calendars of the post-Seleucid and Roman Near East, and in some cities and
kingdoms of post-Seleucid Asia Minor.^35
These calendars were now set independently in the post-Seleucid city states
and kingdoms—probably on the basis of local new moon sightings, and
presumably without the benefit of the astronomical predictions that had
often determined the beginning of the Babylonian month—which means
that minor variation between the calendars would have become inevitable.^36
Such minor variations are attested at least in post-Seleucid cities of western
Asia Minor, where although Macedonian month-names were not used in all
the cities, the calendars were still lunar and broad conformity to the Seleucid
calendar appears to have been maintained. Thus, a treaty of 196BCEattests a
one-day discrepancy between the calendars of Miletus and Magnesia (above,
n. 33), and a decree of the province of Asia in 8BCEreveals that the month did
not begin exactly on the day offirst visibility of the new moon, as would have
been the case in the Babylonian calendar, but two days earlier.^37
These small variations, however, must have been common already in the
Seleucid period, and even beforehand under the Achaemenids, as has been
argued above. Small discrepancies of one or two days would never have been
considered a significant deviation from the Seleucid Macedonian or Babylo-
nian calendars. In this respect, the calendars of post-Seleucid city states and
kingdoms were in direct continuity with those of the Seleucid Empire.
(^35) e.g. for Asia Minor, Sardis (Samuel 1972: 123, 132–3; for examples see Sherwin-White and
Kuhrt 1993: 181–2, Gibson 1981: 215–16) and the kingdom of Pontus (Callataÿ 1997: 29–30).
Pergamum seems to have used both Macedonian and local month-names (Samuel 1972: 125–7;
Trümpy 1997: 249). Most cities of Asia Minor, however, did not use Macedonian month-names
even under Seleucid rule: e.g. Miletus (Samuel 1972: 114–18), Magnesia (121–2), and Iasos in
Caria (114; see e.g. Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993: 127). Non-Macedonian names are also
attested, but only after the period of Seleucid rule, in Priene (Samuel 1972: 118–200), Ephesus
(122–4), Smyrna (175), and Bithynia (ibid.). It may be relevant to note that Seleucid rule did not
last much more than a century in most of Asia Minor. Miletus and Pergamum enjoyed periods of
independence in the mid-3rd c.BCE, whilst Bithynia, Pontus, Cappadocia, and Armenia were
completely independent by the same period. After the treaty of Apamea in 188BCE, Seleucid rule
in Asia Minor was reduced to Cilicia only. This may go some way towards explaining the tenacity
of local month-names in Asian cities and kingdoms.
(^36) On the regular use of astronomical predictions of the new moon in the Babylonian
calendar, see Stern (2008) and above, Ch. 2. 1. Jewish rabbinic sources, especially Mishnah,
RoshHa-Shanah(3rd c.CE), suggest in contrast that perhaps already in the post-Seleucid
Hasmonaean period the Judaean month was determined entirely by new moon sightings, not
by astronomical predictions (see further Ch. 6, near n. 110). This corrects my assumption that
‘the methods employed by the Hasmonaeans to determine lunar months were probably similar
to those of the Babylonians’(Stern 2001: 30); it is clear, at least, that by the 3rd c.CErabbinic
methods of determining the new month were actually quite different (paceWacholder and
Weisberg 1971). For the evidence of Josephus,Antiquities13. 8. 4 (250–2), relating to John
Hyrcanus’campaign in Adiabene in 130BCEand suggesting a Judaean month beginning atfirst
visibility of the new moon, see Stern (2001) 113–16.
(^37) See below, near n. 117 (two-day discrepancy) and after n. 58 (otherwise broad conformity,
at least in that year, to the Seleucid Macedonian calendar).
Fragmentation: Babylonian and Julian Calendars 247