lunar calendars with Babylonian month-names remained in use among
Aramaic-speakers in the Near East, in Parthian Mesopotamia as well as in
parts of the Levant, e.g. Nabataea and Judaea. The use of Babylonian month-
names in this period did not necessarily mean conformity to the standard
Babylonian calendar as it had been reckoned in the Seleucid period (as the
Julianized Babylonian calendars of Heliopolis and the province of Arabia
demonstrate with extreme clarity). However, the evidence suggests that in
thefirst centuryCEthe lunar calendars of Nabataea and Judaea had remained
broadly in line with the standard Babylonian calendar (although see reserva-
tions above, nn. 59–61); and this is certainly likely for the Babylonian calendar
that was in use in Parthian Babylonia.
After the Sasanian overthrow of the Parthian dynasty in 224CE, the Persian
Zoroastrian calendar appears to have been promoted as official imperial
calendar in all parts of the Sasanian Empire, including Mesopotamia.^174 This
would explain the sporadic appearance of Persian Zoroastrian dates, alongside
Syrian ones, in Syriac texts from Sasanian Mesopotamia from the latefifth
centuryCEonwards: thus in the Syriac Martyr Acts, the date of the martyrdom
of Anahid is given as‘month of H:aziran, on day 18, that is the month of
Sapnadarmad (= Persian Isfandārmuä), on Friday, year 9 of Yazdgerd (447
CE)’; and later, the martyrdom of Giwargis is dated 14 Kanun II, 926SE(615
CE), on the Persian date 28 Mihr.^175 But in spite of this, the impact of the
Persian Zoroastrian calendar in Mesopotamia appears to have been minimal.
Babylonian month-names remain dominant in Syriac writings of the Sasanian
period—as in other contemporary, literary sources from the same region, such
as the Babylonian Talmud—and indeed, have been continuously used by
Aramaic-speakers (and others) in the Near East until today.
In the Sasanian period, however, the evidence suggests that Babylonian
month-names were no longer always used with reference to the standard
Babylonian calendar (as reckoned in the Seleucid period), nor even always
to a lunar calendar at all. In many cases, Babylonian month-names in sources
such as the Syriac Martyr Acts refer in fact to the Syrian calendar of the
Roman Near East, which was essentially a Julian calendar (see above and
Table 5.3). This type of dating is designated in the sources as‘according to the
Greeks’, perhaps to indicate that it was modelled on the calendar of the Roman
Empire, or to indicate its equivalence to the Greek, Macedonian month-names
of the calendar of Antioch. The appearance of this Julian-type calendar in
(^174) Bickerman (1983) 785–6. It should be noted, however, that the use of the Persian
Zoroastrian calendar for official purposes is also attested in the late Parthian period in Susa,
thus not far from lower Mesopotamia (in the early 3rd-c.CEinscription of Artaban V: Boyce
1970: 517). It was certainly used already much earlier in other parts of the Persian and
Parthian Empires: see Ch. 4. 1.
(^175) Anahid: Bedjan (1890–7) ii. 603. Giwargis: Bedjan (1895) 563–4. See discussion in Stern
(2004) and Ch. 4 n. 30.
Fragmentation: Babylonian and Julian Calendars 295