Avodah Zarah

R. Aha b. Jacob then put this question: How do we know that our Era [of Documents] is connected with the Kingdom of Greece at all? Why not say that it is reckoned from the Exodus from Egypt, omitting the first thousand years and giving the years of the next thousand?  In that case, the document is really post-dated! — Said R. Nahman: In the Diaspora the Greek Era alone is used. He [the questioner] thought that R. Nahman wanted to dispose of him anyhow, but when he went and studied it thoroughly he found that it is indeed taught [in a Baraitha]: In the Diaspora the Greek Era alone is used. Said Rabina: Our Mishnah also proves this, for we learn,  'The first of Nisan is New Year for reckoning [the reign of] kings  and of Festivals,' and to the question 'The reign of kings', what is the practical object of this law? R. Hisda replied: [It affects] the dating of documents.  Now, the same Mishnah says. 'The first of Tishri is New Year for [counting] years and sabbatical cycles'  and when it was asked: 'What practical significance has this ruling?' R. Hisda [again] replied: [It affects the dating of] documents.  [The question was then raised:] Is not this rule of dating documents self-contradictory?  And the answer given was: 'The one refers to Jewish kings, the other to kings of Gentile nations — the year of Gentile kings being counted from Tishri, and of Jewish kings from Nisan.' Now, in the present time we count the years from Tishri; were we then to say that our Era is connected with the Exodus it is surely from Nisan that we ought to count.  Does this not prove that our reckoning is based on the reign of the Greek kings [and not on the Exodus]? That indeed proves it. THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE GENOSIA [ACCESSION] OF HEATHEN KINGS etc. What is meant by GENOSIA OF HEATHEN KINGS? — Said Rab Judah: It is the day on which the king is raised [to the throne]. But has it not been taught [elsewhere] 'The day of Genosia and the day of the king's accession'?  — There is no difficulty there; the one term indicates the king's own accession, the other that of his son.  But do [the Romans]  ever appoint a king's son as king? Did not R. Joseph apply [the following verse to Rome]: Behold I made thee small among the nations  — in that they do not place the son of a king on the royal throne, — thou art greatly despised  — in that they do not possess a tongue or script?  What then does GENOSIA mean? — [The King's] birthday. But we learn [elsewhere] 'The Genosia and the birthday.' That, too, is no contradiction. The one refers to the king's own birthday, the other to that of his son. But we have also the wording: 'The king's Genosia and his son's Genosia, his own birthday and his son's birthday'! Then [as said previously] Genosia means indeed the day of the King's accession. but there is no difficulty [raised by the mention of both terms], the one applying to his own accession, the other to that of his son; and as to your question about their not appointing a king's son as king, such appointment would be made at the [king's] request, as was the case with Asverus the son of Antoninus  who reigned [in his father's place]. Antoninus once said to Rabbi: It is my desire that my son Asverus should reign instead of me and that Tiberias  should be declared a Colony.  Were I to ask one of these things it would be granted while both would not be granted.  Rabbi thereupon brought a man, and having made him ride on the shoulders of another, handed him a dove bidding the one who carried him to order the one on his shoulders to liberate it. The Emperor perceived this to mean that he was advised to ask [of the Senate] to appoint his son Asverus to reign in his stead, and that subsequently he might get Asverus to make Tiberias a free Colony. [On another occasion] Antoninus mentioned to him that some prominent Romans were annoying him. Rabbi thereupon took him into the garden and, in his presence, picked some radishes, one at a time. Said [the Emperor to himself] his advice to me is: Do away with them one at a time, but do not attack all of them at once.