In the older period of Egyptian history each year of the king’s reign is described by an official name borrowed from the festivals--e. g. those of the king’s accession, of the worship of Horus, of the sowing, of the birth of Anubis--from buildings, wars, and the censuses for purposes of taxation. Gradually the simple counting of the years of the reign appears alongside of these names, and from the end of the old empire completely supplants the former method even in official dates. The years however are not calendar years, but begin with the day of the king’s accession: they therefore offer the disadvantage of running from different dates according to this. At certain periods however the reigns, as in Babylon, were counted only from the first New Year’s Day. Of an era there is only a single example[464]. The Egyptians also began with the concrete descriptions, but passed over, at least within the separate reigns, to the counting of years which is so much more suitable for a survey of the course of time. The Assyrian designation of the year after eponyms, _limmu_, the Greek after archons, ephors, and other eponymous officials, the Roman after consuls etc. are no different. For a people with a fully developed political life and annually changing supreme officials the latter naturally offer a means of distinguishing the years; the life was too regular and too well-established for events of such a decisive nature that they could impress themselves upon the memory of everyone and become available for time-reckoning to be able to happen to the whole people in smaller intervals of time. Here however the system shews a weak point. It is very difficult to keep an arbitrary series of many names in its right order without confusing the names, and only very few persons can do it. The system therefore did not provide that survey over the whole course of time which the awakening historical sense rendered more and more necessary. So men were led to the only practical method, that of simply counting the years and marking them by figures, by which means everyone without more ado became quite clear as to the dates of earlier or later events, whether these were expressed in olympiads, in _ab urbe condita_ etc., or in the countless local eras of antiquity. It was long before it was seen that the starting-point is a matter of indifference, and that the only essential is that all should use the same starting-point. In this respect the old reckoning in epochs long continued to influence the minds of men. CHAPTER IV. THE STARS.