zedekiah. (A dubious honor, to be sure.) Anybody know how the ancient date of 15 Tammuz translates into the modern calendar? Note that considerations of changes from Julian to Gregorian, and any changes to the Hebrew calendar over time might not make that answer trivial!

I have no doubts that Herodotus got the year exactly correct, it's the precise day that wasn't certain of. But as you say, it was in his lifetime so even an oral tradition would have arguably given an accurate date for such an important event.

The month of Tammuz in modern terms falls in June-July but things are dicey with any lunar calendar that stretches back into the pre-modern era. The Hebrew calendar, for example, didn't have mathematically derived intercalaries until the Middle Ages. Prior to the Julian reform, the Roman calendar was notorious for getting wildly out of sync with the seasons. As the Pontifex Maximus was responsible for intercalation, inattention or inability on his part could mean years passing without the necessary corrections.

My error. 9 Tammuz, which was 15 July Gregorian.

More information than you'd ever want to know about it here:
link

I have great respect for the medieval scholars who hammered all the various dating systems into a single chronology.

I've studied the battle of Thermopylae for decades and one thing I've noted is that the academic historians do NOT agree on the date of the battle. So we don't seem to know the date of Leonidas' death for certain. There are at least three dates in August given. The precise date of the full moon of August 480 BC -- by our reckoning -- figures into this (since it is obliquely referred to in Herodotus); and also the facts of a storm that also cannot be specifically dated, and the rustling of fallen oak leaves on the mountain path that outflanked the Greek army. And that this general time period coincided with the Carneian festival in Sparta, which was also based on the moon. Those little hints are all we have to go by.

I have dates noted on my calendar that are older than Thermopylae, altho' they have been taken from secondary sources and I have not tried to verify them. But they include the fall of Nineveh and the battle of the Allia River and the battle of Marathon. Also many other ancient battles from Greek and Roman history. Greek wars, Punic wars, Macedonian wars, Alexander's wars. Lots. And that's just European history.

With the switch from a Julian to a Gregorian calendar, we can probably assume that what was the Ides of March in Caesar's time might not be March 15 in today's calendar.

Having done a lot of research on the Athenian calendar, it is quite impossible to correlate any historical date with our modern calendar.

Some writers associated certain Greek months with our months, but they never actually line up.

Greek months allegedly began on the first sighting of the crescent moon. Each state kept their own calendar (with their own month names), and each state regulated the dates independent from each other.

We have the most information on the Athenian calendar, which was regulated by the current Arkhon, who can (and regularly did) add or subtract days each month as seemed necessary.

So if a certain civic festival had to happen on the 10th of the month, but for whatever reason needed to be delayed, the Archon would keep adding additional days of the 9th until the festival was ready. Days could be subtracted, say if the Arkhon wanted to push up an election while somebody was out of town.

There is no known year when the months actually lined up with the phases of the moon. We presume that they restarted the new year on the first crescent moon at the start of the solar year after the winter equinox, and just adjust the final month as needed, but there is no evidence that this is how they kept the years synched up…

We don't have much detailed records of other states, but since they all regulated their own calendars for their own civic reasons, it seems unlikely that any of them would actually line up with each other as the year progressed.