Olympiad

Olympiad, the name given to the period of four years that elapsed between two successive celebrations of the Olympic games, a mode of reckoning among the Greeks apparently first employed systematically by Alexandrian writers in the 3d century B.C. It is used only by writers, and is never found on coins and very seldom on inscriptions. The first recorded olympiad dates from the 21st or 22d of July 776 B.C., and is frequently referred to as the Olympiad of Corebus; for historians, instead of referring to the olympiad by its number, frequently designate it by the name of the winner of the foot-race in the Olympic games belonging to that period. The first year of our present era (1 A.D.) corresponded to the last half of the fourth year of the 194th with the first half of the first year of the 195th olympiad. See CHRONOLOGY.