precisely what needs to be questioned.^41 This question is prompted, in partic-
ular, by the observation that by thefirst centuryBCE(but possibly already
much earlier) the Babylonian calendar was no longer used as official calendar
in the Parthian kingdom: in Parthian sources, only Macedonian dates appear
to have been used.^42 Although this may have been due mainly to language—
the Parthians used Greek or Parthian or other Iranian languages for official
imperial purposes, but hardly Aramaic^43 —the effect could well have been a
dissociation of the Macedonian from the Babylonian calendars, and a margin-
alization of the latter within the Parthian kingdom.^44
Parthian coins reveal, indeed, that by thefirst centuryBCEthe Macedonian
calendar in use by the Parthians had deviated from the Macedonian Babylo-
nian calendar of the Seleucid period. A Parthian tetradrachm from the reign of
Orodes II (57– 38 BCE) is dated Gorpiaiosembolimos(intercalary), and so a
much later coin from 49/50CE, whereas according to the Seleucid Macedo-
nian-Babylonian calendar, it is the following month, Hyperberetaios (Elul),
that would have been intercalary (see above, second column of Table 5.2).
Similarly, a Parthian coin from 5/6CEis dated Dystrosembolimos, whereas
according to the Seleucid calendar only the following month of Xandikos
(Adar) would have been intercalary.^45 Dystrosembolimosalso appears in
inscriptions from Dura-Europos from the period of Parthian rule (i.e. some
time before the third century CE).^46 These deviations from the Seleucid
(^41) The entire analysis of Assar (2003), e.g., is built on the assumption that Parthian inter-
calations conformed to the Babylonian calendar. It should also be said that in this period not
enough is known about the Babylonian calendar either: see discussion in Ch. 2 with Table 2.6. 42
So in Parthian coins (see ibid.), inscriptions, and documents (e.g. from Parthian-period
Dura-Europus: see Cumont 1926,Welles, Find, and Gilliam 1959). I am not aware that this
observation has previously ever been made. In areas east of the Zagros mountain range,
the Parthians also used occasionally the Persian Zoroastrian calendar, probably also for
official purposes: see Ch. 4 (near nn. 63–4) and below, n. 174.
(^43) Colledge (1967) 68–71; Boyce (1983) 1151–4. Aramaic was only used as a script for
Iranian languages (including a stock of Aramaic words used for Iranian as ideograms).
(^44) The fact that Parthian tetradrachms were all minted in Seleucia on the Tigris (Sellwood
1983: 282) should not lead to the assumption that they were influenced by the calendar of the
nearby city of Babylon: Seleucia was a Greek city, where an independent Macedonian calendar
would have been naturally favoured. 45
Assar (2003) 178–80, and above Ch. 2, Table 2.6. These recent numismatic discoveries
correct the assertion of earlier scholars that the new equation only began in Parthia from 17CE
(Bickerman 1968: 25, Samuel 1972: 143). In 1st-c.BCESardis, by contrast, epigraphic evidence
shows that the intercalary month was still Xandikosembolimos: Gibson (1981) 215–16 (reference
courtesy of Chris Bennett).
(^46) Cumont (1926) nos. 20, 23. The provenance of these inscriptions, the temple of the
Palmyrene gods at Dura-Europos, led Cumont to assume that they were dated according to
the Palmyrene calendar (1926: 349; also Samuel 1972: 187); however, there is no reason not to
associate these dates with the official Parthian calendar, which would have been in dominant use
in the city. Gorpiaiosembolimosis also attested in 2nd-c.CEGandhara, east of the Parthian
Empire (Falk and Bennett 2009); in this case, I would refrain from the editors’assumption that
the calendar of Gandhara was identical to that of the Parthians.
Fragmentation: Babylonian and Julian Calendars 249