whole of Egypt was the effective successor of the Ptolemaic kings, i.e. Augus-
tus, as represented by the Roman prefect of Egypt. Although no edict to this
effect has survived, it must be assumed that the Alexandrian calendar was
instituted by no other authority than him.
Atfirst sight, this only compounds the problem, because the Roman prefect
is most likely to have sought, above any other consideration, synchronization
to the Roman calendar. However, it must be assumed that the Roman prefect
could not have implemented this calendar reform without local input and co-
operation. Although this is only speculative, one can well imagine a conflict
developing between the Roman prefect, pressing for reform of the Egyptian
calendar and its synchronization to the Roman, the remnants of the Ptolemaic
state bureaucracy, perhaps in favour of the same, and the Egyptian priest-
hoods, resisting any change whatsoever to their millennia-old calendar—just
as they had resisted the decree of Canopus in 238BCE. A complex, drawn-out
conflict of this kind might explain why the Alexandrian calendar was not
immediately instituted in 30, but rather in the late 20sBCE.^88
The ultimate decision to intercalate the calendar every four years may be
accounted for as a form of compromise between these conflicting parties.
From the Roman perspective, the agreement of the Egyptians to insert leap
years—albeit at different, incompatible intervals—may have been regarded as
a sufficient statement of loyalty to Rome. The Egyptians, for their part, were
probably the bigger losers: it remains unclear, indeed, why they succumbed
here after having successfully resisted the decree of Canopus under the
Ptolemies. But they did not lose face entirely, as the institution of a leap year
every four years, and thus the implicit correction of the Roman error, con-
stituted an assertion of Egyptian superiority, in calendar matters, over the
Romans. More importantly, by adopting a calendrical practice that resembled
that of the Romans, yet differed significantly from it, the Egyptians could
declare their allegiance to the Roman Empire whilst at the same time asserting
a measure of independence from it—a pattern which, as we shall further see,
was characteristic of all calendar reforms in this period in the East.^89
In the event, the disparity between the Roman and Alexandrian calendars
was only to be short-lived: for at the turn of thefirst centuryCE, the Roman
(^88) The institution of the Alexandrian calendar in the late 20s may have been related also to the
realignment of Augustus’regnal years with the Egyptian year, starting from 26BCEhttp://www.
tyndalehouse.com/Egypt/ptolemies/chron/egyptian/chron_lnk_augustus.htm, and also to the
change of Roman prefect in 26 89 BCE(suggestions of Chris Bennett).
Recognition of the Roman imperial character of the Alexandrian calendar is evident in its
designation asŒÆôa ̊ÆßóÆæÆ(‘according to Caesar’), commonly found in Egyptian inscriptions
and papyri with variations, and alongside the alternativeŒÆŁ’EººÅíÆò,‘according to the Greeks’;
as opposed to the old calendar, designated‘according to the Egyptians’or‘according to the
ancients’: for examples see Hagedorn andWorp 1994, esp. 245; A. Jones 1999b: i. 12; Lippert
(2009) 186–7.
268 Calendars in Antiquity