Indict

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For the law term see indictment.

An indict (plural indiction, from Latin indiction, "announcement") is a unit of time which has been in use since the time of Roman Emperor Diocletian. An indict is equal to 15 years. Indicts were sometimes used in Bulgarian and old Russian chronicles, where they were adopted from the Byzantine Empire.

The indict was primarily a type of tax on grain, which Diocletian made yearly in 297-298. The size of the tax was determined by calculations once in five years on the basis of the population censuses once in 15 years. The 15-year indict became a unit of time beginning on 1 September in Byzantium and was used since 312. In addition to designating the whole period, the unit could also mark every year of it, when it was combined with an ordinal number (indict 7 would mean the seventh year of the given indict).

[edit] References

• (Russian) Astronet.ru. Indict. Visited 7 May 2006.