[Footnote 4: A re-impression of the Valencia edition was made at Madrid in the year 1795.]
Unfortunately, however, Spanish scholars and antiquaries have too much neglected the Gothic element in their language, and they have consequently missed the only source from whence, as it appears to me, the true origin of _Era_ could be developed. The Marquis de Mondejar indeed seems to have had a suspicion of the true source; for he has a chapter thus entitled "Si puede ser _Gothica_ la voz ERA i aver introducido los Godos su computo en España?" in which he thus expresses his incapacity to answer his own question:
"I assi contentandonos con aver expressado nuestra imaginacion con el mismo recelo que la discurrimos, _prohibendonos la ignorancia de la lengua Gothica antigua_, el que podamos justificar si pudo aver procedido de ella la voz ERA propria del computo de que hablamos."
As long since as 1664 that eminent northern philologist Thomas Marshall, in his notes on the Gothic Gospels, had thus expressed himself, confirming, if not anticipating, Spelman:
"{ jER} proprie significat annum, sicque usurpatur in omnibus linguis Gothicæ cognatis; suâ scilicet cuique Dialecto asservatâ. Videant Hispani, nunquid eorum HERA vel ERA, quod _Ætatem_ et _tempus_ dicitur interdum significare, debeat originationem suam Gothico { jER}, atque num forsan hinc quoque aliquid lucis affulserit indagantibus originem vexatissimi illius _Æra_, quatenus significat Epocham Chronologicam."
In the _Glossary_ the further development of the origin of the word is ingenious, but not satisfactory:
"Prisca interim Gothorum atque Anglo-Saxonum orthographiâ inducor ut credam { ger} vel { gear} esse à γυροῦν Gyrare, in orbem circumvolvere, juxta illud poetæ principis, _Georg_. II. 402.:
'Atque in se sua per vestigia volvitur annus.'
Unde et Annum idem poëta, _Æneid_. I. 273., Orbem dixit:
'Triginta magnos volvendis mensibus orbes Imperio explebit,'
ubi Servius: Annus dictus quasi Anus, id est Anulus; quod in se redeat, &c."
That the Roman word _Æra_ signified _number_ in earlier times, we learn from Nonius Marcellus:
"_Æra_ numeri nota, Lucilius lib. xxviiij. Hoc est ratio perversa, _æra_ summa, et subducta improbe."
Those who desire further confirmation will find it in that extraordinary storehouse of erudition, the _Exercitationes Pliniana_ of Salmasius, p. 483., ed. 1689.