the Gemara says that daryavesh's years were counted differently depending on when he was good or bad. my question is how can that be, the gemara seem to say that the years were set up in order to prevent predated documents, but this would possibly ruin that.
david lowy, staten island, ny
Perhaps the rarity of the decision to count for a non-Jewish king from Nisan meant that the decision was so well known that there was no risk of mistakes. Equally, the rescinding of this special treatment would most likely have been well publicized.
It is possible that the Gemara does not mean to say that they actually counted from Nisan in Shetaros, just that the Pasuk counts his years from Nisan to teach us that he was righteous at the start. However I am not confident that this is correct.
Dov Freedman