in Chronology, a certain period or series of numbers, which regularly proceed from the first to the last, and then return again to the first, and so circulate perpetually.

Cycle of Indiction is a series of fifteen years, returning constantly, like the other cycles, and commencing from the third year before Christ; whence it happens, that if three be added to any given year of Christ, and the sum be divided by fifteen, what remains is the year of the indiction.

Cycle of Indiction, a period of fifteen years, in use among the Romans. It has no connection with the celestial motions, but was instituted, according to Baronius, by Constantine, who, having reduced the time which the Romans were obliged to serve to fifteen years, was consequently obliged every fifteen years to impose (indicere, according to the Latin expression) an extraordinary tax for the payment of those who were discharged. And hence arose this cycle, which, from the Latin word indicere, was styled indiction.

Cycle of the Moon, called also the golden number, and the Metonic cycle, from its inventor Meton the Athenian, is a period of nineteen years, on the completion of which the new moons and full moons return on the same days of the month; so that on whatever days the new and full moons fall this year, nineteen years hence they will happen on the very same days of the month, though not at the same hour, as Meton and the fathers of the primitive church thought; and therefore, at the time of the council of Nice, when the method of finding the time for observing the feast of Easter was established, the numbers of the lunar cycle were inserted in the calendar, which, on account of their excellent use, were set in golden letters, and the year of the cycle called the golden number of that year.

Cycle of the Sun, a revolution of twenty-eight years, on the elapse of which, the dominical or Sunday letters return to their former place, and proceed in the same order as before, according to the Julian calendar.