One important category of information available to chronologists, particularly if used in association with archaeological evidence, is that found in the writings of authors from the classical period of Greece through to the first few centuries of the Roman Empire. This article will examine these ancient sources to test whether they present a picture of the past consistent with that revealed by archaeology, particularly inscriptions indicating sequences and timescales, and also to see the extent to which they support, or otherwise, the orthodox chronology and a number of representative alternative chronologies.

« Aristotle on the “Great Year”, Eudoxus, and Mesopotamian “Goal Year” Astronomy », A.I.O.N. Annali dell’Università degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale. Dipartimento di studi del mondo antico e del Mediterraneo antico. Sezione filologico-letteraria XXXV, 2013, p. 111-123. Abstract. - Aristotle’s annus maximus is shown to have been a supposed period of 12 960 years between two returns of the sky and the planets to the same configuration. It is likely that Plato and Eudoxus of Cnidus also investigated this period, but arrived at different results. The planetary periods used in Aristotle’s calculation are of Mesopotamian origin and were probably borrowed by Eudoxus in Egypt. This file contains an important Corrigendum.