efficiency. In the context of this decree, at least, the proconsul and thekoinon
did not perceive the calendar as an administrative instrument, as we would
tend to look at it today, but rather only a statement of political loyalty.
The timing of this decree is also highly significant. Above we have seen that
the calendars of Cyprus and Egypt became adapted to the Julian calendar soon
after the Roman annexation of these provinces; but the calendar of Asia was
instituted much later, in spite of the fact that the province of Asia had existed
for a very long time (de factosince about 129BCE) and could in theory have
adopted the Julian calendar as soon as the latter was instituted in 46BCE. This
delay may be attributed, at least in part, to the inherent difficulty of converting
a lunar calendar into a solar, 365-dayfixed scheme; but that this happened in
8 BCEhas a particular significance. At the time of decree, indeed, Augustus was
about to suspend leap years—even if thekoinonof Asia, as noted above,
appears not to have been yet aware of this—and the month Sextilis, in the
Julian calendar, was about to be renamed‘Augustus’.^122 Calendar reform was
clearly in the air. It is likely that the proconsul of Asia, on whose directive the
decree of the calendar of Asia was issued, did not act on a purely spontaneous
initiative. At the very least, the calendar change he was proposing—largely
honorific, as was to be the renaming of the month of August in the Julian
calendar—reflected the current policies and ambitions of the emperor in
Rome. This sheds light on how the imperial authorities, both central and in
the provinces, could have been responsible, directly or indirectly, for the
spread of the Julian calendar (or adaptations of it) in the eastern provinces
of the Roman Empire.
The diffusion of the calendar of AsiaThe calendar of Asia soon spread beyond the Roman province of Asia. The
same calendar structure is attributed, in thehemerologia, to the neighbouring
provinces of Bithynia, Pamphylia (on the southern seaboard of Asia Minor),
and further, to Crete and Cyprus; there is also some epigraphic and literary
evidence.^123 We have no date for the institution of these calendars; however, it
has been argued that the calendar of Cyprus (similar to or identical with that
known elsewhere as‘of Paphos’, as opposed to the eastern Cypriot calendar of
Salamis; see above) was instituted around the same time as the calendar of
(^122) See Ch. 4 nn. 161–2. It is also perhaps at this time that a new birthday date for Augustus
was instituted in the Alexandrian calendar (27 Thoth): Bennett (2007) 197–8.
(^123) There is epigraphic evidence for Bithynia (dating from 92CE: Kubitschek 1915: 97) and
Cyprus (Mitford 1961: 117–18), and for the latter, also late antique literary sources (the same as
for the calendar of Salamis; above, n. 95) as well as a medievalmenologion(Samuel 1972: 183–4).
278 Calendars in Antiquity