Asia Minor, was defined by afixed New Year (Augustus’birthday) and tied to
the Julian calendar, cities and provinces still had a small margin of freedom
andflexibility in how this calendar was reckoned. This may have contributed,
for cities and provinces, to a sense of independence and political autonomy;
through this, the long-standing tradition of calendar diversity in Asia Minor
and the Near East survived into late Antiquity.^137
Other calendars of Asia Minor and the Near EastMost other calendars of Asia Minor and the Roman Near East were also
converted and adapted, in different ways, to the Julian calendar. The evidence
is restricted to thehemerologiaand other late Roman sources, but we may
surmise that adaptation to the Julian calendar occurred around the same time
as the institution of the calendar of Asia in 8BCE, or at least not later than the
mid-first centuryCE.^138 It may have been initiated, as in the province of Asia,
by Roman provincial governors, or alternatively‘from below’, i.e. through the
initiative of local city councils; we simply do not know.^139
The calendars that emerged in this process were varied, in accordance with
the tradition of calendar differentiation and local particularism that went back
to the post-Seleucid period. Some cities and provinces adopted the Julian
calendar wholesale, retaining only their local month-names, and in some
cases, a different New Year. Thus the calendar of Antioch was identical with
the Julian calendar, but with Macedonian month-names and an autumn New
Year;^140 this calendar was widely diffused in the province of Syria, and also
(^137) An early-3rd-c. inscription from Smyrna equates 4 Hekatombeon with 28 May, thus a
one-day deviation from thehemerologiaand the decree of Priene (IGRiv. 1465: Kubitschek 1915:
93 – 4, Magie 1950: ii. 1343 n. 40, Laffi1967: 79; see Samuel 1972: 175, 182). For late-antique
evidence, see above, n. 105. On whether 23 September, or any other standard date, was used in
the 4th c. as New Year date for the indictions, see Grumel (1958) 195–201 and Mosshammer
(2008) 22–4. In the Middle Ages, the 23 September New Year seems to have gained importance
in the Byzantine Christian liturgical calendar, where it was also adopted as the date of the
Conception of John the Baptist (ibid.).
(^138) Samuel (1972) 178, but without supplying evidence. Firm, though limited evidence can be
drawn from the date given by Josephus,JewishWar4. 2. 4 (654) for the death of Vitellius (in 69
CE): the date of 3 Apellaiosfits only the‘Julianized’calendar of Tyre (as known in the
hemeorologia), where it corresponds to 20 December, and suggests therefore that this calendar
was in existence by this period: see Schürer (1973 139 – 87) i. 597 n. 26.
See brief discussion in Meimaris (1992) 38. The calendar of the province of Asia and its
derivatives are mostly associated in thehemeorologiawith Roman provinces (Asia, Bithynia,
Pamphilia, Cyprus), whereas Near Eastern calendars are mostly associated with cities, a distinc-
tion that is perhaps historically significant.
(^140) Originally its New Year may have been 1 Dios (= 1 November), as implicit from Julian,
Misopogon34 (361 D)—paceHonigmann (1945), Grumel (1958) 215–16), and Samuel (1972)
174 and n. 1, who assume it was 1 Hyperberetaios = 1 October (courtesy of Chris Bennett; see
also below, n. 165).
284 Calendars in Antiquity