calendar can be interpreted in one of two ways: either the Parthians inter-
calated different months from the Babylonian calendar (more precisely, they
intercalated the previous month), or—a preferable because more conservative
scenario—they intercalated the same months as in the Babylonian calendar,
but for some reason the Babylonian intercalary months of Elul (VI) and Adar
(XII) were now called Gorpiaios and Dystros, and thus, the equation of
Babylonian and Macedonian month-names had shifted by one month (see
third column of Table 5.2). Although this change would have been largely
nomenclatural, it must have been caused originally by an additional intercala-
tion in the Parthian Macedonian calendar, at some stage before Orodes’II coin
in the mid-first centuryBCE; this single deviation from the Babylonian calendar
would have had the effect of retarding the Macedonian calendar by one month
in relation to the Babylonian, and thus of realigning the equation of months
between them.^47 Evidence of this one-month retardation may be inferred from
a much later inscription in Dura-Europos dating from 176 CE, where a
horoscope that can be astronomically assigned to between 3 and 5 July is
given the date of 9 Panemos,^48 presumably in the official Parthian calendar—
whereas according to the Seleucid Macedonian–Babylonian calendar, the
lunar month in early July should have been the next one, Loios.
Deviations from the Seleucid calendar due are also evident, in other ways,
outside the Parthian kingdom and along the Near Eastern Mediterranean
coast. These deviations may have occurred quite early in the post-Seleucid
period, although the evidence is only from the end of thefirst centuryBCE—the
point at which these calendars began converting to the Julian calendar and
ceased being lunar altogether (as will be explained in}3, where the evidence
will be discussed in detail). Although we cannot determine how long before
the end of thefirst centuryBCEthese lunar calendars began to deviate from
the Seleucid, Macedonian or Babylonian calendars, the disparity between the
calendars of the cities and kingdoms in this region (even between close
neighbours such as Ascalon and Gaza, as we shall presently see) make it
evident that these deviations developed when these states were politically
independent from one another, i.e. in the period which I call‘post-Seleucid’.
Thus, by the end of thefirst centuryBCE, the city of Ascalon was employing a
Macedonian, lunar calendar with itsfirst month, Dios, occurring around the
(^47) PaceAssar (2003) 187 n. 49, who writes:‘The assumption that the shift was caused by an
excessive intercalation remains unattested. The Parthians might simply have changed the name
of thefirst month of their calendar at Seleucia from Dios to Hyperberetaios.’This is to ignore
that in practice, such a change of name—at the time when it was made—would have necessitated
the repetition of Hyperberetaios, which amounts effectively to an intercalation.
(^48) Neugebauer and Van Hoesen (1959) 49 (no. 176); Johnson (1932) 1–2, 76. See also Samuel
(1972) 142.
250 Calendars in Antiquity