above, table 5.2). This would explain why the Parthian intercalary months, in
coins and in inscriptions, were now called Gorpiaios and Dystrosembolimos.
In the Parthian context, this new equation seems to have been never more
than implicit; but it soon became explicit in other regions of the Near East,
where it rapidly spread in thefirst centuryCEand eventually became standard
in late Antiquity. It is explicitly attested in bilingual Graeco-Palmyrene in-
scriptions,first in 17CE(by which time Palmyra was no longer ruled by
Parthians, but part of the Roman Empire: Millar 1993: 34–5), Gorpiaios
being correlated with Elul; the correlation of Dystros and Adar, and Xandikos
and Nisan, is then attested in inscriptions from 84 and 83CErespectively; and
subsequently in numerous Graeco-Palmyrene inscriptions until as late at the
third century.^69
The new equation is assumed and frequently expressed by Josephus in his
Antiquities, written towards the end of thefirst centuryCE.^70 We then have
early second-centuryCEdocuments from the Judaean Desert dated according
to the calendar of the Roman province of Arabia (established in 106CE), which
as we shall later see, was a Nabataean Macedonian calendar adapted to the
Julian. In one bilingual document dated 132CEPanemos and Gorpiaios in the
Greek section are rendered as Tammuz and (as reconstructed by the editors)
Elul in the Aramaic (Yadin 1989: no. 27); and in a Greek-only document of
125 CEHyperberetaios is equated with the transliteratedThesrei(i.e. Tishrei:
ibid. no. 15), all in conformity with the new equation.
In the late Roman period, the mostly Babylonian month-names of
the Syrian calendar were equated as a matter of course with the Macedonian
(^69) Samuel (1972) 179, for a few examples. By the third c., at the very latest, the‘Babylonian’
calendar of Palmyra is likely to have become adapted to the Julian calendar, although the
evidence remains inconclusive (see discussion in Ch. 6 n. 6). 70
For a full list of references to Babylonian–Macedonian equations in theAntiquities, which
are also implicit in a number of passages of Josephus’JewishWar, see Stern (2001) 36–7 and
(2010a) 108 n. 19. In some passages, month numbers (a designation which may be construed as
‘biblical’) are also supplied: e.g. 2nd month = Marsouanes (i.e. Marh:eshwan) = Dios, and 1st
month = Nisan = Xanthikos (Antiquities1. 3. 3 (80–1)). The equation of Tebethos (i.e. Tebet)
and Apellaios inAntiquities11. 5. 4 (148), which corresponds neither to the Seleucid nor to the
post-Seleucid scheme, is presumably erroneous: instead of Tebethos, the text should probably
read Khaseleu (i.e. Kislew), which is equated elsewhere with Apellaios: ibid. 12. 5. 4 (248), 7. 6
(319). Of particular interest is the equation of Ab = Loos = (Athenian) Hekatombaion (ibid. 4. 4.
7 (84); on the textual problems of this passage see Stern 2010a: 109 n. 22), which suggests that
equivalences, if only perhaps approximate, could also be drawn between the Macedonian and
Athenian calendars. Similar equations are provided much later by Epiphanius (late 4th c.), with
reference to the date of birth of Jesus as (‘Syrian or Greek’) 6 Audynaios = (Athenian) 5
Maimakterion = (‘Hebrew’) 5 Tebet (Panarion51. 24. 1), and to the date of his baptism at the
Jordan 29 years later as (Macedonian) 16 Apellaios = (Athenian) 7 Metageitnion = (Hebrew) 7
Marh:eshwan (ibid.}} 4 – 5;Williams 1987–94: ii. 55). But these three equations of Macedonian,
‘Hebrew’, and Athenian months are mutually inconsistent, which suggests that for the Athenian
calendar—probably still quite irregular until late in Antiquity (see Ch. 1)—no consistent scheme
of equivalences existed.
256 Calendars in Antiquity