Saeculum

Template:Short description Template:For Template:Sister project A {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} is a length of time roughly equal to the potential lifetime of a person or, equivalently, the complete renewal of a human population.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>

Background

Originally it meant the time from the moment that something happened (for example the founding of a city) until the point in time that all people who had lived at the first moment had died. At that point a new {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} would start. According to legend, the gods had allotted a certain number of {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} to every people or civilization; the Etruscans, for example, had been given ten saecula.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

By the 2nd century BC, Roman historians were using the {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} to periodize their chronicles and track wars.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> At the time of the reign of emperor Augustus, the Romans decided that a {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} was 110 years. In 17 BC, Caesar Augustus organized Ludi saeculares ("saecular games") for the first time to celebrate the "fifth saeculum of Rome".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Augustus aimed to link the {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} with imperial authority.<ref name="Bilynskyj2022">Template:Cite book</ref>

Emperors such as Claudius and Septimius Severus celebrated the passing of {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} with games at irregular intervals. In 248, Philip the Arab combined Ludi saeculares with the 1,000th anniversary of the founding of Rome. The new millennium that Rome entered was called the saeculum novum,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> a term that received a metaphysical connotation in Christianity, referring to the worldly age (hence "secular").<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Roman emperors legitimised their political authority by referring to the {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in various media, linked to a golden age of imperial glory. In response, Christian writers began to define the {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} as referring to 'this present world', as opposed to the expectation of eternal life in the 'world to come'.<ref name="Bilynskyj2022"/> This results in the modern sense of 'secular' as 'belonging to the world and its affairs'.<ref>Template:Cite Merriam-Webster</ref>

The English word secular, an adjective meaning something happening once in an eon, is derived from the Latin saeculum.<ref>Template:Cite Merriam-Webster</ref> The descendants of Latin saeculum in the Romance languages generally mean "century" (i.e., 100 years): French siècle,<ref>Template:Citation</ref> Spanish siglo,<ref>Template:Citation</ref> Portuguese século,<ref>Template:Citation</ref> Italian secolo,<ref>Template:Citation</ref> etc.

See also

• Aeon, comparable Greek concept
• Century
• Generation
• In saecula saeculorum
• New world order (politics)
• Social cycle theory
• Strauss–Howe generational theory
• Saeculum obscurum

References

<references/>