first—I shall begin with the Alexandrian calendar because its origins are better
documented and known.
The Egyptian civil calendar of twelve 30-day months andfive epagomenal
days (see Chapter 3) was adapted to the Julian calendar by adding a sixth
epagomenal day every four years. This adaptation was made in the 20sBCE
(more on this below), and seems to have become standard in Egypt through
the rest of Antiquity.^81 It may be assumed that it was similarly adopted in
other regions where the Egyptian calendar was used, in particular, Libya
Cyrenaica.^82
The exact date of the institution of the Alexandrian calendar—which, in
practical terms, would have been when thefirst leap year was observed in
Egypt—has been subject in modern scholarship to considerable uncertainty.
This question has depended, in turn, on whether the Alexandrian calendar
adopted from the outset the structure of true Julian calendar, or whether it
followed the calendar that was reckoned in practice in Rome in this period (see
Chapter 4. 3). The uncertainty of how the Roman calendar was reckoned in
this period has compounded the confusion. The difficulty, above all, has been
for scholars to reconcile the various Roman and Egyptian dates that are
attested in contemporary documents and literary sources into a single, consis-
tent model. A detailed review of earlier scholarship, of the evidence, and of it
various interpretations, would be excessively complex and unnecessary here.
For our purposes, it is sufficient to present the general conclusions.^83
Earlier scholars (Snyder 1943, followed by Skeat 1993: 1–4) favoured the
view that the Alexandrian calendar, when instituted, followed the Roman
calendar as it was reckoned at the time in practice—which seems, a priori,
the most plausible scenario.When the Julian calendar wasfirst instituted, leap
years were erroneously inserted every three years (instead of four: see Chapter
- 3); until this error was corrected (towards the end of thefirst centuryBCE),
the Alexandrian calendar would have done the same, adding a sixth epago-
menal day every three years, in the year preceding a (Roman) 29 February.
According to this model, the Alexandrian calendar would have been instituted
in or soon after 30BCE, the year when Egypt became a Roman province—
which again seems historically most plausible.
In more recent years, however, analysis of the documentary evidence has
led scholars to the view—now virtually a consensus—that the Alexandrian
(^81) Although in late Antiquity the unreformed, Egyptian civil calendar continued to be
reckoned and used in specific contexts (e.g. astronomical: see Jones 1999b), the Alexandrian
calendar was very clearly the norm (Hagedorn andWorp 1994).
(^82) I made this assumption in my analysis of the Berenike inscriptions in Stern (2001) 58–61,
although there is nofirm evidence to prove it.
(^83) For a summary of the scholarship, see Chris Bennett’s article in http://www.tyndalehouse.
com/Egypt/ptolemies/chron/egyptian/chron_lnk_augustus.htm and more briefly in Bennett
(2003).
264 Calendars in Antiquity