saeculum

A '''' (plural ) is a length of time roughly equal to the potential lifetime of a person or, equivalently, the complete renewal of a human population.

==Background== Originally it meant the time from the moment that something happened (for example the founding of a city) until the point in time that all people who had lived at the first moment had died. At that point a new would start. According to legend, the gods had allotted a certain number of to every people or civilization; the Etruscans, for example, had been given ten saecula.