must have been the Greek, of which the Egyptian version (in hieroglyphic and
demotic scripts) was only a translation.^41 All this points to the decree’s being
instigated by the recently arrived Hellenistic kings—as is almost explicit, in
fact, in l. 46 (end of the passage cited above), which says that the calendar had
‘come to be corrected and made good by the Benefactor Gods’(i.e. Ptolemy
and his royal consort).^42
The changes that were being proposed to the Egyptian civil calendar made
sense, indeed, from the perspective of Greek calendrical tradition. Although
Greek calendars were not without considerable irregularities (see Chapter 1),
they did have the merit of conforming, at least in broad terms, to the seasons
of the year. The celebration of Egyptian winter feasts in the summer season (or
vice versa) would have appeared surprising, and maybe even improper, to the
newly arrived Greeks in Egypt.^43 Furthermore, the intercalation of days for
purposes, sometimes, of correcting the calendar was a specifically Greek
calendrical practice (see Chapter 1), and this is precisely what was being
proposed, on a four-year basis, for the Egyptian civil calendar.
This said, it is unlikely that Ptolemy Euergetes was motivated by an interest
in well-regulated calendars. His own Macedonian calendar, which was used by
the Ptolemaic administration alongside the Egyptian civil calendar (for exam-
ple, in the date of the Canopus decree itself, l. 3), was hopelessly drifting in this
period from the seasons, as we shall later see in this chapter; and yet he did not
seek to reform or rectify it.^44 His objective in the Canopus decree was probably
(^41) Spalinger (1992) 32–5; but with reservations, Pfeiffer (2004) 52–5.
(^42) This has long been the scholarly consensus (e.g.Weill 1926: 56–8, Clagett 1989–99: ii.
309 – 10). Pfeiffer (2004) 251–7 argues instead in favour of an Egyptian, priestly initiative, mainly
on the basis that if reform of the calendar had been instigated by Ptolemy, it should have been
presented as a royal decree, whereas in fact it is presented as a decree of the priests (in the
opening of the Canopus text). This argument, in my view, is weak and somewhat simplistic. It
was clearly in Ptolemy’s interest to present this decree—breaking, as it was, an ancient Egyptian
tradition—as coming from the Egyptian priests rather than from the king, so as to secure its
acceptability among his Egyptian subjects. The formal attribution of the decree to the priests
does not mean, however, that calendar reform was their own spontaneous initiative (and indeed,
whoever drafted this decree ensured that Ptolemy was given full credit for it, in l. 46); quite on the
contrary, the attribution of the decree to the priests can be read in itself as a public expression of
their submission to the King 43 ’s authority. See further n. 44.
Geminus addresses this as a problem, but reasons that the Egyptian calendar had been
deliberatelyconceived in such a way that the festivals would occur, over a long historical period,
in all the seasons of the year (Elem. Astr.8. 16–25, Aujac 1975: 51–2). I suspect that few Greeks
would have been impressed with this justi 44 fication.
On this basis, Pfeiffer loc. cit. questions whether Euergetes was really interested in calendar
reform, and hence whether he could have been the initiator of the Canopus decree.Whilst I agree
that Euergetes was not interested in calendar reform, I do not consider this contradictory to the
decree’s being instigated by him for broader, political motives. Samuel (1962) 76 suggests, very
differently, that Euergetes intended to apply a similar reform to the Macedonian calendar (by
reducing the frequency of intercalation), but once the decree of Canopus failed to be implemen-
ted (as we shall see below), he gave up on the Macedonian calendar too; this theory, however, is
purely speculative (see also below, n. 92).
140 Calendars in Antiquity