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109 BC

year

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 4, 2025
Entity authorityQ44831
Source-derived summary

Year 109 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Numidicus and Silanus (or, less frequently, year 645 Ab urbe condita) and the Second Year of Yuanfeng. The denomination 109 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Events

By place

Roman Republic

A Roman army under Marcus Junius Silanus is defeated by the Cimbri and Teutones near the river Rhône.

Asia

Emperor Wu of Han inspects the Han Empire, traveling 9,000 km (5,600 mi). He also sends diplomats to search for the legendary Penglai Island.

Han campaigns against Dian: Emperor Wu launches a new campaign against the Dian Kingdom and establishes the Yizhou commandery in Yunnan during the dynasty's expansion southward.

Han invasion of Gojoseon

After She He, a Han envoy, murders a minor king of the vassal state of Gojoseon and is rewarded by Emperor Wu with a military command, Ugeo, the king of Gojoseon, attacks and kills She He.

Autumn – Emperor Wu orders the invasion. The Han general Yang Pu crosses the Yellow Sea and marches on the capital Wangxian (Pyongyang) but is defeated outside its gates.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “109 BC” as year. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around year.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current 214-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with year providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “109 BC”, the useful work is to connect “year” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 4, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q44831. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “109 BC”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 109 BC primary sources, 109 BC archive and year research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “109 BC”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from 109 BC” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.