particularly Athenian, heritage.^3 The lunar calendar may have been re-
tained by the Jews for similar, conservative cultural reasons. It is perhaps
no coincidence that the peoples who kept a lunar calendar in the Roman
Empire—Greeks (in Greece) and Jews (in Palestine, but also in the Diaspo-
ra)—were those who had preserved a rich body of literature from centuries
before the arrival of the Romans.^4 However, this explanation does not
consistently work: the Gauls, who also preserved a lunar calendar, were
not the heirs to any literary tradition; whilst the Ionians, who adapted early
on to the Julian calendar, had a respectable share in the literary tradition of
Greece.
Lunar calendars could also have survived for entirely different reasons.
They are attested, for example, in some border regions of the Roman Empire:
Odessus (Varna) in Moesia Inferior, a little south of the Danube,^5 and perhaps
Palmyra, deep in the Syrian desert.^6 The interstitial position which these cities
occupied between the Roman Empire and its Germanic and Parthian neigh-
bours respectively—particularly distinctive in the case of Palmyra^7 —could go
some way towards explaining the survival of a lunar calendar in these cities.
The Gallic lunar calendar that will be examined in this chapter was also
discovered not far from the frontier of the Rhine, which may also be of
some significance. However, the epigraphic use of lunar dates in the heart of
the Roman Empire—in Italy and even the city of Rome itself—which will also
be examined in this chapter undermines somewhat this explanation. Further-
more, evidence of a lunar calendar in the Roman province of Macedonia^8
(^3) Goodman (2007) 104–12, 140–7.
(^4) Fergus Millar, oral response to a lecture delivered at the Institute of Jewish Studies, UCL in
January 2006. This ties in with Millar’s general contention (1993) that elsewhere in the Near East,
local cultures and traditions were poorly preserved (if at all) by the time of the Roman period.
(^5) The evidence is an ephebic list dated to 215CEand equating 24 January with 7 Boedromion,
which is compatible with a lunar calendar (according to this, Boedromion would have begun
around the conjunction): Robert (1959) 210–11, Mihailov (1970) 106–8 (no. 47), and discussion
in Stern (2001) 43–4.
(^6) Samuel (1972) 178–80 and Stern loc. cit. In the case of Palmyra the evidence is not entirely
conclusive, as it is impossible to tell whether its Macedonian and Babylonian dating systems (in
Greek and Palmyrene texts respectively) had been retained as lunar or had been adapted, as
elsewhere in the Roman Empire (e.g. Arabia and Dura-Europos), to the Julian calendar. It has
been argued, not implausibly, that the lack of evidence of any intercalary month in the
Palmyrene calendar indicates,ex silentio, that it must have been adapted to the Julian calendar
(Johnson 1932: 10; see further Ch. 5 n. 69).
(^7) See Millar (1993) 319–36.
(^8) As rightly sensed by Nigdelis (1996) 63 n. 24, but without analysis of the evidence, which
I shall therefore briefly present here (with acknowledgement to Chris Bennett for his assistance).
(1)IGx/2. 1 no. 137, ll. 13–14, a Macedonian inscription (but of unclear exact provenance), is
dateda.d.kal. Apr. XVII(16 March) = 2 Xandikos year 289 (142CE). Tod (1918–19) 209,
followed by Grumel (1958) 169, assumed that the Macedonian calendar was adapted to the
Julian calendar, with its months beginning on the Ides of the Julian month (e.g. in this case, 15
March). However, this calendar scheme would be without any parallel; besides, it is contradicted
by the next inscriptions. The date is actually lunar: the conjunction occurred in 142CEon 15
Dissidence and Subversion 301