the Seleucid calendar differ from the Babylonian: its New Year was not in the
spring but in the autumn. The Macedonian autumn month Dios was thus
reckoned as thefirst month of the year, and consequently, the Macedonian
Seleucid era began six months earlier than its Babylonian counterpart, in
autumn 312BCE.
This widely held view seems generally correct, although the evidence is
limited, and as we shall see, the situation is likely to have been considerably
more complex. I shallfirst examine the Seleucid New Year, and then investi-
gate the assimilation of the Macedonian to the Babylonian calendars.
The New Year and the Seleucid EraAutumn New Years are well attested in Macedonian calendars of the Roman
period, but evidence of an autumn New Year in the Seleucid calendar—
distinct from the Babylonian New Year in the spring—is very sporadic. The
statement attributed to Zenobius (second centuryCE) that‘among the Mace-
donians the last month of the year is entitled Hyperberetaios’—which implies
that the autumn month of Dios, which follows it, is thefirst month of the
year—may well refer to the calendar of the Seleucids, as is commonly as-
sumed;^5 but the possibility that it refers to users of Macedonian month-names
in a later period (e.g. Roman) cannot be excluded. More convincing is the
contemporary evidence of a letter of Antiochus II dating from 254BCE, which
instructs the payment of three instalments in year 60SEto be madefirstly in
Audnaios, secondly in Xandikos, and thirdly in the following three months
(Welles 1934: 91 no. 18, ll. 21–3). Xandikos was equivalent to month XII of the
Babylonian calendar (see below); yet this letter implies that the three months
following Xandikos belonged to the same year (Hannah 2005: 93).
Although not much more evidence can be adduced, the assumption of a
Macedonian Seleucid Era from autumn 312 BCEhelps to resolve certain
chronological inconsistencies in literary, epigraphic, and numismatic sources,
which may be taken as further evidence of its existence.^6 The dates in thefirst
book of Maccabees can only be reconciled with each other and with external
evidence if one assumes that some are Macedonian (from the autumn) and
some Babylonian (from the spring); e.g. in 1 Macc. 4: 52 the month ofChasleu
(Kislew, see Table 5.2) is identified as the 9th month, which implies the
Babylonian count with a New Year from the spring. But in 1 Macc. 6: 16 the
(^5) Zenobius,Centuria6. 30, cited in Johnson (1932) 7 n. 21, Assar (2003) 184 n. 11, Hannah
(2005) 82–3.
(^6) Samuel (1972) 245–6. It has been argued that the dating of coins from Seleucid and post-
Seleucid (but pre-Roman) Asia Minor generallyfits best the assumption of an autumn New Year:
Callataÿ (1997) 30, 170.
Fragmentation: Babylonian and Julian Calendars 235