Please note that Mommsen uses the AUC chronology (Ab Urbe Condita), i.e. from the founding of the City of Rome. You can use this reference table to have the B.C. dates
That astronomy more especially,
which ministered, in the nomenclature of the stars, to the thoughtless
erudite dilettantism of the age and, in its relations to astrology,
to the prevailing religious delusions, was regularly and zealously
studied by the youth in Italy, can be proved also otherwise;
the astronomical didactic poems of Aratus, among all the works
of Alexandrian literature, found earliest admittance into the instruction
of Roman youth. To this Greek course there was added the study
of medicine, which was retained from the older Roman instruction,
and lastly that of architecture--indispensable to the genteel Roman
of this period, who instead of cultivatingthe ground built
houses and villas.
