his Olympic Record (, Olympionikō̂n Anagraphḗ) is now entirely lost, it apparently formed the basis of all later Olympic dating. By the time of Eratosthenes, his dating of Coroebus's victory to 776 had been generally accepted. The panhellenic nature of the games, their regular schedule, and the improved victor list allowed Greek historians to use the Olympiads as a way of reckoning time that did not depend on the various calendars of the city-states. (See e.g. the Attic calendar of the Athenians.) The first to do so consistently was Timaeus of Tauromenium in the third century . Nevertheless, since for events of the early history of the games the reckoning was used in retrospect, some of the dates given by later historian for events before the 5th century are very unreliable. In the 2nd century, Phlegon of Tralles summarized the events of each Olympiad in a book called Olympiads; fragments survive in the work of the Byzantine writer Photius. Christian chroniclers continued to use this Greek system of dating as a way of synchronizing biblical events with Greek and Roman history. In the 3rd century, Sextus Julius Africanus compiled a list of Olympic victors up to 217 , and this list has been preserved in the Chronicle of Eusebius. Examples of Ancient Olympiad dates Early historians sometimes used the names of Olympic victors as a method of dating events to a specific year. For instance, Thucydides says in his account of the year 428 BC: "It was the Olympiad in which the Rhodian Dorieus gained his second victory." Dionysius of Halicarnassus dates the foundation of Rome to the first year of the seventh Olympiad, 752 & 751 . Since Rome was founded on April 21, which was in the last half of the ancient Olympic year, it would be 751 specifically. In Book 1 chapter 75 Dionysius states: "...Romulus, the first ruler of the city, began his reign in the first year of the seventh Olympiad, when Charops at Athens was in the first year of his ten-year term as archon." Diodorus Siculus dates the Persian invasion of Greece to 480 : "Calliades was archon in Athens, and the Romans made Spurius Cassius and Proculus Verginius Tricostus consuls, and the Eleians celebrated the Seventy-fifth Olympiad, that in which Astylus of Syracuse won the stadion. It was in this year that king Xerxes made his campaign against Greece." Jerome, in his