How was the date referenced, by the people before the birth of Christ?

Question: How was the date referenced, by the people before the birth of Christ!?
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You probably want to know about the Julian Calendar, there were others, so I have included some interesting information about some of them!. I included the Jewish Calendar, because Jesus, being a Jew, would have undoubtedly used it!.

"Calendopaedia - The Julian Calendar

The Julian calendar was introduced by Julius Caesar in 45 BC!. It was in common use until the 1500s, when countries started changing to the Gregorian Calendar!. However, some countries (for example, Greece and Russia) used it into this century, and the Orthodox church in Russia still uses it, as do some other Orthodox churches!.
This does not mean that years were counted the way we do now!. They were counted from the start of the reign of the Emperor or Caesar and reset to one when the next Emperor took over!. For more information on how the years are counted see the page counting years!. Historians sometimes counted years ab urbe condita, that is since the founding of Rome!.

The old Roman calendar was very complicated and required a group of men, known as the pontiffs, to decide when days should be added or removed to keep the calendar in track with the seasons!. This made planning ahead difficult and the pontiffs were open to bribery in order to prolong the term of elected officials or hasten elections!. In order to avoid these problems Julius Caesar abolished the use of the lunar year and the intercalary month, and regulated the civil year entirely by the sun!. With the advice and assistance of Sosigenes, he fixed the mean length of the year at 365 1/4 days, and decreed that every fourth year should have 366 days, the other years having each 365!."

"Calendopaedia - The Gregorian Calendar

The Gregorian calendar is the one commonly used today!. It was proposed by Aloysius Lilius, a physician from Naples, and adopted by Pope Gregory XIII in accordance with instructions from the Council of Trent (1545-1563) to correct for errors in the older Julian Calendar!. It was decreed by Pope Gregory XIII in a papal bull in February 1582!.
It should be noted that the Gregorian Calendar is useless for astronomy because it has a ten-day hiatus in it!. For the purpose of calculating positions backward in time, astronomers use the Julian Date Calendar!.

Thanks to Claus Tondering for most of this information!. "

"Numbering of Jewish Years
The year number on the Jewish calendar represents the number of years since creation, calculated by adding up the ages of people in the Bible back to the time of creation!. However, this does not necessarily mean that the universe has existed for only 5700 years as we understand years!. Many Orthodox Jews will readily acknowledge that the first six "days" of creation are not necessarily 24-hour days (indeed, a 24-hour day would be meaningless until the creation of the sun on the fourth "day")!. "

"Maya calendar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Maya calendar is a system of distinct calendars and almanacs used by the Maya civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and by some modern Maya communities in highland Guatemala!.

These calendars can be synchronized and interlocked in many ways, their combinations giving rise to further, more extensive cycles!. The essentials of the Maya calendric system are based upon a system which had been in common use throughout the region, dating back to at least the 6th century BCE!.

According to the correlation between the Long Count and Western calendars accepted by the great majority of Maya researchers (known as the GMT correlation), this starting-point is equivalent to 11 August 3114 BCE in the proleptic Gregorian calendar or 6 September in the Julian calendar (?3113 astronomical)!. The Goodman-Martinez-Thompson correlation was chosen by Thompson in 1935 based on earlier correlations by Joseph Goodman in 1905 (11 August), Juan Martínez Hernández in 1926 (12 August), and John Eric Sydney Thompson in 1927 (13 August)!.[4][5] By its linear nature, the Long Count was capable of being extended to refer to any date far into the future (or past)!."Www@QuestionHome@Com

Usually by the years past since an event of significance, different cultures measured dates by different means, when the Christian calender was introduced it was based largely on references to other dates, Christs birth for example was founded on the reign of King Herod!.
Interestingly there is no year '0', the calendar works 1bc followed by 1ad, in modern terms the use of bc/ad is not the given term as not all cultures are Christian, the more acceptable is BCE = before common era and CE = common era!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

The Romans dated years by saying: "the nth year when so-and-so and so-and-so were Consuls"!.

Later they started dating things from the founding of Rome, which they thought was 753 BC!. They still continued to use the other method as well, until the 6th Century!.

Other countries usually referred to the year of the reign of the monarch!.

The Christian calendar was invented in the 6th Century, and it was only in widespread use from the 8th Century!.

http://en!.wikipedia!.org/wiki/Roman_calen!.!.!.
http://en!.wikipedia!.org/wiki/Ab_urbe_con!.!.!.
http://www!.geocities!.com/calendopaedia/c!.!.!.
http://en!.wikipedia!.org/wiki/Regnal_yearWww@QuestionHome@Com

In ancient times people measured the years by the years of the reigning monarch in their country!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Hmm, I never thought of that! Good question!.!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com