How did people keep track of years in the “B.C.” times?
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As in, how they counted years?
First, obviously, the BC/AD divide is a Christian thing, so even *after* Christ most people on earth didn’t count up from his birth like that. The Hebrew calendar counts from the supposed creation of Earth (right now we’re in the 5700s, so they never really had a problem with being “before that”), the Islamic calendar counts from Mohammed, not Jesus (now it’s 1446).
But in most societies, years weren’t counted from some point zero, but just relative to something everyone knew about (like kings – “the 4th year of the Reign of King so-and-so” – Japan still does this to some extent). In some period of ancient Greece, due to there being no single king, years were counted from the Olympics (“second year of the so-and-so Olympiad”).
Ancient Rome also counted from the supposed founding of Rome – but that was very formal, they mostly did the same as everyone else and counted years by who was in charge (“the year of Consul X or the 3rd year of Emperor Y”)
In fact, even in many Christian and Muslim places in the middle ages, there is evidence that many common people (who didn’t really have a need for centuries for what they were measuring) also colloquially referred to years by the person in charge like that.
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