5 BC

Calendar and chronology

According to the Julian calendar reconstruction this year was a common year of 365 days that — depending on how leap-year insertions are interpreted — falls on a Monday (Monday start) or a Tuesday (Tuesday start). The Julian calendar had been introduced in 45 BC and initially suffered from irregular application of leap days; those early errors produce uncertainty when retrojecting weekdays. For conversion and calendar comparisons historians sometimes use a proleptic Gregorian or proleptic Julian calendar for clarity (calendar reference).

Roman designation and political context

In Roman practice 5 BC was known as the Year of the Consulship of Augustus and Sulla. Augustus (the emperor) continued to dominate political life, and the consulship remained an important nominal office. Naming years by consuls was the standard chronological reference in official records and inscriptions.

How historians treat dates like 5 BC

• There is no year zero in the traditional BC/AD scheme; 1 BC is immediately followed by AD 1. Astronomers and some modern chronologies use a year zero, which shifts numeric labels.
• Because of calendar reforms and regional dating systems, exact weekdays and sometimes even which events belong to a given numbered year may be debated.

Importance and notable debates

Years around 5 BC are often discussed because of debates about the dating of key ancient events: for example, different sources and modern calculations place the deaths and births of prominent figures in the mid-first century BCE and early first century CE, and scholars must reconcile varied chronologies. Caution is required when assigning specific historical events to 5 BC, since surviving records are incomplete and later chroniclers used differing systems of year-numbering.